Paraphrasing Lévi-Strauss, Tapper (1994) has argued that animals are not only “good to think with”, but also “good to teach and learn with” (51). Still, “the question of the animal” (Wolfe [ed.] 2003) has so far not attracted a great deal of attention in education theory, and education research has to a much lesser extent than other social and behavioural sciences (such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology) contributed to the dynamic theory development of the burgeoning research field of animal studies. This could partly be explained by human-centred traditions and ideals that at least since the Enlightenment have been almost a fetish in European education. Throughout the history of education research, in works on psychological and cognitive development, sociocultural theories of education and philosophy and ethics of education, the animal appears as an anti-dote and anti-issue and yet paradoxically significant as a means of reinforcing the assumption of human specificity, uniqueness and superiority.

What work does the trope of “the animal” perform in various education epistemologies? Seeking to develop still largely unexplored interfaces between animal studies and educational research by applying critical social theories of education (drawing on queer theory, socialisation, and cultural and economic reproduction) to the question of the animal, this paper makes a contribution to educational theory development informed by recent, cross-disciplinary animal studies scholarship. The objective of the present paper is twofold:

First, the paper critically analyses three areas in which human-animal relations discursively and materially intersect, and enter in mutual interplay with, formal education theory and practice: 1) Animals as “sites of sentimentality” in, and beyond, early childhood education; 2) Animals as teaching and learning tools and as scientific objects in life science classrooms; and 3) Animals and animality as a trope and antithesis in educational discourses of humanity.

Second, the paper points to other directions of educational knowledge development by discussing recent educational research (e.g., Heslep, 2009) that opens possibilities for other questions and understandings of the position of the animal in education to take shape.

Biesta, G.J.J. 1998. ”Say you want a revolution … Suggestions for the impossible future of critical pedagogy.” Educational Theory 48:4, 499-510. Heslep, Robert D. 2009. ”Must an Educated Being Be a Human Being?” Studies in Philosophy and Education 28:329-49. Pedersen, Helena. 2008. “Learning to Measure the Value of Life? Animal Experimentation, Pedagogy, and (Eco)feminist critique.” In Global Harms. Ecological Crime and Speciesism, edited by Ragnhild Sollund, 131-49. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Pedersen, Helena. 2010. Animals in Schools: Processes and Strategies in Human-Animal Education. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. Tapper, Richard. 1994. “Animality, humanity, morality, society.” In What is an animal?, edited by Tim Ingold, 47-62. London and New York: Routledge. Wolfe, Cary. (Ed.) 2003. Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.