VOL. 23, NUM. 4. OCTOBER 2025

MYTHS OF EDUCATION

Coordination: Cristóbal Suárez-Guerrero (Universitat de València)

We are no strangers to myths. Myths are part of the representation of the world and of ourselves in all latitudes, at different times and with diverse meanings. From its magical-religious origins, the myth stands as an extremely complex cultural reality that requires different perspectives of analysis (Eliade, 1991) since it has a deep semiotic density (Barthes, 2015). Currently, myths, while still being instruments to interpret reality and define how the world and our behavior should be or not (Campbell, 1988), are assumed as distorted narratives that transmit an erroneous but popularly accepted story, which favor or facilitate biases around very diverse interests such as the exercise of power, commercial profit or ideological hegemony. In this line, Ortoleva (2021) calls contemporary myths "myths of low intensity" which would be nothing more than objects of consumption that enjoy a great diffusion and acceptance, usually driven by the mass media and mass self-communication. This "dream factory", already alerted by Schiller (1973) in his emblematic work on the impact of this narrative in the media, suppose part of the state of disinformation that the global world suffers from (Wardle & Derakhshan,2017).

Why pay attention to myth and, above all, collaborate with its elucidation? These erroneous narratives can become powerful mediators within social, cultural and political life (Obradovi?, 2021) as their dissemination and popular acceptance makes it unnecessary to search for a proof or support that contrasts the promise of the myth's content.

Well, education is not immune to myths and their power. In the field of education where their study is already gaining importance in different fields and topics (Cornbleth, 2018; Eynon, 2020; Howard-Jones, 2014), myths occupy a powerful and enduring position in the construction of teaching and learning objectives, in activities and in the expectation about the outcomes of current education (Harmes et al., 2015). Works such as that of Christodoulou (2014) who, thanks to case studies, explores a series of ideas assumed by inertia that far from improving education, come to disadvantage the learning activity of students and the teaching task, or the work of Holmes (2016) who, after reviewing a series of widely spread misconceptions about learning and education, comes to the conclusion that they lack strong support in scientific research, are some examples of this interest in demystifying this narrative in education.

In the field of education and technology, for example, each era has enthroned its own technological myths (Mosco, 2005). Nowadays it is possible to identify them when talking about EdTech myths (Suárez-Guerrero, et al., 2023) which, in general, are hyperbolic narratives that convey an incorrect, but widely accepted and effectively disseminated, story about the potential of digital technology in education usually stimulated by consumerism, technocentrism, negationism, determinism or technological solutionism. This narrative does not allow us to see that technology is necessary but not sufficient to provide a comprehensive response to a fact as complex as education.  The study of these technological myths in education is closely connected to the interest in understanding the sociotechnological imaginaries on which not only our uses depend, but also the social utopias (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015) and which, to a greater or lesser extent, the various educational agents we raise in the relationship between education and technology. Faced with this, as Ornellas & Sancho (2015) pointed out, the task of deconstruction from a critical education is imposed.

Therefore, since myths are also part of our educational imaginary (Matthews, 2020) and are experiencing a great interest in educational research because, as Tondeur et al. (2017) points out, beliefs of this type have an impact on teaching and educational development, this monograph is launched in REICE with the aim of opening a space for the clarification of myths in education in general. Thus, the idea is to invite researchers to submit papers that, from various disciplines and under broad methodological frameworks, can offer a well-founded, critical and lucid look that examines the main claims of this type of narratives in any field of education. Substantially, empirical works of either qualitative and/or quantitative bias, of global, international, national or regional character are admitted. Attending to the myths of education that are woven into different themes and in various directions as an object of research is in line with the task that Meirieu (2020, p.113) emphasizes: "if anything is to be done with education and pedagogy, it is to discuss them".

References

Barthes, R. (2015). Mythologies. Média Diffusion.

Campbell J. (1988). The power of myth, with Bill Moyer. Random House.

Christodoulou, D. (2014). Seven myths about education. Routledge.                                              https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315797397

Cornbleth, C. (2018). The persistence of myth in teacher education and teaching. En T. Popkewitz (Ed.), Critical studies in teacher education (pp. 186-210). Routledge.                                                                                                                    https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429450150-7

Eliade, M. (1991). Mito y realidad. Labor.

Eynon, R. (2020). The myth of the digital native: Why it persists and the harm it inflicts. En T. Burns y F. Gottschalk (eds.), Education in the digital age: Healthy and happy children (pp. 137-154). OECD Publishing.

Fischer, H. (2006). Digital shock. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP.

Harmes M. K., Huijser H., & Danaher P.A. (2015) Demythologizing teaching and learning in education: Towards a research agenda. En  M. Harmes, H. Huijser y P. Danaher (Eds.), Myths in education, learning and teaching. Palgrave Macmillan.     https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476982

Holmes, J. D. (2016). Great myths of education and learning. John Wiley & Sons.                          https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118760499

Howard-Jones, P. A. (2014). Neuroscience and education: Myths and messages. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(12), 817-824. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3817

Jasanoff, S. & Kim, S. H. (2015). Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power. University of Chicago Press.         https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226276663.001.0001

Matthews, A. (2020). Sociotechnical imaginaries in the present and future university: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of UK higher education texts. Learning, Media and Technology.                                                                                                           https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1864398

Meirieu, P. (2020). La réplica: Escuelas alternativas, neurociencias y métodos tradicionales: para acabar con los espejismos. Dr. Buk.

Mosco, V. (2005). The digital sublime: Myth, power, and cyberspace. Mit Press.                              https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2433.001.0001

Obradovic, S. (2021). Myths. En VVAA, The Palgrave encyclopedia of the possible. Palgrave.         https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_141-1

Ornellas A. & Sancho J. (2015) Three decades of digital ICT in education: Deconstructing myths and highlighting realities. En M. Harmes, H. Huijser y P. Danaher (Eds.), Myths in education, learning and teaching. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476982_8

Ortoleva, P. (2021). Mitos de baja intensidad: Relatos, medios de comunicación, vida cotidiana. Universidad de los Andes. https://doi.org/10.31179/facarqdis.01

Schiller, H. (1973). The Mmd managers. Beacon Press.

Suárez-Guerrero, C., Rivera-Vargas, P. & Raffaghelli, J. (2023). EdTech myths: Towards a critical digital educational agenda. Technology, Pedagogy and Education.                                                                                                                                    https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2023.2240332

Tondeur, J., Van Braak, J., Ertmer, P. A. & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2017). Understanding the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and technology use in education: a systematic review of qualitative evidence. Educational Technology Research and Development, 65, 555-575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9481-2

Wardle, C. & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder. Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policymaking. Council of Europe.

Download the call in .pdf

Criteria and author guidelines:

1. It only be accepted unpublished and original manuscript.
2. The article may be submitted in Spanish, Portuguese or English.
3. The maximum length of the article will be 8,000 words.
4. Along with the manuscript it is necessary to send the “Letter of originality, conflict of interest and assignment of copyright“
5. The submitted articles must conform to the publication standards of the Journal.

Deadline:

The deadline for submission ends March 1, 2025.

The submission of manuscripts is through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform. The process includes submission of the Letter of originality, conflict of interest and assignment of copyright and the manuscript.

It is essential to indicate as Comments to the editor that the submission is addressed to the subject section: “Myths of education”.

Publication:

The monographic number 22(4) will be published on October 1, 2025.