Academic biography

Jones Irwin is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Education at the IOE. From 2015-2019, he had a secondment from the University as Project Officer with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) on the first state curriculum in values/multi-belief education for primary schools in Ireland (there are currently 30 such Community National Schools). Research interests currently are existential and postmodern philosophy and their links to education and his previous books are on Paulo Freire (a monograph entitled Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Education: Origins, Developments, Impacts and Legacies [2012, Bloomsbury, London]), Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Žižek.  His most recent book was a co-edited text with Professor Letterio Todaro (University of Catania) entitled Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education in Contemporary Context: From Italy to the World (Peter Lang 2022). He is developing a new co-edited text, with the Slovak philosopher Barbora Badurova, Ethical Education Across European Systems: Concepts, Practices, Dilemmas (Peter Lang, Berlin/Geneva) alongside completing a work long in gestation, a monograph entitled Religion After the Death of God (Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group). As co-editor of the Peter Lang series (with Dr Stephen Cowden) New Disciplinary Perspectives on Education, the Series is now into its tenth volume and significant work for 2025/26 is publishing a Critical Education Reader for this series. His main teaching work is BEd in Philosophy of Education/Multi-Denominational Schools (4^th BEd Research Project), BECE (Early Years) in Philosophy and Childhood and the Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE (Relationships and Sexuality Education).