Sabine Reh/Roland Reichenbach
Futures – Progress or Innovation? An introduction
Daniel Tröhler
Tradition or Future? 50 years of German Educational Research Association from the perspective of the history of education
The author interprets the most recent secessionist movements within the GERA as the manifestation of a fundamental problem that had already been virulent at the time of the associationʼs foundation (1964) and that had not been utterly new, even then. The primary thesis states that the guiding ideology of the GERA at that time was bound to a concept of future primarily nourished by the idealist tradition. Thus, the association ostracized mainly extramural actors of educational reform who were committed to an expertocratic concept of the future, developed mainly in the United States, and who, in this, relied on specific psychology models. When, after the end of the Cold War, the OECD was able to enforce its vision of school policy and educational reform, this ideology of pedagogical planning, supposedly unimpeded by any traditions, managed to establish itself within the GERA, too. This, however, created a blatant polarity with the traditional concept of education – a field of tension that can only be dissolved constructively through historical-comparative analyses.
Keywords: Educational Sciences, Cognitive Psychology, Behaviorism, Educational Planning, Empirical Research
Christa Kersting
Science Policy and the Development of the Academic Discipline – Pedagogy after 1945 and its national-political premises
Within the context of the “ideas of 1914”, the Berlin Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of 1917 conceived pedagogy as cultural philosophy and functionalized it for providing purpose and unity to the nation. This course of direction defined the discipline well into the period following National Socialism and the Second World War. After 1945, the former elite (with the two exponents Herman Nohl and Eduard Spranger), that with its conservative-revolutionary attitude had promoted National Socialism during the Weimar Republic, reinstalled itself and the humanist pedagogy it represented and evoked a provincialization of the discipline. To what an appalling extent it actually forfeited its reflexive and communicative potential is made clear by its interaction with emigrants.
Keywords: Humanist Pedagogy, Emigration, Empirical-Experimental Pedagogy, “Conservative Revolution”, History of the Academic Discipline of Pedagogy
Monika Buhl
Past – Present – Future. Time perspective during adolescence
The present contribution gives an outline of research on time perspectives among adolescents carried out in the German-speaking region. First, the significance of the construct for the personal development of young people is explained and theoretical references as well as empirical findings of the past decades are summarized. Subsequently, the Adolescent Time Inventory (ATI) is presented as a multi-dimensional instrument and the author reports personal findings this instrument yielded. Crucial in this context is the development of five different types of time perspectives based on latent profile analyses (positives, balanced, negatives, optimists, ambivalent), that can be replicated both in diverse random samples and in a study presented here and that manifest systematic correlations with other dimensions of the ATI.
Keywords: Time Perspective, Future Orientation, Adolescence, Youth Types, Youth Studies
Jürgen Straub
Relationships of Harm and Vulnerability – The wherefores of experiences, unconscious traditions and violence in social practic
People live in “collective relationships of harm and vulnerability”. This social-theoretical concept focuses on the fact that people interact as vulnerable subjects and subjects capable of violence whose vulnerability, solidified in dispositions, may be considered the result of violence sustained and inflicted in historical constellations. Following an outline of psycho-analytical research results, the author presents the concept of transgenerational transmission of serious (traumatic) injuries and emphasizes the importance of enactments as a special form of unconscious actional retrospection in social situations. It is argued and illustrated that these and other traces of collective violence – even those dating back to the early centuries – are eminently manifest in modern immigration societies (e. g. in interactions with political refugees). From a normative perspective, the author advocates a heightened sensibility towards harm that presupposes a differentiated concept of violence that also includes symbolical and psychological forms. After giving a short explanation of two modes of symbolical and psychological injury that are important in migration societies – “dyspresentation” and certain forms of omission, namely silence –, the author finally discusses the ‚dangerʻ of promoting a dubious “tribunalization” of psycho-social realities through an increasing (scientific) sensitization for relationships of harm and vulnerability.
Keywords: Violence, Trauma, Transgenerational Transmission, Enactment, Vulnerability
Morimichi Kato
Humanistic Education in East Asia: With special reference to the work of Ogyu Sorai and Motoori Norinaga
The term “humanistic education” can adopt a range of meanings, varying with the interpretation of “humanistic” or “human.” For this investigation, humanistic education refers to education that emphasizes humanistic studies (studia humanitatis) such as language, literature, and history, which aims to make a human being truly “human.” The basic insight of this education is that, as language is an essential characteristic of humanity, its care and cultivation is crucial in education. This original meaning of humanistic education was developed during the Renaissance. Despite this narrow definition of humanistic education, a similar trend can be found in East Asian traditions, especially in the original teachings of Confucius. In this article, I first discuss the humanistic features of the original Confucian thoughts, as expressed in his Analects (Chapter 1). Second, I consider the significance of a Japanese Confucian scholar, Ogyu Sorai, who developed the Japanese humanistic interpretation of Confucian texts (Chapter 2). This is followed by an examination of the central thoughts of Motoori Norinaga, who transplanted Sorai’s interpretation into the study of classical Japanese literature (Chapter 3). Finally, I consider future dimensions of East Asian humanism by referring to both Sorai and Norinaga (Chapter 4).
Keywords: Humanistic Education, Confucianism, East Asian Education, Aesthetic Education, Hermeneutics
Sigrid Blömeke
Caution in Interpreting Evaluations and International Comparisons – Different referential frameworks threaten the validity of surveys on teacher education
Based on the international comparative study TEDS-M, the validity of surveys on teacher education is examined. On the one hand, the aim is to relate self-reported assessments of the quality of teacher training to the actual achievement of future teachers in order to thus evaluate the predicative validity of the former; on the other hand, the risk of an ecological fallacy is substantiated, which arises when the wrong analytical unit is chosen in the analysis of international data. In multi-level analyses carried out with about 8 000 future math teachers in lower secondary education from 15 different countries, four typical questions from evaluative studies on the efficacy of teacher training are related to the actually manifested mathematical and math-didactical professional competence. A global assessment of the efficacy of teacher training reveals a minor positive correlation with professional competence. To more differentiated evaluations, however, no predicative validity can be attributed. The results emphasize the need to be cautious with regard to conclusions concerning teacher training that rely solely on self-reported data. In the context of international comparisons the cultural differences between the countries have to be taken into consideration, too, since different referential frameworks for these assessments exist and the data collected change their meaning once they are aggregated on country level.
Keywords: Multi-Level Modeling, Survey, Validity, Ecological Fallacy, Comparative Study
Thilo Schmidt/Wilfried Smidt
Compensatory Education for Disadvantaged Children – Developments, research results, and relevance to early childhood education
The paper discusses the contemporary relevance of compensatory education for early childhood education in Germany. To this end, a reanalysis of compensatory education is undertaken by outlining its historical development, including critical issues, and by referring to important national and international research results concerning its effectiveness in non-familial institutional childcare settings. Based on this outline, important criteria for effective compensatory education are pointed out and the potential of this approach for the promotion of socially and educationally disadvantaged children is emphasized. Against the background of still existent misgivings about compensatory education in (early childhood) education in Germany, a critical and constructive discussion is advocated.
Keywords: Compensatory Education, Disadvantaged Children, Early Childhood Education, Empirical Findings, Todayʼs Meaning
Josef Schrader/Ulrike Jahnke
The Quality and the Costs of Further Education – Influences and interrelations
In recent years, the quality of education has become a dominant topic in both the public and the scientific debate, also in the field of further education. The question of the costs of further education, however, is hardly ever raised, and even less so the question of the interrelation of these two features. Despite the limited knowledge about the quality and the costs of further education, education-political reform strategies are being established in further education that are specifically aimed at influencing both the quality and the costs of further education. This applies to legal regimentation, professionalization, and quality maintenance alike, even though they focus on different levels of action in further education (the overall system, the programs, the organization). Against this background and by applying a multi-level analytical research design based on the content analysis of programs of further education, the present contribution enquires into the question of how these modernization strategies influence the quality and the costs of further education.
Keywords: Governance of Adult Education, Professionalization, Quality Management, Impact Research, Multilevel Analysis
New Books