German education plays a huge role in the development of education sciences and modern universities internationally. It is influenced by the educational concept of Bildung, which defines Germany ‘s theoretical and curricular ventures. This concept is famously untranslatable into other languages and is often misinterpreted as education, instruction, training, upbringing and other terms which don’t encompass its cultural ambitions. Despite this hurdle, Bildung is now being recognized in current discussions of education issues such as standardization, teaching to the test, evidence-based policy and high stakes testing. This volume clears up the confusion and misunderstandings surrounding Bildung by examining the origins of the concept and how it has been applied throughout history. It paves the way for educators to fully understand and benefit from this model and all it has to offer.

This open access book shares revealing insights into the development of mathematics education research in Germany from 1976 (ICME 3 in Karlsruhe) to 2016 (ICME 13 in Hamburg). How did mathematics education research evolve in the course of these four decades? Which ideas and people were most influential, and how did German research interact with the international community? These questions are answered by scholars from a range of fields and in ten thematic sections: (1) a short survey of the development of educational research on mathematics in German speaking countries (2) subject-matter didactics, (3) design science and design research, (4) modelling, (5) mathematics and Bildung 1810 to 1850, (6) Allgemeinbildung, Mathematical Literacy, and Competence Orientation (7) theory traditions, (8) classroom studies, (9) educational research and (10) large-scale studies. During the time span presented here, profound changes took place in German-speaking mathematics education research. Besides the traditional fields of activity like subject-matter didactics or design science, completely new areas also emerged, which are characterized by various empirical approaches and a closer connection to psychology, sociology, epistemology and general education research. Each chapter presents a respective area of mathematics education in Germany and analyzes its relevance for the development of the research community, not only with regard to research findings and methods but also in terms of interaction with the educational system. One of the central aspects in all chapters concerns the constant efforts to find common ground between mathematics and education. In addition, readers can benefit from this analysis by comparing the development shown here with the mathematical education research situation in their own country.

Bildung in the Digital Age explores the challenges and potentials of digitalization for educational theory and practice and identifies how the pedagogical concept of Bildung can be used to meet these demands. Discussing the educational landscape of a pandemic and post-pandemic world, the book describes how digitalization changes the media foundation of learning and teaching. It further raises questions of how we could think about Bildung in a digitalized world, how Bildung-based online teaching and learning can be implemented, and whether it is possible to understand Bildung and its emphasis on individual freedom and self-determination as a counter-concept to digital surveillance capitalism. The book will appeal to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of digital learning, educational theory, and media education.

This book offers a critical and reflective discussion of contemporary challenges for education relating to sustainability and post-factual truths in light of the concepts of knowledge and Bildung. The book uses the concepts of knowledge and Bildung as keys to grasp what education is, and how the different educational traditions can complement a better understanding of challenges to education. Knowledge is taken as the core of the Anglo-American and French educational traditions, and Bildung is key for German and Nordic Didaktik traditions. The book presents comparative analytical work from international scholars who discuss Bildung aims in the light of sustainability, and knowledge in light of the ‘post-factual’ era. Building on the 2021 book Didaktik and Curriculum in Ongoing Dialogue, the book will be highly relevant for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of educational theory, pedagogy, curriculum studies and comparative education.

This book brings the key ideas and concepts of social realism to bear on current debates in the fields of knowledge and curriculum. The key concern of this collection is to highlight matters related to knowledge and the influence these dimensions have on the formation of curricula, pedagogy, identity, and equity in educational contexts. Presenting new perspectives on the place of various types and forms of knowledge in contemporary education, this book explores two central questions, ‘what type of knowledge is most important to include in a curriculum?’ and ‘what is meant by disciplinary knowledge?’ The chapters use empirical examples to illustrate how the issues play out on a global stage, interweaving the social justice concern of equitable access to disciplinary knowledge throughout. In particular, the authors address the emerging theorisation of issues related to the decolonisation of curricula, the recontextualisation of ‘non-traditional’ knowledge into the curriculum, and teacher education. Offering new philosophical and theoretical perspectives, this book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students examining the fields of knowledge and curriculum, and the sociology of education more broadly.

Recent devaluations of a liberal arts education call the formative concept of Bildung, a defining model of self-cultivation rooted in 18th and 19th century German philosophy and culture, into question and force us to reconsider what it once meant and now means to be an “educated” individual. This volume uses an arc of interdisciplinary scholarship to map both the epistemological origins and cultural expressions of the pivotal notion of Bildung at the heart of pursuit in the humanities. From its intriguing original historical manifestations to its continuing resonance in current ongoing debates surrounding the humanities, the editors urge us to ask and discover how the classical concept of Bildung, so central to humanistic inquiry, was historically imagined and applied in its original German context.

The central reference point of the volume is Heinz-Joachim Heydorn's essay "Survival Through Bildung - Outline of a prospect" (1974), which was translated into English and subsequently made available to a broad public for the first time. Despite the time gap of almost 50 years, Heydorn's text is fascinating, because the survival of humanity – at least a qualitatively substantial survival of humanity – seems extremely questionable today. Researchers with different theoretical perspectives question the text on its contemporary content and put their interpretations up for discussion.

Centred around a contemporary conception of Bildung, this book effectively demonstrates how the aims of cross- and transcurricular teaching can be reconciled, resulting in a didactic framework for teaching and learning in secondary schools that can be applied internationally. Chapters present a nuanced and unified approach to fusing theory and practice by offering accounts of some of the most promising teaching methods from leading scholars in the field of curriculum research. These methods include dialogic teaching or movement integration, transversal competences like digital or entrepreneurial thinking, and topics that call for crosscurricular approaches, like sustainability or citizenship. Addressing diverse worries and criticisms of crosscurricular teaching, the book includes international viewpoints and trends such sustainability, citizenship, and student motivation to present a comprehensive and systematic scholarly treatment of crosscurricular didactics within the classroom. It further addresses important challenges that have been widely ignored, like how to evaluate crosscurricular work. Ultimately, this volume makes a highly novel contribution to the field of crosscurricular didactics, and will be of interest to researchers, scholars, academics in the fields of secondary education teaching and learning, educational science, and curriculum design. Those interested more broadly in the theory of education will also find the volume of use.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume argues for the need of a common ground that bridges leadership studies, curriculum theory, and Didaktik. It proposes a non-affirmative education theory and its core concepts along with discursive institutionalism as an analytical tool to bridge these fields. It concludes with implications of its coherent theoretical framing for future empirical research. Recent neoliberal policies and transnational governance practices point toward new tensions in nation state education. These challenges affect governance, leadership and curriculum, involving changes in aims and values that demand coherence. Yet, the traditionally disparate fields of educational leadership, curriculum theory and Didaktik have developed separately, both in terms of approaches to theory and theorizing in USA, Europe and Asia, and in the ways in which these theoretical traditions have informed empirical studies over time. An additional aspect is that modern education theory was developed in relation to nation state education, which, in the meantime, has become more complicated due to issues of ‘globopolitanism’. This volume examines the current state of affairs and addresses the issues involved. In doing so, it opens up a space for a renewed and thoughtful dialogue to rethink and re-theorize these traditions with non-affirmative education theory moving beyond social reproduction and social transformation perspectives.