Rethinking Bildung in the Anthropocene

The Case of Wolfgang Klafki

Bibliographic Data

ID19915718
AuthorsOle Andreas Kvamme (0000-0003-0911-1850, University of Oslo, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume77
Issue3
Publication date2021-08-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0259-9422 • E-ISSN: 2072-8050
PublisherAOSIS (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.4102/hts.v77i3.6807
OpenAlexW3196814280
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited24

In this article, I discuss education in a time in the history when the human impact on Earth is massive and pervasive, with devastating consequences on the conditions for life. Within various academic fields, this era is increasingly distinguished as the Anthropocene. The term highlights the new, dominant position of the human species in Earth’s history, but is contentious, hiding as much as it reveals. Humanity is surely not one, but many, participating in a complex web of relations constituted by other species and the material world. Moreover, the Anthropocene is also a time of global corporate capitalism, when the magnitude and the consequences of human activities are unequally distributed among humans and more-than humans alike. The ethical and political dimensions involved in this determine the reflections in this article. Specifically, I examine Wolfgang Klafki’s educational theory as an expression of and a response to the Anthropocene. Klafki is a salient contributor to the rethinking of North European general didactics in the 20th century, in which Bildung , formations of the self, plays a key role. In Klafki’s later works, epochal key problems are integrated in his concept of Bildung , addressing environmental crisis, social inequity, and threats to peace on Earth, in a global outlook that transcends Bildung’s traditionally national scope. At the same time, Klafki’s educational response expresses an anthropocentric outlook, which calls for rethinking. In such a rethinking I suggest to see the mediating element of the common, crucial in Klafki’s Bildung theory, not as limited to human interests but as including concerns for life on Earth, and to conceive of historical situatedness as an aspect of the commonality of Bildung

Anthropocene · Anthropocentrism · Bildung · Capitalism · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Humanism · Humanity · Political science · Politics · Posthuman · Sociology · Environmental Education and Sustainability · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Sociology and Education Studies

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