Crises and Transformations
Abstract of the opening lecture of the 29th DGfE Congress 2024 at the University of Halle a.d.S.
Educational research can be understood as a science of crisis. Diagnosed crises and experiences of crisis provide historical justification and legitimacy for pedagogical programs and pedagogical practices. Thus, for example, the crisis of modernity is proclaimed as the birth of pedagogy. The connection between crisis and transformation is also well established: In particular, the figure of education as transformation – as a reaction to experienced crises – is influential in the German- as well the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, the socio-theoretical and pedagogical dimensions of the educational debate often remain strangely unaddressed.
In view of this initial constellation, the question arises as to how educational research and pedagogy can deal with the current experience of crisis. The lecture will seek answers to the question from multiple perspectives and positions.
Of central importance for a proper discussion is the theoretical question of the relationship between the present and the future. Do Dürer’s apocalyptic horsemen – Death, Famine, War, and Conquest – have a stronger presence in our time due to an all-consuming capitalism, to inflation and impoverishment, to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and to life-threatening climate change? Or can post-apocalyptic aspirations triumph in the daily practice of solidarity, tangible experiments of transformative lifestyles and economies, and novel coalitions to retake the world from a growing fatalism? Are older generations willing to be provoked and engaged by the pedagogy of despair coming from the young climate movement and assume responsibility for the future? Or do we continue to insist on our “rights” as consumers: the opening up of ever new parts of our lives and the world for consumption?
The right to live today becomes meaningless without tomorrow. Human development is inconceivable without growth. However, how can education and upbringing make hope for tomorrow tangible again in the face of the planetary crises of our time? How is it conceivable to teach and facilitate the growth and transformation of children and youth into adulthood while at the same time embracing the necessity of social and economic degrowth?
Pedagogical thinking and practice are currently faced with the challenge of opening up pedagogical perspectives on crisis and transformation. This can only be accomplished in education if insights from the social sciences as a whole are combined with specifically educational ones.