Analysing the triad ‘understanding–personal identity–education’ in three different contexts (scientism, historicism, hermeneutics) make it possible to investigate the kind of thinking that is emphasised most in each context. The implications of thinking to educational practice are stressed at each level of interpretation. The chief shortfalls in the first two contexts are reviewed, together with their restrictive consequences for how education comes to be understood and practiced. The hermeneutic context recognises the primacy of interpretation and ‘pre‐understanding’ in all human understanding. Because of this it acknowledges the interplay that is invariably active between understanding and personal identity, and between both of these and what it means to educate. This third—hermeneutical—context is therefore offered not as any kind of final word on educational matters, but as a more appropriate and inclusive context in which education as a practice might be thought about and bettered.
The year 1989 marked the official end of communist rule in Poland and the replacement of 'Gosplan' by new instruments for liberal democratic governance. In terms of the economy this heralded a departure from Gosplan’s five-year planning cycles, performance targets and the ‘propaganda of success’. Paradoxically, however, twenty-seven years later, the marketisation of higher education in Poland has been accompanied by a continuation of Gosplan thinking. This is manifested in a neoliberal vision of the modern, ‘corporate’ university as a largely utilitarian enterprise, but subject to a style of performance management strongly resonant of the Soviet era. This article analyses the thinking, ideas and ideologies that have shaped contemporary higher education in Poland. It is contended that the rise of the ‘corporate university’ signals the twilight of the Humboldtian tradition and raises questions about what the corporate ideal of ‘excellence’ may mean for the future of the university
Conversation and Teaching at the Contemporary University
This paper examines the contemporary condition of teaching at universities. It argues that university is endangered by losing its identity. The difference between school and university is introduced as a representative example of the problem. The main argument refers to the Gadamerian concept of conversation and it suggests that high quality education is dialogical in its tenor. Unfortunately, tertiary educational quite often differs in practice from what we understand in current European pedagogy as an educational experience. In the first part of this paper, the question on the pedagogical potential of conversation is raised. The second and third parts provide a description of university as a place where education as a dialogical experience still prevails, particularly in lecturing as a form of teaching.
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