Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

Abstract

This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nationstate based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical

Understanding Educational Leadership and Curriculum Reform

“…Challenged by the above empirical policies and governance practices in nation states in a globalized world, the research problem in this article is to further elaborate on the research program of critical and hermeneutic Non-Affirmative Theory of education (NAT) (e.g., Uljens, 2015;Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). In this article it is asked how that approach may provide us with a conceptual framing to analytically and empirically deal with present-day local, national, and global empirical challenges regarding curriculum reform and leadership?…”

Towards offering equal learning opportunities for female students in popular music ensemble education: relate, respond, and re-do

“…Unlike the academic discipline of education, or pedagogy, didaktik concerns teaching and intended learning in organised settings, such as schools, and it has developed in close connection to teacher education (Kansanen 1995). And unlike curriculum studies, which is focused on essential development and aims to guarantee equal content and methods for learning, independent of geographical or social context (Uljens 2017), didaktik mainly focuses on frames for existential development and pays greater attention to teacher responsibility. Phenomenological didaktik concerns teachers' choices based on the philosophical statement that the lived experience of a specific subject constitutes both the starting point for and the process of learning.…”

Neo-liberal Governance Leads Education and Educational Leadership Astray

“…When it comes to teacher activities Uljens and Ylimaki (2017) argue that two main actions are pivotal: recognition and summoning the child to self-activity. Recognition means respect, esteem, love and friendship (Honneth 1992), which are the basis for developing self-confidence and self-respect, and those are seen as the basis for learning.…”

“…Some of them are communicative discourses that emerge in the interactions between agents, when they are arguing for a given course of action. Therefore, deliberation is essential and at the core of discourse (Uljens and Ylimaki 2017).…”

“…In other words, they are not able to grow and survive without assistance from the older generations. Humanity depends on one generation of human beings educating the next generation of human beings (Uljens and Ylimaki 2017).…”