The Research of Transformational Education Processes: Exemplary Considerations on the Relation of the Philosophy of Education and Educational Research

Abstract

Confronted with the choice of either insisting on the inevitability of philosophic reflection and thus risking being neglected by research funding and the policy of offering chairs or of giving up on its philosophical orientation and also becoming committed to empirical research, this article suggests a third option for the Philosophy of Education, consisting of a combination of philosophic reflection and empirical research. By the example of the concept of transformational processes of Bildung it will be demonstrated that philosophical reflection is indeed indispensible but may be productively combined with empirical research. As this concept takes up the classical idea of Bildung, as it was developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt, first the relation of this suggestion to this tradition will be sketched. In working out the concept of transformational processes of Bildung the article will then refer to Bernhard Waldenfels' concept of the foreign. As a conclusion the article will indicat what a kind of empirical educational research might look like which aims at researching transformational processes of Bildung. Preliminary Remarks One aspect of the change of the educational system which has a particular effect on educational philosophy in Germany is the 'empirical turn' of German education policy, coming along with just the same turn in the field of educational research (see e.g. Buchhaas-Birkholz, 2009). This turn finds expression in re-orientating education policy towards 'output-oriented' steering methods and an appropriate 'paradigm change' of research funding, which means a considerable challenge for the philosophy of education. For, as philosophic research does not provide any data which might serve as a basis for 'evidence-oriented' or 'indicator-based' education policy, it is threatened by falling back in the competition with education-scientific sub-disciplines for research funding and for staffing. Given this development, the philosophy of education seems to be confronted with the choice of either pointedly insisting on the inevitability of philosophic reflection and thus risking to be neglected by research funding and the policy of offering chairs or of giving up on its philosophical orientation and also becoming committed to empirical research. In contrast to this, I would like to suggest a third option, consisting of a combination of philosophic reflection and empirical research. Using the example of the concept of transformational processes of Bildung, it will be demonstrated that philosophical reflection is indeed indispensible but may be productively combined with the empirical research of processes of Bildung. However, this is based on a certain way of understanding empirical educational research, which is not restricted to large-scale assessments of the PISA type, and which will be explained in more detail in the course of this article. But before this, I would like to explain the way of understanding the idea of Bildung on which this concept is based. As my suggestion of newly defining the concept of...

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