From Religious Education to Worldview Education and Beyond: The Strength of a Transformative Pedagogical Paradigm

Abstract A core concept in Cornelia Roux's writings is the term 'paradigm shift'. We can for example notice pleas for paradigm shifts in teaching religion, in dealing with the multicultural situation, in concretizing citizenship education, and finally her plea for a paradigm shift towards human rights education. In this essay I will first elaborate on some of Roux's paradigm shifts with a special focus on the role and place of religious education. Then, I will follow up with a plea for strengthening the transformative paradigm in pedagogy. A plea fully combinable with Roux's views, but especially necessary today as a critical pedagogical counter-voice against dominant neoliberal rhetoric in respect to pedagogy, politics and practices. In a transformative paradigm the aim of education is formulated as personhood formation. It implies that schools assist students in the double process of socialization and individuation, of becoming competent members of communities of practice. Presentation and representation of information, norms and values are interpreted from the perspective of how students are able to transform this into elements of their own participation, in the process of their own personhood formation. A transformative paradigm is inclusive by definition, thus addresses all students. One of the consequences of this inclusivity is that instead of using the term 'religious education' I prefer to use the notion of 'worldview education'

HOLLANDA ANAOKULUNDA ÇOK KÜL TÜRLÜ VE DiNLERARASI ÖGRENME: DÖRT YAŞ GRUBU ÇOCUKLARLA GÜNLÜK SINIF TECRÜBELERi

Anaokulunda dinler arası ve kültürler arası formasyon, vatandaşlık eğitiminin dini ve kültürel bileşenlerine odaklanarak ve vatandaşlık eğitiminin başlangıcı olarak mümkün olan en kısa sürede başlamalı ve layıkıyla yorumlanabilmelidir. Yazarlar, Hollanda'nınEde kentindeki ilk kabul edilen dinlerarası okul olan Juliana van Stolberg ilkokulunda ôinlerarası okuBaşmaya ve sırasıyla bir İslfun okulunda ve bir Roma Katalik anaokulunda kaynaşık kültürlü öğrenme ve dinlerarası öğrenmeyi irdele!Tiektedirler. Bu bağlamda iki anaok:ulunda bir karşılaştırma yapıidı. Sonuçta dinlerarası ve kaynaşık kU!türlü1 eğitim çerçevesinde tercih ettikleri yaklaşımı nitelernek içif). ~·ezber~em§~ ka~~ıı:g ~aJ?.ltlıl

Miedema, Siebren, The Theory-Practice Relation in Critical Pedagogy, Phenomenology + Pedagogy, 5(No. 3, 1987), 221-229.*

Discusses action research as a method of cooperation between critical theoreticians and practitioners; gives an example in a German elementary school

Knowing and the Known: A Philosophical and Pedagogical Critique on the Concept of 'Powerful Knowledge'

It is remarkable how the popularity of the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ has increased during the last decade in academic circles and among politicians, too. This is especially the case when the issue of the place and function of knowledge in the curriculum is addressed. A strong impetus for the increased attention paid to this concept of knowledge came from the writings of Michael Young and Johan Muller. Based on his own critical-hermeneutical-pragmatist-and-(neo-)Vygotskian-inspired philosophy of education and philosophy of science as his ‘Vorverständnis’ (Gadamer), but also based on the recent criticism articulated by the philosophers of education John White and Ingrid Carlgren and educational theorist Gert Biesta, the author shows the philosophical, pedagogical and didactical inadequacy of this concept. The author is criticizing the philosophical and pedagogical presuppositions of Young and Muller’s stance in propagating their core concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ as it is grounded in a social realist view and the way this concept has been used in educational studies by others. It is the author’s conviction that the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ and the underlying social realist paradigm are incompatible and even incommensurable (in a Kuhnian sense of the terms) with sociocultural and pragmatist paradigms. It is, in his view, theoretically and conceptually confusing when authors who work along the lines of these paradigms are trying to complement these with the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ along the lines of social realism as outlined by Young and Muller. Let us stick to knowing and the known as a theoretical conceptualization of ‘knowledge’.</p