Phenomenological Theory of Bildung and Education

Synonyms

Bildung; Co-existentials and existentials of pedagogical relation; Description; Foreignness; Learning as experience; Phenomenological pedagogy; Phenomenological research in education; Reduction; Responsivity

Introduction

This article provides a historical overview of the most important approaches in German phenomenological pedagogy to the present. Phenomenological pedagogy both as a theory and empirical research aims at redefining traditional theories of Bildung and education in empirical and systematic ways. Within this process of re-definition, the phenomenological methods of description, reduction, and variation have been adopted critically and developed further. Phenomenological pedagogy thus can present an epistemological and methodological program of its own, one which differs from other approaches within the field of the human sciences, including hermeneutics.

Phenomenological pedagogy has a tradition reaching back more than hundred years. From its very beginnings, it...