**Educational Governance Research 5**

## Michael Uljens Rose M. Ylimaki *Editors*

# Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik

Non-a rmative Theory of Education

## **Educational Governance Research**

## Volume 5

#### **Series Editors**

Lejf Moos, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark Stephen Carney, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

#### **Editorial Advisory Board**

Herbert Altrichter, University of Linz, Austria Stephen J. Ball, Institute of Education, London, England Y.C. Chen, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Neil Dempster, Griffith University, Australia Olof Johansson, Umeå University, Sweden Gita Steiner Khamsi, Columbia University, USA Klaus Kasper Kofod, Aarhus University, Denmark Jan Merok Paulsen, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Science, Oslo, Norway James P. Spillane, Northwest University, Chicago, USA Michael Uljens, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

## **Educational Governance Research**

#### **Aims and Scope**

This series presents recent insights in educational governance gained from research that focuses on the interplay between educational institutions and societies and markets. Education is not an isolated sector. Educational institutions at all levels are embedded in and connected to international, national and local societies and markets. One needs to understand governance relations and the changes that occur if one is to understand the frameworks, expectations, practice, room for manoeuvre, and the relations between professionals, public, policy makers and market place actors.

The aim of this series is to address issues related to structures and discourses by which authority is exercised in an accessible manner. It will present findings on a variety of types of educational governance: public, political and administrative, as well as private, market place and self-governance. International and multidisciplinary in scope, the series will cover the subject area from both a worldwide and local perspective and will describe educational governance as it is practised in all parts of the world and in all sectors: state, market, and NGOs.

The series:

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13077

Michael Uljens • Rose M. Ylimaki Editors

## Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik

Non-affirmative Theory of Education

*Editors* Michael Uljens Åbo Akademi University Vasa, Finland

Rose M. Ylimaki University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina, USA

ISSN 2365-9548 ISSN 2365-9556 (electronic) Educational Governance Research ISBN 978-3-319-58648-9 ISBN 978-3-319-58650-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58650-2

Library of Congress Control Number:<PHONE_NUMBER>

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is an open access publication. **Open Access** This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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## **Foreword by William F. Pinar**

In this remarkable volume Michael Uljens and Rose Ylimaki juxtapose leadership and curriculum, scholarship from and about Europe and North America, a collection acknowledging the past's presence in the present, pointing to futures few in either curriculum or leadership studies have plotted. In recasting the relations between school and society, Uljens and Ylimaki contest the terms of the neoliberal present as they invoke them: yes, education is preparing students for the existing world, but it does so by problematizing that world. That world is of course a globalized one, but here globalization is defined as tendencies toward standardization, quantification, and homogenization *but also* as localization and cosmopolitanism, what Uljens and Ylimaki term "globopolitanism." Accordingly, they encourage us to attend to the interplay among curriculum, teaching, and leadership at various levels: the global, the national, the institutional. Educational leadership is also a curriculum work, and, given their reciprocal relationship, research becomes reconstructive.

While I concentrate on clarification rather than comparison as a methodology for studying across and within national cultures and histories – even the same curriculum concepts reverberate differently in different locales – the Uljens-Ylimaki conception of education as "summoning" the Other seems congruent: in being summoned the leader or educator or researcher is also being provoked to reflect over his or her positioning and relationship. Such a calling is clear when Uljens and Ylimaki cast education as "the cultivation of discernment with the help of reason." Like erudite and engaged teachers, educational leaders "summon" others – including the public, Uljens and Ylimaki suggest – "in reflective self-activity (*Bildsamkeit*) in order for them to transcend what is given." Transcendence can follow, even accompany, clarification of the given.

In a secular sense what is given is fundamentally historical; it requires historical scholarship to clarify, composing intellectual histories that intersect with present circumstances. Only from within nations and regions and locales – in complicated conversation with colleagues worldwide – can educators and leaders clarify together what "collective belonging and coherence" might mean. Even if democratically determined, such ongoing ever renegotiated internationalism requires, it seems to me, "becoming historical" so that the "outside" – including institutional, disciplinary, and (on the level of the state) legal arrangements – supports "a unified whole with spaces that allow for recognition of individual difference and freedom (autonomy)." In France that "unified whole" might be the state's enforcement of laicity, structurally not entirely different from Canada's enforcement of a multinational, multicultural state that, at least to some critics, threatens a tyrannical conformity.

In reaction, as Uljens and Ylimaki note, intensifying "pluralization" is also underway, a term referencing phenomena as varied as political polarization in the USA, in the UK, and across Europe, in the civil war in Syria. They also associate "pluralization" with "economic specialization" – they cite regulation and deregulation, so-called creative destruction – and these terms remind us that worldwide shifts in social formation and political movement are multileveled, often uncoordinated and unpredictable.

When academic study is undertaken with "double openness," Uljens and Ylimaki suggest, the researcher as well as the educator is engaged in dialogical encounter with oneself and others, with past and present, the local and the global. Due to the scale of such engagement, curriculum work and educational leadership are, as Uljens and Ylimaki remind, "human personal practices." So conceived, "curriculum making is educational leadership." Now often impersonalized and inhuman as scores substituting for actual children and educators, our professional calling as curriculum-leadership specialists calls upon us to study curriculum and leadership's enactment as it becomes (dis)embedded within locales, in its relations to larger social formations and political movements.

In such study, can Common Core be conceived as a compensatory contradiction of what sometimes seems intensifying social disintegration and political polarization in the USA? The very concept of Common Core – evocative of curriculum designs 100 years earlier – seems out of sync not only with the present but with the future of curriculum, at least as Williamson (2013) envisions it. In his chilling portrait, pluralization and economic specialization are elevated to somewhat superstructural elements of curriculum and leadership, Steve Jobs style.

In contrast to that soft authoritarianism decentralized as compulsory "collaboration," Uljens and Ylimaki affirm "comparative dialogue," supplemented by cosmopolitan ideals and realities, reconstructed by recursive returns to intellectual histories (and specifically classical theories of education) juxtaposed with present circumstances. As Aoki (2005 [1995]) appreciated, such sites of generative tension can encourage curriculum in a new key, what Uljens and Ylimaki foresee in "new research studies and fields" that could produce "a coherent language for policymakers, preparation programs, school development programs and practitioners." This is a vision at once theoretical and empirical, pedagogical and political, considering both policy and practice, a scale of aspiration one can only admire. That scale is shown too in their multiplying of the canonical curriculum question – what knowledge is of most worth? – into three: "Three questions rise above all: what are we going to live for (culture), what are we going to live of (economy), and how are we going to decide about these challenges (democracy)?" These questions specify the challenges humanity faces.

As such, they might serve as organizing centers of the K-12 school curriculum, a curriculum focused less on academic vocationalism and standardized test-taking than on these fundamental questions of human life. It is a life, one hardly needs reminding, embedded in a biosphere being destroyed before our eyes by greed and power, themselves transhistorical, transcultural phenomena that could also serve as organizing centers for multidisciplinary academic study. From such study might emerge "conceptual and practical answers concerning citizenship" – answers that address, with cultural, political, and historical specificity, the fundamental questions concerning the future of life on earth. Such study could comprise a cosmopolitan education in our time.

By emphasizing intellectual histories as well as present circumstances, Uljens and Ylimaki remind us (in my terms) that the path forward is not in front of us, but in back. Grounded in history, they wonder to what extent fundamental concepts of education can be reconstructed in response to the world-historical situation today. In so doing, they aspire to "contribute with a reconstruction of fundamental tensions, issues and features of modern educational thought." This is the multileveled labor of internationalization and reconceptualization, labor that leads one to return to the relation between education and democracy, a move echoing the 100-year anniversary of Dewey's effort to do so.

The reconstruction of civil society – not only in the West – is just as crucial as it was in Dewey's time: social media and information technologies intensify those aforementioned movements of greed and profit-seeking. Feeling the emergency of "now," Uljens and Ylimaki assert that "curricula specify what education should be aiming at and they specify what cultural contents should be selected in order to reach these aims." Surely curricula can address "aims," but any promise to reach them risks reinscribing instrumental rationality, itself cause and consequence of the present crisis of sustainability. Becoming historical through academic study seems professional promise enough.

As did Huebner, Uljens and Ylimaki speak of "educational influence." For me the question of educational influence is necessarily a retrospective judgment: whether or not one was influenced, by whom and what, when, and to what effect. Emphasizing influence at the outset risks reinscribing instrumentalism encoded in objectives – objectives to be assessed by quantitative outcomes. While there can be no predictable relation among curriculum, leadership, and democracy, surely the first two might mediate as they support the study of conflicting, even contradictory, currents within civil society: secularism and spiritualism, market economies and socialism, electronic media, and embodied educational experience.

Despite the confidence of the so-called learning sciences – and the neurology and pharmacology on which they sometimes rely – the relation between teaching and learning cannot be specified from the outset, only in retrospect, rendered as professional and personal judgments. The concept of "human personal practices" is here no warmed-over discredited humanism. Instead it invites, as Uljens and Ylimaki acknowledge, curriculum and leadership "pointed beyond the particularity of the nation-state - towards spatial universalism and temporal eternity," expansive sites of generative tension encouraging educational experience. You are entering one now.

University of British-Columbia William F. Pinar Vancouver, BC, Canada

#### **References**

## **Foreword by Carolyn M. Shields**

This book provides a stimulating opening for a thoughtful dialogue about the relationships among the concept of Didaktik, best known in Europe, the traditional North American understandings of curriculum theory, and thinking about educational leadership. It introduces important and foundational historical and philosophical concepts; it identifies tensions, disagreements, and false steps; and it profers some tentative solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our times. There is no doubt that the ideas espoused and the questions posed here offer ways to move the field of education away from the rational, technical, and scientific approaches that have framed much policy and discourse to date and have the potential to engage scholars and researchers for years to come.

Uljens and Ylimaki pose three organizing questions which, they believe, reflect the core tasks of education: what are we going to live for (culture), what are we going to live of (economy), and how are we going to decide about these challenges (democracy)? They indicate that the educator's role is to mediate between the culture and the individual's developing awareness of his or her potential and freedom as a cultural and political being. And they argue for a non-affirmative approach that does not violate the freedom of the individual learner.

To provide conceptual clarity, they clearly state that

For the purposes of our project, we begin with a classical approach and define curriculum practice as the process of formulating aims and selecting contents and defining methods, including the methods or pedagogical experiences through which content is enacted.

This debate is also reflective of the questions posed by Reyes-Guerra and Bogotch (2011) who argue that "the field of educational leadership needs to profoundly embrace the teachings of curriculum theorists" (p. 137) and assert:

Our argument is unequivocal: unless and until we can refocus on the learners' needs in context, we will remain captive inside the political apparatus of external state and institutional authorities […]. Using curriculum theory/inquiry teachings to develop educational leadership programs, we can educate school leaders grounded in transformative leadership theory and practice, and affirm the values and processes of the American educational leadership profession on democracy. (p. 139)

Uljens and Ylimaki have, of course, affirmed the need for a democratic focus as well, thus articulating one point of agreement among the authors, despite the many tensions and debates found in this volume. Uljens and Ylimaki maintain that they "defend a so-called non-affirmative position with respect to norms." They go on to explain that this means that existing knowledge, values, or ideals are definitely taken seriously but not affirmed. Affirmation in their view denies the possibility of critical reflection, confirming a present situation in a "rather uncritical fashion." Yet, one could argue that a non-affirmative position is one which simply does not explicitly recognize and identify implicit norms. Having a norm or end goal in mind – whether democracy, individual freedom, or an open dialogue – opens up what Pinar calls "complicated conversations" still without advocating a specific path or determining a detailed set of steps to attain the goal.

Despite their previous assertion that democracy is an appropriate criterion to guide our responses to their three questions – how to decide about the challenges related to what we are going to live for, and of – Uljens and Ylimaki critique educational leadership theories as being "trapped either in an empiricist or descriptive approach or in a prescriptive and normative approach." Here, I think, is one of the challenges posed by their argument. Using the phrases "prescriptive and normative" or "normative prescription," as though the two were inextricably and permanently linked, seems to me to be erroneous.

Whether one is approaching education from the Kantian transcendental philosophy of freedom, from concept of collective nationhood, or from Heller's (1999) self-reflective consciousness of modernity itself, one's approach both arises from particular social and political contexts and is deeply embedded in the values (albeit often implicit) of those contexts. Thus, given that human existence is always embedded in a context, and given that contexts are deeply imbued with implicit or explicit values, it is difficult to overcome the fact that all theories or approaches are, in some way, normative. If one is identifying the "aims or content" of education, there will be at least an implicit sense of what is either "standard" or "ideal" in order to develop the student's understanding of his or her freedom (another value). If one believes that the goal of education is to enable a citizen "to participate in common tasks of the society, culture, politics, and economy," this undoubtedly comprises the standard for which content and pedagogy will be selected.

To be sure, there is no prescription in the above thinking, no sense of specific injunction, despite the fact that in recent years, under many regimes, authority and accountability have demanded conformity or prescription. Indeed, it might be argued that norms and prescriptions are of different natures and are both qualitatively and quantitatively distinct, in that norms relate to values and goals while prescriptions refer to rules and injunctions.

Moreover, not only might one argue that education *is* normative in the sense that, whether the valued end is freedom, equity, democracy, or something else, it expresses a desired norm, but that it *should* be normative. Giroux (2004), for example, when discussing critical pedagogy, stated that

its normative nature does not offer guarantees as much as it recognizes that its own position is grounded in modes of authority, values, and ethical considerations that must be constantly debated in terms of the ways in which it both opens up and closes down democratic relations, values, and identities. (p. 36)

Being normative does not offer guarantees, but recognition of a starting position for a debate – the very activity in which Uljens and Ylimaki invite us to participate. Indeed, it seems to me that the central question is not whether the theory is normative, but whether, instead of being uncritically accepting of the status quo, it opens up debates about "relations, values, and identities" in such a way as to be nonprescriptive. Reyes-Guerra and Bogotch (2011) asked us to consider how we might "rewrite the field and profession of educational leadership as if curriculum theory/ inquiry were a leadership skill" (p. 138). In their response, they asserted that "both the purpose and process questions [of education] turn on the values and goals of democracy." Similarly Shields (2012) grounds her discussion of transformative leadership in concepts shared with curriculum inquiry – democracy, globalization, and dialogue. These and many other scholars thus come down on the side of a normative but not prescriptive argument, as they embed the concept of education itself in the norm of democracy, without identifying a list of rules or injunctions about how to attain it. Because Uljens and Ylimaki seem to be in fundamental agreement with Shields and Reyes-Guerra and Bogotch that education must be grounded in a concept of democracy, one might question whether they are really arguing for a "non-affirmative" approach. At the very least, one might wonder about the meaning and value of a non-affirmative approach.

At the same time, being non-prescriptive is an essential aspect of education if we are not to produce robots or widgets, but independent individuals, capable of innovative thinking and of challenging the status quo in order to build a better future (yes, another normative concept, but also without a clear prescriptive path for its attainment). This certainly requires, as Uljens and Ylimaki have done, opening up the dialogue and creating space in which various perspectives may be heard and paths taken to make sense of the selected curriculum materials on one's journey to individual freedom.

The European understanding of Didaktik is concerned with selection of the content to be taught as well as its "relation to the *aims* of teaching." Teaching and education, the editors state, "is about dealing with how to live out our responsibility to support the student's stepwise development toward an independent cultural being and citizen able to participate in common tasks of the society, culture, politics, and economy." When discussing mainstream leadership studies and trends, they assert that they find "little attention" to "education theory and its interests in schoolsociety relationships." Yet, when they describe the interpretive paradigm, they acknowledge that "an organization approach to organizations focuses on social life," and when they discuss educational leadership scholarship from a critical theory background, they describe it as "an approach to leadership grounded in a critical consciousness about power, privilege, and social inequities." These more recent approaches to leadership most certainly include discussions of pedagogy and curriculum especially as they pertain to the education of students who generally come from groups in society that tend to be marginalized. Hence, to bring together the concepts of Didaktik, curriculum inquiry, and educational leadership, it may be useful to pay more attention to recent and more critical theories that recognize the importance of the social and political context and that help to counteract the pervasive influence of the earlier more rational, technical, and scientific paradigms of educational leadership.

Some of the more technical educational leadership literature has sometimes attempted to draw sharp distinctions (falsely in my opinion) between leadership and management, with the latter representing the more routine functions that promote the efficient operation of an organization and the former requiring more proactivity and vision. Regardless of the emphasis, educational organizations must focus on functions of teaching and learning, and hence, educational leaders must be informed, at least in part, by conceptions of Didaktik and curriculum. And, as Uljens and Ylimaki argue, it is important to make the connections among policies, aims, curriculum, Didaktik, and leadership explicit in order for the theoretical grounding to be open to the dialogue and debate that is the foundation of a robust system of education.

Following their discussion of curriculum/Didaktik and educational leadership, Uljens and Ylimaki turn their attention to a universal and increasing cosmopolitanism, the third element of their discussion. Here they ask, "How do we explain curriculum making and educational leadership relations within and between nation states?" After describing some universal driving forces – a globalized economy, technology, and neoliberal politics – they go on to ask, "Do we, for example, imagine our theories being of universal validity over time and cultures or do we see them as regionally limited?" Is it possible, they ask, to have a universal theory of education or do we have to choose between the particular and the universal? These questions raise again the issue of whether a quest for a grand theory, responding to all times and contexts, is possible or even desirable. Perhaps a focus on guiding questions that may be answered in different ways in different contexts would be more appropriate. Yet regardless of the approach, the invitation to dialogue is central; the "dynamic" approach that emphasizes comparison of similarities and differences within and between levels from classrooms to transnational levels amidst the current globalization moment is necessary if we are to understand the ways in which education plays out, demanding not only individual freedom, but the freedom of local communities and nation states to choose their own way.

In their conclusion, Uljens and Ylimaki state that autonomy is "the highest objective of education." Indeed, it is the autonomy of the other authors in the book to forge their own paths, to agree or disagree with the editors, and to propose alternative responses to the questions of the relationships among educational leadership, Didaktik, and curriculum theory, which comprises the strength of this volume. Among the provocative ideas to be found here, Knapp and Hopmann suggest that increased attention to organizational perspectives of neo-institutionalism might contribute positively to an understanding of school leadership. Biesta posits that a language of education always needs to pay attention to questions of *content*, *purpose*, and *relationship*, hence arguing for a broader view of education than simply that of teaching and learning. Only then, he argues, can we overcome the current equation of learning with test scores and recognize that

education is always about the transmission and acquisition of some content (knowledge, skills, dispositions), but always also 'connects' students to particular traditions and ways of doing and being and, in addition, has an impact on their formation as a person*.*

His argument connects directly to that of Uljens and Ylimaki in that he asks for an integrative approach to thinking about education – one that does not separate curriculum from the aims and goals of educational leadership. Yet, neither does he call for a non-affirmative approach.

From different continents and different traditions, there is often agreement about some aspects of the conversation. Bogotch, Schoorman, and Reyes-Guerra situate the questions in a specific context, and provide a "tentative US framework," thus implicitly responding to the question of whether a theory may be universal in its application, given the various traditions from which education arises. They agree that "curriculum inquiry demands that participants have the freedom to be creative and innovative," and, at the same time, they argue the need for *conscientization*, for a recognition of injustice, and for dialogue. Huber, Tulowitzki, and Hameyer also emphasize the need for more attention to be paid to the interplay between educational leadership and curriculum theories, arguing that we need to see leadership "as a means to reach pedagogical goals and focus on education principles and not on bureaucratic ones." Sivesind and Wahlström take the argument farther, and while they argue the importance of taking both fields into consideration, they assert that it is also important to do so with "a reflexivity of how reform and research are intertwined."

As can be seen, as I refer to only a few snippets from the disparate chapters in the book, the dialogue here between leadership and curriculum theorists is rich and farranging. Yet, there is general agreement that the fields can benefit from a recognition of their mutual interdependence and from greater awareness of theories that help us to respond to the three questions Uljens and Ylimaki pose at the outset.

My intent here was to respond to the invitation and summons of Uljens and Ylimaki to reflect on possible responses to the dilemmas presented and the questions posed here, and to raise some questions and present some possible alternative ways of thinking, as a way of adding to the dialogue. If these reflections and the readers' careful considerations of the thoughtful chapters contained here prompt others to do the same, the book will have fulfilled the purposes of bringing the fields together in dialogue, if not in agreement. And this, after all, is the nature of freedom, autonomy, and inquiry.

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan Carolyn M. Shields

#### **References**

## **Foreword by Tomas Englund**

In their bold, rich, and very ambitious compilation of contributions trying to combine theories and studies on curriculum, Didaktik, and educational leadership into an integrated educational theory framework, Michael Uljens and Rose Ylimaki raise many fruitful questions and perspectives. Their explicit starting point is that "curriculum making is educational leadership" because, in the construction and implementation processes of curriculum, there is "educational leadership at multiple levels from classroom to transnational levels." Starting from a nonhierarchical and a non-affirmative position, they come close to a pragmatic tradition and give cosmopolitanism a central role.

The first chapter by the editors, Uljens and Ylimaki, presents a common general framework bringing the two disparate fields of curriculum theory and leadership studies together along with critical understandings from discursive institutionalism. Following an introductory framing of the book in Part I, Uljens and Ylimaki, then, expand the focus of the volume in four additional subsections: (1) curriculum theory vs Didaktik – USA and Europe, building partly upon the transatlantic project *Didaktik meets Curriculum* from the 1990s; (2) societal and policy context; (3) leadership, Didaktik, and curriculum; and (4) discursive and multilevel perspectives. The volume is then finalized in a conclusion by the editors.

This theory-building project to fuse curriculum theory and leadership studies is remarkable in its perspective and attempt, going beyond earlier theoretical developments made within curriculum theory – namely, the reconceptualist movement, the new sociology of education and studies presented in the *Didaktik meets Curriculum* project – in which leadership studies received very limited attention. This also means that the critical and conflictual perspectives of these theories and their follow-up theoreticians, analyzing curriculum as a political problem exposed for social struggles as in historical and educational policy studies of curriculum, have had no obvious place in leadership studies. Could these curriculum theorists and followers open up for leadership studies with critical and conflictual perspectives? It does not seem probable because the new accountability and testing environment of education may not give room for critical perspectives that challenge the narrow, organizational management language.

Could leadership scholars engage in broader general education, critical education, curriculum, and policy studies in ways that challenge the dominant policy agenda? Jorunn Moller, a prominent Norwegian researcher on educational leadership, told us recently in her keynote at the ECER conference in Dublin in August 2016, based upon many years of experiences from the project ISSPP, known as the "International Successful School Principalship Project," that educational leadership in educational research needs to be complemented and informed by theory and research which focuses on recent changes in the political economy that have influenced education severely. She writes, "Although the reports briefly mention that education policies need to be aligned with other government policies, such as housing and welfare, to ensure student success, recommendations are mainly connected to improvement *within* organizations." She exemplifies saying that the discourse is mainly connected to the framework of increasing excellence in literacy and numeracy and is based on data from international large-scale student assessment. Moller argues that we, as researchers, have a responsibility to challenge this discourse in which this current policy agenda for equity is embedded.

She also stresses that the language we have adopted in education for the last decades may erode a broader discussion about education for citizenship and social justice over the long term: "One of the main tensions seems to be between discourses of competition and privatisation, which underpin new public management and discourses rooted in socially democratic ideologies, linked to notions of equity, participation and comprehensive education. We need to know more about the conditions which sustain education as public good, and it is urgent that we manage to initiate productive dialogues with practitioners and politicians about knowledge claims grounded in rigorous research". She concludes: "To lead education beyond the agenda of 'what works' we need different approaches to research, including critical studies addressing the power structures." But it is exactly this kind of perspective that studies of leadership are lacking.

How does this volume answer these kinds of challenges? In the next section, the one on historical societal-policy context, the four authors all stress the ongoing instrumentalization in this age of new public management and measurement with the implication of psychologization of education to learning.

A central part of the compilation of chapters aiming at bridging Didaktik/curriculum theory and leadership studies is the next section. We find here five chapters written by groups of authors, a total of 16 authors involved. Of course, there are, in this section, many different starting points for dealing with the relationship between curriculum theory and leadership studies, and the analyses also start from very different contexts.

The last two chapters of this section represent two different versions developed within a follow-up of the reconceptualization of curriculum movement, historically separated from each other for decades, one more macro and structurally oriented and the other more psychological. What we can see here, as in many of the other chapters and in educational research of today in general, is how the new educational policy language infiltrates the analyses and forces educational researchers to make use of a top-down perspective of goal achievement, learning outcomes, assessments, testing, and so on.

As formulated in one of the contributions in the last section, "educational leadership has in general focused on organizational conditions and expectations for managing and leading activities; in parallel, curriculum theories have offered insights into substantial societal problems that must be addressed in school and society." Is the future solution as developed in this chapter, to link curriculum theory to organizational theory, discursive institutionalism and educational leadership policy and research? Maybe, but the attempt to fuse curriculum theory and leadership studies will also have different implications in different contexts. Even though the possibilities of each nation-state are limited and profoundly changed by the globalization movement, there are still different preconditions in different countries.

To summarize, there is also a rather weak but anyway all-pervading and constant theme based in pragmatism (Dewey and Habermas) regarding the need to develop a deliberative stance in many of the contributions (e.g., the editors, Moos). There is also the recurring theme of cosmopolitanism, also presented in the introduction and referred to later in many of the chapters. These perspectives on pragmatism and cosmopolitanism could have been further developed. What might also have strengthened a book with this level of ambition would have been to go deeper into the ongoing changes that create new conditions for education, such as the increased parentocracy of schooling, the parental right to educational authority, legitimizing school choice, and the dissolution of public education.

Örebro University Tomas Englund Örebro, Sweden Linnaeus University Växjö, Sweden

## **Contents**

## **Part I Re-theorizing the Field: Foundations of a Research Program**

## **Chapter 1 Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership**

**Michael Uljens and Rose M. Ylimaki**

**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

M. Uljens (\*)

Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
R.M. Ylimaki University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2017 3 M. Uljens, R.M. Ylimaki (eds.), *Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik*, Educational Governance Research 5, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58650-2\_1

4

and epistemological variations in a globopolitan era. We hope an American-European-Asian comparative dialogue is enhanced by theorizing education with a non-affirmative approach.

#### **Challenges for Policy, Educational Leadership Research, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik**

The main argument driving this volume is that educational leadership and policy research, curriculum theory and Didaktik, despite their unquestionable contributions over the years, appear limited in their capacity to conceptually explain institutional education in increasingly complex environments and globalized nation-states. In addition, we will argue, many contributions in curriculum theory, educational leadership research and Didaktik are typically either remarkably functionalistinstrumentalist or prescriptive-normative in ways that make them appear, if not problematic, less fit for democratic education systems around the world.

We think, a mere dialogue between these strands of research does not suffice. What is needed is a conceptual system capable of coherently taking care of and relating these research specializations to each other. Without conceptual coordination, contributions in curriculum theory and Didaktik, as well as in educational leadership research, run the risk of being counterproductive or dysfunctional in terms of representing a too limited perspective on education, not only from the teachers' and principals' perspective but equally for policymakers and governance (Uljens 2015, 2016; Uljens and Ylimaki 2015; Ylimaki et al. 2016). Let us explain.

Nation-states and our schools of today find themselves operating in permanently renewed national and global contexts. We have witnessed new geopolitical repositionings and changes in the economic production. We see new energy systems evolve; we identify a need for sustainable development. Increasing multiculturalism, demographic movements, and aging population challenge us in new ways. Technological developments provide us new public spaces, and a global economy results in increasing interdependencies on all societal sectors. Many of these changes have been positive. Globally, poverty has decreased, more countries call themselves democracies, the number of military conflicts are, for the time being, less than in decades, and the education level is higher than ever. Yet, the developments mentioned all have created profound challenges for nation-states and their schools, for curriculum making, policy work, leadership and teaching. The political agenda in global, post-industrial, knowledge economies and information societies has thus changed the role of the nation- or federal state, the ethos of knowledge, education and research as well as the governance and leadership of the education sector.

Recent neoliberal educational and accountability policies have intensified a focus on school leadership, learning results, and national curriculum standards. The increased focus on leadership occurs as parts of new policies of curriculum making, leadership as enacted practice, and evaluation as a steering vehicle, all of which are occurring amidst increasing global interdependencies among all societal sectors as

well as increasing multiculturalism and rapid developments in communication technology re-defining spaces for learning and teaching.

We can observe a redefinition of how power and influence is distributed anew between levels, e.g. transnational agencies, central administration and local schools, between state level administration and private (family) interests, but also within each level. These changes are far from only being functional or organizational but ideological. This is particularly well demonstrated by the move from a socialdemocratic welfare state (old public governance) to a neoliberal competition-based model (new public management/governance). This shift has had profound consequences for professional activity, identity and development. In a neoliberal, accountability paradigm, the customer is at the center, with various institutions organized around customer choice in the free market. In other words, neoliberal policies and trends have, in effect, shifted the focus of administration from the state as a provider of services to a buyer of services. This movement and related discourses are truly international, but they take different forms and stages in various countries (Paraskeva and Steinberg 2016; Gunter et al. 2016; Pinar 2004). We can observe, for example, an increase and changes in policy borrowing patterns, the ways in which curricula are harmonized, and new procedures of how we work with evaluation (Steiner-Khamsi 2013).

Second, while a kind of cultural homogenization has been ongoing for decades transnationally and has become dramatically intensified through modern technology, the situation *within* states is the opposite. Here we see, simultaneous to global homogenization, an increasing cultural, ethnic, linguistic, professional, political *pluralisation* in most countries, as well as an economic differentiation and specialization (in the labourmarket). Recent neo-conservative movements both in Europe and in the USA have been interpreted as reactions to this pluralization and globalisation, which by definition, challenge established ways of sustaining unity and national identity or sense of belonging within states.

Third, we have been witnessing various types deregulation and decentralization since the 1980s as well as reregulation and recentralization of political power within nation-states (Gunter et al. 2016). However, an increasing number of counterproductive consequences emanating from deregulation of laws, decentralization of administration, a focus on cost-benefit and efficiency including idea of increased individual choice and reduced focus on egalitarianism to minimize disparities, initiated stepwise since 1980s, especially after 1989, have resulted in increasing mistrust, especially in Europe, as to whether a neoliberal model may provide sustainable solutions. Diane Ravitch (2010) and many others (e.g. Sennett 1998; Frontini 2009; Lingard and Rizvi 2009; Lindgard et al. 2015) have persuasively argued that neoliberal approaches have had unexpected results in application in various societal factors (e.g. healthcare, housing, education). For example, it seems obvious that large portions of citizens in the US and in Europe feel that recent developments regarding welfare, health-care, education and work have developed in a very unfavorable direction. It may be that the roots for expanding political populism in the USA and Europe partly are to be found here. These counterproductive consequences make it more important to see connections between economic neo-liberal globalization, national and transnational governance policies, educational ideals as well as curriculum and leadership practices.

Neoliberalism has many meanings and phases, with many references beginning in the 1980s with the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. For some, neoliberalism equals globalization. Smith (2001) identifies three forms of globalization relevant for curriculum and leadership studies. Globalization One arises from the 1980s collapse of binary logics regarding cold war national borders and consonant revival of liberalism toward a borderless world vision of open markets guided not only by nations and states but also by newer transnational institutions with a global reach. Neoliberalism, then, redefined the rules of obligation between nation-state governments and people to privilege the free operation of a global market system over the state as the primary means for solving social problems, shifting the focus of administration from a provider of services to a buyer of services (Friedman, von Hayek).

In the education sector, the presence of the *cosmopolitan dimension* (Beck 2006; Kemp 2010) is practically visible both in terms of increasing global harmonization regarding core curricula but also through evaluation procedures (e.g. PISA) (Sahlberg 2015). Many countries have moved from an input oriented government policy driven by curricula towards an output centered governance policy driven by evaluations. An increasing number of transnational organizations influence, and are influenced by, national education systems. The globalization process inevitably leads to a restructuring of the role of the nation state and its governance practices in relation to the global scene. The nation state and its education must be thought anew in the light of new forms of, and previously unseen, versions of transnational and even global practices.

In a broad sense, then, the challenge for changing nation states involves organizational relations among education, politics, economy, and culture in order to continuously establish a sense of collective belonging and coherence to a unified whole with spaces that allow for recognition of individual difference and freedom (autonomy). Further, such societal and ideological changes, including the tension between the European social-democratic welfare state model (old public administration) and a neoliberal competition-based model (new public management and new public governance) and tensions between unity and plurality have consequences for professional activity, identity and development. This movement, and related discourses, are truly international, but they take different forms and stages in various countries (Roth and Burbules 2007; Paraskeva and Steinberg 2016).

These challenges have turned our attention towards understanding educational leadership as a much broader and complex undertaking than typical perceived of. It is a project with power redefined and redistributed anew between levels, interest and professional groups, e.g. central administration and local schools, between state level administration and private (family) interests, companies, between transnational organizations (e.g. European Union, OECD) and nation states, but also within each level. These developments make it crucial to understand the interplay among policies, societal trends/aims, methods, governance, social interactions of leadership-teaching-studying-learning within and between levels. We think that both curriculum research and educational leadership research would benefit from seeing how each connect sociocultural aims to curriculum contents and methods.

Our point of departure is that any successful accomplishment of educational practice, be it teaching, educational leadership or policy work on different levels, is partly guided by prevailing conceptual frameworks and theories, dominating policies, cultural and historical traditions. However, if the undertakings are informed by theoretical positions that conceptually highlight only disparate if important activities and processes of the educational system, and even in conflicting ways, their guiding power may be limited. While we recognize the value of debates within and between fields and disciplines, we argue that a more general and theoretically solid educational framework will inform new research studies and fields, as well as create a coherent language for policymakers, preparation programs, school development programs and practitioners. As we argue that curriculum theorists, Didaktik, leadership scholars, political scientists and policy scholars have yet to make these connections explicit this volume bring representatives from all these fields together for deliberation.

Deliberation has to be deliberation about something for some reason. The reasons were pointed at previously. Regarding the contents of this deliberation the leading question throughout this volume is: how should we understand the character and task of educational theory and research in order to handle the contemporary challenges? What should those conceptual answers concerning citizenship (e.g. cultural, economical and political) be and look like in order to understand and guide leadership and governance of our educational institutions in an era where all nations worldwide internally develop towards increasing plurality while being simultaneously framed by challenges that call for a cosmopolitan view? Where should we look for answers with the aim being a more profound and foundational approach to curriculum, educational leadership and teaching? How could a position look like and be constructed for these purposes? In the following, first, we outline the research strategy and how it was applied to meet the challenges described above. After this we describe how the volume as a whole is structured.

#### **Approach and Guiding Questions**

Given the existing multitude of theories on educational leadership, curriculum and Didaktik, are there any reasonable possibilities of developing a position that would allow us to approach these fields of research, i.e. curriculum, Didaktik and educational leadership, coherently? Because, if these theories are being developed with a limited awareness of an interest in each other they run the obvious risk of providing possibly distinct, yet only limited and disparate, answers. The strong twentieth century expansion of research has been welcome, but it has brought with it differentiation and specialization that is increasingly counterproductive in an ever more complex world.

As a result, a fruitful strategy may be to move the starting point of theorizing educational leadership, curriculum and Didaktik to a level beyond each and all of them. Where and how can we find such a level? Our assumption is that such a metalevel does not need to be invented. It is provided to us by a long tradition of theory making in education, also called *general education* in Europe (Benner 1991; Uljens 2002). In this volume the German-Nordic tradition of general education will be made use of for these purposes, i.e. used as a meta-language and meta-perspective. Often general education theory starts off by asking foundational questions about the nature of education as such, as well as questions related to what role institutional education plays in and for societal development, politics economy and culture. Moving to a level beyond the specific theories and model of teaching, leadership and curriculum becomes our choice.

This chapter builds upon the *non-affirmative theory of education* as this position has been developed by the german education scholar, professor Dietrich Benner in Berlin. The non-affirmative theory of education is very much a German phenomenon. The approach was introduced in the Nordic countries in the mid 1990s at a education theory symposium on *European identity in change* in Finland (Uljens 1997b). More extensively the approach was discussed by Uljens (1998), Kivelä (1998), and Siljander (2000) in Finland and Sweden as well as by Oettingen (2001) in Denmark. This dialogue has stepwise expanded in all Nordic countries the past two decades (e.g. Bengtsson 2003; Kivelä 2004; Benner 2015; Damgaard Knudsen and Andersson 2008; Oettingen 2006, 2016; Saeverot and Werler 2017). The position has partly been made accessible to english speaking readers, primarily within philosophy and theory of education (e.g. Uljens 2002; Benner and English 2004; Friesen and Sævi 2010; Siljander et al. 2012; English 2013; Schaffar and Uljens 2015; Saeverot 2016; Uljens and Ylimaki 2015, 2016; Ylimaki and Uljens 2017). Benners works have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and some European langauges, but not yet into English. The specific contribution of the present volume and other publications by the co-authors the past 3 years relate to the application of this non-affirmative approach to bridging educational leadership, Didaktik and curriculum theory in a transnational perspective. Following this tradition we assume that following questions are central to answer in any theory of education, curriculum or educational leadership:

Next, the first two questions above are elaborated on and a preliminary answer on them is provided. We do not consider these questions as hierarchically ordered, but rather share the view that in conceptualizing education we need to understand how individual interaction and human agency is related with socioeconomic and political structures as well a historical developments and cultural patterns (Engeström et al. 1999).

In order to understand institutional education, we must first (a) explain how a theory specifies the relation between education and other societal practices including e.g. culture, economy, politics and religion. To exemplify: how do we explain how political interests transforms into pedagogical action? Obviously national curricula, educational leadership and evaluation practices, teacher education and many other things *mediate* in complex networks between politics and schools' practices. In this respect, educational leadership is a mediating activity between different epistemic practices and value-spheres. But the question must also be put the other way around: How should education be organized, led and practiced to support and contribute to political democracy, if that is a system considered central? Naturally both questions are crucial from a curriculum and leadership perspective as practical tasks. For curriculum *theory* and educational leadership *research,* the problem is present as a *theoretical* dilemma and requires a position to be taken.

To indicate the idea of a non-affirmative position it can be contrasted with two normative-prescriptive positions frequent in contemporary curriculum theory: a reproduction-oriented model and a transformation oriented model.

From education history we know the conservative, socialization and reproduction oriented model in many versions since John Locke's book *On Education* from 1693 (see e.g. Durkheim 1893/1997; Parsons 1963; Bourdieau 1977). The radical, transformation oriented model is familiar since Rousseau's study *Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men* from 1755. The first, reproduction oriented model subordinates education to politics by locating education within the existing society or culture. Here the task of *education equals socialization* into an *existing* society and culture wherein societal practices and norms function as the guiding principles. For example, according to Dewey, education in schools should be organized according to democratic principles as schools are expected to prepare for democracy. In contrast, transformation oriented models are guided by ideals for future. In its most radical form, revolutionary or transformation-oriented education allows itself to be positioned as super-ordinate with respect to societal interests (Freire 1970/2000; Giroux 1983; McLaren 1998). Educational efforts are made legitimate by their intentions – that education may liberate citizens from oppressive social values and practices aiming at a more socially just society. The ideals to be worked towards are not yet real, but can be made real.

According to non-affirmative theory of education both socialization/reproduction models as well as transformative curriculum models, are educationally problematic, regardless if they are ideologically conservative, radical, or counter-hegemonic. One of the fundamental issues is that these positions may be counterproductive with respect to political democracy. Strongly normativeprescriptive models run the risk of manipulation, indoctrination and of turning education, curriculum work, teaching and leadership, into a technological-instrumental profession.

In the mainstream literature these models are typically considered as critical of and opposite to technical-instrumental models, such as the Tyler rationale (1949). However, the normative-prescriptive character of both socialisation and transformative curriculum and leadership models make them congruent with technological instrumentalism: to the extent values and norms are prescribed, as they are in most models above, the task for education is to fulfill these pre-determined ideals as efficiently as possible. Yet, a non-affirmative position is not value neutral as it is assumed as a theory in and for a political democracy. Transformative theories are more explicitly suggesting what interests teaching and leadership should promote within democracies. Explicitly normative models often enter a dialogue with curricula as existing policy documents. Critical discussions of such documents belong to a public debate in democracies, but the question is if a curriculum or leadership theory is to be seen as a policy document among others?

The line to be drawn between critical-transformative and a non-affirmative position is fine. Both belong to a western family of critical theories. Yet we think this difference is worth pointing out. A non-affirmative theory is critical in that it reminds of that the task of education in and for a democracy is to recognize the existing individual, cultural and societal interests, yet not affirming them, but keeping these interests open as topics for reflection. As a theoretical construct non-affirmativity asks to what extent a given practice or policy allows for teachers and learners to cocreate spaces for critical reflection, not only to substitute one ideology with another. Although education is always political, the task of education is also to prepare for political participation the forms and aims of which are not determined in advance.

Coherent with the non-affirmative theory the position developed in this chapter, education stands in a non-hierarchical relation to politics, culture and economy (Benner 2015). Education is not solely placed either "outside" or "inside" society and is thus neither super- nor subordinated with respect to politics, economy and culture, but intends to mediate between these. In this non-hierarchical conceptualization, educational institutions are given relative independence with respect to societal and other interests. It is this space that both allows for and requires reflective, professional educational leaders on each level of the education system. Discursive institutionalism then offers a language for explicating these discursively identified spaces.

It should be observed that a non-hierarchical understanding accepts that hegemonic political interests frame and influence education, but this position recognizes that if the curricular policies and practices would be reduced in the service of some political ideology, it would be in conflict with principles for democratic education. Thus, political democracy requires a specific form of critical curriculum and educational leadership, including a relative independence for educational practitioners guaranteed by the political system itself. The same holds true regarding the relation between, for example, law and politics. In the modern, post-Kantian tradition laws are established by humans themselves. In a political democracy laws are established by an elected parliament. Simultaneously, however, laws regulate political activity. In the same sense, education is partly subordinate to political influences but simultaneously superordinate with respect to politics. Education, then, prepares the subject for active citizenship and political democracy as well as for a working life to be developed by the individual. Importantly, in this tradition, the individual is prepared to transform the very same society or culture into which that person is educated, but how this is or should be done cannot be decided upon in advance thus avoiding the normativity problems associated with the two dominant perspectives.

A problem with the closed models is that they do not leave room for developing the principal's, teacher's or learner's ability to decide upon what is to be considered valuable and meaningful. Pushed to an extreme, these approaches do not prepare the individual for self-reflective decision making about the future in a democratic society. Given that the future is thought of as open and undetermined and the question of morality something that cannot ultimately be decided upon in advance, the individual's cultural competence to critical reflection – autonomy, self-awareness and self-determination – is seen as something which must be developed.

The second question above (b) includes an expectation that any theory of educational relevance must explain human educational interaction. Although the individual can learn in and from all kinds of situations, all possible human interaction cannot reasonably be considered as educational or pedagogical in nature. Where, then, does educational interaction start and where does it end? Is there something we have to presuppose in order for education to be possible? For what reasons or ends would education be necessary? While the first question above (a) point at aims and contents of education, this second question (b) asks about the methods of education. How do we explain how teachers and learners' activities are related? How do we understand pedagogical leadership in contrast to other forms of leadership? How does educational leadership relate to teaching? Although educational leadership and teaching refer to different professions, what would the differences and similarities, given that both work with and relate to aims, contents and methods of education? Can educational leadership at a district or national level be seen as educational interaction of some kind?

In this chapter a *non-affirmative* position regarding pedagogical work is defended, regardless if we talk about teaching, educational leadership or curriculum work at the national level. The two previously described normative-prescriptive conceptions regarding the relation between education and societal development correspond to affirmative education. Affirmative education theory means that a theoretical position for curriculum, education or leadership is ideologically explicit regarding what interests and aims practitioners should affirm, regarding the present situation, or then regarding aims considered important for future needs of society. A dilemma with such an ideologically loaded position is that it runs the risk of ending up in manipulative education. Affirming a given reality, given values or future ideals can mean to uncritically relate one's professional practice to these. Affirmative teaching would be concerned with that learners really reach certain aims as given. An affirmative attitude ends up having a fundamental dilemma: to the extent that aims are given and accepted, educational leadership and teaching is expected to fulfill these resulting in a technical rationale for teaching and leadership.

In contrast, this chapter argues for the *non-affirmative* position. This means, for example, that existing knowledge, values or ideals are recognized but not affirmed. Non-affirmative education then means, in the pedagogical situation, to focus on the questions to which existing practices, experiences, norms or knowledge are seen as answers. By learning to understand how contemporary practices are seen as answers to given problems the learner is expected to develop a reflective relation not only to the answers provided (positive knowledge) in order to evaluate their relevance or accuracy, but also to develop an awareness regarding the questions behind the answers. This awareness includes reflection on in whose interest certain questions are. Of equal importance is the ability to learn to formulate new answers to old questions as well as to produce totally new questions to be answered. This means that irrespective of what values or norms education confess to, education cannot be about socializing the learners into these norms and values. The norms themselves must be brought into question for educational reasons. They are to be recognized, but not affirmed in order to create a pedagogical space for the learner to step back and see how one-self relate to these. In this respect non-affirmative education theory is clearly a critical theory. Some critical theories again are of course critical to existing hegemony. A counter-hegemonical discourse is crucial for any democracy. The question we raise is how valid such a position is as a foundation for education?

Our support of non-affirmative education theory is also grounded in that this approach lies, as will be demonstrated, at the heart of the western, modern tradition of education theory developed by "the classics". In our argumentation we rely on Dietrich Benners and others' reconstruction of this modern tradition, that for the most part has become forgotten. In order not to fall behind a theoretical level that is already attained such a historical awareness is necessary. We clearly understand that this such a position has developed within a given cultural, political and economic tradition. As will be shown this position was a response when leaving the dominating religious cosmology as societal or cultural "root metaphor".

The reason to why non-affirmative pedagogy reminds of pragmatism (Dewey), neo-pragmatism and deliberative democracy (Habermas) consist of their common roots. Both positions argue that there is an interdependent relation between education and politics. Also deliberative democracy requires individuals capable of participation in such a democracy. However, from a non-affirmative education theory perspective, a theory of how a deliberative democracy works is something else than a theory of educational preparation for participation in such a democracy. If this distinction is not identified there is a risk of ending up in normative-socialization oriented pedagogy again, now with deliberative democracy as the directing norm. Education "theory" would then reduced, once more, to drawing implications and developing prescriptive recommendations from e.g. sociology, psychology, cultural studies, ethics or the like, for how teaching should be organized to best prepare the learner.

We think that non-affirmative education theory is reflected in Bill Pinar's understanding of curriculum as complicated conversation. Pinar et al. (1995) observes that "Curriculum, then, is a provocation to reflect on and to think critically about ourselves, our families, our society" (p. 267). As we will see this kind of theory about educational activity, i.e. provocation to think critically, falls back on a long tradition of being aware of the difference between theory of Bildung and theory of education and how they are related.

#### *The Modern Roots of Education: Cultural-Historical Grounding of Theory*

There is another reason to why we think it is not only valuable but also fruitful to turn to the German-Nordic tradition of general education to find a platform for coherently approaching educational leadership, curriculum and Didaktik. The reason is simply that the present day education dilemmas pointed out in the beginning of this chapter are not entirely new. The dilemmas we face today have a history, but not any history but a very specific one. It is the history of dealing with the question not only of how to educate in and for a pluralist society, but also to deal with the question of how education can, in principle, prepare the growing generation for a future that is not known by us? This move towards education for a future that is not known is one of the core dilemmas of modern education and schooling. How to support the development of the individual's cultural, economic and political citizenship, and educate for a society featured by mutual recognition and respect for differences, simultaneously creating societal cohesion without violating individual rights? The modern education theory was, in the end, a response to how to organize education in and for a pluralist society that left both religious frame of reference and a society built on given social classes.

These are questions we need answers to also today. Luckily these questions and answers to them are known to us as historical insights in the discipline of education. As principled dilemmas they point at those questions and answers that were identified in moving from a pre-modern to a modern societal order, i.e. moving from a pre-determined (teleological) cosmology to a view of the future as radically open where man no longer was only seen as law-abiding but also as law-making and where education became structured by a stepwise evolving nation state and new political order. The American revolution (1765–1783) and the European revolution (1789) came to be not only symbolic but historical turning points in this respect. The long history leading up to these occurrences included rethinking education. Is it too far-reaching to look back 200 years in order to find solutions for today's dilemmas? Our answer is a no. We argue that the modern classics of education theory like Rousseau, Fichte, Herbart, Schleiermacher, and also Dewey later on, formulated educational theory positions offering answers for the new postrevolutionary era. We think these philosophers of modernity and modern education developed conceptual categories and structures by which we still live, but have sometimes forgotten (Mollenhauer 2014). It is fascinating that these contributions were introduced as philosophical theories 100 years before any democratic societies were established, but they were not abandoned but rather built upon during the whole twentieth century until this day. These early contributions were not limited to teaching, curriculum or leadership alone but presented broader approaches to how education was to be understood. We argue for that *a reconstructive visit* to the core ideas in this tradition may revitalize and guide us in defining and specifying questions and answers to be provided.

The first two questions (a) and (b) above constitute the core challenges in any education theory as we know of since ancient times. These questions were answered differently by the modern or classic education theory, as developed since Rousseau onwards including Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Herbart and Schleiermacher, i.e. as developed between 1760s and 1830s (Benner 2015; Uljens 2002; Schaffar and Uljens 2015). Our intention is to ask and answer to what extent this *modern* mode of theorizing education, as developed by these classics, is still relevant? And why should we bother about in asking if these classics make sense for us? There are mainly two reasons for this.

The first is connected to the fact that the modern, or today classic, education theory was developed parallel to the establishment of the modern concept of the pluralist, independent and liberal nation-state and a corresponding concept of the subject, not determined by origin, heritage or anything else This modern view of man, in contrast to a pre-modern conception thus recognized the subject as free or indetermined. The establishment of freedom of speech, religion and thought, as well as abandoning the religious idea of a predetermined cosmological development required a dramatic reform of educational thinking and theory. Previous religious cosmopolitanism as a regulating idea for explaining what it meant to be a human being and develop as such, was stepwise, by and large, replaced by the concept of the autonomous citizen in the independent nation-state. Consequently, the *modern* society could no longer manage with a *pre-modern* theory of education. The task of a pre-modern theory of education was about socialization the subject into a given order and future. Despite the original sin the individual was seen as free to make up her mind regarding the predetermined options available.

When religion stepwise was replaced by humanism and later with language as the constitutive dimension for nation-state, new building blocks were established framing education. Now education was supporting the birth of a man expected to make herself. Modern education was to prepare for a society that was in a stage of continuous development. Norms and values could be renegotiated. Westerners learned to live with the question of good life as an open one. Language was upheaved not only to a functional role but was made a constitutive question of personal and collective identity by e.g. Herder. An education for a pluralist society was created. We see that the challenges regarding unity and plurality have remained but that they have received new shapes. Today societies are more plural than ever, as societies have become increasingly multicultural, while at the same time increasingly interdependent both locally and globally. Modern education thus corresponded to a moving from an agricultural to an industrial society. In the agricultural society education as reproductive socialization was good enough, in the modern industrial society the individual's role and position was no longer given. In essence modern theory of education originally was an answer to the same principled dilemmas we experience today. Yet, educational theory as well as the discipline of education has in many instances lost the connections to its own roots as a discipline. This is why historical engagement with seminal ideas may be fruitful (Uljens 2002).

Modern, or classic, European theory of education was developed along with the establishment of the ideas for the modern *nation-state*, abandoning previous forms of teleological views of societal development (Benner 2015). Through versions of enlightenment, human reason and rationality were elevated as to replace faith (Autio 2009). Education turned out as a crucial project for the nation-state from the beginning of the nineteenth century. How education was envisioned as a solution was evident in Fichte's *Addresses to the German Nation* (1808). This project was built upon the idea of establishing a connection between language, culture and state formation. In this concept religion was no longer considered crucial as the moral laws were to be established by man himself. While religious cosmology point beyond the particularity of the nation-state – towards spatial universality and temporal eternity, the modern project connects the concept of people as 'demos' (political citizenship) and 'ethnos' (cultural citizenship). In the beginning of this nation-state era, citizenship as cultural identity and religion was promoted over citizenship as political participation. Today the idea of education is, therefore, connected to a political-democratic citizenship idea, both in terms of that education was to be equally offered to each and everyone, but also that education was to prepare individuals for political participation, economic life and culture. The recent policy, education for the globalized competition state, is redefining concept of citizenship emphasizing the subject, not as a cultural or political citizen but as an economic one.

The seminal ideas developed in modern education theory were a response to an evolving new political, economical and cultural order. But these ideas were also partly utopian in that they presented ideas of how something could be, rather than they described as reality that was present. In a sense, the ideas regarding the task of education presented by of the classics were visionary as they went beyond their own contemporary societal practices and cultural contexts. In other words, these ideas were developed before any political democracies were established more broadly. Yet contemporary educational theory, curriculum and leadership research has to a large extent lost their connections to the seminal ideas of modern, western education theory. The loss of these roots make true progression difficult.

The point made here is that the demonstrated need to conceptually and practically rethink nation-state education reminds of what process the modern nation states lived through when the prevailing educational systems and philosophies were established (Oelkers 2000). There is a question of continuity and discontinuity. To what extent are we able to keep to seminal concepts of education developed as a response to the modern nation state? And to what extent are we forced to rethink citizenship as well as educational research, philosophy, policy and practice in the light of globalization? In order to accomplish this task, we will contribute to a reconstruction of fundamental tensions, issues and features of modern educational thought with a focus on post-Kantian educational thought as developed by Fichte, Schleiermacher and Herbart.

We do not make this argument in order to defend any classic philosopher or position in education. Further, this argument does not indicate a naïve relation to modernity. On the contrary, we emphasize a 'self-reflective consciousness of modernity itself' (Heller 1999). We see 'modernity' as one among many ways to organize and understand the individual, society and the world. But in order to move beyond contemporary positions and develop traditions, an insight in fundamental assumptions is necessary (Paraskeva 2016).

Another reason why we claim it is important to engage in the seminal ideas of modern education theory is that we today experience increasingly new forms of transnational organizational, national, corporeal, etc. aggregations of various kinds, new interdependencies and common challenges which require us to redefine what an "autonomous subject in an independent nation-state" is.

#### *The Return of Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism*

The third of the questions (c) pointed out above to be answered by a contemporary theory of education is that of cosmopolitanism. As a topic, cosmopolitanism has re-occurred many times in European history but always in new constellations and with new motives (e.g. Papasthephanou 2016). For example, both Kant and Herbart proposed cosmopolitanism as an ideal. "*Das Weltbeste*" (Kant 1915), meaning the best for the world, rather than private or national interests, was to be the aim of education (Perander 1883). What is needed today is a renewed and extended discussion on cosmopolitanism and the modern, nation-state centered heritage (e.g. Brincat 2009; Moland 2011). With the most recent 'globalization' movement, cosmopolitanism is back on the agenda after about 200 years of establishing independent, legal states (Rechtsstaat) based on some concept of collective nationhood, often invented around language, formal equity of citizens and history (Fichte 2009; Lewellen 2002). And while we recognize there have been perennial dominance and oppression issues with regards to language and distinctions among dialects, race/ethnicity, and class, the contemporary situation of *globopolitanism* is also radically different in many regards.

Whereas already Immanuel Kant replaced cosmopolitanism based on religion with universal principles of ethics, we today experience new, previously unseen *practical cosmopolitanism* or, rather, as we choose to call it, *globopolitanism.* In addition, with globalization, i.e. an ever increasing political, economical and technological process and policy of increasing interconnectedness, we witness a need for a better understanding of not how such processes are related to those processes within nation states. Many different transnational agreements and organizations today frame intentions and initiatives on the nation state level. Understanding educational leadership and curriculum today also must include the understanding of how nation states operate in relation to each other and in transnational aggregations. Educational leadership and curriculum theory, therefore, cannot be limited to the above two classical, questions but must be reconsidered in light of the global dimension. We argue this is a direction where curriculum theory, educational leadership and policy research should be moving, and, with this volume, we begin this direction.

Globalization involve crucial developments with implications for curriculum work and policy as well as educational leadership and teaching. Globalization has many faces and is not least connected to technological developments as well as increased economic interdependencies. At other times globalization presents itself as *cosmopolitanism*. In an educational context cosmopolitanism can, and is to be seen as a question of educational *ideals*, *contents and methods.* But globalization as cosmopolitanism is also visible in the form of new interstate, international and transnational *governance practices*, policies, and procedures, including curriculum work and educational evaluation. Cosmopolitanism as a discourse on educational ideals reflected in curricula, and cosmopolitanism as interrelated governing and governance practices, are interrelated in complex ways. While the dilemma of cosmopolitanism as an educational ideal connect strongly to curriculum as a policy document, conceptually analyzed by Didaktik and curriculum theory, we see new transnational governance practices appearing as new empirical and conceptual challenges for educational leadership. We argue that these two forms regarding how education has developed with respect to global dimensions (cosmopolitanism as ideals and cosmopolitanism as policy practices) are to be treated in connection to, and not disparate, from each other. We perceive of educational governance and leadership as discursive practices at school, regional, nation-state and transnational levels, as well as in interactions between these (Uljens 2016; Uljens and Ylimaki 2015). These practices involve the making and practicing of politically agreed curriculum. The question is, then, how should a theory be constituted as to frame and deconstruct these dimensions?

It was previously concluded that the global or transnational level has complicated educational leadership, curriculum and evaluation. In our approach, we identify several levels of educational leadership as it relates to curriculum work with the intention to answer how the dynamics between, within and across these levels may be approached. It is not like this development has been hidden, on the contrary, empirically it is in front of everybody's eyes. Consequently, we have seen many languages and approaches developing around how the multi-level, multi-centered, and multi-professional processes should be approached. We see functionalist translation theory, systems theory and Luhmann inspired theory of policy borrowing (Steiner-Khamsi), network theories, Marxist inspired world systems theory (Wallerstein) and various versions of institutionalism (Frontini 2009). Few of these approaches have been developed with the core dilemmas of education as the ones to be solved. Most often the approaches advocated would be equally valid for understanding social work or health care. There is nothing wrong with that, except that education as a phenomenon (with curriculum, teaching and leadership as key dimensions) is treated as something what it may not be and as remaining blind for the complexity involved. In contrast, we navigate and position ourselves in this landscape by the help of education theory, not as our roadmap but rather as our guiding question aimed at reconstructing dominant positions.

#### *A Comparative Perspective*

From a nation-state perspective these shifts in governance, commodification of education and pluralizing of identities reconstitutes the role of education for building social cohesion and national identity (Robertson 2006; Uljens et al. 2013). Especially in Europe with a tradition of "thick" states compared to a model of "thin" state in the USA, the policy shift is foundational. The Nordic welfare state has been built on the assumption of mutual positive effects between economic growth, welfare, educational equality as well as cultural and political citizenship. Movements towards entrepreneuralization of the subject have been received differently in the USA with a tradition of education more as a private rather than public good. More recent developments towards strengthening of nationalism all over the world, not the least in Europe, USA and Russia may be a reaction to economic liberalisation. In light of the complexity of the contemporary situation described above, we propose the need for a new approach to comparative methodology as well.

#### **Aim of This Chapter**

This chapter and the contributions included in this volume are, in different ways, part of a larger project and movement initiated and led by the co-editors with the expressed aim to develop a coherent non-affirmative theoretical framing (Benner 1991, 2005, 2015) for educational leadership and curriculum theorizing and Didaktik (Uljens 2015, 2016; Uljens and Ylimaki 2015; Ylimaki et al. 2016; Ylimaki and Uljens 2017; Uljens and Ylimaki 2017). Over the past 4–5 years (2013–2017) the co-editors have contributed to and engaged a wide range of prominent European and American scholars from the traditionally disparate fields of educational leadership and curriculum theory/Didaktik in a series of sessions, symposia and presentations at in Europe and USA (Uljens and Ylimaki 2017).

This initiative connects to and expands beyond the transatlantic dialogue on Didaktik and curriculum theory started in the beginning of 1990s (Hopmann and Riquarts 1995). Both projects share the idea to "investigate Didaktik and curriculum theory as historically evolved forms of reflection within the social system" (Hopmann 1992, 2015). The present project expands the focus in two ways.

Methodologically a meta-theoretical level is made use of with three guiding core questions: (a) how to specify the task of education in a democratic society; (b) how do we explain the nature of educational interaction; and (c) how can or should the above questions be treated at different levels within a nation-state (national, district, and school level) and beyond a nation state level. On the first question (a) a nonhierarchical understanding regarding the relations between education, politics, culture and economy is defended. Such a position is fundamental for democratic education as it avoids the pitfalls of functionalist and strong normative approaches to leadership and curriculum. The second question (b) argues for a non-affirmative interpretation of teaching, educational leadership and curriculum work. This question is opened up is handled by three classic education concepts – recognition, summoning to self-activity and *Bildsamkeit* as these are constitutive for a *non-affirmative* view for democratic education. The third question relates to cosmopolitanism and its necessary counterpart, i.e. individual and national identity, and citizenship. Moving from being an abstract, theoretical idea, cosmopolitanism has developed into an empirical reality; however, educational theory, leadership and curriculum research has only recently and still to a very limited extent developed a reflected position on cosmopolitanism and globalization. The nation-state perspective has dominated. We conclude that this theoretical framework allows us to more coherently conceptualize and study curriculum as policy and practice, educational leadership and teaching. In addition, a non-hierarchical position offers a foundation for discursive institutionalism valuable for understanding school work from a policy perspective.

Consonant with this purpose, this chapter is organized into four main sections. First, we analyze curriculum theory/Didaktik and educational leadership studies, including a discussion of strengths and limitations. Second, we present our general framework that considers core concepts and literature on non-hierarchical and nonaffirmative relations from general education theory, organizational theory, and discursive institutionalism that address the shortcomings from curriculum theory/ Didaktik and leadership studies, as well as cosmopolitanism as an educational ideal, and cosmopolitanism as empirical transnational relations. Fourth, our conclusions open the following chapters in the volume.

The first two sections analyses literature from two distinct fields, educational leadership and curriculum theory/Didaktik. Specifically, we examine strengths and weaknesses and then identify a shortcoming common to literature in both fields, a blind spot that, in our view, points toward the need for a new general framework that merges and extends educational leadership and curriculum theory/Didaktik. As it is not possible or meaningful within this frame to describe all varieties, we aim to identify core issues and distinctions.

#### **Theorizing in Didaktik and Curriculum Studies**

As the aim is to contribute a theoretical framework not only bridging European *Didaktik* and the Anglo-American *curriculum studies* but also to find out how these may be related to *educational leadership studies* in a broad understanding of the concept, we are engaged in a complex comparative dialogue. It is a dialogue moving across disciplines and fields of research, between epistemological schools and research methodologies, and between traditions in different countries and continents. Needless to say, such an attempt is a challenging undertaking. Within both fields of research considerable variation may be found. In addition, between European countries there is a variation in how education and curriculum is theorized. The same holds true for the US, although writing the US tradition equals

writing the history of one European country. Despite a long and still ongoing dialogue on Didaktik and curriculum between US and Europe (Hopmann and Riquarts 1995; Hamilton 2000; Hamilton and Gudmundsdottir 1994) insight in each others traditions is weak. Some approach may attain significant interest in a country or two, but are hardly known in neighbouring countries. Also contemporary developments in one of the continents can pass relatively unnoticed in the other. For example, the remarkable Dewey interest in the 1990s remained for a long time mainly a movement within anglo-saxon discourse, including Scandinavian research, but hardly noticed in continental Europe (Oelkers 2000). As English has become the dominating 'lingua franqua' of Western academic discourse, parallelled by globalisation this has put non-english speaking countries in a very different position regarding their voices on education. Furthermore, in Didaktik we are talking about a historically seen very long tradition of different ways of structuring teaching, curriculum and education in general.

Although partly representing different approaches, curriculum studies and Didaktik have over time been mutually influential between US and Europe (Gundem 1995; Kansanen 1995, 2009; Kliebard 2004; Hamilton 2000). Joseph Dolch (1965) reminds us that the word 'curriculum' has occurred both in English and German but that while the notion survived in English, it was first replaced in the german tradition by 'Lehrplan' (instructional/teaching plan) by the end of eighteenth century. The curriculum term made its way back to Europe in the end of 1960s by Saul Robinsohn who, in turn, was influenced by Dewey's pragmatism (Robinsohn 1972). However, Dolch (1965, p. 359) observed that the distinction between a subjectcentered and a child-centered curriculum in U.S. corresponds to a movement from a 'Lehrplan' to a 'Bildungsplan' in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, both acknowledging, on the one hand, structuring the contents and subject matter and, on the other, organization of teaching according to the learner's varying needs. In the U.S., the child centered, learning psychological approach to curriculum, originally based on Thorndike's idea of content neutral, psychological principles, grew strong early on.

Sometimes the differences are larger within Europe than between Europe and the US. Hudson and Meyer (2011) has argued that the increasing differentiation of Didaktik in Europe has resulted in a need to seek for common grounds within Didaktik. It is not clear how Didaktik should be understood as the research on teaching and learning has become very differentiated with various influences (Terhart 2009). In addition, European Didaktik has gained renewed interest in China (Bu et al. 2016; Chi-Kin Lee and Kennedy 2017), although European and German Didaktik was introduced in China via Japan already in the early 1900s (Deng 2016; Kennedy and Chi-Kin Lee 2016) when Herbartianism spreading also to the USA and Finland.

Most approaches to Didaktik, like theories of (general) education (Allgemeine Pädagogik), are directed by the ambition to cover both theory of Bildung (aims and contents) and theory of teaching (educational influence) in a systematic manner. *Theory of Bildung* traditionally then includes reflection on the aims of education and how selected cultural contents may support reaching these aims, while *theory of education* explicates those educative interactions involved in treating the contents for reaching given aims. Making use of these distinctions a first step must be a delineation structuring of the fields of Didaktik and curriculum studies with respect to the two questions posed as necessary for any theory of education to answer, i.e. (a) how educational interaction is explained, and (b) how the relation between education and other societal practices like politics, education and culture is defined. From a Didaktik perspective, however, questions of aims, contents and methods, or the why, what, and how of teaching are valid for both questions.

#### *Historical Developments: From Pre-modern to Modern Didaktik*

Historical studies have played an important role in Didaktik. Primarily this research has focused on the curriculum as a policy document and how it has developed (e.g. Sivesind 2008) or the history of ideas have dominated (Schaller 1995; Benner 1993, 1995; Gundem 2010). In order to understand the field both perspectives are required.

Although the contemporary western theory of education and teaching often relate to both ancient greeks and to rennaisance (fourteenth to seventeenth century) thinking the literature on Didaktik does not always point out features of these traditions compared with our contemporary, modern thinking. For this reason it is useful to discern between premodern and modern education theory (Benner 1991; Schaffar and Uljens 2015). The difference between these are related to the *paradox of learning* and teaching. We are familiar with the pre-modern paradox of learning as present in Plato's writings about the young *Menon's* learning of mathematics. Plato asks us how we should explain learning given that we cannot search for knowledge if we don't know what to look for. And, on the other hand, if we had knowledge it would obviously no longer be necessary to look for it. Plato's answer to this dilemma was the *nativist* one: paradoxically he claims that the condition for *reaching* knowledge is to already possess that knowledge, which obviously is paradoxical. How does he construct his case? According to his form of nativism a soul is connected to the individual by birth. This soul contains all eternal knowledge but the individual is unaware of that. Given this, the individual's knowledge cannot come from outside, e.g. from a teacher. Instead, the learner, according to Plato, had to learn to strive at reaching "in-sight", search for something that she already possessed. In other words, in this paradox the learner has to reach something she already has. The teacher's role is to direct the learner's attention by questions so that the learner may reach what she already is in possession of.

The Christian theological version of the paradox is also pre-modern. According to this version the paradox emanated from the view of man being created in God's image (1 Moses 26–27) and yet standing before the task of fulfilling this "likeness". The concept of *Bildung* (Ge. Bild meaning picture, image) has these roots. According to the Judeo-Christian doctrine, human beings are in need of maturing and becoming worthy of His image, while at the same time it is forbidden to make any image of Him (cf. the Ten Commandments). This dynamics, to strive for something that one cannot picture in advance, and of which one already is an image of is paradoxical (Meister Eckhart), and has since been a crucial dilemma of *Bildung* (Schaffar and Uljens 2015). For the major seventeenth century developers of Didaktik (e.g. Comenius) Christian cosmology was self-evident, a given. All education had the preparation for eternal life as its ultimate aim.

The paradox of learning changes in leaving the above described predetermined, pre-modern cosmology. By moving from a premodern to a modern *ateleological* view of individual and cosmological change, i.e. to viewing the future as indeterminate and not moving towards a given end, and the individual as no longer as predetermined, also the paradox of learning changes. Freedom and autonomy becomes key-concepts around which the modern paradox evolves.

Modern educational thought, from Rousseau and onwards, reformulated the premodern pedagogical paradox or paradox of learning. One of the cornerstones of modern pedagogy is the notion that autonomy (Mündigkeit) as the highest objective of education – discerning thought and action regarding issues of both knowledge and values. According to Herbart, moral freedom means following the reflected will, not acting conventionally from impulse or emotion. Consequently, education consists in the summoning of the Other to reflect over, for instance, the reasonableness of one's own will in relation to others and to the interests of others. Educating the *will* is then about the cultivation of discernment with the help of reason.

In modern theories of Didaktik knowledge is not considered to exist within the individual before experience nor that knowledge is transferred to the individual. Rather, education is often viewed as provocation to self-reflection. However, in order for the individual to transcend her present state, to reach autonomy, become self-directed, culturally free and reach competence to reflect, she must, according to this line of reasoning, already be conceived of as being autonomous, free and selfreflecting. This modern paradox of education is that education thus seem to presuppose the very existence of that which coming to existence education is considered necessary for. Expressed differently, in order for education to be possible there must *be a somebody* who's reflection is provoked, but simultaneously it is thought that the individual *becomes a somebody*, i.e. through the process starting with a provocation. Still differently stated, the pedagogical paradox concerns the following dilemma: in order for education to be possible the individual must be free and selfactive, and simultaneously, in order for the individual to become free and self-active education is necessary. Again we face the problem of how the individual can become something that she already is. The modern version of paradox is to consider the learner as already *being* able to do what she may *become* able to (Benner 1991, p. 71; Uljens 2002). Using this argument for understanding teaching it is assumed that the learner can reach cultural, productive freedom (ability to act), only by being recognized and treated as if she already is free (or reflective, capable, trustworthy). Teaching is therefore understood as an invitation, intervention or provocation, a violation, disturbance or expectation concerning the Others relation to herself, world and others. Teaching is to *recognize* somebody *as if* she *already* is capable of doing what she is supposed to *become* capable of – and act accordingly (Benner 1991). When discussing Didaktik, first, in terms of a relation between school and society and, second, as teaching-studying-learning process (Uljens 1997b) the above mentioned distinctions are interwoven in the following two paragraphs.

#### *Didaktik as Theory About Educational Interaction*

It is quite obvious that *Didaktik* is widely considered a field of research and theorizing focusing on primarily *educational interaction*, especially from the perspective of initial teacher preparation (Jank and Meyer 2002). This is evident also in the etymology. 'Didaktik' originates from the Greek 'didáskō', which meant to demonstrate, show or teach. 'Didaskalos' (διδάσκαλος) referred to the teacher. This term was also used in the Old and New Testament for a teacher of religion (Gundem 2010).

Historically, much research in both curriculum and Didaktik has focused either on epistemological, ethical, ontological, political, cultural, organisational, institutional and psychological foundations of *substantial dimensions* (aims, contents, methods, media) *of teaching*, or on the process aspect of curriculum as a *plan for teaching*, i.e. how curricula are constructed (initiated), communicated (implemented) and practiced (institutionalized) (Hopmann 2003). Following Hamilton's (2000) conclusions, modern didactics and curriculum arose "from a crucial distinction: the separation between the activity of 'teaching' from the activity of defining 'that which is taught' (p. 62). Before, this distinction between methods and contents was not made.

According to a widely accepted understanding, the German-Nordic Didaktiktradition of today would connect the mastery of subject matter as a necessary prerequisite for teaching activity, while the Anglo-American tradition (Tyler 1949) to a larger degree have treated principles of teaching as separate from any specific content. Instead reflection of methods would be grounded in psychological learning theory. Yet, these different positions have merged the past two decades. 'Didactics' may be contrasted with 'Mathetics' "for which the focus was the learner and the process of learning, as attested by the Socratic method of eliciting knowledge from the mind of a person through interrogation and logical reasoning (Maieutics)" (Sousa 2015, p. 282). This antique tradition of dialectic or dialogue centered reflection on education was focused on engaging the learner or the student in an reflective process. Dialectics rather than rhetorics made up the core of the teaching-studyinglearning process (Myhre 1976; Uljens 1997a). Later, for Descartes 'mathesis universalis' referred to general theory of quantities and proportions (Mittelstrass 1979).

Pierre de la Ramée (1515–1572) is often recognized as one of the first to use the word *curriculum* to signify goals and content for teaching while St. Victor in Paris in his *Didascalicon* from 1120 emphasized dialectics instead of rhetorics. Nordkvelle (2003) demonstrates how this dialectic tradition, where teaching was strongly connected to stepwise verbal commentary of the contents of a book in order to reveal its idea and structure for the student (lectio, meditatio), transformed into Didaktik. In essence, it was the rising number of universities and students attending classes that led to more structured presentations and monologic dictating of the contents (Nordkvelle 2003). However, with fifteenth century Italian *humanism* dialectics, classical rhetorics and dialogue were rediscovered from Antiquity, e.g. Quintilianus' (35–96) *Institutio Oratoria* consisting of 12 volumes describing the development from childhood to the adult speaker able to participate in public life. Hamilton (1995, 2000) argues that the mass schooling towards the end of the sixteenth century went through an "instructional turn" regarding how an existing body of knowledge, later a syllabus, could be organised to more effectively enhance learning (Hamilton 1995, 2000).

In this context the dynamic and vivid developments of Didaktik starting from the dialectic and rhetorical traditions of Antiquity, as well as transformations during the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Humanism can, however, not be explored. For extensive studies in history of Didaktik and curriculum research we refer to e.g. Diederich (1988), Schaller (1995), Nordkvelle (2003), Gundem (2010), and Hamilton (2000).

The intention of one of the classics in Didaktik, Johan Amos Comenius' (1592– 1670) *Didactica Magna* (Comenius 1907/1633), aimed at presenting general principles valid for teaching of any contents. Comenius' idea was that the teacher reflects the contents (what), methods (how), when and in what order as well as with what kind of aids (Kroksmark 1989; Sadler 2007). Teaching principles transcending the contents have been starting from the familiar and moving to the unfamiliar, moving from the simple to complex, starting from sensory experiences in order to reach understanding through reason and pointing out the relation between principles and examples. Thus, despite continuous tensions, *subject matter Didaktik* (Ge. Fachdidaktik) and *general Didaktik* describe the same process but from different angles (Hultman et al. 2012). General Didaktik focuses on general principles.

In teaching, the teacher's task was to extrapolate the *educative qualities* (Bildungsgehalt) of the *selected contents* (Bildungsinhalt). To this end Didaktik aims at being a vehicle or a tool for thinking about or for reflecting education. Didaktik turns the teacher's attention towards the idea and character of the educational activity itself as it is related to aims and contents, as well as to the teacher's knowledge of the learners. For Klafki (1963) this type of pedagogical analysis (Ge. Didaktische Analyse), occurs before the actual planning of instructional and study activities.

For Wolfgang Klafki (1963), then, the idea with selecting content to be worked on had to represent or exemplify something general. It had to be exemplary and at the same time be experienced as meaningful by the student's given their present life-world or life-situation but also relevant in a future perspective. This *Bildungtheoretical (Eruditioncentered)* Didaktik continued the tradition of considering the task of teaching to develop the learner as a whole person, not just the individual's competencies.

We can now identify a difference between the Didaktik tradition in general and for example Shulman's pedagogical content analysis (Gudmundsdottir and Shulman 1987; Gudmundsdottir 1988). Bromme (1995) and Menck (1995) argues that Shulman's motive to focus pedagogical content knowledge stems from empirical studies on teacher effectiveness that identified a relationship among teachers' knowledge, treatment of contents, and successful student learning. However, because the Didaktik tradition as a whole puts the main focus on the teacher-student interaction as a reflective practice around selected cultural contents in essence as something non-predictable, this tradition stands in a radical opposition to contemporary output-centered approaches to learning, instruction and curriculum.

For the most part Didaktik has been developed as a doctrine, i.e. as principles for teaching directing planning of instruction. Didaktik is considered a field of knowledge central to the teaching profession and has a central position in teacher education programs (Jank and Meyer 2002). Given the practice oriented, methods centered and doctrinal status of the literature in Didaktik it has been a core element in teacher education over the centuries. Since its birth Didaktik has focused the structuring, sequencing, simplifying, organizing and communication of and around the teaching contents in order to facilitate learning, or rather pupils' studying hopefully resulting in learning what was intended (Uljens 1997b).

As a result, Didaktik, since Johann Amos Comenius' (i.e. Jan Koménsky) 'Didactica Magna' (originally the *Czech Didaktik*) has functioned both as "theory" or principles for teaching and a tool for lesson preparation, thereby receiving a similar role in teacher education as curriculum work did in the US (Hopmann and Riquarts 1995; Jank and Meyer 2002; Sousa 2015). Contributions to Didaktik with teacher education in mind (e.g. Wolfgang Klafki) typically emphasizes instructional planning with regards to aims, contents and especially the methods of teaching with the learner as well as the cultural context in mind, while contributions do Didaktik as curriculum theory (theory of the syllabus) looks at aims, contents and methods from a macro perspective focusing on what interests influence the making of a national curriculum so as to support transformation and reproduction of culture. However, teachers' professional development regarding their teaching competence is often not dealt within Didaktik and curriculum theory literature (e.g. Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986; Berliner 1989; Dall'Alba and Sandberg 2006; Wermke 2013).

Despite the strong emphasis on *Bildung* in European Didaktik it should also be observed that much European empirical research on teaching and learning is not explicitly framed by a Didaktik theory. Rather, learning theory developed from the 1960s to a major frame of reference for research on teaching, especially various version of cognitivism.

However, in Scandinavian curriculum research and Didaktik in the 1970 and 1980s, the contents of teaching started to receive a more central position in research on teaching and learning. Curriculum research increasingly emphasized the differences between curriculum as intended, practiced and perceived. Instead of explaining differences in learning outcomes by the help of cognitive strategies applied by the learners studying the same contents, it was no longer taken for granted that learners perceived the content of teaching similarly or in the way the textbooks or teachers did. As a result, some scholars developed different approaches to studying how the contents was perceived and understood by the learners (Marton 1981) and teachers (Doyle and Carter 1984; Shulman 1986).

The turn towards individuals' experiences naturally required new research methods to be developed. Qualitative methods in educational research building on principles from hermeneutics and phenomenology (Bengtsson 2003), represented a significant shift in empirical research on Didaktik. European-Nordic research on Didaktik combined successfully empirical phenomenological research and the growing focus on teaching contents. Rather than focusing the learner's learning strategies, learners' ways of understanding the contents described. The phenomenographic approach developed by Marton and numerous colleagues (Marton 2014) has been influential since. Phenomenology and hermeneutics have most often been applied as epistemic positions (Claesson et al. 2011) but also as ontologically oriented theory of human experience and Bildung (Gustavsson 1996; Bengtsson 2003; Kristensson-Uggla 1999, 2010). This phenomenological-hermeneutic turn in Scandinavian Didaktik significantly contributed to expand the previously dominating interest in curriculum as primarily a governance issue. In Germany Meyer-Drawe (1984) is a good exponent of this turn. However, these approaches were critiqued for disregarding sociocultural and institutional dimensions of education thereby remaining limited for understanding regarding the relation between politics and education pointed out as one of the two core questions to be answered by a theory of education.

Also cognitivist learning psychology as a foundation for research on teaching and Didaktik was criticized for disregarding the cultural and institutional context of learning. Which led to a support for a variety of sociocultural, situated and distributed approaches to learning inspired mainly by Vygotsky (e.g. Engeström 1987; Cole and Engeström 1993; Hutchins and Klausen 1990; Rogoff 1990; Lave 1988; Brown et al. 1989; Säljö 1994; Matusov 2011). These studies were mostly carried out in non-institutional learning, thus paying little attention to how organized teaching intervened in the learning (Bildung) process. Engeström (1987) developed an approach that was more relevant for Didaktik and institutional education by establishing the Scandinavian school of Vygotskian cultural-historical learning and activity theory (Engeström 2000). Further, this approach combined a contentcentered view of learning and teaching by locating this process in a larger social, cultural, historical and institutional activity system.

#### *Didaktik as Theory About the Relation Between Education and Society*

Didaktik grew into a more systematized field of reflection as a response to the sixteenth to seventeenth century developments in Europe with the embryonal construction of the modern state although teaching of reading was taken care of by the church. Naturally the printing press was a crucial technological invention allowing for a movement from an oral to a written culture (Ong 2002) that prepared for mass schooling and especially distribution of printed versions of the holy book. As the cultural institutions like the church and school were so crucial for the needs of the state it is easy to see why Didaktik covers both curriculum as the national or state based policy document (Lehrplan, syllabus, curriculum) and the practice of pedagogical or curriculum work within schools. With schools questions of teaching as separate from upbringing evolved. Also, as Hamilton (2000) reminds, the 'world of knowledge' began to be mapped pointing out the contents of teaching raising questions of how this contents should be organised to support learning (the *course* of schooling, curriculum). The questions has often been answered by describing how different levels decide on, act around and evaluate the selection of aims, content and method, i.e. curriculum work on a societal, institutional, interactional and personal level (Lundgren 2015; Gundem 2010; Reid 1994; Uljens 1997b).

In European practice of curriculum policy making the decisive selection, formulations and decisions regarding aims and contents of teaching is typically made on the nation-state level, far above each single school. Methods, in turn, have regarded primarily a topic to be decided by the teacher on the school or classroom level (methods freedom of teachers). A longstanding topic occurring in both curriculum studies and Didaktik is how the macro and micro levels connect (Goodlad 1966, Klafki 1995). While Didaktik as a field of research traditionally tries to keep together questions of aims, contents and methods of teaching as they occur different levels, in anglo-american research curriculum theory more often is discerned from instructional theory and its base in psychology or teaching contents.

While the curriculum as a public policy document, syllabus, and *Lehrplan* (since the seventeenth century in Europe) are seen as vehicles for governing the school as a state-driven public institution (Dolch 1965; Tenorth 1988) and for providing schools with the general aims of education and subject matter, such an understanding of a state or federal core curriculum is very recent in the US. In England and Wales national curricula were introduced 1988. In U.S., with a tradition of more state independent schools, the 'curriculum' has instead more often been considered a tool for local school leadership and organization of teaching (Robinsohn 1972; Hopmann and Riquarts 1995; McKernan 2008; Ylimaki 2011). While most European countries have lived through various stages of decentralisation of curriculum work the past three decades, the opposite movement have been visible in the anglophone world, thus reflecting a harmonisation across traditions.

For the Didaktik tradition, curriculum making involves an authoritative selection of contents from culture or tradition that must become embedded in the forms of teacher thinking (Hopmann 1997; Hopmann et al. 2000). This selection of contents is naturally done on a policy level as well as on a school or a teacher level. It is not surprising, then, that for one prominent twentieth century german researcher in Didaktik, Erich Weniger, Didaktik did not primarily refer to teaching methods or planning of teaching but mainly to the study of selection of contents for a curriculum as Lehrplan or syllabus (policy document) on a societal level (Weniger 1965). Today some might perceive this as the task of education policy research. As a consequence, for Weniger, Didaktik in *narrower* sense referred to the study of curriculum as a policy document while Didaktik in a *wider* sense also captures methods of teaching. Very often the opposite interpretation is found in the literature.

Throughout history, in Didaktik teaching in cognitive contents (qualification) has, in principle, been considered subordinated to and as a vehicle *aiming* at cultivation of more general capacities (reflected will, moral and rational reasoning, identity or character). That is, the selection and treatment of contents should serve educative purposes beyond learning the subject matter itself (e.g. Herbart's 'educative teaching', C. H. Judd's view of transfer; Somr and Hrušková 2014; Benner 1993). When saying that Didaktik also reflects contents in relation to the *aims* of teaching means that the core of education or Didaktik as an academic discipline is, in the end, about reflecting upon the ethical responsibility of teaching (Menck 1995). For what ends is education organized? What should the learner become?

The modern tradition, developed by Rousseau and Kant still today is a point of reference for the educational field as a whole, typically assuming that teaching and education is about dealing with how to live out our responsibility to support the student's stepwise development toward an independent cultural being and citizen able to participate in common tasks of the society, culture, politics and economy (labor market). This means that a theory of Didaktik is expected to answer how the question of pedagogical responsibility (Blankertz 1982). The ideal of the autonomous individual in the autonomous state was the regulative ideal that was transformed into a guiding point of reference for teaching.

*Didaktik – A Theory for Educative Teaching* In the German-Nordic tradition the discipline of education (Erziehungswissenschaft, Pädagogik), including Didaktik, identifies a difference between activity of *teaching* (Ge. Unterricht, Fi. opetus, Swe. undervisning) and activity of *education* (Ge. Erziehung, Fi. kasvatus, Swe. fostran). Some equate 'education' with primary socialisation typically occurring in the homes, while 'teaching' is seen as secondary socialisation that primarily would occur in schools. Others see education (Ge. Erziehung) and teaching (Ge. Unterricht) as two dimensions of one and the same process. Irrespective of position both notions refer to intentional activity to pedagogically influence the learner or student. 'Education' is focused on formation (Bildung) of the personality, i.e. supporting the individual's development towards autonomy and ability to self-directed responsible or ethically reflected action. 'Teaching', in turn, is not limited to the mere distribution of information or about training in a limited sense, but aiming at the development of learners' conceptual or theoretical understanding of a phenomenon, which also may guide future activity (Jank and Meyer 2002).

It is useful to be aware of the two different ways in which education and teaching may be considered as connected. *Empirically* seen schools always "educate" in the above sense of the word, intentionally or not (hidden curriculum): just by participating in social interaction and the practices of educational institutions values are always transferred and identities are being formed. *Theoretically* seen we may identify a more or less prescriptive relation between the two (teaching and education), i.e. that teaching always *should* educate (Jank and Meyer 2002). Through his concept of 'educative teaching' (*Erziehender Unterricht*) J. F. Herbart (1776–1841) pointed out that the primary idea or meaning of education was to support *Bildung*, i.e. the learner's development towards becoming autonomous (self-directed and responsible) and independent subject (Herbart 1908). Teaching that did not serve this educative purpose did not deserve to be called teaching but was rather about indoctrination or manipulation, according to Herbart.

As we can see Didaktik primarily focus on the why-, what- and how-questions. Especially in broader conceptions of Didaktik like the one by Wolfgang Klafki the school's responsibility is clearly to be aware and reflect upon forces framing the school. Klafki's famous 'five questions' from the 1950s express the ambition to see Didaktik as a unifying theory regarding intellectual, social, historical and psychological justification inclusion of educational contents in the curriculum: (1). What wider sense of reality is prefigured in course content?, (2). What significance does course content already have in the learner's mind?, (3). What significance does course content have for the learner's future?, (4). How does course content relate to the other elements of a school programme?, (5). How does course content stimulate the learner's own inquiries?

Since 1960s, Didaktik has often been structured according to the research paradigm specific approaches represented. A paradigmatic division was made between an empirical-analytical approach, critical theory and hermeneutics reflecting a theory of science perspective, focusing on general ontological and epistemological positions. Both erudition centered Didaktik and progressivism during the twentieth century continued in many ways the longstanding tension between so called 'formal' theories and 'material' theories of Bildung. While the 'material' theories were emphasizing the importance of learning the contents in order to be socialized into the culture, 'formal' approaches focused on education as being about the development of general capacities to reflect, to solve problems and to deliberate. One of Wolfgang Klafki's contributions to german Didaktik was to connect the two by the concept of 'categorial Bildung' (Klafki 1995). The idea was that while the content in terms of categories for understanding opens up the culture for the learner, learning to e.g. reflect, argue and communicate 'opens up' the learner for the culture.

In Scandinavian Didaktik Swedish curriculum theory research by Dahllöf (1967) and Lundgren (1972) continued the approach initiated by Erich Weniger, viewing curriculum from a nation-state perspective. Curriculum theory was here not understood as theory or principles of teaching practice but rather as a framework for understanding how the school system was governed and "how knowledge transmitted in an educational context is selected, valued and organised and how such processes can be understood" (Linné 2015). This research developed later into studying *curriculum codes i*nspired by Basil Bernstein.