Prerequisite course for this course is: ET702E Education: Perspectives on Teaching and the Teacher

The purpose of the course is for the student to develop a critical understanding of education as a project of formation. Furthermore, the course aims to deepen students’ understanding of education as a complex process of personal change and interpersonal influence. The course also aims to deepen students’ knowledge of academic genres within educational theory.

The course asks questions such as, “What is formation?”, “Who is formed, and by whom?” and “Why are we educated?”. The course provides an introduction to historical and contemporary understandings of formation through education and fundamental ideas about formation through education will be discussed and challenged. The course will critically examine established educational aims such as citizenship, democracy, personal autonomy and freedom. In addition, academic reading and writing will be explored as a central part of the methodology of educational theory.

Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to

The course is based on regular lectures, seminars, workshops and joint study. There will beopportunities for feedback between the students throughout the course.

Test 1: Written exam (Skriftlig examination), 10 credits. This test examines learning outcomes 1 and 2.

Test 2: Oral exam (Muntlig examination), 5 credits. This test examines learning outcome 3.

The course coordinator will provide information about grading criteria at the start of the course.

It must be possible to distinguish between individual performances for all assessments.

Aristotle (2004). The Nichomachean Ethics. London: Penguin Classics (336 p)

Bridges, David & Smith, Richard (2007). Philosophy, Methodology and Educational Research. Malden, MA: Wiley (372 p)

Curren, Randall (2017). Why character education? IMPACT: Philosophical Perspectives on Education Policy, (24), pp. 1–44 (44 p)

Gatens, Moira (2020). Singularity, similarity, and exemplarity in Spinoza’s philosophy. Ethics and Education, 15:2, pp. 200-212 (12 p)

Gur–Ze’ev, Ilan (2002). Bildung and critical theory in the face of postmodern education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36, pp. 391-408 (18 p)

Hesse, Hermann (2000). The Glass Bead Game. London: Vintage (530 p)

Humboldt, Wilhelm von (2000). Theory of Bildung. In: Westbury, Ian, Hopmann, Stefan & Riquarts, Kurt (eds.),Teaching as a Reflective Practice: The German Didaktik Tradition. London: Routledge (pp. 57-62) (5 p)

Masschelein, Jan & Ricken, Norbert (2003). Do We (Still) Need the Concept of Bildung? Educational Philosophy and Theory, 35:2, pp. 139-154 (15 p)

Masschelein, Jan & Simons, Maarten (2013). In Defence of the School: A Public Issue. Leuven: E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers (150 p) (available on internet)

Mollenhauer, Klaus (2014). Bildsamkeit: trusting that children want to learn. In: Mollenhauer, Klaus & Friesen, Norm (eds.), Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing. London: Routledge (pp. 56-83) (28 p)

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1992). Ecce Homo. London: Penguin Classics (144 p)

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1979). Emile or On Education. New York: Basic Books (501 p)

Shelley, Mary J. (2003). Frankenstein. Or the modern Prometheus. London: Penguin Classics (352 p)

Woolf, Virginia (2008). To the Lighthouse. Oxford: Oxford University Press (328 p)

Malmö University provides students who participate in, or who have completed a course, with the opportunity to express their opinions and describe their experiences of the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarise the results of course evaluations. The University will also inform participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures taken in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).

If a course is no longer offered, or has undergone significant changes, the students must be offered two opportunities for re-examination based on the syllabus that applied at the time of registration, for a period of one year after the changes have been implemented.

If a student has a Learning support decision, the examiner has the right to provide the student with an adapted test, or to allow the student to take the exam in a different format. The syllabus is a translation of a Swedish source text.