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Welcome to the Bildung, education and subject didactics in the Anthropocene Epoch conferenceÌý

Place: Online.
Organisers: ¹û¶³´«Ã½, Sweden and EBAN.
Dates: January 11-12, 2022.
Registration closed
Call for paper closed
Detailed program
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We live in the age of the Anthropocene. Humanity’s ecological footprint and climate change are vitally concerning for the earth’s future. Hence, education must respond to this emergency. However, tensions surface when combining the survival of life on the planet and existential human meaning into curricular development. One tension concerns the role of traditional school subjects. On the one hand, Education for Sustainable Development is often associated with a holistic inter- or transdisciplinary curriculum instead of a fragmentized, subject-based curriculum. On the other hand, school subjects are non-arbitrary constructs and carriers of specialised knowledge needed to examine and explain the world. From this perspective, general skills and transdisciplinary learning cannot replace a subject-based curriculum.

The Bildung concept can be useful for exploring tensions and values in teaching and learning. The notion of Bildung is concerned with the progressive liberation of humanity to itself; in the Anthropocene, this ambition now succumbs to the needs of nature and planetary borders.Ìý

EBAN invite scholars to present papers and ideas concerning the theme Bildung and Subject Didactic in the Anthropocene. With this broad theme, we have formulated four questions to inspire conference contributions:

• To what extent does integrating the Anthropocene into education affect tensions between subjectifying, qualifying and socialising educational goals?
• Recontextualising the Anthropocene in education might nourish and contest what traditionally has been conceived as powerful disciplinary knowledge. How can curriculum development navigate the demands and needs of interdisciplinary pedagogy, specialised knowledge and new epistemological approaches?
• How should we approach tensions between education for a sustainable future and Bildung as a process of rethinking human cultural self-understanding?
• The Anthropocene is itself a contested concept. What does the Anthropocene uncover and conceal when related to education and Bildung?

Conference Aims

This conference aims to discuss education in the Anthropocene, the consequences of Bildung and subject didactics.ÌýÌý Ìý Ìý ÌýÌý

• How does the Anthropocene affect ideas of Bildung: What is the role of education in building democratic and ecologically sustainable societies? How should new notions of Bildung address cognitive, ethical and aesthetic dimensions for building new forms of citizenship and individual capabilities?

Another essential conference aim is to support the emerging international discourse on the Anthropocene, Bildung and subject didactics. While research on education and sustainability is well established, we believe a need exists to develop a network deepening the discussion concerning specific school subjects, education and overarching Bildung ideas.

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