Project Details
Projekt
Bildsamkeit | Plasticity. Figures and Transformations of a Theoretical Constellation 1800 | 1900 | 2000
Subject Area
General Education and History of Education
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 471079073
The project takes up the educational topos of Bildsamkeit/plasticity in its entire breadth and inquires into its respective formations and theoretical functions for the formation of educational theory. The aim of the project is, on the one hand, the historical reconstruction of the genesis of the concept and its respective transformations as well as the problematization of the currently dominant constellation(s); on the other hand, it aims at the development of a contemporary understanding of Bildsamkeit/plasticity in the dialogue with recent anthropological and human-scientific research. With the help of constellation analysis and its further development required for the project, various theoretical constellations of Bildsamkeit/plasticity will be historically reconstructed and systematically examined for unused potentials. To this end, the investigations will focus exemplarily on three historical thresholds around 1800, 1900, and 2000 and inquire into respective typological constellations.The project of revisiting the topos of Bildsamkeit/plasticity in educational research is closely connected to its ambivalent status in educational theory. On the one hand, the question of the Bildsamkeit of human beings – especially as a question about the prerequisites of education – is a systematically central question of educational science, which is also significant for further theory formation, especially for the understanding of the pedagogical problem and its treatment through pedagogical action. On the other hand, corresponding considerations play only a subordinate role in the current discourse of educational science; rather, the question is rather tacitly assumed to be answered or obsolete. The topos of Bildsamkeit/plasticity, however, undermines the counterproductive division of the research field into descriptive-empirical and normative-philosophical approaches by focusing on the conditions of possibility of educational processes. To this end, it equally incorporates anthropological, social and human science, and philosophical research findings, thus opening up an interdisciplinary field of work.Since the project is not only concerned with the historical reconstruction of a concept, but also with its further development, it is methodologically oriented towards current approaches of constellation analysis. By opening up constellation research to approaches of discourse research as well as the history of concepts and ideas, among others, it also offers the possibility of further developing and reflecting on educational theory research methodologically and methodologically. Bildsamkeit/Plastizität thus comes into view not only – in terms of content – as a central concept in educational science, but also – methodologically – as an exemplary case of educational theory formation.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
