Linhas Críticas (Oct 2010)
Ciência Crítica e Reflexiva da Educação: Desenvolvimentos e Perspectivas na Alemanha = Critical and reflexive educational science: developments and perspectives in Germany
Abstract
This paper describes the development of the Critical Educational Science (Kritische Erziehungswissenschaft) from the late sixties of the last century. This course was not a simple evolution, but occurred in several stages and went through various changes as determined by different authors and theoretical discussions in the traditional context of the Critical Theory. Among the founders of the original program of the Critical Educational Science in Germany are Herwig Blankertz, Klaus Mollenhauer and Wolfgang Klafki. The first approaches were based on the process of self-criticism of the Pedagogy of the Human Sciences (Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik) and the theoretical work of Jürgen Habermas. During the seventies and the eighties of the last century some new theoretical variants of the Critical Educational Science were developed, which refer to some of Habermas’ works, but also included other contributions such as the theory of communication of Paul Watzlawick et al., the Symbolic Interactionism of George Herbert Mead as well as the theories of cognitive development of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Since the late eighties of the last century the Critical Educational Science is strongly influenced by the skeptical writings of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, from which appears a new orientation that provides the basis for the Reflexive Educational Science (Reflexive Erziehungswissenschaft). The paper concludes that the concept of Reflexive Educational Science, in the actual context, is determined by the assumption that the Critical Educational Science is only conceivable as a reflexive science within an interdisciplinary orientation.
