Bringing teaching back in: The Norwegian NOU The school of the future in light of the Allgemeine Didaktik theory of Wolfgang Klafki

Abstract

This paper investigates the epistemology in the Norwegian NOU report, entitled The school of the future (2015), in light of the general didactic theory of Wolfgang Klafki. Klafki's concepts of material-, formal- and categorical Bildung are used to analyse the ideas of connecting knowledge and learning in the NOU report's vision of the curriculum. The paper finds that the report subordinates content knowledge to competences, creating a risk of the dominance of formal aspects of Bildung, which can devalue knowledge. The paper suggests ‘bringing teaching back in’: to construct a content-based curriculum with an epistemology compatible with teaching practice and to look to general didactic theory and research to accomplish this aim.

Keywords

• Curriculum
• epistemology
• knowledge
• schooling
• Bildung