Study material · Episode 13
In this 13th episode of the Arete podcast (the second in English), hosts Daniel Berton (folk high school principal) and Carl-Anders Säfström (professor emeritus of education) talk with the distinguished education scholar Gert Biesta. The conversation revolves around the current crisis of education and how the modern school is increasingly shaped by instrumentalism, measurability and neoliberal governance.
About the material
This material has been produced by the Arete think tank as an invitation to reflection. It contains a summary of the episode, questions for discussion and sources for those who want to read further – for a study circle or other discussion groups. In this way we take shared responsibility for democratic conversation.
Short summary
Main themes of the conversation include
- From education to “learnification”: Biesta criticises how the concept of education has been reduced to a narrow focus on “learning”, efficiency and measurable outcomes. In the process, the question of the purpose and democratic value of education risks being lost.
- Lifelong learning as a duty: How the idea of lifelong learning has been transformed from a democratic right and opportunity into an individualised duty to supply the labour market with a flexible workforce.
- The three functions of education: Education must balance and prioritise three dimensions: qualification (knowledge and skills), socialisation (values and norms) and, above all, subjectification (supporting the individual in becoming a free, responsible subject in their own life).
- Bildung versus Erziehung and the role of folkbildning: Biesta problematises the German concept of “Bildung” for its blind spot regarding the individual’s ethical responsibility. He relates it to the unique tradition of the Swedish folk high school and of folkbildning: inviting people to participate and keeping citizens “awake”.
- The beautiful risk of education and the role of the state: Education involves an unavoidable risk, since human freedom cannot be controlled in advance. Biesta warns of how states and market forces (New Public Management and consultancy firms) try to steer education through measurement instead of supporting society’s own responsibility for its education.
Listen to the episode
Reflection questions
- Learning vs. education: What does the difference between the word “learning” and the word “education” mean in your own everyday life or work? Has school/society become too fixated on “learnification”?
- Right or duty: Do you feel that the idea of “lifelong learning” today functions as a democratic right, or as an economic duty to constantly keep yourself employable?
- Measurability and goal attainment: In what ways does the pursuit of measurable results and tests push the deeper purposes of education (such as Bildung and democracy) into the shadows?
- The three functions of education: How can we in practice create a better balance and prioritisation between qualification, socialisation and subjectification? Does subjectification often end up on “Friday afternoon”?
- The blind spots of Bildung: Gert Biesta warns that one can be highly cultivated and still act unethically or anti-democratically. What is required beyond knowledge and culture to nurture ethically responsible human beings?
- “The teacher’s knock on the door”: Biesta uses the metaphor that the teacher’s most important task is to “knock on the door and ask whether anyone is there”. What does this invitation mean in the encounter with participants and students?
- The beautiful risk of education: Why is education inevitably a “risk”, and why do modern states and target systems try to control this risk away? What do we lose when the risk is eliminated?
- Really useful knowledge: The Sunday schools of the labour movement sought “really useful knowledge” about power and society. What constitutes “really useful knowledge” for citizens in today’s society?
- Ownership – the state or society? Who really owns education – the state, the market or the citizens? How can folkbildning and the folk high schools preserve their independence and their resilience against management by objectives and New Public Management?
- Keeping us collectively awake: Biesta describes the core of folkbildning as “keeping us collectively awake as citizens”. How can a study circle or a folk high school contribute in practice to this democratic process of awakening?
What are the three most important lessons you take with you from this episode, and how will you put them into practice?
✦ ✦ ✦
Sources, thinkers and people mentioned in the episode
- Gert Biesta: Main guest of the episode, professor of education at the University of Melbourne and professor emeritus at Maynooth University. He presents his theoretical frameworks on subjectification, pedagogical risk, the critique of learnification and the democratic mission of education.
- Carl Rogers: Humanistic psychologist mentioned for his book Freedom to Learn (1960s). Rogers originally used “learning” as a liberating concept against institutional coercion – which Biesta contrasts with how the word later came to be used as a demand and a duty.
- Zygmunt Bauman: Sociologist cited on the concept of “liquid capital” and how the neoliberal shift created demands for a flexible and adaptable workforce.
- Emmanuel Levinas: Ethical philosopher mentioned in relation to his critique of the concept of socialisation and his view of freedom and responsibility. Levinas describes how freedom arises in situations where a fellow human being or a situation calls on you personally (“doing what only I can do”).
- Georg Simmel: Sociologist mentioned in connection with the critique of socialisation as a form of adaptation and conformity.
- Immanuel Kant: Philosopher brought up in relation to enlightenment, subjectification and the idea of the human being as an independent subject.
- John Dewey: Educational philosopher mentioned as a key thinker on the relationship between education, democracy and subjectification.
- Hannah Arendt: Political philosopher mentioned as a central thinker for understanding freedom, the public sphere and democracy in educational contexts.
- Jacques Rancière: French philosopher invoked on the question of whether citizens themselves must reclaim education from the state.
- Anthony Giddens: Sociologist cited for his thesis on totalitarian states: once more than 50% of households have access to communication (such as telephone lines), it becomes difficult for the state to maintain totalitarian control.
- Leonard Holmström: Historical figure in the Swedish folk high school movement, discussed in relation to early government inquiries and the development of the folk high school in Sweden.
- Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump: Authoritarian political leaders whom Biesta mentions as examples of actors who claim that freedom does not apply to everyone, only to a select few.
- Adolf Hitler / Nazism: Discussed in relation to the historical failure of the German concept of Bildung, where highly “cultivated” people could still decide to become perpetrators.
Books, reports and historical sources
- The Beautiful Risk of Education & World-Centered Education (Gert Biesta): Biesta’s books in which he develops his ideas about the purposes of education, the risk inherent in pedagogy and why education cannot guarantee predictable outcomes.
- Freedom to Learn (Carl Rogers, 1960s): The book that introduced the idea of the freedom to learn as a right against state and institutional control.
- Is democracy a problem for education or an educational problem? (Gert Biesta): A text in which Biesta turns the concepts around and emphasises that democracy requires us to take adult responsibility for our freedom. Read it in English, or in Swedish.
- The 19th-century British labour movement and the “Sunday Schools”: A historical example of how the labour movement created its own Sunday schools to acquire “really useful knowledge” about power and politics, as opposed to the employers’ narrow vocational skills.
- Swedish report on validation and lifelong learning (c. 2006–2010): A Swedish government report written by a political scientist and an economist, which redefined lifelong learning from democratic citizenship to skills supply for industry.
- The Swedish folk high school inquiries of 1924 and 1944/1946: Historical government reports that laid the foundation for the free and voluntary position of the folk high school in Sweden, where different political camps agreed on the importance of folkbildning for democracy.
- The Dutch document The quality of education (1981): A historical shift in the Netherlands, where the notion of “the good in education” was replaced by a results- and market-oriented idea of “quality”, following advice from consultancy firms such as McKinsey.
Recommended reading
- The Beautiful Risk of Education, G. Biesta
- Good Education in an Age of Measurement, G. Biesta – in Swedish as God utbildning i mätningens tidevarv (Bokus)
Arete podcastConversations on popular education, pedagogy and democracy, hosted by Carl-Anders Säfström, Johanna Iggsten and Daniel Berton. Each episode comes with study material for study circles and discussion groups. All episodes →
