Stefanie Hillen Book order

This anthology aims to make visible those processes, conditions, and impacts on and in European educational institutions (k-HigherEd-VET) which are nowadays influenced by the phenomena of accountability, new public management, outcome-based learning, and educational policies which themselves obviously absorb or even perpetuate these phenomena. Are these phenomena evidence of an increasing instrumentalist view in education? The tendencies mentioned above do not just have an impact on learning processes and results but also on the way in which Bildung and Education are understood and realised in formal learning situations. It is striking that - independent of the original standpoints in a multifaceted European educational landscape with its variety of educational systems - these influences can be recognised as much more than marginal. Rather, they impact upon all educational institutions from kindergarten, preschool, and comprehensive school to higher education, vocational training, special education, and further education. Researchers from different European countries reflect on these perceived ‘instrumentalist’ tendencies from their own national educational platforms, educational backgrounds in theoretical and empirical research, and educational practice: that is, on a macro-, meso-, and microlevel.

This anthology raises the issue on current empirical and theoretical research approaches in the field of didactics, in respect to diversity, gender and new media. The intention is to show the related contemporary use and the reflections on didactic approaches based on the tradition of Allgemeine Didaktik. The brainchild to use English as publication language pursues the idea to make the concept of didactics accessible for the English speaking world. The attempt is to mirror differences of provisions incurrent societal phenomena: new media, gender, and diversity which educational institutions are facing. It will reveal and demonstrate that this is a common issue which is to be addressed for satisfying the demands and necessities in today’s schooling out of the national educational perspectives given through the different educational systems. This anthology follows the idea to present approaches with their theoretical or empirical results. Thus, the reader will find a bunch of procedures, suggestions, and methods as well as critical questions shaped by the empirical and theoretical reflective work of the Norwegian, Austrian, US-American, and German authors, who contributed to the book.