A Pedagogy of Cultural Awareness : A Phenomenological Approach to Knowledge and Learning

• The need to grasp constant personal change forms the core of pedagogy. During adolescence personality is in continuous development: the significance of life situations and environments constantly changes; experiences and background knowledge are featured in new discontinuous ways; and personal abilities, subjective motivations and learning goals alter noticeably. Personality development is shaped by the interaction with cultural difference. Cultural awareness not merely concerns relating and comparing abstract contents of one´s own cultural environment to other such environments, but foremost to understand oneself in foreign terms. Subjective and specific factors play a central role in this developmental process. The very task of pedagogy is to accompany, to grasp, and to bring about personal changes. How can pedagogical progress in terms of a personality development be understood as knowledge-based? This contribution argues against the positivistic view of knowledge and knowledge acquisition that currently predominates. Moreover, it argues that subjective and particular factors in pedagogy can be best understood as tacit knowledge. From this backdrop, it reframes some of pedagogy´s conceptual references. In the interest of intellectual rigor, this reframing is achieved utilizing the body-phenomenological perspective on learning.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Body-phenomenology

pedagogical concept of learning

transculturality

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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