The problems of ‘competence’ and alternatives from the Scandinavian perspective of Bildung

Abstract

The paper aims to show how competence as an educational concept for the 21^st century is struggling with theoretical problems for which the concept of Bildung in the European tradition can offer alternatives, and to discuss the possibility of developing a sustainable educational concept from the perspectives of competence and Bildung. The method of the study is conceptual analysis of ‘competence’ and Bildung. The paper concludes that (1) competence must be abandoned as an educational concept, as its problems cannot be solved due to the lack of a theory of educational content. With competence, the content aspect of education is obscured and hidden from public debate, and human autonomy is threatened. (2) Bildung can be revised as an educational concept by reinventing educational content as subject to interpretation and open debate by autonomous individuals on all levels from the transnational to the classroom. (3) A revised ‘mimetic’ concept of Bildung can prepare students for the knowledge society, as imagining is a type of higher order thinking essential for innovation and creativity. Instructional content in school is meaningful to students if they are able to imagine the representational object ‘as if’ it is both subject matter and real to them.

Keywords:

• competence
• Bildung
• 21^st-century competences
• instruction
• schooling

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ilmi Willbergh

Ilmi Willbergh is an associate professor in the Department of Education, at the University of Agder, Service box 422, NO-4604 Kristiansand, Norway. Her interests centre on general didactics and classroom studies. She is the editor (with Stefanie A. Hillen and Tanja Sturm) of Challenges Facing Contemporary Didactics: Diversity of Students and the Role of New Media in Teaching and Learning (Münster: Waxmann, 2011).