Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Bildung theory and educational reform: reconstructing Bildung as a pedagogical concept

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to describe an alternative understanding of Bildung-centred Didaktik through an examination of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s conception and practice of educational reform—Bildungsreform, 1809–1810—in which the concept of science (Wissenschaft) was regarded as the fundamental goal and principle for curricular and didactic structure. Willbergh’s call to revise Bildung with more emphasis on the pedagogical concepts is congruent with Deng’s challenge to overcome the ‘moribund’ state of the contemporary Anglo-American curriculum studies. Re-examination of the classical figure, Wilhelm von Humboldt, who is quoted and referred to in almost every paper about Didaktik and Bildung theory in the context of curriculum research, but never examined in detail, provides a fruitful reframing of Bildung to the didactical principle. This paper utilizes unpublished archived material in which Humboldt argued for the roles and relationship between Wissenschaft and education for Bildung process as relational development with self and world. Humboldt argued that the purpose of school education is to encourage students to deepen their view on the world, resulting in both intellectual and moral development towards self-determination that consists of five categories: language, mathematics, science, arts and gymnastics.

KEYWORDS:

• Didaktik
• Bildung
• Wissenschaft
• von Humboldt
• Weltansicht

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In this paper, several key terms are used in the original German, such as Bildung, Didaktik, Wissenschaft and Weltansicht. Other key terms are given both in English and in German to clarify exact meanings.

2. Scholars intensively argued Bildung vs. Competence as the curricular foundation for the 21st century in the PISA dispute. In this dispute, one unique discussion was held where both advocates and antagonists of competence-based educational reform quoted Humboldt to legitimize their positions. Tenorth (2001) clearly articulated that ‘the goal of Humboldtian educational reform was nothing other than competence acquirement’ (p. 174. Cf. BMBF, 2007), while Koch (2003), Musolff (2003), and Ofenbach (2004), as the antagonists against PISA, claimed that ‘Competence lacks a crucial concept of human development; that is, in the spirit of Humboldt, Bildung’ (Koch, 2003, pp. 188–189). A historical figure was expected to legitimize political decision-making in curriculum development, Humboldt was the legitim figure chosen. One might therefore question what Humboldt said in his time about curriculum.

3. Not only did Didaktik research depart from Bildung theory, but literature regarding Bildung also changed its orientation (cf. Koller, 2012, p. 153). Bildungsforschung, the depiction of one’s life-story to analyse and reconstruct social structure in life, has become trendier. However, it is soon apparent that this inquiry does not answer the question of education (Zedler, 2011, p. 320).

4. The inquiry into Humboldt’s conception for educational reform is also necessary to create an alternative image of Humboldt (Humboldtbild). This is necessary because the alternative understanding of Humboldt is connected to altering the image of Bildung-centred Didaktik. Since Spranger (1965) stated that Humboldt’s ‘school reform is no other than the pure realization of a dominant ideal of Bildung, so pure that the real-political factors were ruthlessly subjugated to this higher principle’ (p. 133), Humboldt’s image became so static that subsequent studies did not alter this image and only used empirical approaches to reinforce it (esp. cf. Litt, 1955; Menze, 1975). All discussions concerning the Humboldtian Bildung tradition, including that of the PISA-protagonists, antagonists, Oelkers, Geisteswissenschaftler, and Bildung-theorists are dominated by this unshakeable Humboldtbild that then undermined any understanding of Bildung irrelevant to education and Didaktik. This is why there is a broad space to re-examine Humboldt’s Bildung theory which is closely tied to his curricular principle.

5. The call for revisioning Bildung by Willbergh might be dogged with another ambivalent problem: The concept of Bildung becomes no less a political ‘rhetoric’ (Willbergh, 2015, p. 346) than competence that absorbs all conceptions and orientations within a single word, already implied in Pantić and Wubbels (2012) and Kim (2012). Therefore, the revision of Bildung theory needs to avoid making this concept a magic word for political persuasion and a tool for acquiring hegemony in curriculum politics and ensures that it remains the ‘historical consciousness’ claimed by Horlacher (2018).

6. This paper uses the German term ‘Wissenschaft’ but not ‘science’ because these two terms developed different contexts immediately after the Humboldt period. While science is tied to the history of rationality that suits a natural scientific approach, and is often featured as functionalism and purposelessness, Wissenschaft had a more humanistic tradition where the formation of human is somehow connected (cf. Benner, 1995; Mittelstraß, 1982). The meaning of Wissenschaft is uniquely developed through this paper, so while the term is less familiar, it can cast a fresh view. This paper also uses the German term Fach/Fächer (field, subject) in close relation to Wissenschaft, branch (Zweig), and discipline because these terms also have particular contexts in Didaktik, as this paper discusses. Fach and branch were especially closed tied that Humboldt’s text did not clearly differentiate them in earlier writings. He became preferring to use Fach in school reform that sounded more as subject (for more description, cf. Schneuwly & Vollmer, 2018).

7. One may be sceptical if one’s thoughts are consistent for a long period (Skinner, 1969, p. 16). For more than a century, discussion around Humboldt’s conversion or consistency between his earlier liberal writings in the 1790s and his political leadership in 1809–1810 has not been concluded (see Kaehler, 1963, p. 228; Menze, 1960). This paper takes the latter stance since, regardless of his political orientation, understanding his curricular principle can be facilitated by his inquiries into early writings.

8. Of the many attempts to divide Humboldt’s life into segments, this paper specifically followed Konrad (2010), who observed the coherence of Humboldt’s inquiry and places he lived.

9. Translation of Germany texts are supplied by the author if not otherwise stated. As for Humboldt’s text, the author referred to the translation by Horton-Krüger (2001) and Burrow (1993), with several amendments when the interpretation caused friction with the original.

10. The academic version estimated 1793, but this paper is critically examined by Flitner and Giel, who estimate that it was written in 1794–95 in Jena.

11. Antinomy of the highest level of formation into one specific field and proportional development was prominently discussed in Humboldt’s earlier writing, ‘The Limits of State Action’ (Humboldt, 1792), where he placed the greatest emphasis on having people focus on a single disciplinary world out of harmonious development. The image of the harmonious development submitted by Spranger has been laid under the sceptical examination in this sense. See Benner (2003).

12. Humboldt thought the ‘mathematical method’ could not be used for physiognomy, which indicates methods to approach to the world are specialized into each branch and Fach, while leaving the potential of reaching the generalized ‘universal view’ developing from each specialized field. This indicates the important role of Ansicht.

13. I must pay the greatest attention to the fact that, in the fragment of 1794/95, Humboldt did not use the term Wissenschaft. However, I maintain that the entire paragraph in the fragment is regarding his assertion about how Wissenschaft relates to Bildung (cf. Izui, 1976). This is implied using terms, such as Fach, branch, and mentioning how one develops their view on the self and world.

14. Along with the paradoxical disappearance of content determination in papers calling for discussion of content, there is also a significant change in German Didaktik that such content discussion is now mainly undertaken within the field of subject didactics (Fachdidaktik), while general didactics (Allgemeine Didaktik), like the Klafki tradition, loses its relevance in this discussion. See Meyer (2012, p. 655).

15. The question regarding canonization of a few universally admitted core contents can answer Humboldt’s categorical argument. Humboldt, however, did not expect every school to follow his curricular and didactic principles. He believed that teachers and schools must stick to Bildung as the basis for their pedagogical judgements. To understand this notion, the reader is referred to Humboldt’s efforts on teacher education and his ideas on educational reform. Cf. Miyamoto (2020).

16. The similar discussion around restructuring the didactic triangle could be found in Benner (2020, esp. p. 63) and Friesen (2018, esp. p. 725). I differentiate Humboldt’s notion from those articles by putting ‘method’ in the middle of the Bildung process to emphasize the significant role of Wissenschaft for pedagogical and didactic performance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (19J12404), Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (21K135240A)].

Notes on contributors

Yuichi Miyamoto

Yuichi Miyamoto is an assistant professor at Hiroshima University. Based on his dissertation discussing the tradition of Bildung theory with the focus on reconsidering Wilhelm von Humboldt’s educational reform at the beginning of the 19th century, educational reform, Bildung theory, Didaktik tradition, capture his research interest. He is also specialized in Lesson Study (Jugyo Kenkyu) and hermeneutics as qualitative approaches to teaching and learning.