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Pedagogical Issues from Humboldt to Bologna: The Case of Norway and Germany

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Abstract

Are the central pedagogical concepts and practices of the Humboldtian university, with Bildung as the overarching goal, only part of an elitist history of the university in the past or may they still be of relevance for the 21st century? What processes are involved in fostering Bildung then and now? This article investigates such questions, with a special focus on seminar pedagogy. A brief account is given of the major pedagogical consequences of the Bologna-related Quality Reform in Norway and the problems of Bologna adaptation in Germany. Although both countries used the Bologna Process to solve internal problems in higher education, pedagogical improvements were more visible in Norway, but Bildung as a concept has been nearly absent from the debate until 2009. In Germany, however, Humboldtian ideals are still a reference point and ongoing large-scale pedagogical experiments have aimed at modernising these in the face of mass education. This may prove a source of innovation for post Bologna re-reform.

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Notes

  1. ‘Pedagogy’ and ‘pedagogical’ are common terms both in Norway and Germany and we therefore use them in this article even though they are less common in Anglo-Saxon countries. In its broad sense ‘pedagogy’ may encompass both the macro-, meso- and micro-level influences on the teaching and learning environment. The purpose of education, the structuring of programmes, the teaching-learning environment, the assessment and feedback practices are just some of the areas we will discuss under the heading of ‘pedagogical change’.

  2. This section on the seminar draws primarily on Professor Otto Kruse's research published, for instance, in the article ‘The origins of writing in the disciplines. Traditions of seminar writing and the Humboldtian ideal of the research university’. Writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) and Writing-in-the-disciplines (WID) have been central to American higher education pedagogy from the 1970s. Kruse claims, however, that writing-to-learn developed in Germany and was exported as part of the seminar tradition to American universities, for instance to Harvard in 1882. Another claim is that a major difference between the American and the German tradition of seminar writing is that in Germany writing has only recently been seen as a craft that could be taught and learned. It was an integral part of research but not a learnable skill itself. In the United States, on the other hand, writing was taught from the end of the 19th century.

  3. In Germany, the demographic curve showed great numbers of students in the 1980s and 1990s, but only for a comparatively short time. In the middle of the 1970s the ministers of cultural affairs decided not to enlarge the academic tenured staff, but to accept bigger classes. They feared having too many scholars when the ‘mountain’ had passed. But the increasing demand for academic professional preparation led to dramatic underfunding of HE.

  4. A major trend in the research on Information and Communication Technology and learning has been CSSL (Computer Support for Collaborative Learning) where creating a space for student discussion has been central.

  5. Key competences for lifelong learning: This framework defines eight key competences and describes the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes related to each of these: communication (in mother tongue and in foreign languages), mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology; digital competence learning to learn, social and civic competences; sense of initiative and entrepreneurship cultural awareness and expression.

  6. Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area: ‘In the European Higher Education Area, qualifications frameworks are found at two levels. An overarching framework has been adopted for the EHEA in 2005; and by 2010, all member countries will develop national qualifications frameworks that are compatible with this overarching framework. In this sense, the overarching framework sets the parameters within which each country will develop its own national framework, and it is the national framework that most directly affects study programmes’. http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/qf/qf.asp.

  7. In Konstanz, Ralph Dahrendorf was the leading figure of research in educational sociology. The university founded a Zentrum fuer Bildungsforschung, which has had considerable influence in Germany. The founder of Bielefeld University was Helmut Schelsky, a well-respected sociologist, one of the interpreters of the Humboldtian concept (Schelsky, 1963).

  8. http://www.bildungsstreik2009.de/mach-mit/kontakt-impressum/.

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  1. Department of Education, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway

    Olga Dysthe

  2. Bielefeld Institute for Research on Science and Education, Bielefeld, Germany

    Wolff-Dietrich Webler

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  1. Olga Dysthe
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Dysthe, O., Webler, WD. Pedagogical Issues from Humboldt to Bologna: The Case of Norway and Germany. High Educ Policy 23, 247–270 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2010.9

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