In the past years, the concept of Curriculum and that of Bildung have undergone important changes – as a matter of fact they are developing towards one another, towards an unfolding integrative understanding of education as a product and a process which requires substantial subject-matter involvement as much as a more general educative perspective.

Curriculum planning and development has been seen recently as too narrowly oriented towards defining the desired outcomes of teaching and learning, of planning the syllabus, producing teaching material, of designing teaching-learning sequences and developing whole textbooks as the central task of subject didactics, whereas the scientific or empirical analysis of what is actually going on in the classroom is often left to pedagogy or pedagogical psychology. This distinction is slowly overcome and integrated into a broad understanding of didactics as a theory of “Bildung” within and beyond subjects and of appropriate/effective teaching/learning practices. This conception includes approaches of defining content and learning goals from a societal, future needs perspective as much as approaches of transposing “scientifically-based” knowledge structures into classroom practices and studying the interactive processes of teaching/learning in detail, also observing (un)intended effects. In other words, both approaches are complementary: they belong together like many other aspects of institutionalized education, e.g. identity building or personality development of learners and teachers alongside with knowledge construction and skill acquisition.

In continuation of last year’s symposium on “Didactics and/or Curriculum” we will pick up the different strands of didactics and expand them into a larger theoretical framework of general and subject-based education. This comprises goal setting, selection and definition of appropriate content, organizing materials as “problem-solving” opportunities as well as methodical considerations and principles and last, but not least also observation or “measurement” of outcomes. All of these aspects involve levels of consideration, action and evaluation that have to be integrated into a theory of personal as well as functional “Bildung” based on domain-specific or subject-based education. In other words, we assume and will try to demonstrate that the acquisition of subject-specific knowledge has a product and a process side to it and that it will lead to or at least contribute to the development of educated personalities as much as to the construction of relevant mental or psychological dispositions which can be critically used in private, social and professional life and contexts outside school. This will be illustrated for the domain of the natural sciences, of mathematics, and of first/second language learning, giving substance and perspective to the claim made.

In different European countries different traditions of pedagogy, didactics and educational philosophy have evolved, shaping the space of school/subject teaching and learning differently, assigning a specific place to curriculum, to didactics and to Bildung. Our symposium will topicalize such comparison, clarifying the central terms and theories in context. By looking at examples, we will identify forms of argument and reasoning and research perspectives which help to bridge the gap between what is expected or hoped for (curricular perspective) and what actually happens in the learners’ and teachers’ mind and behavior (educational perspective).

The goal of the symposium is to clarify the theoretical framework of didactics a bit further by relating it to subject-based knowledge construction and subject-based notions of Bildung. The symposium consists of two consecutive sessions, each with three presentations from different cultural and national backgrounds. By limiting the number to three per session (plus discussants), we will have a real chance to raise questions, discuss and summarize some findings (as experience shows). Accordingly, we would like to make sure that the issues and problems identified are carried over from Part I to Part II.

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