Situated in relation to the recent use of the construct Powerful Knowings in Scandinavian and German didaktik, this paper develops a posthuman theoretical model for Bildung based on a diffractive reading through of two contemporary works: Iain McGilchrist’s “The master and his emissary - The divided brain and the making of the Western world” (2007) and Karen Barad’s “Meeting the universe halfway - Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning” (2009). The model’s development is seen as a key step in a larger project oriented towards improving teaching for Bildung (as Knowings) in science and technology education, but also, in relation to this, in opening for empirical investigations of both Bildung-oriented teacher praxis and student outcomes. In this way the model’s development may be of valuable importance with regard to with fundamental questions of Scandinavian and German didaktik (What is important to learn? How should it be taught, and Why?), as well the question of what Bildung and didaktik might mean for us in today’s increasingly complex societies.

As part of a response to the loss of a content discourse within educational research (see for example Biesta, 2009), as well as a need of a reorientation in school towards navigating today’s complexity and challenges stemming from the issues of socio-ecojustice and human impacts on the systems of the Earth, there is interest in science education research in the use of the construct Powerful Knowings (e.g. Carlgren, 2020; Yavuzkaya, Clucas and Sjöström, 2022). A question requiring further exploration in this regard is how science and technology educators (at all school levels) can more purposefully teach for Knowings in their science and technology teaching.

Powerful Knowings are linked to a situating of Young and colleagues’ (Young, 2013; Young and Muller, 2013) idea of powerful knowledge in relation to the Scandinavian and German didaktik educational tradition and Bildung (Carlgren, 2020). As a central element of the Scandinavian and German didaktik educational tradition (e.g., Sjöström and Eilks, 2018), Bildung emphasizes learning and change that takes place based in a perspective of humans as relating with and indivisible from ‘the whole of their context’ (e.g. von Humboldt, 2000; Kvamme, 2021). A central idea in this respect is of the Bildung person as someone who intentionally opens themselves to learning and change through their relating, and of becoming capable of responding responsibly and ethically to key issues associated with ‘the whole of their context’ (Kvamme, 2021). Crucially then, by situating powerful knowledge in relation to Bildung, Subject-Knowings are seen as powerful content knowledges that include embodied and relational dimensions (Yavuzkaya, Clucas and Sjöström, 2022).

Recently there has been an interest in developing a posthuman understanding of Bildung which more purposely seeks to broaden what is understood by ‘the whole of the person’s context’ to include all entities making up our world (Taylor, 2017). In this paper we seek to further develop Bildung as understood through posthumanism by drawing largely from a diffractive reading through of Karen Barad’s agential realist ontology (2007) and McGilchrist’s divided brain hypothesis (2009). The purpose of the larger project is to develop a framework that can be drawn from in guiding science and technology educators (at all school levels) in more purposefully teaching for Bildung (as Knowings) in their science and technology teaching.

Research design to develop model As two ontological theoretical perspectives, both McGilchrist’s and Barad’s works draw from a view in which a substance ontology is seen as a dominant position in Western society and the cause of exclusions affecting both humans and non-humans. Further, both works build arguments that support a shift to a relational ontological position in order to address these exclusions. Importantly, we believe this idea connects both works to (posthuman) Bildung. Despite their commonalities, both works diverge however in terms of their disciplinary and epistemological anchoring. We believe this provides a fruitful space for performing a ‘diffractive reading through’ (Barad, 2007). As a post-qualitative methodology, ‘diffractive reading through’ seeks to generate something completely new by bringing two works into a conversation with one another (ibid). McGilchrist’s divided brain hypothesis. McGilchrist (2009) describes the two hemispheres of the brain as giving rise to two divergent ‘personalities’. The first, that of the left hemisphere, is mastery focused. The second, that of the right hemisphere, is relationship focused. McGilchrist suggests that the right hemisphere should have primacy, but that since the Enlightenment the left has taken the role of primacy (ibid). Hence, rather than living primarily in a relating with the world, as in right brain primacy, Western culture today is characterised by a brain activation primarily oriented to living in the world as it is represented (ibid). Barad’s agential realism. Barad’s (2007) agential realism marks a stepping away from a substance ontology towards a relational ontology (Murris, 2018). As such, objects and subjects are no longer seen as distinct entities with specific properties/characteristics, but as a part of ‘phenomena’, which are entities in entanglement whereby entanglements are viewed as preceding entities’ coming into existence (Lenz Taguchi, 2012). At the center of Barad’s theory is their ethico-onto-epistemology which points to entities coming to be and know simultaneously in entanglement, and to an innate ethics amongst phenomena (2007). Diffractive analysis The materials for analysis are active performative agents in continual (re-)becoming (Magnusson, 2021). I – as a subject – am a part of the world, continually (re-)becoming as a part of a multitude of entanglements that are (re-)worlding me in the Anthropocene, with one entanglement being Bildung. This entanglement underlies the marks left on my body as it (re-)becomes through diffraction (Barad, 2007). I am attentive to differences being made, to how one text adds something new to the other (ibid).

Results reveal a multi-step framework (to be illustrated in figures that will be presented at the conference). Note that although the results draw primarily from the diffractive reading through, additional perspectives have also been valuable. In our conference presentation we will provide a full description of all literature contributing to the model as well as literature supporting ideas postulated by the model. Regarding guiding science and technology educators (at all school levels) in more purposefully teaching for Knowings, we think two ideas postulated by the framework, that of ‘powerful artefacts’ (as material entities in entanglement (Barad, 2007) embodying Subject-Knowings) and ‘interdependence resonating’ (describing an embodied awareness (Fogel, 2009) for being ontologically bound to other entities (Barad, 2007)), might be valuable. As phenomena embodying a relational ontology, ‘powerful artefacts’ are material-discursive practices that describe a crafting of humans and non-humans in mutuality. ‘Powerful artefacts’, in their generation, exist within a relational ontological space. That is, they open to humans re-becoming in entanglement with non-humans in a manner that opens to an ethico-onto-epistemological awareness in humans as ‘interdependence resonating’. In a posthuman Bildung perspective (Taylor, 2017) this means that ‘powerful artefacts’ are the material-discursive outcomes of a posthuman Bildung that also embody the capacity to guide other humans towards relationships for posthuman Bildung. As practices in science and technology education, ‘powerful artefacts’ might be viewed therefore as relational ontological spaces that involve a crafting in mutuality (between human and non-humans) that open to students coming to know science and technology knowledges as ethical and relational knowledges, that is, as Knowings. We think therefore that ‘powerful artefacts’ and ‘interdependence resonating’ are ideas that can guide science and technology educators (at all school levels), among many others, in more purposefully teaching for Knowings in their teaching.

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