Since the introduction of public schooling, Bildung has been and still is a central concept in education theory and curriculum policy in Continental and Nordic Europe. Presently, for example, the concept appears in the latest Norwegian, Swedish and Danish curriculum frameworks. In this article, we rely on ongoing systematic review of educational research on Bildung to explore different and evolving conceptions of Bildung in educational scholarship published in English over past 30 years and what implications those conceptions have for present day curriculum theory, policy and practice. The main research questions are: (1) What are the main themes and topics elaborated in literature regarding Bildung and curriculum? (2) What are main arguments and conclusions of the scholars regarding Bildung and curriculum? And (3) How do Bildung and curriculum shape curriculum theory, policy and practice nationally and trans-nationally?

Theoretically, the paper draws on Bildung-based Didaktik to frame the discussion on Bildung more generally (Hopmann, 2007; Klafki, 2000, 1998), but it will also build up from the conceptions and frames found in the articles included in the final pool for analysis that specifically address Bildung in/and curriculum.  

This study is a systematic review that seeks to identify and analyse key issues related to research on Bildung from an educational research perspective. The search strategy relies on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) framework (Page et al., 2021). “Bildung” was used as a search term in the following databases: Eric/ProQuest, Education Source/EBSCO, Web of Science, and Scopus. The inclusion criteria were: (1) Type of publication, including journal articles and books and book chapters accessible online; (2) Timeframe: 1990-2020; (3) Field of study: education (or social sciences) and teacher education; (4) Language: English; and (5) Peer-reviewed. Exclusion criteria were: (1) Grey literature and conference proceedings; (2) Languages other than English; (3) Literary-focused articles (Bildungsroman); (4) Non-education articles; (5) Published before January 1st, 1990; (6) If article/publication is shorter than 5 pages; and (7) If article/publication is an Editorial and/or Introduction to a special issue. Initially 4702 hits were captured with Bildung either in Title, Abstract, or Keywords. After duplicate removal and screening, 268 articles are included for review and thematic analysis. For this specific paper, only articles coded as being in curriculum category (n=42) are part of the analysis.

Initial screening and reading of articles show that a large number of peer-reviewed articles on Bildung come from philosophy of education journals, suggesting that Bildung has attracted the attention of philosophy-oriented education scholars dealing with theoretical problems, and less so of scholars dealing with education/curriculum policy and practice. Still, a limited number of articles have addressed the position of Bildung within curriculum, and more recent articles have referred to Bildung as a concept that can be utilized to construct ‘powerful’ curriculum theory (e.g. Deng, 2021). Our initial analysis of Bildung/Curriculum related articles shows that authors have addressed Bildung and curriculum through four broad categories. First category focuses on Bildung and curriculum addressing curriculum issues from an international perspective; the second addresses Bildung in national institutional curriculum frameworks and policies; the third pertains to Bildung in nationally contextualized subject curricula (including curricula for specific ethnic groups within the nation); and the fourth covers broader issues related to Bildung and general/public education. One of the main initial findings is that Bildung is consistently connected to the idealistic idea of advancement of humanity through education, often in contrast to or as compared to individualistic/functionalist and standards-based curriculum.

Deng, Z. (2021). Constructing ‘powerful’ curriculum theory. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 53(2), 179-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1887361 Hopmann, S. (2007). Restrained teaching: The common core of Didaktik. European Educational Research Journal, 6(2), 109-124. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2007.6.2 Klafki, W. (1998). Characteristics of critical-constructive didaktik. In B. Gundem & S. Hopmann (Eds.), Didaktik and/or Curriculum (pp. 29-46). Peter Lang. Klafki, W. (2000). The significance of classical theories of bildung for a contemporary concept of allgemeinbildung. In I. Westbury, S. Hopmann & K. Riquarts (Eds.), Teaching as a Reflective Practice: The German Didaktik Tradition (pp. 85-107). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., ... & Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. Systematic reviews, 10(89), https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01626-4