General Educational Science (focus: theoretical and methodological foundations)

“General Educational Science” encompasses both the critical reflection on specific educational practices and the academic examination of theories concerning education and learning. The close connection between theory and practice has been fundamental to pedagogy since its establishment as an academic discipline at the end of the 18th century and remains so today; it is constitutive of the discipline’s self-understanding. “General Educational Science” addresses, in a general and comprehensive manner, the fundamental questions that are then also reflected in specific ways within other sub-disciplines (e.g. early years education, social pedagogy, special needs education or adult education) and run through all the individual issues of education and learning (across different eras, cultures, societies and institutions). Among the questions of general pedagogy is, above all, the clarification of central concepts such as: What do we mean by ‘upbringing’, ‘education’ and ‘maturity’? How has the contemporary understanding of ‘upbringing’ and ‘education’ developed or changed historically, and what significance do current cultural, societal and social conditions hold in this regard? Furthermore, we must ask: what should upbringing and education be – regardless of empirical reality? What are their goals, their norms and their values, which they seek to pursue and achieve through pedagogical practice?

Another major area concerns the examination of the methods and educational resources used, on the one hand, to conduct educational research and, on the other, to act in an ethically responsible manner in educational practice. ‘General Educational Science’ presents itself as a lively, discourse-oriented theoretical engagement with the heterogeneity of upbringing and education. In Salzburg, “General Educational Science” is understood specifically from a historical-systematic perspective and through a cultural studies approach. It researches and examines fundamental anthropological phenomena, the contexts of meaning and function within (institutionalised) education and training, as well as fundamental ethical questions regarding professional practice in educational science. In all of this, the individual (in their various life stages) is at the centre of educational scientific consideration, both as the recipient and as an agent of educational processes, situated within the tension between cultural and social conditions on the one hand and personal decisions on the other. On this basis, innovative ideas and practical guidelines are developed for the discipline and the educational professions.