Conference Agenda

This article addresses the ways in which the concept of Bildung is brought into the discussion of teaching and learning as educational actions within educational research. It does so by focusing on a review of 91 articles that have been categorized into ‘teaching and learning’ category covering the period 1990-2020. The article is part of a larger study that has examined Bildung in educational research comprehensively, and our prior work has shown has shown that peer reviewed publications engaging with Bildung are primarily based in Germany and Nordic countries, where corresponding terms of Bildung exist in national languages, such as ‘danning’ in Norway, ‘bildning’ in Sweden, and ‘dannelse’ in Denmark (Authors and co-authors, 2025). Bildung, a German term, is either used as Bildung also in English or other terms are used in attempts to capture its connotations such as ‘formation’, ‘self-formation’, ‘self-cultivation' or ‘being educated’ (Hopmann, 2007). Our purpose in this article is two-fold: first, we aim to show the main thematic categories that emerge from the educational research that integrates Bildung over a period of 30 years in teaching and learning deliberations, and second, we aim to reconceptualize Bildung-oriented teaching and learning following a notion of Bildung as an educational concept rooted in didaktik tradition. Consequently, two main research questions guide our analytical and interpretative work: 1) What are the main thematic categories in educational research that integrates Bildung in discussions of teaching and learning covering the period 1990-2020? And 2) How can teaching and learning can be reconceptualized following Bildung-oriented didaktik tradition? We apply a bottom-up approach in our analytical work that is affected theoretically by our own prior understanding of Bildung and teaching and learning to address RQ1 and a broader understanding and interpretation of general Didaktik tradition to address RQ2. The core of Didaktik tradition, most dominant in Continental and Nordic Europe, rests on three main ideas, including the commitment to Bildung, the educative difference of matter and meaning, and the autonomy of teaching and learning (Hopmann, 2007). Further we integrated Klafki’s critical constructive didaktik (1998) and his operationalization of Bildung into abilities for self-determination (ability for autonomous decision-making), co-determination (participation in joint activities with others), and solidarity (contributing to reducing inequalities in society), and Dale’s (1998) conceptions of teaching into three competences -“[...] the carrying out of teaching (C1), the construction of teaching programs (C2), and communicating in and constructing of a theory of teaching plans, the act of teaching itself, and the pupils’ process of learning (C3)” (Dale, 1998, p. 256) - to frame the study theoretically. Such theoretical framing contributes to an understanding, interpretation, and integration of Bildung as an educational ideal and concept within teaching and learning practices, primarily in formal school context from kindergarten to university levels.

In a time of societal challenges such as climate change, the rise of right-wing nationalist movements, fake news on social media, and wars, it is crucial that upper secondary school students develop a deeper understanding of broader societal contexts and critical thinking skills to prepare them for their civic roles. Studies suggest that vocational students receive less preparation for civic roles compared to students in academically oriented programs (Kärnebro et al., 2025; Rosvall & Nylund, 2022; Carlbaum, 2012; Nylund et al., 2017). Bildung is therefore essential in both present and future vocational education and training (VET) to support students’ awareness of societal change and critical reflection (Tyson, 2024; Sörlin, 2019; Liedman, 2002; Broady, 1992). However, this reflective dimension of Bildung has been criticised in Sweden’s educational debate, leading to a stronger focus on measurable knowledge and efficiency, often justified by declining PISA results (Lundahl et al., 2017). When implemented in the classroom, such an approach risks becoming a purely instrumental transfer of knowledge, offering limited enhancement of life skills.

In response to this polarisation, Bildung has been promoted as a counterforce to the excessive focus on measurability (Gustavsson, 2007; Burman & Sundgren, 2012; Svensson & Steinfeld, 2017; Sörlin, 2019). Advocacy for Bildung can also be observed internationally (Brooks, 2020). The relationship between these approaches to knowledge is often oversimplified in the media, presenting Bildung’s subjective and diffuse nature as conflicting with objective knowledge. Some scholars argue that this division should be reconsidered (Burman & Sundgren, 2010). In this study, Bildung is defined as students acquiring both subjective and objective knowledge, connected to their lived experiences (Gustavsson, 1996).

The research task is to understand the conditions VET students face in the classroom for learning and development in aspects of Bildung. By highlighting Bildung as an alternative to a narrow focus on measurable knowledge, it can be made educationally relevant (Biesta, 2002). The research questions explored are:

• How is Bildung enacted in the didactic practice of history education?

• Which didactic and institutional conditions enable or constrain Bildung-oriented processes?

• How are students’ experiences, resistance, and meaning-making negotiated in the history classroom?

Conceptually and theoretically, the study is grounded in a Bildung-oriented framework integrating critical, hermeneutic, and sociocritical perspectives. Klafki’s critical Bildung theory provides a normative foundation for analysing the relationship between education, democracy, and social justice, particularly his critique of the division between general education and vocational training (Klafki, 2016; Ryen, 2020). Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics contributes a process-oriented understanding of Bildung as dialogical and open-ended, emerging through encounters between students’ lived experiences and historical narratives (Gadamer, 1997). To address the limitations of purely philosophical accounts, the study also draws on sociocritical perspectives. Gutiérrez’s concept of Third Space is used to analyse how everyday experiences and institutional knowledge intersect in classroom practice, while Serres’ work highlights liminal, embodied, and sensorial dimensions of learning that exceed formal curricular objectives (Gutiérrez, 2008; Serres, 2016; Kraus & Pemsel, 2023).

Together, these perspectives allow Bildung to be analysed both as a normative ideal and as a situated classroom practice, making it possible to examine how Bildung is negotiated, constrained, and occasionally realised in vocational history education.

Across Danish, Nordic, and European educational traditions, the dominant normative framework has been a humanistic concept of Bildung. Rooted in Enlightenment thought and developed through the works of thinkers such as Humboldt (1969), Bildung emphasizes the cultivation of the whole person—intellectually, morally, culturally, and socially—through engagement with knowledge, the world, and others. In the Nordic context, this notion has been closely linked to democratic education, shaped by Grundtvig’s ideas about ‘the living word,’ civic participation, and the school as a space for personal and communal formation (Grundtvig, 2011). In the 20th century, Nordic and European Bildung traditions were further elaborated by scholars such as Klafki (2014), who defined Bildung as the interplay between self-determination, co-determination, and solidarity, and more recently by Biesta (2006; 2021), who conceptualizes education as a balancing of qualification, socialization, and subjectification. Across these traditions, Bildung represents an educational ideal that positions learners not merely as recipients of knowledge but as active participants in cultural and societal life.

While Bildung has emphasized cultural and social cultivation, civic participation, communal formation, co-determination, and socialization, contemporary Bildung must increasingly be interpreted in relation to the fact that individuals participate in a multiplicity of overlapping and shifting contexts (Roselius & Meyer, 2018). Classical Bildung thinkers such as Humboldt (1969), Grundtvig (2011), and later Klafki (2014) articulated educational ideals grounded in relatively cohesive cultural communities and stable social structures. Today, however, learners move across heterogeneous lifeworlds shaped by globalization, migration, mediatization, and digitalization (Adam, Beck & van Loon, 2000; Säljö, 2010). Scholars such as Biesta (2021), therefore argue that Bildung must encompass the capacity to negotiate multiple memberships, and exercise agency in fragmented environments.

To understand how students’ Bildung is interpreted and enacted in school in light of heterogeneous lifeworlds, learners move across, research must be grounded in an interaction between normative theoretical frameworks and empirical investigations. Such an approach makes it possible to examine not only the ideals that underpin educational values, but also the lived, situated practices through which learners navigate heterogeneous lifeworlds or social and cultural contexts.With a theoretical point of departure in dominant Bildung theories and a systems-theoretical perspective on the constitution of contemporary society, this paper investigates Danish compulsory school students’ orientations toward Bildung and discusses these in relation to teachers’ understandings of educational formation. Empirically, the paper draws on survey data from Danish students (N = 2,671) and teachers (N = 191), allowing for an analysis of how Bildung ideals are interpreted and enacted across different positions within the school system.

The research question is: What forms of Bildung emerge in teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards human values and the function of schooling?

Preliminary analyses suggest that three statistically distinct groups of students and three statistically distinct groups of teachers can be identified with respect to their experiences of human values and their views on the function of schooling. The paper describes these groups in detail, examines their similarities and differences, and discusses the factors that may account for the divergent Bildung orientations represented across the student and teacher populations.

The paper makes two main contributions. Empirically, it demonstrates how students and teachers interpret and enact Bildung in light of the heterogeneous lifeworlds, learners move across in contemporary society, and it identifies the understandings of educational formation that are prevalent among Danish teachers. Conceptually and methodologically, the paper reframes the idea of Bildung research as being solely anchored in normative theoretical frameworks and develops an approach for examining Bildung in the intersection between normative theory and empirical data.