Educational Research—Neglected Aspects of its History using the Example of Wolfgang Edelstein’s Theoretical Work
Keywords:
Educational theory, Alienation, School theory, Interdisciplinarity, AlcuinAbstract
The article focuses on aspects of the history of empirical educational research that have received little attention so far. Starting from the standard story that empirical educational research originated in the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and was coined there, the contribution shows not only the broader context, which already shatters the primer in the field thesis, but also the inner conflicts and the variance in the concept. Above all, however, the analysis applies to a version of educational research, ignored in its complex form until today, which Wolfgang Edelstein, closely associated with the MPI since its founding, developed early, constituted in an interdisciplinary way, and continuously elaborated intensively. His critical theory of “bildung” represents an option that counters the theoretical voids of empirical educational research with a theoretically substantial research program that is socially critical, but nevertheless anchored in committed empirical research.
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