Pedagogik, institution och kunskapsobjekt

personliga noteringar och reflektioner

Abstract

This essay, Educational science, institution, and epistemic objects, includes comments on two themes: “Educational science from university discipline to field of knowledge”, and “Searching for the epistemic objects of educational science”. The approach is partly autobiographic. Taking 1968 as starting point, the institutional conditions and transformations of educational science as a university discipline in Sweden are outlined, primarily using one of the larger departments of education as a case. The analysis highlights the substantial expansion and differentiation that characterize the development and places it within a university reform context. The second theme goes further back in time and highlights the historical roots of education as a university discipline. Epistemic objects of the Herbartian tradition are discussed, as well as of the expanding experimental psychology at the time of the first chair of educational science in Sweden. The great expectations after the Second World War for a new school are outlined together with growing research traditions, highlighting classroom language and the teaching process. In the diversified research landscape of the last decades, studies of curriculum theory, education policy, and history of education are emphasized and a plea is made for critical studies of history and education based on broad theoretical perspectives.