Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Science - Department of General Pedagogy

General Pedagogy deals with foundational-theoretical and empirical questions. Education is reflected upon as a phenomenon with a double function; it is experience-based pedagogical practice on the one hand and knowledge-based, scientific research on the other hand. Pedagogical theory and practice are analyzed  with regard to their conceptual, categorical, historical and cultural foundations as well as within their interdisciplinary and intercultural contexts.

 

Based on this theoretical-empirical mode of research, we at Humboldt-University are examining learning, educating and practicing as a form of learning in pedagogical settings.  This approach can be considered as a phenomenological one in two respects: on the one hand, the “life-world” is taken as the starting point of research and on the other hand, the guiding subjective, social and scientific theories and models are subjected to a separate, interdisciplinary reflection (i.e. phenomenological reduction). The findings of analyses like the one described can then be made fruitful for a new, theoretical description of the phenomena.