What kind of society does the school need? — Professor Gert Biesta
It cannot be denied that around the world schools are under pressure. This is particularly the pressure to ‘perform’ and to deliver what politicians, policy makers and ‘the public’ seem to want from education. The bigger question this brings into view is how we should understand the relationship between school and society, and what role schools themselves have to play in (re)defining this relationship. In this presentation Gert will focus on these big questions and will make a case for not just asking what kind of school society needs, but also what kind of society the school needs in order to be school.
This will allow him to ask some bigger questions about contemporary education but also to encourage educators to push back against uneducational expectations.
About the speaker
Gert Biesta is Professor of Public Education at Maynooth University in Ireland and Professor of Educational Theory and Pedagogy at the University of Edinburgh. Internationally recognised for his scholarship, Gert is co-editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, associate editor of Educational Theory, and former co-editor of the British Educational Research Journal. He also co-edits two major Routledge book series: Theorizing Education and New Directions in the Philosophy of Education. His work continues to shape educational discourse across countries, systems, and philosophies.
