Department of Educat ionPiotr Szybek and Magnus Johansson

Education as empowerment: Between political power, working life and personal

responsibility

Postal address PO Box 199, SE-221 00 Lund Visiting address Allhelgona Kyrkogata 14, house M Telephone Int. +46 46-222 00 00 Telefax Int. +46 46-222 45 38 Internet http://www.pedagog.lu.se Telephone Piotr Szybek: Int.+46 46-222 89 20 E-mail: Piotr.Szybek@pedagog.lu.se Telephone Magnus Johansson: Int.+46 46-222 87 15 E-mail: Magnus.Johansson@pedagog.lu.se

Paper presented at ECER 2003 - Hamburg.

1

2

Introduction

The purpose of the paper is to explore some aspects of the relation between education and competence

at work, and sketch it against the background of educational systems being situated in a certain political

setting.

At the center of the discussion will be the notions of education, power, knowledge and meaning. Here

we follow the discussion (based on Husserl and Arendt) of Szybek, 2002. In addition to this we can

refer to Arendt’s concept of thinking (Arendt, 1971) and to the concept of empowerment as presented

by Giroux (1997) and in working life research (exemplified by Appelbaum et al 1999).

The context in which the discussion is led in this paper is limited to the economic and political

backdrop of our lives. This makes it possible to back up a discussion on the connection of education

and working life, as led, for instance, by Johansson in another paper resented at this Conference

(Johansson, 2003). It can also be seen as a contribution to the discussion on the connection of the

political, economic and educational sphere, as exemplified in a paper by Dahlin presented at ECER

2002 (Dahlin, 2002)

The choice of the central concepts affects their exposition, the methodological character of the paper

being determined by one of them, namely the concept of thinking. This makes it necessary to start the

exposition of the central concepts with thinking.

The methodological character of the discussion

The above-mentioned concept of thinking, elaborated by Arendt (1971) can be seen as the main

methodological organiser of the paper. Grounded in Kant´s distinction between reason and intellect

(Vernunft and Verstand) Arendt distinguishes between thinking, which is a never-ending meaning

making and knowledge production which is focused at specific problems and which can, in principle,

be led to an end (when a problem is solved, or when the exploration of a state of things is concluded).

Arendt quotes Kant writing “I do not approve of the rule that if the use of pure reason [i.e. thinking,

our remark] has proved something, the result should no longer be subject to doubt, as though it was a

solid axiom.” (Arendt 1971, p. 88). This Arendt follows up with another quotation from Kant: “I do

not share the opinion… that one should not doubt once one has convinced oneself of something” (ibid.)

– which she comments thus: “From which it follows that the business of thinking is like Penelope’s

web; it undoes every morning what it has finished the night before.” (Arendt, ibid.)

This sets the form and style of the paper. The form is that of an essay and the style is that of

Arendtian thinking, i.e. the exploration of a range of possibilities (cf. Szybek 2002) rather than that of

knowledge production, with exhausting references to previous determinations of the state of things at

hand. A decisive role in the constitution of meaning, which makes a range of possibilities emerge, is

3

played by passive synthesis. In this process past experience is linked to the intended objects, so every

episode of meaning making must be preceded by past meaning making. This would, one might say,

point to the necessity of an exhaustive, ground-covering exploration of anything that was done on the

subject in the past. However, though this certainly could apply to knowledge production, the

elucidation of meaning making is not necessarily helped by such an approach. Rather, the logical a

priori has to be presented. Meaning constitution analysis calls for the elucidation of an intentional

history, rather than a history in the sense of reconstructing facts and relationships between them, which

is what an analysis of knowledge production would call for.

The central concepts

Thinking as meaning making

Szybek has linked knowledge production to a responsivity referring to Lévinas (1981) and Waldenfels

(1994) who see it as the constitutent of human existence, and notably communication with other

persons. In this view any act of expression is a response elicited by something presenting itself as

“coming from elsewhere” – elsewhere in respect to the context already known by us, the world we are

acquainted with (Szybek 1999, 2002). This means that knowledge production is always already “called

for” (Szybek 2002a) and is a response to, for example, needs of others.

How can one ground thinking as a response? Thinking, being the prerequisite of knowledge

production, precedes it (in the logical and not temporal sense). But thinking is also an expression – and

it is always directed at an audience, be it only the imaginary partner of internal dialogues – think only

of Augustine’s “Soliloquies”, which are dialogues of self with Reason. So, one can see meaning making

as a response to a call. By introducing “Reason” as the imaginary partner of an internal dialogue,

Augustine is in fact taking the venue of dialogue “out from his own head” and into a public space – and

this prior to the construction of his text. “Reason” can be seen as an activity which is shared with

others, who are present either actually or “virtually”. Thus, the partners of this activity would be a

“dead poet” or “dead philosopher” as well as persons one is meeting actually. This is where the “call”

may come from. In all instances it is “the call of the Other” to which a human being cannot help but

respond.

Thinking, in Arendt’s discussion of it, is a process which cannot be concluded, because every

conclusion is, at the same time, the start of a new turn of thinking. This can be seen in terms of

responsivity: every conclusion elicits a response to itself. There is always more to be thought.

Arendt (1971, 1971a) writes about the importance of thinking in an ethical and political context. A

person who does not think is the one who can commit an evil action, according to Arendt’s way to look

at thinking. In Lévinas’s view meaning making (being a response to a call) is obviously oriented in an

ethical dimension, and primarily so. The ethical aspect of meaning making is also evident in Husserl’s

discussion of the philosopher’s mission (Husserl 1959 and 1970).

4

Being a process which never can be totalised thinking creates an open space, an unlimited –infinite –

range of possibilities. Here one may ask how this relates to the fact of mortality. The answer is provided

in Arendt’s concept of natality: the arrival of new human beings, who continue the process, and expand

the range of possibilities.

Education.

The point of departure can be Klafki’s characteristic of education as on the one hand “opening up the

world“ (material education) and on the other hand “creating openness in the individual“ (formal

education) (Klafki 1963).

This leads us to seeing the outcome of educational process as the educated individual’s responsivity

to the world. Material education provides access to domains to which we can respond, and formal

education secures our access to these domains by providing specific abilities of responding.

This can be directly linked to the concept of thinking, understood as meaning making.

Education in Klafki’s view seems to be a prerequisite of the processes of knowledge production. The

“world”, as venue of knowledge production, has to be “opened”. This presupposes a possibility of

closure. The world can be closed to the person, who might not gain access to it. It also can mean that

the world can be conceived as a narrowly delimited entity, but that education is dismantling the

boundaries and enables the student to widen the range of possibilities – which means that education

enables the student to think (in Arendt’s sense). The reader will notice the link between education and

empowerment, a theme which will be taken in the next subsection.

The link we are building between educational theory and Hannah Arendt’s thought makes it necessary

to introduce a concept central to it, the concept of natality (Arendt 1971, 1973, 1998). Arendt is

stressing the importance of the fact that thinking and knowledge production are always interrupted by

the birth of new human beings, the arrival on the stage of events of new actors. This diachrony can be

seen as the constitutive factor of education. The newcomers have to be introduced – the world which we

have opened for ourselves has to be opened for them. It is also a chance for us to be re-born. The new

project, set off by a newcomer, constitutes a new stage of events, to which an “old-timer” can be

admitted, and participate in the new life which is unfolding there. A synchrony, i.e. assembling facts

into a totality, according to the existing agenda would permit the “oldtimers” to control the range of

possibilities, preserving the course of meaning making as they once have set it. This would disempower

the newcomers. Empowering them would imply that the old agenda be abandoned or re-defined. This

goes for the practice of thinking – but also for all the practices which constitute the vita activa.

This leads back to thinking. Thinking is connected to what Kant expressed when he wrote, that no

“honest soul ever lived that could bear to think that everything is ended with death” (quoted according

to Arendt 1971, p. 13). Thinking is a never ending process, and the Kant quotation underlines natality

as an important aspect. Surely, for me as an isolated organism everything ends with death. It is not the

case, however, when “I” is construed as a social and political being. Then I can see that my thoughts,

5

once brought into an open public space, become food for thoughts of other people, hopefully those who

are newcomers, “newly born” into the community in which the social and political context is grounded.

Understanding education in terms of responsivity (educating means enabling to respond) permits the

insertion of an ethical-political aspect. The thinking person is responsive to the world, and not to offers

of meaning given in texts or presented by authorities or a faceless public opinion – and this is how we

can surmise that education is targeted at combating evil.

Another aspect is captured by Nussbaum (1997), who grounds education in the relationship to the

other, by pointing at a “narrative imagination“, which makes the ultimate object of education the life

histories of concrete persons, and the desired outcome (formal education), an “ability to think what it

might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself“ (op. cit. p. 10f).

All this means that the role played by texts and public discourse – the matter of education – is re-

defined. Instead of being end products of a knowledge production, they are “snapshots“ of an ongoing

process, the process of meaning constitution, or, as Arendt puts it “thinking” . This directs us toward

the picture of meaning making as constitution of an infinite range of possibilities (Husserl, 1976), in

which the process of meaning constitution is never completed. There is always more to be said.

The background of education can thus be characterised as the subject’s responsivity to (1) something

“different from oneself“ and (2) something concrete, ongoing in the reality which s/he has to access.

This leads us to the conclusion that educational outcomes are described by their relation to a context –

the degree to which someone is educated is showing itself in the way this person responds to a concrete

context. Thus, the educational process results in empowering subjects to respond to concrete situations

(which could imply that it should be initiated by a contact with concrete situations).

Knowledge

Another aspect of “world-openness“ can emerge if we link the concept of thinking (in the sense of

meaning constitution) to the concept of knowledge, the activity “to know“. To know, one could

suggest, is to be able to make something happen. This presupposes (1) the creation of a range of

possibilities, so that the matter of the events (that which will happen) will come into existence in

potentia. Then, (2) intending some object makes it become vested with meaning, according to the

possibilities implied by the background which is available. This object is then made known to the

subject, who intends it. Knowing about it might, however, not necessary mean that the background is

known – it is veiled, and the surplus of meaning which the background provides is not known. The fact

of the very existence of the surplus of meaning is what makes the consequences differ from our plans.

We never are in possession of the complete knowledge of the background of what we are saying and

doing, and thus of the conceivable consequences. So, when we enact something, we may end up with

something else, or something in addition to what we focused as our "plan", or "script“.

However, the very possibility to make something happen, is an aspect of knowledge. Thinking is

moving around in the range of possibilities, groping for meaning, and this ability is depending on the

6

existence of a background, of something always already being the presupposition of what is said or

done. It is this which gives everything belonging to the range of possibilities a certain style, which

marks out the various moves around the range of possibilities. It is this which makes something known

“as“ something.

Thus knowledge, both as “knowing that“ and “knowing as“ and “knowing how“1 is connected with a

range of possibilities, with a potential, and producing knowledge has as a prerequisite the constitution

of a potential. It is this potential which enables signs to be recognized as such: By being known as

signs, artefacts can guide action. This enables us to link the phenomenology of meaning constitution to

Vygotsky’s theory of knowledge production. Basing on that theory Raeithel (Raithel, 1996) describes

the functioning of language and other “tools of communication“ as (1) having a tangible presence,

recognizable to the actors, and (2) capable of interaction with the actors as thinking beings (as we can

re-interpret Raeithel’s mentalistic vocabulary). Both these circumstances are dependent on signs being

“known as something“, i.e. appearing in a range of possibilities which had emerged in the course of a

meaning constitution which had been going on before.

The concept of the “zone of the proximal development“ can be linked to this range of possibilities.

Introducing Vygotsky here is introducing an understanding of intending objects as an activity, and one

that may be called for by interaction with other persons, as described by Engeström, 1996.

To know is thus to be able. The possibilities constituted as meaning is constituted mark the range of

power of the subject of meaning constitution. The concept of power is here used as determined by

Arendt (1998), and more of it will be said in the next subsection. Power has here a connection to the

surplus of meaning in a range of possibilities, the possibility to generates alternatives. This possibility

can vary. the surplus of meaning can either be utilised, or it can be closed off – controlled. This limits

one’s possibilities to the single course of proceeding one happens to choose.

Cf. here the discussion Arendt leads (1998) (also cf. Szybek, 2002) of how power (as access to

possibilities and alternatives) dwindles when action is dominated by the obsession with knowing its

results from the outset. A case of this is described by Foucault in L’ordre du discours (Foucault, 1982).

Participation in a discourse limits one’s possibilities. There is something which is defined as possible to

be said, which be implication, points out things impossible to be said. Something is “truth“ and

“knowledge“ while something, a fortiori, is “madness“. Thus the range of possibilities is controlled, by

whoever the order of the discourse puts in charge of it. This can be described as rules. the thought

occurs, if this is not a possible view on the “lower part“ of the interactions showed in Engeströms

1 We do not wish to expand the topic right now, let us just acknowledge an important difference between “knowing as” and “knowing that” on the one hand and “knowing how” on the other hand. The latter entails a contact with the world which is not necessary for “knowing as” . “Knowing how” belongs to the vita activa (Arendt, 1998) – and one could argue, with the picture of knowledge production given to us by Piaget and Popper, that the same applies to “knowing that” . Besides, compare the connection between work (Werk) and knowledge, established by Arendt (1998). “Knowing as” would, as connected to thinking, belong to the vita contemplativa.

7

model of an activity system (Engeström, 1996). There is a community where a discourse is led, and the

division of labour may, for instance, parallel the divisions of roles in the discourse. It might even be so,

that the latter follows the former, and springs out of it.

The description of knowledge which emerges here is one in terms of power and control. The relation of

this to labour division is discussed by Arendt – we have the “masters of the design”, the one’s who

control the range of possibilities, guarding the only right course, and we have all the rest, who are

reduced to taking orders. Foucault is positing the control of the discourse, i.e. maintaining labour

division and rules in a co-operation of the ruler and the ruled. Maintaining a discourse seems not to

clash with the interest of the one subjected to it (Foucault, 1982).

Thus, the lack of openness, the movement of dodging exposition to alterity is not just the mark of the

oppressor – we are all of us responsible. Participation in a discourse rests on the ground of

responsibility. This makes people responsive to the community which bears up discourse, rather than to

the agency imposing the curriculum.

Empowerment

To be able to proceed with the construction of some coherence we wish to remark that the concept of

power used here is that of Arendt (1998). Power is the access to possibilities, and thus is linked to being

able to set off something new. As Arendt remarks (op. cit.) the tyrant who controls everything is

powerless, impotent – by controlling s/he precludes that anything new can happen. Everything just

continues in the same way. The affinity to Arendt’s concept of thinking is striking.

The concept of empowerment is in the educational setting used by, e.g. Giroux (1997). He puts it in

the context of “the collective struggle for a life without oppression and exploitation” (p. 132; with a

reference to Freire) and the expression of students’ and teacher’s “voices” (in the Bakhtinian sense)

which can be emancipatory in different degree (p, 147, op. cit.). These contexts have both a political

character (on different levels), and what is envisaged as project is power linked to the necessities of life

(exploitation and the possibility of avoiding it).

There are other ways of treating the concept of empowerment, which come nearer Arendt’s definition

of power. One example can be taken from work life research (Appelbaum et al 1999 – which is only an

exemplification of numerous articles and books using the concept of empowerment in work life

research).

The context is here that of organizational change. Empowerment means admission of employees into

decision making in the organization and giving them the intellectual tools to participate in this. Here the

concept is connected to a specific content, in this case of work: specific tasks, a specific activity. In

Giroux such a connection is not extant, but it can be discerned in other authors dealing with education.

It is shown by Popkewitz (1998), by Englund (1986), by Östman (1995), and by Klafki (1995) – to give

just some examples. There seems to be a difference here between how the concept is treated:

educational research sees the educational contents empower for actions which concern the whole future

8

life of students, while work life research envisages empowerment at work having bearing only on the

activities which concern the organization at hand. Moreover, the enumerated authors writing on

education mostly focus the future life of the student, i.e. contexts other than the practice at hand. It is

precisely this practice which authors writing about work life focus on. So, work life research has

something to say to persons involved in educational practice, beyond what educational research can

contribute.

The connection of empowerment to thinking (meaning making) was made visible already in the

beginning of the subsection. Power, understood as a range of possibilities, is generated by thinking and

sharing it with others. As such it is wholly dependent on empowerment of participators: granting them

the permission to think. There is a connection to natality. If the newcomers don’t think, they won’t be

able to renew the range of possibilities, the result being the decline of this range – death. For the

“oldtimers”, no rebirth is possible without an empowerment of newcomers.

It is not easy to think of a situation where openness is created in the individual without the individual

being empowered. Openness is almost tautologically identical with a “permission to think” –

empowerment. Creating it, encouraging people to think, is hardly conceivable without institutional

changes. Appelbaum et al (1999) mention the permission to commit mistakes, to be wrong in one’s

conjectures about reality. This is, as they see it, an essential aspect of empowerment. This amounts to

an acknowledgment of the importance of thinking, meaning making, to knowledge production.

Meaning making, the constitution of power and praxis

We would like to say something about the relation between thinking (a component of the vita

contemplativa) and the vita activa. Thinking is an unhindered roaming through the range of

possibilities, which the process of thinking expands as it goes on. Thinking, as we mentioned before,

can proceed in any of the directions which have been constituted by previous thinking. This is so

because the vita contemplativa does not entail any contact with matter. Once this is introduced, the

mind has to deal with something which resists its attempts to force meaning on it. Praxis is bodily and

it is the body’s (des Leibes) interaction with a resisting matter which is the ground of praxis (Husserl,

1989, Schutz and Luckmann, 1973). In this interaction the body responds to its environment. In this

interaction the resistance of matter limits the range of possibilities, narrowing down the possible course

of roaming trough it.

What about the “immaterial” structures existing in the interpersonal world: organisations, institutions,

patterns of commerce, exchange and wielding of power (in the colloquial sense of the word)? In this

case the resistance to thinking’s freedom comes from the structures of communication and practice. It is

these which narrow down the range of possibilities. In Arendt’s terms these structures constitute a

decay of the open public space, which would allow for unlimited creation of possibilities, i.e. the

generation of power. “Solid” structures, limiting possibilities, make power dwindle. Instead of

structures wielding power we maybe should speak of them exercising control.

9

The processes of knowledge production are thus subject to narrowing down of the range of possibilities

created by the process of meaning constitution. This is either the resistance of matter, or control by

social structures.

Arendt’s concept of power is related to her theory of the vita activa, the life of human praxis (Arendt,

1998). According to this theory “action” is distinguished from “work” and “labour”. The latter pertain

to the human being’s contact with matter. Work is connected to changing the material world,

introducing new things etc. Labour is the Marxian “metabolism with the world” and is connected with

sustaining life, keeping up the state of matters as it is – without making any changes. Action is by

Arendt defined as political action. It belongs to the interpersonal world. Action makes an open public

space emerge, and in this space power is generated, by an open-ended communal interaction unfolding

in this space. So it seems that thinking can only generate power when linked to action in an open public

space. Arendt has established a strong connection of action in the open public space with the political

traditions of Athenian democracy, the early stage of the American revolution, the Hungarian revolution

of 1956 (Arendt, 1973). Action is connected to natality: something new is being created, a beginning of

a wholly novel order of things. The link to thinking seems plausible, and it seems to consist in thinking

being shared – the creation of a space, a venue where thinking is made communal. We can see the

problem of empowering individuals to act in a broader setting: there is a structure (institutional) in a

society which makes it possible for people to gear their thinking to an action. Or there is a lack of such

a structure. Such a structure could constitute a link between both meaning making and knowledge

production in the universities on the one hand and the economic and governance sectors on the other

hand. It could replace the traditional “transmission belt” which transports products of knowledge

production from the universities to the economic and governance sectors.

Here we can link education to competence. Dreyfus & Dreyfus (1986) define competence in terms of

an ability to cope with concrete situations – thus, being able to respond to the context rather than

obeying rules. Is an educated person automatically a competent person? The answer can be related to

Nussbaum’s definition, and to Husserl’s description of meaning constitution. In both cases it is the

concrete subject’s relation to concrete objects (i.e. objects situated in concrete situations) which is

decisive. Thus, one shows oneself competent while handling a situation – a good builder is one who

builds houses well, according to Aristotle’s definition. To continue, a well-built house is one which

responds to concrete needs – a good builder would thus be one who responds to the needs of the

(concrete) future inhabitants.

Note that both education and competence presuppose the subject’s responsibility for the relation with

the situation. A description of this responsibility generates a description of power relations in both

society and specific organisations (whether the subject is entitled to respond to a situation and to take

responsibility in it).

10

The crucial point is here that competence is not exclusively determined in the relation of the working

individual with whatever s/he is working on. The individual is responsive not only to the object, but

also to the context of activity. One can make use here of Engeström’s model (Engeström 1996 and

19872). The model describes a system of activity, where the acting subject relates not only to the object,

but also to various components of the background of activity. These relations we see in the light of a

responsivity (grounded in responsibility) and we assume them to be internal relations, i.e. the various

components are mutually constitutive. We can legitimate this assumption in the following way:

Assembling the various components of the background of activity in one system, as Engeström does,

implies two possibilities:

a. there are causal relations between them which make them determine one another.

b. there are internal relations which make them constitute one another’s meaning.

The first assumption seems too strong. Besides, it implies another – strong – assumption: that all

events in the intersubjective world are determined by some causal relations. For a problematisation of

this cf. for instance Popper (1960).

Figure 1.

Structure of an activity system, after Engeström, 1996.

2 http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm, as of Sept, 10, 2003

11

The relation of the subject to the object is thus not just as shown in figure 2, where the relation of the

subject (the working person) dominates, and is not influenced by any exterior circumstances. A highly

hypothetical situation, to say the least3.

Figure 2.

Figure 3 describes a more likely situation. There are strong relations between the subject and the outer

circumstances, as rules, community and the labour division. These circumstances participate in the

constituted of the object of activity. This follows from the relation subject-object being an internal one

(Svensson 1976, Ekeblad 1996, Szybek 1998) i.e. the subject and the object are not determined except

in relating to one another.

Figure 3.

(For the sake of simplicity we let out a discussion of the mediating tool’s role). So, the subject is

constituted qua subject of activity by her/his interaction with the other components of the activity

system, and the same goes for the object of activity. The relation of the subject with the object is thus

immersed in the activity system, and is by no means a personal affair of the employee, student, or

politician. The ability to respond is circumscribed by the components of the activity system – the

subject finds itself directed onto a course not of her/his own choosing.

3 This figure is known as referring to Leontiev’s model of the relation subject-object being mediated by an artifact. Leontiev was aware of the social context influencing that relation – the absence of this context in the model can be ascribed to Leontiev focusing the role of the tool/artifact mediating the relation.

12

This is by Ellström expressed in terms of expectations the working individual has to meet, the

qualifications (Ellström 1992) expected by the organisation which provides the venue of activities.

Competence in Dreyfus’s & Dreyfus’s terms, i.e. coping with concrete situations is qualified to

coping with situations not of one’s choosing. How can we see a connection of competence and the

knowledge made available by education, by having opened the world for the individual and the

individual for the world? One can see it in terms of generic skills. Education provides skills for

appraising situations, analytic tools for discerning their aspects and identifying critical relations. There

is an uncertainty here, the tacit assumption being that situations kindly lend themselves to a treatment

with the help of a limited repertoire of skills. As it is, reality seems always to be a step ahead of our

knowledge about it (an optimistic estimate) – as a result, one cannot expect an educational system being

able to provide such knowledge or skills that could enable the individual to cope with all the situations

her/his life has in store.

However, instead of speaking of generic skills one can focus the general stance of “openness to the

world” which can be the outcome of education, according to Klafki. Education can aim at preparing

individuals for precisely the kind of existence mentioned above, known to us as living in a “risk

society” (Beck, 1992). It means making them able to generate ranges of possibilities, making them

resilient against the risk of being wrong, not regarding mistakes as perils, but as a natural component of

knowledge production. Thus, the aim of education would be instilling thinking as a prime modality of

relating to things and their contexts.

How would this influence the agenda of education, and the relationship of education to the economic

and the political sectors? The educational system as a whole (if that way of treatment is relevant) is

strongly connected to research. Academics are educators and researchers. The subject matter of the

curricula is a product of research, and socialisation into the research community is an important goal in

education, governing curricula at all levels. If education has to relate to work life and to the fact of the

student being a citizen, what about research? The traditional answer is the filtering of knowledge top

down from research to the various practices. This answer is not credible, given the contextuality of

knowledge. Here we can refer to Schön (1983), Argyris and Schön (1978), and Rolf et al 1993. Another

factor is that the because of backdrop of all situations is a “risk society” (Beck, 1992). To salvage itself,

to preserve its relevance, research thus must go into the contexts where the products of knowledge

production are meant to land. The process of knowledge production has to be located in the contexts of

the economic and political sectors. This means ceding power over knowledge to economic and political

actors. This is the mode 2 of knowledge production (Nowotny et al, 2001, Gibbons, 1994). where

researchers must negotiate the content and forms of knowledge production with non-researching

practitioners.

Ceding power means sharing it, and it does not necessarily mean becoming powerless. On the

contrary, it can lead to more power, as a consequence of grounding power in action, meaning open-

13

ended communal activities. Research can benefit of the thinking it has set off in the new partners. This

is the focal point, in our opinion. Going out from academia, entering negotiations with non-academics,

may lead to thinking becoming a modality of action in various practices.

This could mean that a research- and educational system in a “on par” interaction with the economic

and political sector could contribute to somewhat diminish the discomfort experienced in the risk

society.

References

Appelbaum, S., Hébert, D., Leroux, S. (1999) Empowerment: power, culture and leadership – a strategy or fad for the millennium? Journal of Workplace Learning 11(7), 233-254

Arendt, H. (1971) The life of the mind. Vol 1. Thinking. New York: Harcourt [also: a one-volume edition in Harvest Books, Harcourt]

Arendt, H. (1971a) Thinking and moral considerations: a lecture. Social research, 38(3) Arendt, H. (1998) The human condition Chicago: Chicago University PressArgyris C. & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational Learning, Reading: Addison-WesleyBeck, U. (1992) Risk society: towards a new modernity London: Sage Dahlin, B. (2002) The state, the universities, and civil society. Paper presented at the ECER 2002, Lisbon, 11-14

September 2002Dreyfus, H. & Dreyfus, S. (1986) The mind over machine: the power of human intuition and expertise in the era of

the computer. New York: Free PressEkeblad, Eva (1996) Children learning numbers. A phenomenographic excursion into first-grade children’s

arithmetic. Göteborg studies in educational sciences 105, Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgiensis.Englund. T. (1986) Curriculum as a political problem : changing educational conceptions, with special reference to

citizenship education Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell InternationalGibbons, M. (Ed.) (1994) The new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary

societies London: SageGiroux, H. (1997) Pedagogy and the politics of hope Boulder, CO: WestviewPressHusserl, E. (1959) Mediation über die Idee eines individuellen und Gemeinschaftslebens in absoluter

Selbstverantwortung. In: Erste Philospthie. Zweiter Teil. Theorie der phänomenologischer Reduktion. Ergänzende Texte.

Husserl, E. (1970) The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology : an introduction to phenomenological philosophy Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press

Husserl, E. (1976) Experience and Judgement, Evanston: Northwestern Univ. PressHusserl, E. (1989) Collected works. Vol. 3, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological

philosophy, second book: studies in the phenomenology of constitution. The Hague: NijhoffJohansson, M. (2003) Can higher education create experts to solve environmental problems? Paper presented on

European Conference on Educational Research, Hamburg 17-20 September 2003.Klafki, W. (1963) Studien zur Didaktik und Bildungsteorie Weinheim: BelzKlafki, W. (1993) Neue Studien zur Bildungstheorie und Didaktik: zeitgemässe Allgemeinbildung und kritisch-

konstruktive Didaktik Weinheim: BelzLevinas, E. (1981) Otherwise than being or beyond essence. The Hague: NijhoffNowotny, H., Scott, P., Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-thinking science: knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty

Cambridge: Polity PressNussbaum, M. (1997) Cultivating humanity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Östman, L. (1995) Socialisation och mening: No-utbildning som politiskt och miljömoraliskt problem [Socialization

and meaning: science education as a political and environmental-ethical problem] Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International

14

Popkewitz, T. (1986) Struggling for the soul: the politics of schooling and the construction of the teacher New York: Teachers College Press

Popper, K. R. (1960) The poverty of historicism. Routledge & Kegan PaulRaeithel, A. (1996) On the ethnography of cooperative work. In: Engeström, Y. and Middleton, D. Cognition and

communication at work. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressRolf, B. Ekstedt, E. & Barnett, R. (1993) Kvalitet och kunskapsprocess i högre utbildning. (Quality and process of

knowledge in higher education) Nora: Nya DoxaSchön, D. (1983) The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Aldershot: ArenaSvensson, L. (1976) Study skill and learning. Göteborg study in educational sciences19. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis

GothoburgensisSzybek, P. (1998) Å vilken äcklig fisk. Ett möte mellan naturvetenskaplig kunskap och vardagskunskap i skolan.

Exempel från biologiundervisningen på grundskolans högstadium. [Oh what a disgusting fish.. Science knowledge meets everyday knowledge in school. An example from biology teaching in upper grades of comprehensive school] Pedagogiska rapporter nr 74. Department of Education, Lund university

Szybek, P. (1999) Knowing and valuing. Some aspects of the relation between knowledge and values. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Göteborg, August 25-28th, 1999

Szybek, P. (2002) Meaning constitution in education. Paper presented at the ECER 2002, Lisbon, 11-14 September 2002

Szybek; P. (2002a) Science education – an event staged on two stages simultaneously . Science and Education, 11(6), 525 – 555.