Pedagogy, Culture & Society

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The pedagogic paradox (or why no didactics in

England?)

David Hamilton

To cite this article: David Hamilton (1999) The pedagogic paradox (or why no didactics in
England?), Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 7:1, 135-152, DOI: 10.1080/14681369900200048

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 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?
Pedagogy, Culture & Society, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1999

The Pedagogic Paradox

(or Why No Didactics in England?)

DAVID HAMILTON
Ume University, Sweden
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ABSTRACT Th is article h as b een written for two p urp oses. First, it exp lores a
p arad ox: th at recent Anglo-American usage of pedagogy mirrors the
mainland Europ ean use of d id actic. Secondly, it is a comment on the current
status of curriculum studies. In particular, it relates curriculum analysis to
th e field s of d id actic and p ed agogic analysis.

The manifold European tradition of didactics is the subject of a review

recently p rep ared b y Bjrg Gundem of the University of Oslo. It was
written for an Anglo-Saxon audience, and is one of th e fruits of a
trans-Atlantic dialogue initiated in 1992 (Gundem, 1998, p. 5). I have
chosen to cite Gundems review on this occasion because it deserves the
widest circulation. Yet, I am also very aware that the cover title of
Gundems review Understanding European Didactics: an overview will
fail to attract Anglo-American readers. Why? Because didactics has a
negative valuation in the Anglo-American mind. It denotes formalist educa-
tional practices that combine dogma with d ullness (Oxford English Dic-
tionary). It conjures up the unwelcome European ghosts of an unattractive
ed ucational p ast.
By contrast, pedagogics is not an alien notion to Anglo-American
educationalists. It re-entered the Anglo-American educational lexicon after
1970, having lain dormant since the First World War (cf. Cruikshank, 1998).
The 1970s revival, however, was not a restatement of earlier assumptions.
Rather, fresh meanings arose that, paradoxically, have hindered
transatlantic dialogue. The European discourse of didactics is, I suggest,
very close to the Anglo-American discourse of pedagogics. Only their
language d ivid es th em.
This article is devoted to the pedagogic paradox. It not only unravels
and clarifies the transformations and tensions outlined above, it also links

135
 DAVID HAMILTON

them to the field of curriculum studies and, not least, to the title change of
th is journal from Curriculum Studies to Pedagogy, Culture and Society.
A major reason for the change of title is that Anglo-American concep-
tions of curriculum have become both limited and limiting. Since
Curriculum Studies was founded in 1993, curriculum theorising has
atrop h ied . It h as lost touch with th e d eep er q uestions th at, for centuries,
have animated pedagogy and didactics. It has been reduced to questions
about instructional content and classroom delivery. The sense that a cur-
riculum is a vision of the future and that, in turn, curriculum questions
relate to human formation has been marginalised. The short-termism of
What should they know? has replaced the strategic curriculum question
What sh ould th ey b ecome? (cf. Hamilton & Gudmundsdottir, 1994).
In both its classical and Enlightenment senses, pedagogy denoted the
process of upbringing and the influences that might shape this human
activity. It is no accident, therefore, that the philosopher Immanuel Kant
opened his lectures on education, ber Pdagogik (1960, originally
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p ub lish ed in 1803), with:

Man is th e only b eing wh o need s ed ucation. For by education we must
und erstand nurture (th e tend ing and feed ing of th e ch ild ), d iscip line
(Zucht), and teach ing, togeth er with culture. Accord ing to th is, man is
in succession infant (req uiring nursing), ch ild (requiring discipline),
and scholar (req uiring teach ing). (p . 1)
Furthermore, the English translator (probably Annette Churton) adds the
footnote:
Culture (Bild ung) is used h ere in th e sense of moral training. (p. 1)
Curriculum Studies was founded to encourage reflection on and reaction
to these Enlightenment assumptions, categories and processes. This
article, th en, re-affirms the founding intentions of Curriculum Studies.

Why No Pedagogy in England?

The sub-title of this paper is a response to a provocative question posed
by Brian Simon in 1981: Why no pedagogy in England? At th at time, Simon
defined pedagogy as the science of teaching, using the Oxford English
Dictionary as his source. This notion of pedagogy as a science often
d erived from Herb art circulated in Anglo-American educational
discussions towards the end of the nineteenth century. However, Simon
argued, they were superfluous to English understandings of education and
schooling. They extended beyond the amateurish and highly pragmatic
outlook used in the recruitment, training and accreditation of English
sch oolteach ers (p . 125).
British policy-makers or schoolmen attributed little value to
notions of mental growth, understanding, self-realisation and social
change. Instead, the political goals of nineteenth century English schooling
were more restricted and more segmented. Social classes were to be

136
 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

educated for the positions reserved for them in the pre-ordained and
immoveab le ord er of th ings:
Each system, largely self-contained , d eveloped its own specific
educational ap p roach , each with in its narrowly d efined field , and each
appropriate to its sp ecific social function. In these circumstances the
conditions d id not, and could not, exist for th e d evelop ment of an
all-embracing, universalised , scientific th eory of ed ucation relating to
th e p ractice of teach ing. (p . 133)
Overall, Simons answer to the question Why no pedagogy in England?
was that, for over 100 years, nineteenth and twentieth century ideologies
of human difference, predetermined mental capacity and social
containment precluded the creation and dissemination of a developmental
science of teaching. The vision of Alexander Bains, Education as a Science
(1879) and/or Herbarts The Science of Education (English version, 1892)
remained marginal. They only captured p artial sup p ort th at d id not, and
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could not persist in th e circumstances that developed following World

War 1 (Simon, 1981, p. 132; see also Smith & Hamilton, 1980, passim ).
Simons argument about the structure, function and conservatism of
nineteenth century English schooling was not, however, the main thesis of
Why no pedagogy in England?. It merely served as a literary d evice, a
prologue to Simons main claim: that the 1980s offered a fresh opportunity
for th e renewal of scientific approaches to the practise of teaching. In
sh ort, a revitalised p edagogy had again become conceivable (p. 137).
Thereafter, Simons p ap er turned to a d iscussion of p rincip les drawn
from Vygotski, Luria and Bruner that might underpin such a science of
teaching. Moreover, Simon returned to this topic on at least two further
occasions (Simon, 1993, 1994).
Simons intervention was, ind eed , well timed . It is rememb ered , for
example, in Defining Pedagogy (Murphy, 1996), as one of the founding
papers in the re-emergence of pedagogy in England. In short, it was a
ground-clearing exercise. By highlighting the concept of pedagogy, it both
refocused and problematised the study of teaching and learning
alongside the creation of a national curriculum for England and Wales
(introduced 1988). Despite Simons main th esis, h owever, h is h istorical
p reamb le also begs a parallel question: Wh y no didac tics in England?.
As suggested, notions of pedagogy and didactics circulated widely in
the nineteenth century. They seem to have had an overlapping and inter-
secting history. For instance, the 10-volume Oxford English Dictionary,
produced in the 1970s, includes the art or science of teaching among its
definitions for pedagogy, and the near identical science or art of teaching
for didactics. Furth ermore, th e OED also illustrates nineteenth century
usage of d id actics in Britain with a quotation from J. G. Fitch s Lectures on
Teaching, published in the 1880s: The art of teaching, or didactics as we
may for convenience call it.
Such affinities between pedagogics and didactics the main concern
of th is p ap er remain in the educational literature. Note, for instance, the

137
 DAVID HAMILTON

equivalence of the following definitions: Simon gives pedagogy as a

science of teaching embodying both curriculum and methodology (1981,
p. 125); and Gundem gives didactics as a science and theory about
teaching and learning in all circumstances and in all forms (Gundem, 1998,
p . 6).

Education and Schooling

The differentiation of pedagogics from didactics can be traced in the
historical record. Within the realm of available evidence from classical
Greece, pedagogues were responsible for the upbringing of pre-pubescent
males, while the education of older children was allocated to teachers with
d ifferent resp onsib ilities and titles (e.g. gram m aticus, rhetor; see, for
instance, Kennell, 1995; Atherton, 1998, pp. 222229). Furthermore, this
age-, stage- and gender-related differentiation could also denote different
conceptions of upbringing. While pedagogics related to the induction,
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framing, taming or p ositioning of male ch ild ren with in an initial set of

cultural practices, other educational practices took children who had
already been framed, and relocated them in new positions. The work of
the didaskalos (teacher), for example, focused on pre-adults who were
instructed ... in activities sh ared with ad ult males in th e elite (Atherton,
1998, p . 229).
As far as this article is concerned, however, the relationship between
pedagogy and didactics began to take a more elaborated form in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their new form arose in a new set of
circumstances the appearance of three new entries in the educational
lexicon syllab us, curriculum and method.
Originally circulating in Latin, these five terms (pedagogy, syllabus,
curriculum, didactics and method) provided the conceptual infra-struc-
ture of modern European schooling. At root, this formalisation arose
because the literature of education took an instructional turn (see
McClintock, 1972). That is, it began to focus on teaching rather than
learning.
Five different processes combined to create the instructional turn.
First, a new literature about instruction directed at schoolteachers
began to diverge from a longstanding literature about upbringing (i.e. for
parents, nurses, governors and tutors). Secondly, the world of existing
knowledge began to be mapped, giving rise to the notion of a syllabus
(which defined the content of instruction). Thirdly, instruction was
organised in terms of journeys across the map of knowledge, giving rise to
the notion of curriculum (the course of modern schooling). Fourthly,
knowledge was organised around a set of upbringing or presentation prin-
ciples giving rise to overlap p ing notions of p ed agogics and d id actics (th e
organisation of upbringing and instruction). Finally, these assumptions
about the content, course and organisation of schooling were expressed in
th e notion of method (the delivery of instruction).

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 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

The convergence of instruction and schooling began in the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries. Scholars throughout Europe brought together
surviving records of ancient learning. In the process, they created a canon
that gradually became recognised, accessible and accepted throughout
western Christendom. Indeed, the size of this body of knowledge is
indicated in Southerns claim that all the basic texts on all subjects
capable of exact and systematic study would have amounted to little
more th an th ree or four hundred volumes of moderate size (1997, p. 9).
These medieval activities of clarification, consolidation and
distribution had at least three downstream consequences. First, the
selected sources provided the basis for a new orthodoxy. Secondly,
masters of the schools where consolidation had been carried out (e.g.
Bologna, Paris and the Papal curia in Rome) became arb iters of orth od o-
xy. Th ey were ab le to define doctrines and to foster their dissemination
and acceptance through associated sermons, manuals for teachers and
confessors, and hand books of general interest (p. 7).
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The third, long-term consequence of medieval educational reform

was that the original 300400 sources became fragmented b y th e
elaboration of minutiae and/or the p iling up of mountains of accumu-
lated knowled ge. In turn, South ern suggests, such writings lost th eir
instructional power: they became, that is, increasingly irrelevant as a
d irecting influence on organised life (p. 2).

Didactics and Curriculum

Modern didactics, like modern curricula, emerged from within the
framework described by Southern. Both arose, I suggest, from a crucial
distinction: the separation of the activity of teaching from the activity of
defining th at wh ich is taugh t (the Latin word doctrina can embrace both
meanings). Before the sixteenth century, the social practices of teaching
and the knowledge transmitted through teaching were synonymous.
Formalised medieval teaching, therefore, was merely the faithful
representation, organisation and transmission of accumulated and
inherited teachings (or doctrine). Moreover, as Southern suggests, such
teach ing was a mountainous task.
Following Southern, Grafton & Jardine report the same circu-
mstances. By the early sixteenth century, they claim that the teaching of
d octrine h ad b ecome p rob lematic. A common complaint of that time,
th ey suggest, was th at teaching is ind igestib le, i.e. th at only th ose with
access to the exceptional teacher, or those exceptionally well-prepared
themselves, stand to gain from current humanistic teaching practices
(Grafton & Jardine, 1986, p. 124). Such dissatisfaction led to a
reassessment of medieval education. For example, indigestible grammars
grad ually fell out of favour in an Italian curriculum revolution th at,
between 1400 and 1450, supplanted Scholasticism with the Studia hum an-
itas (Grendler, 1989, pp. 140141 and 117 ff.) Proponents of the new
teaching regarded the old practices as a wrongheaded scholastic

139
 DAVID HAMILTON

enterp rise. Their goals were less ambitious. The early Italian humanists
learned grammar not to deepen their philosophical understanding but,
rath er, to read the classics and to become eloquent. Nothing more
(Grendler, 1989, pp. 165166).
The humanists who undertook this revision (e.g. Lorenzo Valla
(140757) and Rudolph Agricola (144485), see, for instance, Mack, 1993)
are remembered because they undertook a major reworking of inherited
sources. The works of Cicero and Quintilian, for instance, received par-
ticular attention not only because they displayed classical elegance, but
because their view of oratory also offered a framework for the trans-
formation of learning. Insofar as teaching could be deemed a form of per-
suasion (as well as a mode of presentation), Renaissance teaching
responded favourably to the literature of rhetoric, which included works
b y Cicero and Quintilian.
By the sixteenth century, humanist grammar had broken away from
the commentaries and formalism of medieval practice. It became identified
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with the teaching of elegant Latin. A new die was cast. The scholasticism
of the Middle Ages was replaced by a new formalism the instructional
turn. As Grendler notes:
After 1500 no major or mid d le-ranking Italian h umanist p ublish ed a
grammar text. Instead , p rimary and second ary sch ool teach ers and
p ersons wh ose careers are unknown to us wrote manuals that
exhibited little originality. Th ey revised , amp lified , and emb roid ered
p revious works, b ecause th e Renaissance grammatical tradition was
set. Just as medieval grammarians developed a curriculum b ased on
th e auctores [auth orities], so th e Renaissance had its pedagogical
grammatical trad ition, and it p ermitted little d eviation. (Grend ler, 1989,
p . 194)
Accordingly, Renaissance reform is historically memorable for its atten-
tion to the reorganisation or restructuring of teaching and learning. It
is surely true, assert Grafton & Jard ine, th at until h umanists h ad d evised
a curriculum and an order or method for progressing through its
bewilderingly rich resources, humanism was bound to remain the
preserve of a small number of dedicated (and leisured) specialists
(p. 124).
Like Grendler, Grafton & Jardine report a sh ift in intellectual focus
from the 1510s onwards (p. 124). The ideal end-product of a classical
education (an orator, perfectly equipped for political life) was replaced by
a new emphasis on classroom aids (textbooks, manuals and teaching
d rills) wh ich would comp artmentalise th e bonae litterae [th e received clas-
sical sources] and reduce them to a system (p. 124). By such means,
Renaissance humanist instruction became formalised and
institutionalised. The ideals of early humanism were replaced by an
institutionalised curriculum cluster (i.e. th e humanities). In turn,
humanist teaching and its teachings became available to a much wider

140
 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

section of society (cf. the sixteenth century educational revolution

exp lored b y Stone, 1965, chap ter 12; and by Joan Simon, 1966).
Sixteenth century reworking of the key rituals, assumptions and
meth od s of earlier humanists, revolutionised second ary sch ools and arts
faculties in Renaissance Europe (Grafton & Jardine, 1986, p. xi). A key
process in this revolution was the partition of the medieval unity of teach-
ings and teaching. Two separate realms of practice emerged. First, as
noted, bodies of doctrine (i.e. teachings) were reconstituted through the
identification, mapping and representation of bodies of knowledge (i.e.
curricula); and , in p arallel, teaching was reconstituted through the identi-
fication of procedures for the efficient transmission or inculcation of
received curriculum knowledge (i.e. didactics or instruction).
This differentiation seems to have been under consideration by the
end of the sixteenth century. Ann Blair, for instance, notes that the Renais-
sance humanist, Jean Bodin (1529/3096), called for a clear division of
lab or b etween d iscip lines. In h is eyes, it would b e wrong, sh e suggests,
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to d iscuss th e ord er of p resentation of a d iscip line ... alongsid e th e

content of th e d iscipline (Blair, 1997, p . 42).

Instruction and Method

If curriculum mapping was inspired by the efforts of Renaissance explorers
and cartographers (e.g. Christopher Columbus, 14511506; Gerhardus
Mercator, 151294); the reorganisation of teaching, as suggested, was
inspired by innovations in oratory or rhetoric. Renaissance lawyers and
Reformation preachers Joh n Calvin was b oth of th ese may h ave served
as mediators. In short, newly-devised curricula were to be delivered along
the same lines as courtroom speeches and ecclesias tical sermons.
In an important sense, then, teaching became a form of argumenta-
tion. Humanists took th e logic d evelop ed b y late med ieval sch olastics and
trans p osed it into a rhetorical framework. In effect, the new argumentation
was less about the minutiae of (scholastic) truth and more about the
nuances of (humanist) persuasion. Through such attention to both rhet-
oric and logic, lawyers, preachers and teachers fashioned their own
theories of courtroom advocacy, pulpit preaching, and schoolroom or
instructional didactics.
However, wh at ab out meth od ? Th is was th e final twist to th e in-
structional turn. In its classical Greek sense, a method was merely a set of
p roced ures. By the sixteenth century, however, method had acquired a
new and revolutionary meaning. To methodise a practice was to increase
its efficiency. It was reth ough t, th at is, in terms of short cuts.
Teacher questioning provides a clear and p erh ap s p ersuasive
example. Questioning has figured in the literature of educational practice
since Plato popularised the exhaustive procedures of Socrates
(469399BC). Nevertheless, teacher questioning also underwent a major
yet relatively unresearched reappraisal towards the middle of the six-
teenth century. Inherited questioning practices whether Socratic

141
 DAVID HAMILTON

dialogues or medieval disputations were refurb ish ed . A new and efficient

form of teacher questioning arose a sh ort cut to d octrinal d elivery th at is
still remembered as catechesis (see, for instance, Green, 1996).
Thus, the modern conception of didactics had its origins in the
methodisation of doctrinal delivery. Wolfgang Ratke (15711635) reacted
against earlier corrupt, dreary, irksome, false and inaccurate practices
(Turnbull, 1993, p. 389). He fostered the convergence of Greek and Latin
notions of telling into a Latin neologism d id actica wh ich , Martial
rep orts, h ad its earliest use in 1613 (Martial, 1985, p. 22).
Sponsored by various German patrons interested in the advancement
of schooling, Ratke and coworkers marketed didactics as the art of teach-
ing (die Lehrart). As an art ars is the Latin equivalent of the Greek word
techne didactics was represented as an instrument or method which, in
Ratkes case, was a catalogue of prescriptions or maxims (e.g. instruction
sh ould start with religion ... Everyth ing sh ould p roceed accord ing to th e
meth od of nature ... Only one th ing at a time ... All th ings in h armony (see
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Turnbull, 1993, p. 390).

Ratkes d id actics p rojected an active view of instruction (or telling)
and, as a result, a passive view of learning: All work falls to the teacher,
he concluded, leaving young learners to sit still, listen and b e silent
(quoted, for instance, in Michel, 1978, p. 65; see also Comenius, 1953,
p. 107; Turnbull, 1993, p. 391).[1] Such notions are the origin of the aura of
dogma and d ullness that, as suggested, still suffuse English-language
und erstand ings of didactics.

Instructional Machines, Large and Small

Reformation innovators are remembered because they were consummate
formalisers, methodisers and populariser. Their diverse efforts found
expression in a European constellation of catechisms, textbooks and
manuals that encompassed, for instance, the Scottish Book of Discipline
(1561), the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum (1599) and Johann Amos Comeniuss The
Great Didactic (1632). The net result of this formalisation was that curricu-
lum began to denote a fixed body of teachings (doctrine) that could be
delivered using an instructional technology (didactics) valid for all
learners.
Preacher/teachers took such a technology or exp ertise (another
translation of techne, see Atherton, 1998, p. 223) from church community
to church community (Strasburg, Geneva, Basel). One image associated
with this movement is the Nuremburg Funnel (die Nrnburg Trichter).
This benign image is attributed to a Nuremburg poet, George Philipp Hars-
d rfer (160758), who also edited an educational work on reading, writing
and arithmetic in 1653 (see Dobbie, in Comenius, 1986, p. 206n). Fashioned
according to Ratkes didactics, the Nuremburg Funnel would quickly,
safely and comfortably fill the heads of young people with knowledge
and/or d octrine (Schaller, 1992, p. 116).[2]

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 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

Didactics underwent a further mechanisation in Comeniuss Didactica

Magna. Between the Czech edition of 1632 and the Latin edition of 1657,
Comenius seems to have refocused his views about instructional
technology. The didactic funnel was re-engineered as a filling machine.
Learners mind s could b e imp rinted in th e same way th at h und red s of
th ousand s of books could be run off in a printing workshop (Comenius,
1896, p. 317). Indeed, Klaus Schaller has suggested that Comenius revision
of Ratkes maxims marks the origins of modern schooling as a teaching
and learning machine (Sch aller, 1992, p . 116).
If Ratke and Harsd rfer d evised th e sm all didactic, Comenius
fash ioned th e great didactic. Indeed, since the seventeenth century this
distinction between small and great didactics has resonated around
Europe. In some European contexts, like Spain and Portugal, didactics is
still regarded as a classroom handicraft conducted by artisans (Hand-
werker). In other countries, however, didactics can also be regarded as
th e resp onsib ility of system arch itects (Baumeister), ed ucational p lanners
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wh o h ave overall resp onsib ility for d esigning, constructing and steering
systems of sch ooling.
As important, Comeniuss Great Didactic also seems to mark the
original extent of Anglo-American interest in didactics, itself marked in the
international exchange of ideas among Comenius and his followers (see,
for instance, Greengrass et al, 1994). English-language interest in the work
of Comenius and Ratke did not return until the second half of the nine-
teenth century. It was aroused, for instance, by R. H. Quicks Essays on
Educational Reform ers (1868), by M. W. Keatinges translation of Comen-
iuss Great Didactic in 1896 and by Turnbulls MA thesis on Ratke,
submitted to Liverpool University in 1913 (reprinted, in part, in Turnbull,
1993). Indeed, Quick noted in his preface that on the history of Education,
not only good b ooks but all books are in German.

Kant and Herbart

Over the same period, educationalists in mainland Europe retained their
earlier didactic interests. They struggled, for instance, with the corpus of
ideas left to them through Immanuel Kants ber Pdagogik and ,
furth ermore, in two volumes written b y Joh ann Fried rich Herb art: All-
gem eine Pdagogik (General Pedagogics, 1806) and Um riss Pdagogischer
Vorlesungen (1835; English translation as Plan of Lectures on Pedagogy,
1908).
Herbart occupied Kants p h ilosop h y ch air at Knigsberg university
from 1809 to 1835. Like Kant, Herbart also had systemic interests. His
aspiration was to devise, from first principles, an educational system. He
worked, therefore, towards a general theory of pedagogics (i.e. Allgemeine
p dagogik) which, in an inadequate translation, became the Science of
Education (Herbart, 1892). Although Herbarts educational ideas were
d evised as a grand system, h is Lectures written in h is final years as a
p rofessor in Gttingen also included a set of formal steps of instruction

143
 DAVID HAMILTON

(see Hayward, 1903, pp. 4142). Moreover, these formal steps could also
be translated into a series of classroom activities and used, therefore, in
the planning and conduct of instruction. The first Herbartian stage (clear-
ness) entailed the analysis of previous notions and the addition of new
matter; the second stage (association) focused on the collation, comparing
and contrasting similar phenomena; the third stage (system) was directed
towards the establishment of generalised notions; and, at the final stage
(method), practical applications were drawn from the results of the earlier
stages.
Herb arts ideas about lesson planning and the organisation of
instruction were, however, intimately bound up with his philosophical
ideas. Scepticism surrounded Herbarts p h ilosop h y for 30 years and , as a
result, his ideas about formal stages suffered a similar neglect. By the end
of the century, however, followers of Herbart reversed this judgement. His
philosophical assumptions yielded to the instructional or didactic features
of his educational theory; notably, its ad ap ted ness ... for ed ucational
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p urp oses and for social reform and its strength in th ose asp ects ... wh ich
touch up on th e work of the teacher (Hayward , 1903, p . 33).
Th e revival of Herb arts instructional theory was associated with the
names of Volkmar Stoy (181585), Fried rich Wilh elm Drpfeld (182493)
and Twiskon Ziller (181782). Stoy, for instance, refocused educational
practice on the notion of interest, itself d erived from Herb art. Drpfeld
emphasised the importance of a Lehrplan, a definitely thought-out scheme
of stud ies in wh ich every subject should have an organic place ... [not the]
loose aggregate of studies such as is indicated on the average British Time
Table (sic) (Hayward, 1903, p. 47). Ziller revived the moral training
dimension of didactics through a series of books on notion of educative
instruction (erziehenden Unterricht) ranging from Einleitung in die
Allgem eine Pdagogik (Introduction to General Pedagogy, 1856), through
Grundlegung z u Lehre vom Erz iehenden Unterricht (Foundation of a system
of Educative Instruction, 1865) to Vorlesungen ber Allgem eine Pdagogik
(Lectures on General Pedagogy, 1876). The culmination of this restoration
work was a series of texts, written or edited by Wilhelm Rein (18471929),
that included Theorie und Praxis des Volksschul-unterrichts nach Herbart-
schen Grundstz en (Theory and Practice of Instruction in the Elementary
school According to Herbartian Principles, 1878) and the Encyclopdisches
Handbuch der Pdagogik (189599).
Herbart focused on education, while the secondary herbartian
literature focused on the organisation of instruction. If the notion of formal
step s h ad its origins in Herb arts p h ilosop h y, it was resurrected in th e era
of mass schooling and mass instruction. According to Gundem, for
instance, th e:
most imp ortant contrib ution of Herbart, and to some degree the
Herbartians, was to extract d id actics from general ed ucational th eory,
turning it into a d iscip line on its own, d ealing with instruction under
th e cond itions of sch ooling as d istinct from other instructional settin-
gs. But in doing so, th e Herb artians ch anged Herb arts analytical tools

144
 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

into sch ematic seq uences p re-forming any hour and minute of teaching.
(Gundem, 1998, p . 23)
In turn, th is rigid, schematic approach to teaching (p. 24) was countered
b y anoth er reform movement that also looked back to Herbart and Kant.

Didactic Analysis
The new movement launched a didactic theory based on the work of Wilh-
elm Dilthey (18331911). A new generation of German educationalists took
a fresh look at educational theory. The notion of a general or universal
theory of education valid for all times and places was set asid e (see, for
example, the account of Uljens, 1997, p. 8). Didactics was re-invented as a
human science (Geisteswissenschaft): that is, as something distinct from
natural sciences (Naturwissenschaft). Educational thought and practice
were to be built upon an analysis of the lived experience of practitioners,
an awareness of the historicity of practice, and an anticipation of the
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life-world s of future p ractitioners (cf. wh at should they become).

To this extent, didactics returned to the study of teaching as a
situated schoolroom craft steered by a constellation of other assumptions
about the past, current and future lives of learners. In turn, didactics could
not be reduced to a set of teaching methods. It embraced both the small
and large didactics of the seventeenth century the Handwerker, as well
as the Baumeister. It began to be associated with an expanded conception
of instruction that Gundem describes as didactic analysis (chapter 5) and
that, in German, were known as Geisteswissensh aftlich e Pdagogik or
Bildungstheoretische Didaktik (see Klafki, 1995, p. 13; Hopmann & Riquar-
ts, 1995, p. 5). Didactic analysis, then, began to entail a combination of
historical, social and cultural deliberation. The creation of a teaching plan
necessarily included the posing of deliberative wh y? questions alongside
wh at? and how? questions. Indeed wh y? and/or wh at sh ould th ey
become? questions became paramount, relegating how? q uestions to a
sub sid iary field of analysis methodik.
As suggested, neither Herbartian nor deliberative (cf. hermeneutic or
critical) forms of didactic analysis found favour in Anglo-American circles.
In fact, they were eclipsed by a different movement th e ad vent of ap p lied
psychology or scientific management thinking in education (cf. Callahan,
1962: Selleck, 1968). New technologies of teaching were devised, which
ignored the deliberative dimensions of either pedagogic or didactic
analysis. Within the USA, the downgrading of these Germanic views is
neatly cap tured in two sources.
First, Paul Monroes A Cyclopaedia of Education (1913) links pedagogy
to upbringing, but relegates it to an inferior status in the organisation of
sch ooling:
Since th e Renaissance educational reformers have drawn more and
more attention to th e significance of th e p rocess of education as con-
trasted with th at of th e sub ject matter taught. The study of this

145
 DAVID HAMILTON

p rocess h as b een for several centuries referred to as pedagogy. The

p h ilosop h er Kant d enominated h is lectures on education as ber
Pd agogik. Th ey d ealt esp ecially with th e formation of habit, and moral
training and instruction. Th us d efined , p ed agogy concerned that aspect
of ed ucation commonly h eld to b e most ch ild ish and least interesting, a
p h ase of life relegated to nurses, moth ers, and pedagogues, and felt to
h ave little in it to command th e th ough tful attention of the strong in
mind or will. (p . 621)
The second judgement is also a signifier of the low status of curriculum or
didaktik analysis: one cannot understand the history of education in the
United States during the 20th century unless one realises that Edward L.
Thorndike won, and John Dewey lost (Ellen Lagemann, quoted in
Kansanen, 1995, p. 106; for the marginality of Deweys role see Kleibard,
1986, passim ).
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Curriculum and Pedagogic Analysis

Sustained Anglo-American reaction against earlier instructional turns
eventually came in the 1970s. In effect, German didactic analysis (which,
by then, took many forms) resurfaced in the English-speaking world as
pedagogic analysis. The substitution of pedagogy for didactics seems to
be have been the result of two seminal interventions. First, Paulo Freires
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1971) shared Anglo-American distrust of the
seventeenth century didactic inheritance (which he characterised as the
banking conception of education). Freire rejected, that is, a
dullness-and-dogma view of education where th e teach er talks and th e
student listens meekly (p. 46).
The other seminal text was Basil Bernsteins (1971) On the classifica-
tion and framing of educational knowledge, wh ich ap p eared in Youngs
Knowledge and Control: new directions for the sociology of education.
Bernstein explicitly acknowledged German influence upon his thinking:
th at is, th e many valuable suggestions and th e constructive criticism of
Wolfgang Klafki and Hubertus Huppauf of the University of Marburg (p.
68n).
Bernsteins model had three features. First, it linked curriculum to
th e formal transmission of educational knowledge. Secondly, it identified
educational knowledge codes, wh ich d enoted th e underlying principles
which shape curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation. Finally, Bernsteins
model p rop osed that:
Formal ed ucational knowledge can be considered to be realized
th rough th ree message systems: curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation.
Curriculum d efines wh at counts as valid knowledge, pedagogy defines
wh at counts as th e valid transmission of knowledge, and evaluation
d efines wh at counts as valid realization of th is knowledge on the part
of th e taugh t. (p . 47)

146
 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

The historical importance of Bernsteins argument, like that of Freires

banking mod el, was th at it injected a p luralism into curriculum stud ies.
Consciously or unconsciously, Bernsteins parallel reference to different
codes or message systems on the one hand and to differences in class and
control on the other, cleared the way for new analyses that focused upon
the inter-relationship and interaction of education and politics. Different
forms of teaching and learning expressed in terms of pedagogy,
curriculum and didactics could be analysed in terms of their historical,
social and cultural modulations (e.g. with respect to gender, race,
sexuality and eth nicity).
Initially, Bernstein typified these categories as codes, b ut after h is
Class and pedagogies: visible and invisible (1975, chapter 6), they also
became characterised as different pedagogies. Indeed, in this lexical shift
from codes to pedagogies, it may be significant that Bernstein wrote
Class and pedagogies: visible and invisible, around p eriod s of attach ment
to Pierre Bourd ieus Centre de Sociologie Europenne in Paris (see
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Bernstein, 1975, p. 14): that is, in a country where, perhaps, pedagogie h as

more currency than didactique.
The impact of Bernsteins and Freires ideas on Anglo-American
educational thought can also be judged from other sources. For instance,
the proportion of entries that include the word pedagogy rose 5-fold
between 1970 and 1997 in the Federally-funded US data base ERIC.
Furthermore, one of the leading US proponents of pedagogic analysis,
Henry Giroux, also points to the importance of the 1970s: radical
pedagogy emerged in full strength as part of the new sociology of
education in England and the United States over a decade ago (Giroux,
1988, p . xxiv).
The differential influence of German ideas, Freire and Bernstein can
also be discerned in the catalogue of the US library of Congress. Use of
pedagogy in the Kantian sense of early education is suggested by titles like
A Contribution to the Pedagogy of Arithm etic (1914) and Experim ental Studies
in the Psychology and Pedagogy of Spelling (1935); whereas older German
usage in the sense of instruction also seems to h ave survived in th eology,
sports and music teaching (e.g. The Pedagogy of Gods Im age, 1982;
Pedagogy and Didactics of Physical Activity, 1976; and Cello Pedagogy, 1972).
The more recent association of pedagogy with historical, social and
cultural analysis that is, connected to Freire and Bernstein is manifest
in such titles as The Pedagogy and Politics of Failure (1977), Critical
Pedagogy and Cultural Power (1987), Critical Pedagogy in the Modern Age
(1988), Learning to Question: a pedagogy of liberation (1989), Researching
Lived Experience: hum an science for an action sensitive pedagogy (1990),
Pedagogy of Dom ination (1990), Fem inist Pedagogy (1988), Texts for a
Pedagogy of Possibility (1992), Com m unication Pedagogy (1992), Towards a
Poetics, Politics and Pedagogy of Literary Engagem ents (1992), Aboriginal
Pedagogy (1991), Dialogic Pedagogy (1994), Pedagogy of Healing (1997),
Gender-Sensitive Pedagogy (1997), Pedagogy of Power (1998), Eco-fem inist
Literary Criticism : theory, interpretation, pedagogy (1998) Engaged Pedagogy

147
 DAVID HAMILTON

(1998), Know and Tell: a writing pedagogy of disclosure (1998), Progressive

Pedagogy (1998), and Teaching Popular Culture: beyond radical pedagogy
(1998).
The key feature of Anglo-American pedagogic analysis is that it is
interpretative. It assumes, following Freire, that there are different
pedagogies; it accepts, with Bernstein, that these different pedagogies
entail different outcomes; and it recognises, with Klafki, Gundem, and
other mainland European didacticians, that the task of an educationalist
whether Handwerker or Baumeister is to deliberate and make choices
among th ese d ifferent codes.
A crucial feature of such forms of analysis wh eth er th ey are
characterised as curricular, pedagogic or didactic is that teaching is as
much about codes as it is ab out m ethods. Put anoth er way, a cod e is a
framework for practice, not a prescription of methods a stance that is
also reflected in the forms of teaching discussed by Schwab (1978), Simon
(1981) and Stenhouse (1975). Indeed, one of the best illustration of this
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difference between methods and codes can be found in Peter McLarens

Life in Schools (3rd edition, 1998). McLaren starts with the assumption that
pedagogy must be distinguished from teaching and continues by quoting
Roger Simon who, in h is turn, ech oes Basil Bernstein: viz.
p ed agogy [refers] to th e integration in p ractice of particular
curriculum content and d esign, classroom strategies and tech niq ues,
and evaluation, p urp ose and meth od s. All of th ese asp ects of
educational practice come togeth er in th e realities of wh at h ap p ens in
classrooms. Togeth er th ey organize a view of h ow a teach ers work
with in an institutional context sp ecifies a p articular version of what
knowled ge is of most worth , wh at it means to know someth ing, and
h ow we migh t construct representations of ourselves, others and our
p h ysical and social environment. (p . 165)

Conclusions
This article has been written for two purposes. First, it explores a paradox:
that recent Anglo-American usage of pedagogy mirrors the mainland
European use of d id actic. Second ly, th is p ap er can also b e read as a
comment on the current status of curriculum studies. In particular, it
relates curriculum analysis to the fields of didactic and pedagogic
analysis.
All of these fields originally arose as part of an instructional turn
nourished in the social, political and confessional circumstances of the
Renaissance and the Reformation. The problematics of pedagogy,
curriculum and didactics intersected, and became cornerstones in the
construction of modern schooling. However, these problematics were not
eternal. As suggested, they changed in the Enlightenment, in the wake of
positivism and, in turn, alongside twentieth century movements variously
d escrib ed as ch ild -centred or post-positivist.

148
 WHY NO DIDACTICS IN ENGLAND?

Although times have changed, the problematics discussed in this

paper are not dead or doomed. The moral question, How sh ould th ey b e
framed?, that engaged humanist educationalists in the Renaissance, is no
less imp ortant th an Kants educational question, h ow migh t th ey b e
nurtured, disciplined and instructed?. Both of th ese q uestions are
implicated in the global dialectic of national identity and cultural
difference identified and analysed in Walter Feinbergs Com m on
Schools/ Uncom m on Identities (1998), and in the analysis of cap ab ilities
and cultural universals in Marth a Nussb aums Sex and Social Justice
(1999, ch ap ter 1).
This article has tried to clarify the context of such curriculum,
didactic and pedagogic analyses. Curriculum Studies has engaged with
these questions for nearly a decade. Its successor, Pedagogy, Culture and
Society, will continue to p rovid e a forum for such analysis, d elib eration
and d eb ate.
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Correspondence
David Hamilton, Institutionen fr pedagogik, Ume Universitet, SE-90187
Ume, Sweden (david.hamilton@pedag.umu.se).

Notes
[1] The sixth century Rule of th e Bened ictine ord er of Monks includ e th e
stip ulation th at it is th e office of th e master to speak and to teach, and of the
d iscip le to keep silent and listen (q uoted in Southern, 1997, p. 195).
[2] Harsd rfers image of a funnel also ap p ears in th e works of Juan Luis Vives
(14921540). Crane writes: Vives also cautions teach ers to resp ect th e small
capacity of th e b oys minds, like a vessel with a narrow neck, which spits out
again the too large sup p ly of liq uid s wh ich th e teach er attemp ts to p our in.
Let instruction th erefore b e p oured in grad ually, drop by drop (Crane, 1993,
p . 65).

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