Rethinking Education in Light of Global Challenges

Karen Bjerg Petersen is Associate Professor at the Danish School of Education in Aarhus, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research areas are globalisation, education policy, diversity, vulnerable youth, and alternative educational settings. Kerstin von Brömssen is Professor in Educational Science at University West, Trollhättan, Sweden. Her research interests are in the intersections of religion, ethnicity, gender, migration and education, curriculum theory, social justice, teacher education, and qualitative research method(ologies). Gro Hellesdatter Jacobsen is Associate Professor at University of Southern Denmark, Denmark. Her research interests are ethnic minorities and intercultural pedagogy and contemporary diagnoses of pedagogical and political tendencies.Jesper Garsdal is Reader (Docent) at Via University College, Aarhus, Denmark. His research areas are global and intercultural philosophy, philosophy of education and the global diversity of ideals of edification, philosophies of imagination, and existence.Michael Paulsen is Associate Professor at University of Southern Denmark, Denmark. His research focuses on the ontology and axiology of education. Currently he is working on developing a new understanding of education situated in the Anthropocene. Oleg Koefoed, Action-Philosopher, Denmark, is exploring possibilities of participation in urban planning and greening, based on the local action and shared reflection. He is the author of a series of publications related to participatory urban nature making, placemaking, and sustainable cities.

"Compulsory education is a powerful tool for instilling a nation's core values, norms and concerns in young people. Cultures are constantly changing and mixing, but at certain times this becomes more obvious, with its content of hopes, threats, and challenges. One thesis in this book is that three parallel phenomena today affect education throughout the world: neoliberalism as hegemonic discourse, cultural and demographic change related to migration, and climate change due to human activities in the era known as the Anthropocene. Three Nordic countries - Denmark, Norway, and Sweden - are focused as examples of how these phenomena works and what can be done to take advantage of new opportunities and counteract problems. A key theme is the opposition between learning for multifaceted insight on one hand, and instrumental learning as a prerequisite for economic competition in a globalized market on the other. How the growing cultural diversity in the Nordic countries relates to different ways to regard learning is crucial, and these texts provide critical reflections on the specifically Nordic management of tensions between globalization, multiculturalism, and neo-nationalism. The concept Bildung is constructively used to describe the necessity for such kind of learning that emphasizes ability to shift between broad outlooks and individual wants and views. The mix of empirical results and philosophical investigations make this book useful for a variety of readers on issues that concern us all." -- Professor Inga Wernersson, University West, Sweden

• Introduction; PART I: CULTURE 1. Multicultural Education, Learnification, and Bildung in a Nordic Perspective 2. Educating for Diversity: A Balancing Act 3. Bridges or Breaches? A Case Study on the Experiences of Inclusion of Bilingual Teachers 4. "A Blind Spot": Reproduction of Racism in Educational Landscapes 5. Students’ Dialogical Formation in an International Programme within Kindergarten Teacher Education 6. Transcending the National Sense of Place and Belonging? Place-Identity Politics in Transnational Higher Education; PART II: SOCIETY 7. The Purpose of Education and the Future of Bildung 8. Bildung Versus the Entrepreneurial Self: Pedagogical Strategies Towards a Bildungorientated Pedagogy 9. Critical Thinking and Bildung 10. Thresholds of Dialogue in an Age of Rage and Resentment 11. Bildung and No-Self 12. Global Citizenship Education, Internationalisation and Global Concerns: Reflections from Denmark 13. Bildung as Related to Free Play, Economics and Social Sculpture; PART III: ANTHROPOCENE 14. Amor Mundi (Love of the World) in the Anthropocene: Arendt and the Question of Sustainable Education 15. The Name of the World is Chaos: Learning in the Anthropocene 16. From Late Holocene to Early Anthropocene Educational Thinking (Humanism Revisited) 17. Cautiousness as a New Pedagogical Ideal in the Anthropocene; In Conclusion: Are you Awake, Yet?