Merete Wiberg

Thinking and researching inclusive education without a banister : visiting, listening and tact as a foundation for collective research on inclusive education

ABSTRACT This paper presents some initial findings of a double-sided study on collective research in inclusive education. The aim is to discuss how thinking on inclusive education can be produced and evolved in a community of inquiry consisting of practitioners and researchers. The paper presents both a research process and an explorative theoretical endeavour to rethink how we might conduct research in education and more specifically inclusive education. The theoretical point of departure is Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘thinking without a banister’ which, succinctly put, means to be able to think without a fixed methodology. We connect Arendt’s idea of ‘thinking without a banister’ with Johann Friedrich Herbart’s concept of pedagogical tact, which deals with the strong connection between theory and practice in educational processes. The paper ends with a reflection on the possible influence on inclusive education of the framework presented, and how it might lead to a more inclusive starting point for thinking about and researching the field of inclusive education.

On learning (how) to learn

When the authors visited community mental health facilities as part of their third year family medicine residency, they found that they learnt most about learning itself. This article describes their experience and some of their conclusions about themselves as people, as well as their function as family medicine residents.‘Learning how to learn’ is a mantra which is often advanced by politicians and administrators. From an administrative and educational-organisational perspective, it would be very convenient if learning was something which students could learn. If it were possible to train a general ability to learn, it would make the learning of specific subjects much more controllable and therefore more efficient.

Prerequisites of Learning from Various Means and Aim Perspectives

In the previous chapter, we suggested that in institutionalised processes of learning we are dealing with a multiple aim/means structure. Means and aims actualise themselves in concrete practices and can be viewed from a teacher as well as a student perspective. If we delve into this means and aim perspective, trying to tackle the phenomenon of learning, we might sketch out a picture of learning as something that happens because of a means or an aim, such as an instruction given by a teacher or an aim that is explained to the students.

Learning between means and aims

An increased political and professional interest in learning has manifested itself in a shift from content-based to outcome-based curricula and in an increased focus on evidence-informed teaching. Within schools, among teachers and in the overall field of education, the paradigmatic shift from content-based to outcome-based curricula has been followed by enhanced interest in, as well as debate about, how learning outcomes are operationalised into learning objectives or targets in study regulations and syllabus/lesson plans, and in formalised assessment of learning.