From September 23 to 25, 2019, the GERA annual conference of the German Educational Research Association took place in Wuppertal, Germany. The conference provided a forum for discussion of the currently hotly debated concept of the public sphere. This concept is characterized by a multitude of approaches and definitions. It became clear that, from an educational science perspective, the thematization of the public sphere(s) is reflected not least in programmatic and institutional dimensions, e.g., in ideas of “general education” or in an education policy-oriented discourse on “educational quality.”

Jan Christoph Heiser gave a lecture on "Epoché and sensus communis. A theoretical positioning of temporary suspension of judgment and expanded thinking in education and learning theory." The lecture discussed the (phenomenological) logical principles of epoché (Husserl/Buck/Waldenfels) and Kant's maxim of common sense “to think in the place of every other” (§40, Critique of Judgment) in the context of public life and politics, learning theory, educational anthropology, and global citizenship education.

Conference program
Commission homepage (GERA)