What and how was the "Key Problems" (Schlüsselprobleme) criticized?: Logics and Varieties of Issues Concerning Wolfgang Klafki's Concept of General Education

Abstract

 The purpose of this paper is to clarify the logic of criticism concerning the epochal-typical key problems (epochaltypische Schlüsselprobleme) designed by Wolfgang Klafki. The key problems are the concept of general education (Allgemeinbildung), which Klafki proposed and developed from the 1980s on. They consist of key problems in society, such as peace issues, environmental issues, social inequality, and the possibilities and dangers of new technologies. While there has been no research on "key problems" as subject matter in Japanese pedagogical studies for the past 10 years, the concept is still the subject of research as an important reference point for rethinking “self-formation” (Bildung) in German-speaking countries. What is often overlooked, however, is that the key problems have been subjected to intense criticism from the beginning. In Japan, no studies have clarified the logic of such criticism, and even in German-speaking countries, the diversity of criticism has yet to be fully grasped. With the above-mentioned objective in mind, this paper clarifies the locations and diversity of issues concerning key problems, arriving at the following points. First, based on the arguments of Hermann Giesecke and Meinert Meyer, the leading key problem critics in German-speaking countries, it was possible to extract three symbolic arguments concerning key problems. These three issues are (1) whether key problems should be addressed in school education, (2) whether key problems should be addressed cross-curricularly, and (3) for whom key problems should be addressed. While taking these three issues into consideration, this paper attempted to grasp the diversity of arguments that cannot be fully captured therein. As a result, this paper contributes to complementing previous Japanese studies in the sense that it clarifies the content of the discourse on criticism concerning key problems; elsewhere, by sorting out the complex issues, including the critical arguments that have been overlooked in previous studies in the German-speaking world, this paper has clarified where the key problem issues requiring discussion lie.