Failures of Pedagogical Intentions as Reflected in Literary Texts

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Hans-Christoph Koller; Professor Dr. Markus Rieger-Ladich
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 504280797

The failure of pedagogical ambitions has not yet been a prominent topic in educational theory. If it is discussed at all, it is usually seen either as the downside of pedagogical efforts that must be avoided at all costs, or it is trivialised and glorified as a productive opportunity. Hardly ever failure is reflected upon as a characteristic feature of pedagogical practices. The aim of the proposed project is to contribute to closing this gap in research, i.e., to work out the ability to fail as a constitutive moment of pedagogical efforts and to examine exemplary manifestations of failure as well as ways of dealing with it. Literary texts will serve as the object of study. They can be considered particularly suitable for this purpose because failure is given far greater attention there than in educational discourses. Since literature, as a result of its emancipation from theology and pedagogy, is no longer bound to teleological purposes, it can depict failure without constantly being bound to its avoidance or productive overcoming. Through the examination of novels and other narrative texts, aspects that tend to be faded out or even denied in educational research can therefore come into focus. The exemplary exploration of the knowledge potential of literary texts for researching failures of pedagogical processes will be carried out through two complementary sub-studies. Sub-study 1 is dedicated to failure as a moment of educational processes in the context of intergenerational relationships in families; sub-study 2 will deal with the failure of pedagogical processes in the context of boarding school education. The choice of these two thematic focuses was made first because their focus on two institutions, the family and the boarding school, have hugely differing framework conditions for educational processes, and second because for both exists a particular wealth of contemporary literary representations. In each of the two sub-studies, about six to eight novels will be examined with the means of narrative analysis and socio-analysis and their results will be compared and reflected upon regarding their systematic significance for educational theory.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants