Kropp, tanke og kultur: Grunnleggende tilnærminger til pedagogikk og utdanning

Professionalized knowledge has become an increasingly important theme in modern education. School teachers and other educators of the like are thus supposed to be informed and well aware of intentions and results of their specific efforts. This symbolic approach mostly accompanies a parallel and often shadowed dimension of practical knowledge and practical mastery in educational enterprises. Social inheritance of both educators and educated, bodily experiences and capacities, as well as bodily mediated processes of learning has in that regard been offered the lesser attention. This outline thus points to tensions between conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious dimensions of education. Also having in mind, that educators are themselves educated over the whole life span, the course explores these questions at hand from a broad scope of theories and research: the concept of civilization, the body-mind dualism, body language, body and gender, body and sports, social class, critical theories of education and the ways social interactions are mediated bodily and expressed in rituals as well. By these approaches it becomes possible to investigate the most important and by same token quite unnoticed cultural practices in everyday life in families, institutions and in leisure life.

The course renders skills and general competence on formulating and discussing topics within educational sociology. The course renders knowledge about and theoretical perspectives on:

• The relationships between bodily and mental dimensions of culture and education.
• The tensions between conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious dimensions of education.
• The relationships between pedagogical interactions and contextual conditions.

Teaching methods and activities: 2 hours of lessons per week, 1 hour seminar per week. Teaching and seminars may be concentrated in specific periods during the term. The lessons can be organized as a combination of lectures and text reading seminars.