Keynote Presentation by Gert Biesta
Tuesday 11 November 4:15pm
The Point of Education in an Age of Distraction
In this presentation I argue that the point of education is a way to discuss purpose, because if we go straight to purpose(s) of education, there’s a risk that we end up quickly with instrumental questions again. I further argue that the age of distraction – although that may sound dramatic – will allow us to look at the environments within which education has to operate, and name some of the external and internal distractions that keep us a way from caring about the point of our work.
Gert Biesta (www.gertbiesta.com) is Professor of Educational Theory and Pedagogy in the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, UK, and Professor of Public Education in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy at Maynooth University, Ireland.
Gert’s research focuses on the theory of education and the philosophy of educational and social research, with a keen interest in national and global policy, curriculum, teaching and teacher education, democracy and citizenship education, religious education and education and the arts. He has published widely on these topics in books, articles and chapters, albeit that he sees himself first and foremost as a teacher. So far, his work has appeared in 22 different languages. Several rankings place him in the top ten of most cited education scholars in the world.
Since 2023 Gert has been a member of the Education Council of the Netherlands, the advisory body of the Dutch government and parliament, a position he also held from 2015-2018. From 2020 until 2022 he was a member of the national Curriculum Committee, which was tasked with advising the Dutch government on the future of the curriculum for primary and secondary schools. Gert is co-editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, and associate editor of the journal Educational Theory. Gert’s recent books include Educational Research: An Unorthodox Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2000), World-Centred Education: A View for the Present (Routledge, 2022), and The New Publicness of Education: Democratic Possibilities after the Critique of Neo-Liberalism (co-edited with Carl Anders Säfström, Routledge 2023).
*Photo by Christina Chouchena [email protected]