Tübingen School of Education (TüSE)

Relativity and Normativity in Subject-Specific Education

Problem statement/objective of the Special Interest Group (SIG)

In a plural and democratic society, relativity seems equally natural and conflictual. It can be seen as a danger, but can also describe an educational aim that emerges from necessary insight into the conditionality and perspectivity of insights, convictions, and value systems. This explains why relativity, on the one hand, often seems to get dangerously close to arbitrariness and disorientation in the sense of relativism, or on the other hand to massive attempts at clarification, for example in the form of political or religious fundamentalism. Without a suitable approach to relativity, peaceful coexistence in plural societies, which are increasingly to be seen in a global horizon, is not possible. This situation is both the starting point and the background for the balancing of norms and standards, which do not avoid the challenge of the relative.

In view of this, orientation and certainty can only be gained by consciously taking in and reflecting on the problem of relativity. For such a perspective to become socially effective, it must also be translated into professional education processes; that is, an understanding of education must be developed that is attuned to the specific professional requirements of relativity. Against this background, the subject didactics working group, with the participation of educational science, offers the rare opportunity to develop relativity as an interface problem of different disciplines, and with a view to education, to demonstrate the potential of a multi-perspective approach to questions of relativity.

Speaker

Prof. Dr. Carolin Führer

Participants

Representatives of the subject didactics and subject sciences

  • Prof. Dr. Carolin Führer (German Philology/Didactics of German Literature)
  • Dr. Helga Gese (Linguistics, Didactics of Language)
  • Prof. Dr. Bernd Grewe (History Didactics and Public History)
  • Prof. Dr. Uwe Küchler (Didactics of English)
  • Philipp Marzusch (German Philology)
  • Prof. Dr. Jochen Plikat (Didactics of Romance Studies)
  • Dr. Wolfgang Polleichtner (Latin Didactics)
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Friedrich Schweitzer (Protestant Religious Pedagogy)
  • Prof. Dr. em. Bernd Tesch (Didactics of Romance Studies)

External representatives 

  • Jun.-Prof. Dr. Dominik Balg (Didactics of Philosophy, University Mainz)
  • Prof. Dr. Philipp Thomas (Didactics of Philosophy/Ethics, University of Education Weingarten)
  • Prof. Dr. Fahimah Ulfat (Islamic Religious Education and Subject Didactics, University of Münster)

Representatives of the educational sciences and other subjects

  • Prof. Dr. Jessica Heesen (Media Ethics and Information Technology)
  • Dr. Uta Müller (International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities)
  • Prof. Dr. Marcus Syring (Educational Science with a focus on School Pedagogy)