Futures of Education

Public education has received increasing criticism since the beginning of the nineties. Four major areas of concern can be discerned: the technical backwardness of the schools, the disappearance of political legitimization, financial limitations and the conservative school development. Worldwide, educational systems are being reorganized and developed beyond the traditional forms. These efforts are accompanied by increasingly complicated and complex research which assumes an international form. The international symposium Futures of Education, which took place in Zurich from 28 to 30 March 2000, was dedicated to these questions. The lectures held at the symposium were concerned with the relationship between research and development and above all, encouraged discussion and brought new ideas into play.

The Editor: Jürgen Oelkers (1947) has been Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Zurich since 1999. Before then he was Professor at the Institute of Education, Department of General Education, at the University of Berne (1987-1999). He is a member of the German Society for Research in Education (DgfE) and of the British Society for the Philosophy of Education. He also sits on the editorial board of Studies in Philosophy of Education, Paedagogica Historica and Zeitschrift für Pädagogik and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Max-Planck-Institute of Pedagogical Research.