Non-affirmative Education Theory as a Language for Global Education Discourse in the Twenty-First Century

Given the crisis of neoliberal education policy in operation since 1990’s, non-affirmative theory of general education, didactics and subject matter didactics provides a productive language for global education discourse in the 21st century. This school of thought has the capacity to operate as a global meta-language of education due to how it defines the teaching-studying-learning process, and to how it perceives the dynamic relation between different forms of societal practices. Given that education praxis at different levels, non-affirmatively mediate between the learner and society, and educates for a nonhierarchically organized societal praxis, teaching needs to recognize but not to pedagogically affirm neither societal interests nor the learner’s life-world. In doing so, this theory helps us to identify and to empirically study at different levels, how education by directing the Other’s attention co-create pedagogical spaces for discerning thought and practice around experiences, knowledge and values. The approach is an alternative to contemporary educational policies such as academic factualism, performativism, educational activism and technologism.

Key-words global education discourse, education for 21st century, academic factualism, performativism, edicational activism, technologism