The science(s) of adult education |
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| Authors: | Nikola Pastuovi? |
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| Institution: | University of Zagreb , Croatia |
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| Abstract: | This article deals with the problems of forming a scientific system for adult education. The first part contains different concepts of sciences of education in developed countries, with a special emphasis on the difference between pedagogy as ‘practical theory’ and the sciences of education than can withstand meta‐scientific criteria. This is followed by a survey of the educological system of the knowledge of education, and the scientific and non‐scientific knowledge of adult education are contrasted. To enable us to distinguish unambiguously between scientific and non‐scientific knowledge the survey contains some major criteria for determining whether a discipline is a science or not. In this context andragogy, as well as pedagogy, are defined as ‘technological’ disciplines with the task of applying the principles discovered by the sciences of adult education: the educational psychology of adults, the sociology of adult education, the economics of adult education and the educational anthropology. In other words, andragogy is the ‘praxiology of adult education’, i.e. the science of applying scientific knowledge about adult education in the practice of that education. Andragogy could become ‘the general science of adult education’ and acquire a supra‐technological character if it grew into a science of the effectiveness of systems of adult education. In that case andragogy would study the interaction between the elements of the system as well as the interaction between these elements and the subsystems of the educational environment. |
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