Jean-Luc Patry, Emeritus Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria
The Triple Trans-Disciplinarity of VaKE
Trans-disciplinarity refers to an intense integrative relationship between several domains (“disciplines”). VaKE addresses three different types of trans-disciplinarity:
- It is conceived to relate Is (values, morality) and Ought (facts, knowledge) as teaching topics; trans-disciplinarity refers here to the need to be aware of the problems of the naturalistic fallacy (conclusion from Is to Ought) but still establish a relationship between the two domains;
- Within the Is domain, several knowledge issues are related to each other since VaKE is based on questions of interest, which makes it necessary to overcome the disciplinary boundaries.
- Similarly, within the Ought domain, different ethical traditions are combined in VaKE. Among others, the different ethical concepts like justice, care, and truthfulness all play an important role. Further, both deontic as well as teleological approaches are practiced.
For each of these three types of trans-disciplinarity, there will be firstly an ethical justification of its need (why ought there to be trans-disciplinarity?), secondly examples from VaKE implementations that illustrate these types of trans-disciplinarity will be presented. The discussion addresses what VaKE can learn from this analysis, as well as the conclusions for the concept of trans-disciplinarity.
The Speaker
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Jean-Luc Patry is full professor emeritus for research in education at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Research interests: Situation specificity of human actions; methodological questions; the relationship between theory and practice; moral development and education, in particular combining values education and knowledge education (VaKE); constructivism in education, etc. |