Abstract

The ambition for this dissertation is to contribute to the discussion on education.

What is good education? What do we wish to achieve from the education that we offer our children and young people? And finally, is there coherence between what we say we want and what we actually do? And thus ’the beautiful risk of the noble indescribable other’ is about education.

Gert Biesta’s research in the field of education is a key element of the dissertation. Especially the term the beautiful risk of education by which Biesta emphasizes that we can’t be sure to gain what we want from education. A realization that there are elements in education, which we can’t control, produces, and ensure. But do we hereby run the risk of obstructing the actual purpose of folkeskolen in an attempt to ensure the quality of education?

The dissertation examines this question through the Åben Skole-collaboration on Frederiksberg. Specifically, the collaboration between the cultural institutions and the schools, which was made compulsory with Folkeskolereformen in 2014. The dissertation seeks to capture the unique educational potential of the cultural institutions in reference to the objects clause of folkeskolen. In the attempt to illustrate this potential, the three domains within education as described by Gert Biesta: The domain of socialization, The domain of subjectification and The domain of qualification become defining analytical tools.

The study shows that the unique potential, as described by the cultural institutions, can be described as being connected to the objects clause of folkeskolen. The study also shows that the cultural institutions experience a pressure to keep this potential within the limits of the collaboration. Thus it will be interesting to see how the framework of the Åben skole-collaboratrion will affect the opportunities and limitations of this unique potential.

This is the pivotal point of the second half of this study in which we examine the dominating logics of the framework of the Åben Skole-collaboration, using Michel Foucaults term dispositive to conduct a dispositive analysis. We do this in order to find out if there is coherence between the educational potential of the cultural institutions and the educational practise, within the framework of the collaboration. This part of the study shows how the cultural institutions are predisposed by the framework of the collaboration to focus on educational elements which are not a part of what they describe as their unique potential. In addition to this, the study also shows that the framework can inhibit this potential.

To summarize, this dissertation shows how the framework of the Åben Skole-collaboration predisposes a focus, which sets apart the educational practise that takes place in the cultural institutions from parts of the objects clause of folkeskolen.

Based on the results of the study, this dissertation directs its closing focus towards what Biesta calls a dominating accountability culture. A culture here you have to think culture in a specific way and a culture where the student’s education- which according to Biesta can be understood as normative evaluations of desirable changes – must be seen, followed, and ensured.
And thus the dissertation returns to the beautiful risk of education and to the question of which elements constitute this beautiful risk. And with that, which elements of education will naturally be under pressure in what Biesta calls the age of measuring.