Discomfort With the Concept of Education

Irena Lesar

Summary:  The article starts from the thesis that some terminological innovations in the field of education are due to discomfort with the concept and definition of education (vzgoja), and in a certain period also to the discrediting of academic pedagogy from the discussions and decisions in the process of introducing changes in the school system. At the beginning, the main characteristics of education (vzgoja) are presented and three groups of changes at the theoretical and school system level (curriculum, assessment, relationship management) are introduced, as well as some of the most obvious concepts or terms (e.g. education, literacy, competencies, learning outcomes, qualifications, rights and duties). After a review of important processes (neoliberalism, individualism, Europeanization, international research, learnification, Continental and Anglo-American construction) that have (helped) shaped the changes described, some answers are given to the central questions about the role of education (vzgoja) in the challenges of the modern world, which we can only face with discomfort as a constitutive attitude towards the construction and impact of education (vzgoja).