Potential applicants include:

• Researchers of education in the fields of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, andragogy, psychology, political theory, anthropology, history, as well as experts in education management;
• Practitioners (teachers, textbook authors, initiators of supplementary educational activities, representatives of the alternative educational programs, etc.).

Domains and themes:

Since it aims to gather researchers and practitioners from various disciplinary and research areas, the conference will include three thematic domains:

1. History and theories of education
2. Education in Transition
3. Teacher on the Stage

Since it aims to gather researchers and practitioners from various disciplinary and research areas, the conference will include three thematic domains:

History and theories of education

Within this domain we would wish to reflect on the purposes and effectiveness of education, problems of institutionalisation of education and education policies, the issues of the status, scope and function of educational enterprise, its gains and losses, necessity and redundancy of educational operations, as well as the analyses of character and types of education. Special attention will be given to contributions which focus on the institution of the school in the light of investments into its emancipatory potential and its already chronic crises: contributions that question organisation of class teaching and models of university; detect egalitary and discriminatory dimensions of education; point to aporias of compulsory, general and vocational education, education of children, adult and life-long learning, universal and contextual education, imperialism and traditionalism of educational content, etc. Approaches to these issues may include educational concepts from classical antiquity, Middle Ages and Modern age (paideia, Bildung, self-education), or may follow the present-day controversies around the Bologna process, PISA test, requirements brought out during the students’ protests etc.

Education in Transition

The title of the second domain is purposely ambiguous. On the one hand, it refers to the regional post-socialist context, primarily of successor states of Yugoslavia, but also of its neighbouring countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Albania – that share common political and educational legacy. The shift in socialist educational paradigm brought transition to something whose name and content is yet to be determined, because it is not clear if it conforms only to mercantile criteria, if it abstains from any ideology or rests upon a certain new ideological matrix. Case studies and comparative analyses of this transition would be desirable. On the other hand, education itself is inevitably “in transition” even if it is not politically conditioned: post-industrial and now already post-information age transforms the idea and the tasks of education, new technologies question both nature and value of “classic” knowledge, and global perspective (or perspective of globalisation) seems to require different approaches if not a total (re-)construction of the social (sub-)system of education. It is our belief that these motions may be inspiring for a productive exchange.

Teacher on the Stage

The thrid thematic domain is devoted to the immediate educational action and issues which are purely didactic only on the surface level. We seek to problematise educational “transfer” of knowledge and skills, and especially the role of the participants in this process. Special attention will be given to the examination of the (un)comfortble position of a teacher as a “functionary of knowledge” who is able to generate (dis)satisfaction of pupils/students. Within this domain, we seek to gather innovative moments and methods in teaching processes, and also to present alternative models of learning: experimental workshops, demonstration of new approaches and educational projects are equally welcome as theoretical elaborations of their foundations and effects.