Keyword: Didactics in Europe

Abstract

Despite seeing great diversity in the European didactic landscape, the author searches for ground that is common to this diversity. He looks back to the “Pampaedia” of the founding father of didactics, Jan Amos Comenius, and attempts a constructive new start with the so-called didactic triangle in order to satisfy the scientific quest for certainty and security. Yet neither approach is convincing. The author therefore searches for elements that can be used in the construction of a future systematic approach by taking Gerard Sensevy’s Joint Action Theory in Didactics as an example. Application of this theory to the analysis and evaluation of four national reports on didactics, i.e. on Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Russia, runs into difficulties, although the reports yield interesting information for the delineation of comparative didactics. The Joint Action Theory is compared with the dialectical didactic theory of Lothar Klingberg, opening up further perspectives for comparative didactics in Europe. The four national reports, the systematic didactics of Sensevy and the example of dialectical analysis help identify the common ground for the future of European didactics.