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Research group

Education, Didactics and Bildung

We investigate the purposes, practices and values that make education meaningful – to understand, strengthen and renew students’ learning, formation and well-being across the education system.

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About Education, Didactics and Bildung

We address fundamental, methodological and empirical questions related to education, didactics and Bildung. We conduct research in the following areas:

  • Didactics at both general and subject-specific levels, including purposes, content, form and target group
  • The development and practice of education across primary, secondary and higher education
  • Transitions, coherence and dropout between different educational levels
  • Perspectives and voices of different educational actors: pupils, students, teachers, leaders and policymakers
  • How political, historical and cultural values shape education, didactics and Bildung
  • Identity formation among pupils/students and teachers/educators
  • Quality in education and didactic practice from different perspectives
  • Methodological and empirical questions in education

Education is understood broadly and encompasses primary and lower secondary education, vocational education and training, upper secondary education and higher education, including transitions between different sectors of the education system.

Didactics – covering both general didactics and subject-specific didactics – provides the framework for examining the purposes (why), content (what), form (how) and target groups (for whom) of education.

The research engages pupils, students, teachers, leaders, policymakers and the school as an organisation, and focuses on how political and cultural values shape didactic understandings and positions in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Bildung is understood both as the formative process through which students become someone – developing identity and direction – and as the educational purposes and social norms considered essential for human participation, the development of autonomy and orientation in the world.

Within the programme, we draw on different research traditions – including educational psychology, educational sociology and educational philosophy – and apply a broad range of methodological approaches spanning qualitative and quantitative methods. At the same time, we work critically and constructively to further develop the research fields and the relationships between them, including methods for investigating the key questions that characterise these fields.

    • Knowledge and Learning in the Danish Gymnasium

      The project conducts theoretically informed document analyses of curricula, exam questions and student assignments in three upper secondary subjects – Danish, mathematics and social science – in the period 1903–2021. In addition, the project carries out qualitative interview studies and quantitative survey studies among contemporary upper secondary students on their conceptions of knowledge and learning, as well as their choice of learning strategies. The project thus contributes nuanced knowledge about both historical changes and contemporary developments in the aims of Danish upper secondary education, as well as how students’ subject-specific competencies have evolved over time. Read more about the project here.

    • VETprep

      The project investigates how participation and retention in vocational education and training can be strengthened in five European countries. It combines quantitative survey and register data with qualitative interview and observational data to develop more inclusive and robust VET strategies in the aftermath of the pandemic. Read more about the project here.

    • NarratiVET

      The project explores how young people’s narratives about educational choices, transition processes and experiences in and around vocational education shape their motivation, participation and retention. Through qualitative interview studies, student narratives, co-creation and contextual analyses, the project sheds light on how students navigate expectations, opportunities and barriers across school, workplace training and everyday life. The project contributes knowledge about the narrative processes that support or challenge young people’s pathways through vocational education and provides insights into how more meaningful and sustainable transition processes can be supported in practice. Read more about the project here.

    • Eco-engagement and eco-literacy

      The project investigates how dialogic teaching can strengthen upper secondary students’ climate engagement and ecological literacy. Two forms of teaching are tested in a large-scale experiment involving first-year students from 40 schools to support sustainable Bildung. Read more about the project here.

    • VoiceWell

      The project examines how students’ voices on well-being develop over time. Combining qualitative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork and quantitative well-being surveys, the project develops knowledge about how student voices can be studied and meaningfully incorporated into practice-oriented strategies. Read more about the project here.

    • From Dropout data to Pedagogical Doings
    • Noise in Professional Assessment: Preventing long-term unhappiness in schools
    • The formation of impartiality
    • EXPECT_Art: EXPloring and Educating Cultural literacy Through Art
  • Research leader
    Ane Qvortrup, Professor at SDU and research group leader of Education, Didactics and Bildung 

    Ane Qvortrup

    Professor

    Research profile

    Affiliated researchers

Collaboration

In our research group, we collaborate with a range of international partners and external participants.

  • Within the research programme, we collaborate with a range of international partners and external participants.

    External participants:

    • Lotte Dyhrberg O’Neill, University of Southern Denmark
    • Stefan Ting Graf, UCL University College
    • Merete Wiberg, Aarhus University
    • Frederik Pio, Aarhus University

    In addition, the programme is affiliated with an honorary doctor: