Theme: “What to Learn in Schools: Knowledge or Experience?”

Speaker: Professor Michael F. D. Young

Organizer: Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED)

* Date: Saturday, July 28 2012, 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm

* Venue: IRED office at 4 Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City

* Language: bilingual (English-Vietnamese)

* Participants: researchers, lecturers, school leaders, higher education administrators, policymakers and in-terested educators

* Open registration, no participation fees

Registration: due to limited seats, registration needs to be made by 5:00 pm, 26 July via www.IRED.edu.vn or email seminar@IRED.edu.vn or telephone 3930 0188.

Schedule

• 1:30 pm – 2:00 pm: Welcome and networking

• 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Professor Young’s presentation

• 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Q&A and dialogue with audience

• 5:00 pm: Seminar’s closing

About Professor Michael F. D. Young

• Highly-respected Emeritus Professor of Education at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of Lon-don, UK.

• Known as the father of the new curriculum theory, a key theory on today’s education.

• Creator of the “new sociology of education,” one of the most internationally recognized theories in soci-ology of education.

• Many of his research and papers have influenced the field of educational studies and sociology of edu-cation and translated into Japanese, Chinese as well as a number of European languages.

• Some  of his influential books are known as The Curriculum of the Future(Routledge/Falmer, 1998) and Bringing Knowledge Back In(Routledge, 2008), Educating for the Knowledge Economy(Routledge, 2011), Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education(Collier Macmillan, 1971) and many others.

• Served as a leading advisor and consultant for UNESCO, ILO, OECD, and many others.

• He has advised many countries such as Brazil, China, Chile, Germany, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Norway and many of the countries in the EU.

“What to Learn in Schools: Knowledge or Experience?”

What students need to learn in schools has always been a pressing concern behind educational policies in every country. School curriculum and textbooks play a crucial role in schools. The seminar “What to Learn in  Schools: Knowledge or Experience?” organized by the Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED) will address educators and researchers in Vietnam on the following issues.

• What knowledge should students acquire to adapt to the so-called “knowledge society” in the 21st cen-tury?

• How does such knowledge differ from the one learned from everyday experiences in the family, the community or in the workplace?

• What principles should underpin the school knowledge?

The answers to these questions lie in the principle of knowledge differentiation or the difference between knowledge and experience – the core of educational thinking and also a nexus of sociology and psychol-ogy, as presented in the works of key eminent scholars:

• To Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, the founder of sociology, such is the differentiation between  “the sacred” and “the profane” – the beginning of epistemology.

• To Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, such is the differentiation between “theoretical concepts” and “everyday concepts” – a prerequisite for pedagogical practices.

• To Basil Bernstein, an English sociologist, such is the boundary between “horizontal discourse” and  “vertical discourse” – a prerequisite for a school curriculum.

Basing on and developing from these ideas, Michael Young argues for a curriculum based on “powerful  knowledge” rather than  “knowledge of the powerful” (knowledge identified and reserved to only the privileged) as conditions for educational quality and social justice.

The seminar will be presented by Emeritus Professor Michael F. D. Young, the world-renowned British sociologist, one of the leaders in curriculum theories. He is the author of many books, including “Knowledge and Control” (1971) which created a turning point in the sociology of education. His remarkable recent book entitled “Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education” (2008) outlines a social realist approach to knowledge as a viable solution for the current crisis in curriculum theory.