The problem of determining the aim of education in the cultural pedagogy in croatia between the two world wars

Abstract

Cultural pedagogy in Croatian between the World Wars is a powerful and dynamic pedagogical movement which produced three distinctive theoretical concepts advanced by Stjepan Matičević, Pavao Vuk-Pavlović and Stjepan Patakija. By way of their contribution to pedagogy these scholars deserve credit for bringing pedagogy in Croatia between the two wars on a par with the achievemnets of world pedagogical thought, completing as they did through cultural pedagogy the process of the scientific self-constitution of pedagogy. Amongst a serioes of themes from the teleology of cultural pedagogy the problem of determining the aim of education occupies a particularly significant position.Cultural pedagogy conceives the aim of education as inculturation wherein the subjective spirit of the individual grows into the objective spirit of the community. The leading scholars embracing this movement were in agreement regarding their efforts to define the concrete value contents of the aim of education which, thusly positioned, as the specific expression of the fundamental purpose of life, belongs to philosophical axiology. However, as was the case regarding a number of other very fruitful discussions about different pedagogical questions, differences arise among the above mentioned scholars when pinpointing the place and manner of operationizing the aim of education. While Pavao Vuk-Pavlović remains within his abstract philosophical determinations, Stjepan Matičević and Stjepan Pataki leave the elaboration of a philosophically defined purpose to pedagogical teteology. In this matter, Stjepan Matičević achieves the highest level of its concretization while Stjepan Pataki leaves the approach to the aim of education within each cultural constellation to the educator’s search for authentic values within concrete cultural conditions. Alongside the analysis of the answers to queries what is education and how to educate, the elaboration of the query what is the aim of education is to be numbered among the key pedagogical tasks. Cultural pedagogy in Croatia between die two World Wars developed an original teleological construct in tackling this task, a construct which deserves to be actualized in recent pedagogical reality.