The term, content and the range, of use of the term »Pedagogy« : a diachronic approach

Abstract

The paper considers the use of the term »pedagogy« in Croatian-Serbian pedagogical writing from the appearance of the first pedagogical textbooks (1867) to the present day. In the course of time a number of words have been used for the science of education: gojitba (rearing), uzgojoslovlje (Upbringing), pedagogics, pedagogy, the last term being dominant. The synonymous relationship between the terms »pedagogy« - »pedagogics« is controversial in older texts. In contemporary writing, the term »pedagogy« is in use. However there is a tendency to supplement this term with an attributive designation, with terms signifying social systems, is the ideo-philosophic and methodological foundations upon which pedagogy is based. The paper poses as a problem the need for attributing »pedagogy«. There are numerous phrases in which »pedagogy« appears as one of the elements and they represent evident examples of the inconsistency and fortuity in the formation of pedagogical terms. Evident differences in respect to the determination of the content of the term »pedagogy« exist not only amongst authors belonging to various time periods and pedagogical movements (this being a lawful phenomenon), but there are differences which are synchronic in nature and that occur within the framework of the same pedagogical orientation, movement and such. This demands a clarification and a discussion on a wider basic, while the history of the term »pedagogy« which nobody has attempted to write would here be of significant help.