Knowledge for a future-oriented pedagogy

Anne Edwards

doi:10.1080/03054985.2025.2480178

Return

Knowledge for a future-oriented pedagogy

2025-11-02

PRE

Anne Edwards *

DOI：10.1080/03054985.2025.2480178

Original

Original request for help

Save

Abstract

En 中文

Current versions of formal schooling are failing our future citizens by not creating the agentic, creative, ethical questioning learners needed by society. This knowledge crisis has deep roots but can be addressed by asking, what kinds of knowledge, for what kinds of learners, for what kind of society? The answer offered here draws on cultural-historical approaches to knowledge, child and adolescent development and pedagogy, initiated by Vygotsky and taken forward over the last century by Galperin, Davydov and others. These approaches are premised on the emergence of learners' strong conceptual understandings which are reality tested, enabling them to ascend from the abstract to the concrete and take action in their worlds. The arguments in this article add to these approaches by describing a relational pedagogy which aims at the unfolding of learners' agency as they interpret and act on the curricular demands they encounter. This pedagogy recognises the skilful nature of teaching calling for the exercise of a relational expertise that works with learners' motive orientations to create a form of relational agency, through which learners can develop as agentic questioning citizens. These arguments are supported by analyses from studies which have employed this relational approach to pedagogy.

Keywords:

Pedagogy

cultural-historical

relational

agentic learner

knowledge