The return of pedagogic: On the Dutch translation of Klaus Mollenhauer’s Vergessene Zusammenhänge

Abstract

In the seventies, the translators of Vergessene Zusammenhange (Ciske Balhan and myself) studied education at the University of Leiden. We specialized in social-educational theory (‘social pedagogic’) and we studied Klaus Mollenhauer. He was a well-known educationalist who conceptualized the field of social education in West Germany, with a focus on youth care and youth welfare services. But we also knew Mollenhauer in another way; he was one of the key representatives of German Critical Pedagogic. I read his Erziehung und Emancipation (first published in 1968). The book is a plea for democratic education; a dialogue between parents and their children, teachers and their students, youngsters and their educators.