Claudia STÖCKL
Edited by Johanna Hopfner, Weinheim: Beltz Juventa 2025.
A scientifically clear understanding of education is a basic prerequisite and a key concern of “education” as a scientific discipline. It can be approached empirically, pragmatically or theoretically, with these approaches referring to and relying on each other. Wolfgang Sünkel (1934-2011) devoted his research to the theoretical foundations of education and teaching. He chose the phenomenological approach of "action problem structure analysis", which he developed in the phenomenology of teaching (Sünkel, 1996, §§5-13) and finally in his General Theory of Education. In 2025 the second volume of the General Theory of Education was published posthumously, edited by Johanna Hopfner. The first volume of the Theory of Education (Sünkel, 2011) comprised Part I “Concept of Education” and Part II “Educational Relationship”; the second volume now supplements Part III “Process of Education” and Part IV “Field of Edcuation”. The publication is based on the manuscript for Part III (Educational Process), which was completed by Wolfgang Sünkel himself, an on his preliminary work on Part IV (Field of Education): lecture notes compiled by Edgar Birzer and Christine Sommer and reviewed by Wolfgang Sünkel, as well as notes and recollections by the editor Johanna Hopfner from discussions with the author.
Since the content and form of this second volume follow on seamlessly from the first volume, the key points on the concept of education and the educational relationship will be briefly summarised here before the process and the field of education are explained in more detail.
Wolfgang Sünkel’s General Theory of Education contains a logical description of education, i.e. “what education is, what it always has been and always will be, what role it has to fulfil in human life, how it perceives and actually fulfils this role, and what laws it is subject to” (Sünkel, 2011, §1). This approach differs from pragmatic considerations for improving educational practice and from empirical concerns for researching concrete historical forms of education. In human life, education has the task of preserving the “non-genetic dispositions for activity”, i.e. knowledge, skills and motives, beyond the threshold of mortality (Sünkel, 2011, § 12). Since genetic inheritance is out of the question, this task can only be fulfilled through activity, more precisely through two complementary sub-activities that make up the structure of education: imparting and acquiring (Sünkel, 2011, § 17). Wolfgang Sünkel therefore defines education as “the mediated acquisition of non-genetic dispositions for activity” (Sünkel 2011, § 51). Both sub-activities are performed by subjects, which is why Sünkel refers to education as a “bisubjective activity” (Sünkel, 2011, §18). The sub-activities are not linearly related to each other; rather, the causal relationship through which education/imparting and acquisition are related to each other is characterized as “contingent” and “diffuse” (Sünkel, 2011, §§ 85-86). Finally, the mediating influences on the activity of acquisition are not limited to those emanating from an educator, but can also originate from indeterminate sources, such as the social environment (Sünkel, 2011, §§ 88-90).
Volume 2 of the General Theory of Education continues on this basis and takes a closer look at the “Process of Education” and the “Field of Education” and thus the temporal dimension and social embedding of education.
With the temporal dimension, Sünkel addresses the open beginning and open end of education, the biographical and historical period of education in between (Sünkel, 2025, §§ 171-175), as well as pedagogically based ideas of adulthood (Sünkel, 2025, §§ 174, 177). With regard to the process aspect of education, the focus is on the changes in the pupil, more precisely on the changes in his or her dispositional characteristics, his or her personal disposition system (Sünkel, 2025, §181). The process perspective requires educators to think of the pupil in terms of change: both “as the person he is – at present – and as the changed person he will, can or should be in the future” (Sünkel, 2015, § 183). In this context, the pupil’s currently real disposition system (real mode) is placed in relation to a “no longer real”, remembered mode and a “not yet real” mode that has only been drafted (retrospective or prospective mode) (Sünkel, 2025, § 196). It is important to mention that both the pupil and the educator have their own ideas about the prospective mode (Sünkel, 2025, § 197). This process structure of education allows Sünkel to address and assess current discourses such as lifelong learning, and systematic questions such as the goal of education in a well-founded pedagogical manner.
From a field perspective, Wolfgang Sünkel analyses the interactions between education and the overall social system with its economic, cultural, political, social and legal aspects, which have “a dual, seemingly contradictory meaning” for education: “Field conditions not only hinder or prevent education, they also make education possible in the first place” (Sünkel, 2025, § 204). This is where pedagogical social criticism can come into play, guided by the criterion of the “feasibility of educationally logical structures in social reality” (Sünkel, 2025, § 203). Furthermore, against the backdrop of the field of education, the relationship between work and education can be examined in more detail (Sünkel, 2025, § 207) and the specific, ambiguous nature of “educational situations” can be determined (Sünkel, 2025, § 208). The two sections on the field of education, which Johanna Hopfner reconstructed from the lecture notes, are accompanied by an addendum in which Wolfgang Sünkel explicitly addressed the lack of a theory of the field of education and the systematic difficulties of this theory (Sünkel, 2025, pp. 64-67). He provides an overview of the limitations and possibilities of field theory considerations, which the editor Johanna Hopfner herself follows up with two episodes and an epilogue. They classify Wolfgang Sünkel's systematics of the field of education against the background of various disciplines and highlight the challenges and dangers associated with the business of education tensed between the individual and society.
Finally, the second volume of the General Theory of Education contains further unpublished lectures and writings by Wolfgang Sünkel as an appendix. They provide insight into the intellectual history of the General Theory, revealing thought as a movement in time and as an activity that led to the concise and condensed formulations of the General Theory of Education.
The second volume thus completes Wolfgang Sünkel's General Theory of Education. In just 82 pages, process and field of education are presented in a precise and highly condensed form, yet in a way that is understandable and illustrated with vivid, sometimes anecdotal examples. Without detracting from the accuracy of the presentation, the text is interspersed with wit and humour. This makes it clear that the detached abstractness necessary for a general, theoretical undertaking, entirely in line with phenomenological intent, is not at odds with concrete life and educational experiences, but rather systematically illuminates them.
This makes the two volumes of General Theory of Education (orig. Allgemeine Theorie der Erziehung) suitable for use as study literature in (social and elementary) education courses as well as in teacher training courses. In addition, educational research can now build on a complete, solid foundation for further theoretical, empirical and pragmatic discussions, which is certainly desirable for the subject.
Sünkel, Wolfgang: Phenomenology of Teaching [Phänomenologie des Unterrichts]. Weinheim: Juventa 1996.
Sünkel, Wolfgang: Concept of Education and Educational Relationship. General Theory of Education, Vol. 1 [Erziehungsbegriff und Erziehungsverhältnis. Allgemeine Theorie der Erziehung, Bd. 1]. Weinheim: Juventa 2011.
Sünkel, Wolfgang: Process of Education and Field of Education. General Theory of Education, Vol. 2. [Erziehungsprozess und Erziehungsfeld. Allgemeine Theorie der Erziehung, Bd. 2]. Edited by Johanna Hopfner. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa 2025.
Claudia Stöckl is a university college professor of general didactics and educational science at the University College of Teacher Education Styria. Her research fields range from applied basic research in educational science and university didactics to participatory approaches in geragogy.