The Return to Bildung in the Shape of Learning Outcomes

Education policy development internationally as well as in Norway has come to reflect a widespread expansion of learning outcome orientation in policy, curricula, and assessment. For instance, this can be seen in recent research showing that curriculum reforms worldwide seem to follow common general ideas emphasizing learning outcomes and assessment (Meyer, School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective: changing curricula in primary and secondary education. Springer, Dordrecht, 2007). However, institutional differences and distinctive national cultures result in varying frames of reference in the field of curriculum making. In this chapter, I will follow how contemporary Norwegian curriculum making takes place in between these two traditions – in between the Bildung tradition and the inflow of more outcome-oriented ideas on curriculum and assessment. It becomes evident that some of the language in the current curriculum reform is connected to a more output-oriented curriculum. This is evident in the description of competence aims for the different levels of compulsory education. Thus, the curriculum documents have explicit “language” from outcome-oriented education with these aims. In a way, these aims can be interpreted as important historically when it comes to how Didaktik and Bildung have been perceived within the Norwegian context. These are more broader scopes of the results of education than specific detailed skills that often are related to an outcome-oriented curriculum. Therefore, one might argue that the Norwegian curriculum has found a way to keep Bildung and Didaktik within an outcome-oriented reform.