Understanding Biesta’s three purposes of education: a framework proposal

Pinto Coelho, Dalila; Ham, Miriam; Jones, Sarah-Louise

Abstract

The purpose of ‘doing’ education is often unconsidered or assumed in the educational thinking and practice, despite the diversity of understandings. Gert Biesta’s perspective that education has a threefold purpose of qualification, socialisation and subjectification is among the most known. However, the interpretation of Biesta’s thinking is challenging, namely, due to intrinsic complexity and contradiction between the domains of purpose and a loose use of the author’s theory that tends to conflate and overlook core elements of each purpose. The current work proposes an innovative framework to support the understanding and application of Biesta’s three purposes of education and is a contribution in overcoming theoretical and empirical constraints faced. The framework proposed is composed by two levels: a theoretical level, resulting from the deductive interpretation of Biesta’s thinking on purpose, where the core domains and subdomains of education are depicted; and an empirical level, resulting from the application of the framework to research data, in which a potential expansion of the three purposes is presented. Overall, this original work demonstrated the framework’s adequacy as an analytical tool for education research on the issue of purpose and the adaptability of Biesta’s theory and the framework developed to future studies.

Citation

Pinto Coelho, D., Ham, M., & Jones, S.-L. (2025). Understanding Biesta’s three purposes of education: a framework proposal. British Educational Research Journal, https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.4155

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 20, 2025
• Online Publication Date: May 12, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Deposit Date: Feb 25, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: May 19, 2025
• Print ISSN: 0141-1926
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-3518
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.4155
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/5044707