Definitions of education

 

Definitions of education try to determine the essential features of education. Many general characteristics have been ascribed to education. However, there are several disagreements concerning its exact definition and a great variety of definitions have been proposed by theorists belonging to diverse fields . There is wide agreement that education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims. In this sense, education involves the transmission of knowledge. But it is often pointed out that this factor alone is not sufficient and needs to be accompanied by other factors, such as the acquisition of practical skills or instilling moral character traits.

Many definitions see education as a task or a process. In this regard, the conception of education is based on what happens during events like schooling, training, instructing, teaching, and learning. This process may in turn be understood either from the perspective of the teacher or with a focus on the student's experience instead. However, other theorists focus mainly on education as an achievement, a state, or a product that results as a consequence of the process of being educated. Such approaches are usually based on the features, mental states, and character traits exemplified by educated persons. In this regard, being educated implies having an encompassing familiarity with various topics. So one does not become an educated person just by undergoing specialized training in one specific field. Besides these two meanings, the term "education" may also refer to the academic field studying the methods and processes involved in teaching and learning or to social institutions employing these processes.

Education is usually understood as a very general term that has a wide family of diverse instances. Nonetheless, some attempts have been made to give a precise definition of the essential features shared by all forms of education. An influential early attempt was made by R. S. Peters in his book "Ethics and Education", where he suggests three criteria that constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions of education:  it is concerned with the transmission of knowledge and understanding;  this transmission is worthwhile and  done in a morally appropriate manner in tune with the student's interests. This definition has received a lot of criticism in the academic literature. While there is wide agreement that many forms of education fall under these three criteria, opponents have rejected that they are true for all of them by providing various counterexamples. For example, in regard to the third criterion, it may be sometimes necessary to educate children about certain facts even though they are not interested in learning about these facts. And regarding the second criterion, not everyone agrees that education is always desirable. Because of the various difficulties and counterexamples with this and other precise definitions, some theorists have argued that there is no one true definition of education. In this regard, the different forms of education may be seen as a group of loosely connected topics and "different groups within a society may have differing legitimate conceptions of education".

Some theorists have responded to this by defining education in terms of family resemblance. This is to say that there is no one precise set of features shared by all and only by forms of education. Instead, there is a group of many features characteristic of education. Some of these features apply to one form of education while slightly different ones are exemplified by another form of education. In this sense, any two forms of education are similar and their characteristic features overlap without being identical. This is closely related to the idea that words are like tools used in language games.