Abstract (eng)
This master thesis deals with the question to what extent the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflect the contradictions of the different educational understandings within the Development Cooperation (DC). Over the years, education has become an important instrument and goal of the DC. Its dominant idea is that education has a linear, context-independent, development-promoting effect on development (cf. Langthaler 2015a: 34). For the DC and accordingly the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), education has thus become a central issue.
Yet aside from the prevailing understanding of education within the DC, there are a multitude of other educational viewpoints. This is due to the fact that the context of DC does not imply a homogeneous understanding of education. In this work, two contrary poles of this multidimensional discourse emerge: the dominant, human capitalist and the alternative, humanistic understanding of education.
The qualitative content analysis examines the question which characteristics of the respective educational understandings can be found in the (sub-) goals and indicators of the SDGs, dedicated to education. The analysis shows that the educational understanding of the SDGs cannot be clearly assigned to one pole.
However there is a tendency that the human capitalist understanding of education dominates within the SDGs. Simultaneously though, it reflects alternative, humanistic elements. Yet those once emancipative, oppositional concepts are partly subjected to a (neoliberal) reinterpretation and instrumentalization. The SDGs did not bring about the desired major paradigm shift for the DC.