Maturity and education, citizenship and enlightenment: an introduction to Theodor Adorno and Hellmut Becker, 'Education for maturity and responsibility'

In a series of radio broadcasts, one of which is translated for the first t ime in this issue (pp. 21-34), Adorno and Becker claimed that modern educat ion is profoundly inadequate. Their views on education draw heavily on Kant 's notion of Enlightenment as a process for the development of personal and social maturity and responsibility. As such, education cannot just be a tr aining but must itself be a developmental process which takes into account not only social and political realities but also the complex psychodynamics involved in learning. However, Adorno and Becker arrive at a position that is close to self-contradictory, unable to solve the paradox inherent in th e idea of an education that is at once authoritative and non-conformist. Th is might arise from their failure to reflect on the nature of their own dia logue, and it is suggested that friendship offers the social model of a dyn amic relationship of the type they sought to articulate. Despite the fact t hat the discussion took place in 1969, in a climate of educational debate r adically different from today's, their work raises issues and poses questio ns of the profoundest importance 30 years on.