A Critical Exploration of the Educational Value of Concepts in In-Depth Learning : Focusing on Deleuze’s Pedagogy of a Concept

The purpose of this article is to reinterpret the concept of In depth learning, which is presented in the 2022 Revised Curriculum, and to philosophically reconstruct the educational value of concepts. It focuses on how the educational value of concepts, as discussed in the concept-based curriculum, is often referred to as transfer, with the rationale supported by neuro-science. However, this approach is criticized for several reasons. First, it justifies the effectiveness of concepts from the perspective of cognitive efficiency, thereby failing to provide educational normativity; second, by emphasizing the learner’s thinking abilities from the perspective of brain plasticity, it applies the neoliberal framework of self-management to education; and third, it describes the educational value of concepts only in terms of learning outcomes, without considering the aspect of educational dimension. The third critique is particularly drawn from interviews with four teachers at an International Baccalaureate primary school in D city. The study finds that the final stage of selecting key concepts relies less on objective criteria and more on the teacher’s desire to convey important ways of relating to the world. To philosophically explore this view of concepts as mediators of world relations, this article examines the characteristics of concepts discussed in Deleuze’s Pedagogy of a Concept, and interprets the pedagogical value of concepts not as cognitive efficiency, but as the power of thought to bring provisional order out of uncertainty.