Practical Arts Education from the Perspective of H. Arendt’s Vita Activa: The Meaning of the Made World as an Object of Inquiry and Its Educational Implications

This study aims to explore the implications of the “made world” as an object of inquiry in Practical Arts education through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s ideas, with a focus on the descriptive limitations of this inquiry object in the field. A school subject can fully embody its pedagogical aspects when its goals, character, and methods are examined through its object of inquiry. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the meaning of The “made world” based on Arendt’s discussion of human conditions and active life. Arendt demonstrates that human conditions are intertwined with an active life, which includes labor, work, and action. She defines “labor” as fulfilling the necessities of life as beings with life, “work” as the activity that creates an objective world shared with others, and “action” as the activity through which one reveals their unique humanity among diverse individuals. Additionally, she identifies the home as a representative private sphere where life’s necessities are met while work a formative activity of the world, which becomes the prototype of technology, both serving as the two pillars of Practical Arts education. Moreover, action, which manifests one’s existence through contextual interaction with others, is understood as “praxis.” This suggests that Practical Arts education should be understood as praxis and can also be interpreted in terms of the significance of the work-oriented education within the field. The “made world,” as viewed through Arendt’s concept of active life, is a network that connects humans to the world, linking individuals to others, as well as to people from the past, present, and future. Moreover, this made world is a dynamic, continuously reconstructed and evolved through human interest and participation, ultimately reflecting the essence of humanity.