Summary
Bildung is a German word for the lifelong forming of a person: education, but also character, emotional and moral development and maturity, which no single English word covers. As an ideal it comes from German thought of the late eighteenth century, in writers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schiller, and is set against mere training in skills.
The organisation Nordic Bildung, which promotes the idea today, defines it as two kinds of knowledge combined. One is the easily passed-on kind, academic or practical. The other is the “almost impossible to transfer kind of knowledge, which comes from life experience”, especially from setbacks: our emotional and moral depth.
Rationale
One Nordic definition calls Bildung “enculturation and life-long learning”, the process Part 2 puts at the centre of its framework. The difference is intent: Bildung is formation pursued on purpose; most enculturation goes unnoticed.