Outreach in the Field of Civic Education

Outreach is a new supertrend in  field ofcivic education. Civic education should go where it hurts (whatever exactly that means). Offeres for civic education can't wait for people to find it on their own. In principle, that is a good idea. But how old is the idea of outreach civic education? Klaus Waldmann takes us into the archives and uses many illustrative examples to show us early forms. It's exciting to hear him tell these stories and at the same time it helps us not to reinvent the wheel.

Before we start:
This episode is slightly longer than usual. To listen you need 45 min. For us that's ok for a historical episode. But don't worry, it's entertaining and vivid, and the episode is full of exemplary project presentations.

The central question is:
What did early forms of outreach in the field of civic education look like? How did they come to life and what problems did they want to tackle?

Who speaks?
In this episode, Klaus Waldmann presents the results of his research. For many years, Klaus Waldmann was the federal tutor of the protestant support group for socio-political youth education. He was chairman of the Bundesausschuss politische Bildung (Federal Committee for Civic Education) and editorial director of the Journal for Civic Education. He is now retired and enjoys digging deep in archives and bookshelfs.

Literature for further reading:

Aktionsgemeinschaft für Arbeiterfragen in Württemberg (: Bericht über Arbeitskreisschulungen. EZA 287 / 20 / 4

Beier, Peter (1984): „Vor Ort“ und „draußen“ – über das Zusammenspiel von Stadtteilarbeit und Bildungsstätte. In: Außerschulische Bildung. Zeitschrift der politischen Jugend- und Erwachsenenbildung. 15. Jg., Heft 3, S. 70-73.

Boll, Friedhelm (1995): Auf der Suche nach Demokratie. Britische und deutsche Jugendinitiativen in Niedersachsen nach 1945. Bonn.

Ermert, Axel (1996): Überlegungen zur Geschichte der evangelischen Industrie- und Sozialarbeit in den fünfziger Jahren. In: epd-Dokumentation 6/1996, Frankfurt/Main, S. 33-43.

Hüller, Monika; Schneider, Günther (1983): Die Hauptschülerarbeit im Augsburger „Info-Lad’n“. In: Steigerwald, Jutta; Waldmann, Klaus: „Was würdet Ihr ohne uns tun?“ Politische Jugendbildung und Berufsnot. Bad Boll, S. 30-40.

Ludwig, Felix unter Mitarbeit von Helmut Bremer (2019): Expertise Aufsuchende politische Bildung. https://aufsuchende-bildungsarbeit.arbeitundleben.de/material-links/expertise-felix-ludwig-prof-dr-helmut-bremer-universitaet-duisburg-essen-aufsuchende-politische-bildung

Projektgruppe „Frankfurter Berg“ (Roth, Roland u.a.) (1981): „Eigentlich hatten wir null Bock...“. Jugendbildungsarbeit im Stadtteil. Ein Praxisbericht. Frankfurt/New York.

Roth, Roland (1980): Möglichkeiten politischer Bildung im Stadtteil. In: Materialien zur Politischen Bildung. Sonderheft. S. 37-46.

Schlicht, Hans (1981): Mobile Jugendarbeit in Backesclubs. Ein Modell ländlicher Jugendarbeit. In: deutsche Jugend, 29.Jg., Heft 7, S. 310-317.

Waldmann, Klaus (1980): Stadtteilbezogene Clubarbeit in Stuttgart-Rot. In. Lenz, Wolfgang: Sozialarbeit und Politik. Politische Bildung mit arbeitslosen Jugendlichen. Bad Boll, S. 59-75.

Weller, Reinhold (o.J. (1965): Aufbau einer Bereichsarbeit. In: Heiner Hofmann im Auftrag der Evangelischen Trägergruppe für politische Bildung der nichtorganisierten Jugend, Bad Boll, S. 47-51.

In den folgenden vier Publikationen finden sich umfangreiche Hinweise auf weitere Projekte der aufsuchenden, mobilen politischen Jugendbildung:

Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (Hg.) (2000): fit for politics. Projekte lebensweltorientierter politischer Jugendbildung. Redaktion: Uta-Maria Kern; Klaus Waldmann. Bonn. (Kurzbeschreibung zahlreicher Projekte: S. 99-165).

Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie und Gesundheit (Hg.) (1981): Modelle der Jugendarbeit bei der Bewältigung von Sozialisationsproblemen für junge Arbeitslose und Jugendliche, deren berufliche Integration erschwert ist. Schriftenreihe des BMJFG Band 96. Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln, Mainz. 

Lenz, Wolfgang (1980): Sozialarbeit und Politik. Politische Bildung mit arbeitslosen Jugendlichen. Bad Boll.

Steigerwald, Jutta; Waldmann, Klaus (1983): „Was würdet Ihr ohne uns tun?“ Politische Jugendbildung und Berufsnot. Bad Boll. 

Self-examination tasks:

For the users of the evening school, we provide self-assessment tasks for each lecture. These tasks can be used to reconsider the contribution, to deepen your thoughts or - if you want to obtain a certificate  - to prepare for the course exam.

Question 1: How did you feel when listening to this piece? What struck you in a particular way? What perhaps irritated you or are there any questions you would like to ask the author?

Question 2: Outreach civic education is strongly oriented towards the ideas of funding. As a rule, they define to whom educational programs should be directed in particular (this became very clear in this piece). Historically, people were obviously very concerned about unemployed young people - today it's different. Imagine if you could design support structures on your own. Which (hard-to-reach) target groups do you think civic education should address today or in the future and therefore develop specific formats? 

Question 3: Were you born before 1990? If so, try to remember the infrastructure for civic youth education that you were confronted with as a young person. Were there programs like the ones mentioned in this piece? What did they look like? What significance did these offers have for your personal socialisation? To what extent do the offers of your youth differ from current offers? What is better and what has become worse?

Question 4: Keyword "local work" - local work seems to be an important thing in the context of outreach formats. It was carried out in "informally dynamic groups". From today's perspective, you could say it was peer education at its best. What would contemporary local work look like today ?

Question 5: The focus of this episode is very much on western Germany. Almost nothing is said here about outreach education programs in the GDR. There were certainly such programs. Industrial social work in particular - which we got to know in the episode - was much more developed in the eastern than in western part of Germany. What can be said and learned about these formats?

The self-assessment tasks are to be understood as opportunities for reflection and do not generally test knowledge. They are always strongly related to the corresponding lecture and therefore differ significantly.