Civic education and theater

What this episode is about:
In this episode, we explore the question of what civic education can learn from theater pedagogy - or even more specifically from theater pedagogy's own productions. After all, theater or theater pedagogical methods have been used in civic education for quite some time without the inherent logic of theater pedagogy being particularly thoroughly reflected upon. We want to take a closer look at this in this evening school play.

Before we start:
This episode, like most evening school episodes, is about 30 minutes long. It invites you to take a closer look at the background to in-house theater pedagogical productions and to consider what might be of interest for civic education processes.

The central question is
What can civic education learn from theater education?

Who is speaking?
The author and speaker in this episode is Elisa Moser. She is a theater educator and employee of the John Dewey Research Center, where she works in the field of innovation.

Further reading

Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2011): Theater probieren, Politik entdecken. Red.-Schluss: März 2011. Bonn.

Hentschel, Ulrike (2007): „...mit Schiller zu mehr social skills?. Zur Rolle des Theaters im aktuellen Bildungsdiskurs. URL [https://www.udk-berlin.de/fileadmin/2_de zentral/Studienberatung/Darst_Spiel__studiengangsintern_/mitSchillerzumehr socialskillsUlrikeHentschel_2007.pdf]

Hentschel, Ulrike (1998): Ästhetische und kulturelle Bildung – widerstreitende oder sich ergänzende Zielvorstellungen von Theaterpädagogik? Ein Dialog. In: Korrespondenzen. Zeitschrift für Theaterpädagogik. Heft 32. S. 27 – 33.

Hentschel, Ulrike (2016): Von den Künsten lernen?. Chancen, Risiken und Nebenwirkungen künstlerischer Wissensproduktion im Kontext Schule. In: Hummel, Claudia; Rogg, Ursula (Hg.): Fragen ans Curriculum. Berlin: Universität der Künste. S. 43 – 58.

Juchler, Ingo/ Lechner-Amante, Alexandra (Hrsg.) (2016): Politische Bildung im Theater. Wiesbaden.

Meyer, Tania (2009): Gegenstimmbildung. Transcript: Bielefeld.

Pinkert, Ute (2017): Dramaturgische Praktiken Eigenproduktionen. In: Korrespondenzen. Zeitschrift für Theaterpädagogik. Heft 69.

Studtmann, Katharina (2020): Das politische Theater. Gegenstand und Methode im Politikunterricht. Schwalbach Ts.

Self-examination tasks:

• What experiences with theater or other art forms have you already had in your own civic education biography? How did you experience these learning processes? What did you find exciting or irritating about them?
• How would you integrate theater into your civic education practice? Describe what references you can recognize for your work in terms of didactics and content?
• What might a successful cooperation with theater educators look like in your specific field of work?
• Experiencing theater can, among other things, trigger emotional approaches and the negotiation of questions about emotion, body and corporeality. Why does German civic education actually struggle with such questions? What could be done to improve this?

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

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