target groups and spaces
© JoDDiD
What this episode is about:
In this episode, we explore the question of what benefits (and possibly what harm) the target group concept has in political education. Yes, you heard correctly. We think that thinking too much about target groups can sometimes be harmful. Instead, we suggest thinking more about spaces for political education. You can find out why we suggest this and what it could look like in today's lecture.
Before we start:
This episode, like most evening school episodes, is about 30 minutes long. It is divided into questions and deals with the possibilities of inclusive education in different educational spaces.
The central question is:
How can civic education succeed for as many people as possible, and without pigeonholing them all separately?
Who am I listening to?
The author and speaker in this episode is Prof. Dr. Anja Besand, Director of the John Dewey Research Centre and Chair of Didactics of Civic Education at the TUD Dresden University of Technology. You can find out more about her here.
Literature for further reading:
Besand, Anja/Jugel, David (2015): Inklusion und politische Bildung - gemeinsam denken, in: C. Dönges/W. Hilpert/B. Zurstrassen (eds.), Didaktik der inklusiven politischen Bildung, Bonn 2015, pp. 45-59. Download available here.
Besand, Anja/Jugel, David (2015): Target group-specific political education beyond traditional lines of difference, in: C. Dönges/W. Hilpert/B.Zurstrassen (eds.), Didaktik der inklusiven politischen Bildung, Bonn 2015, pp. 99-109. Download possible here
Besand, Anja (2020): Ist das noch/schon politische Bildung. Erkundungen im Überschneidungsfeld zwischen kultureller und politischer Bildung, In Oeftering, Tonio (ed.): Politische Bildung meets Kulturelle Bildung, Frankfurt a.M
Besand, Anja/Hölzel, Tina/Jugel, David (2018): Inklusives politisches Lernen im Stadion - Politische Bildung mit unbekannten Spieler*innen und offenem Spielverlauf - Abschlussbericht der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung des Projekts Lernort Stadion, Dresden - as an accessible e-book
A beautiful issue of the Journal for Political Education was published in 2023. You can find an insight into the content here.
In this part on the sociable history of political education , however, the importance of spaces in salon culture and the like also becomes apparent, so it's worth listening in again.
Self-examination tasks:
For 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 of further education - to prepare for the course exam.
Question 1: How important is thinking about target groups for your work? Do you think that the idea of developing spatial political education is at all feasible? Please discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the target group or spatial concept!
Question 2: In the lecture "From target groups to spaces", we deal intensively with exclusion lines in political education. One of our central theses is that the definition of target groups is always associated with attributions that exclude more people than they include. Explain the viability of this thesis using a practical example!
Question 3: In the context of outreach political education, we must - as the President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education likes to say - "dare to lose more control". What is meant by this term? Here, too, we would like to see a concrete example to illustrate the point.
Question 4: On closer inspection, talking about spatial civic education is not so new: what precursors and older concepts can you think of that we can base our work on in this context?
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 in form and structure.