Political education in action

What is this episode about?
Political education aims to promote political action-taking capacity. What could be more obvious than to promote this in very practical action? Political education in action or in political movements is highly effective. Everyone who is politically active knows this: Nowhere do you learn more than by doing. There is never greater motivation and necessity to clarify questions of political process, structure and content. But what happens when we integrate political action into educational processes? Don't they then lose their meaning? What about the frustration that arises structurally in real political processes and what does this mean for the question of how political political education can be? Steve Kenner is a great expert on answering these and similar questions. We are thrilled that we were able to win him over to share his expertise for the evening school.

Before we get started:
This episode of Evening School is a wee bit longer than average (40 min), but it's very easy to understand and can be played a little faster if needed.

The central question is:
What happens when we do political education in political movements or integrate real political actions into processes of political education? Are we even allowed to do this and what challenges does this pose?

Who am I listening to?
The author of this episode is Dr. Steve Kenner, who is now a guest lecturer at the Otto Suhr Institute at Freie Universität Berlin, where he holds the Chair of Political Didactics with a focus on Education for Sustainability / Transformative Education. You can find out more about him here.

Literature for further reading:

Arendt, Hannah (2016): Vita activa or On the active life. Munich.

Arendt, Hannah (2017): Civil disobedience. In: Braune, Andreas (ed.): Civil disobedience. Texts from Thoreau to Occupy. Ditzingen, pp. 132-158.

Breit, Gotthard/Massing, Peter (2002): The return of the citizen to political education. Schwalbach/Ts.

Habermas, Jürgen (2017): Civil disobedience - test case for the democratic constitutional state. Against authoritarian legalism in the Federal Republic. In: Braune, Andreas (ed.): Civil disobedience. Texts from Thoreau to Occupy. Ditzingen.

Haunss, Sebastian (2016): Unrest or Social Movement? Some Cenceptual Clarifications. In: Andresen, Knud/van der Stehen, Bart (eds.): A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s. London/New York, pp. 25-38.

Isin, Engin F. (2008): Theorizing. Acts of Citizenship. In: Isin, Engin Fahri/Nielsen, Greg Marc (eds.): Acts of Citizenship. London, pp. 15-43.

Isin, Engin Fahri/Nielsen, Greg Marc (2008): Introduction. Acts of Citizenship. In: This (ed.): Acts of citizenship. London, pp. 1-12.

Kenner, Steve (2021): Civic education in action. A qualitative study on the reconstruction of self-determined educational experiences in political youth initiatives. Wiesbaden, Germany

Nonnenmacher, Frank (2010): Analysis, criticism and commitment - possibilities and limits of political education at school. In: Lösch, Bettina/Thimmel, Andreas (eds.): Critical political education. A handbook. Schwalbach/Ts., pp. 459-470.

Nonnenmacher, Frank (2011): Action orientation and political action in school-based civic education. Origins, limits and challenges. In: Widmaier, Benedikt/Nonnenmacher, Frank (eds.): Participation as an educational goal. Political action in civic education. Schwalbach/Ts., pp. 83-99.

Rawls, John (2017): A theory of justice. In: Braune, Andreas (ed.): Civil disobedience. Texts from Thoreau to Occupy. Ditzingen, pp. 101-128.

Reinders, Heinz (2006): Volunteering and political commitment in adolescence. Outline and empirical examination of a theory of charitable activity. In: Journal for Educational Science, 2006, pp. 599-616.

Trumann, Jana (2013): Learning in motion(s). Political participation and education in citizens' initiatives. Berlin.

Weber, Max (1922): Collected essays on the theory of science. Tübingen.

Weißeno, Georg/Landwehr, Barbara (2018): Political participation, self-concept and expertise. Results of a study. In: Ziegler, Béatrice/Waldis, Monika (eds.): Political education in democracy. Interdisciplinary perspectives. Wiesbaden, pp. 175-190.

Wohnig, Alexander (2017): On the relationship between social and political learning. An analysis of practical examples of civic education. Wiesbaden.

Youniss, James/Yates, Miranda (1997): Community service and social responsibility in youth. Chicago, Ill.

Self-assessment tasks

For the users of the evening school, we provide 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.

QUESTION 1: Civic education traditionally sees itself as citizenship education and has therefore thought long and hard about which citizenship models it should actually pursue. What are the relevant concepts in this debate? Where are the limits or challenges in this context? And: Which images of citizenship or even non-citizenship do you yourself consider to be so effective that you base your educational work on them? Give detailed reasons!

QUESTION 2: In civic education, the idea of citizenship is often (whether we like it or not) linked to the idea of citizenship. What would change if we were to abandon the link between these terms and no longer think of civic education so strongly as education for citizens? In your comments, please differentiate between objectives, content and methodological-didactic considerations.

QUESTION 3: "Rebellion is an important initiator for individual political learning and action practices that do not remain at the level of pure prevention, which is often ascribed to them, but rather conceal important potential for social transformation," says Jana Thomann in this evening school play. How should political education deal with this rebellion? Please discuss in detail the question of whether and in what way political education as a "naturalization offer" for all people does not also have the task of promoting agreement, social peace and, to a certain extent, acceptance in democracy. How do agreement and acceptance relate to rebellion and resistance in educational processes?

QUESTION 4: Imagine that - inspired by the play presented here - you were to offer an educational program that essentially focuses on getting young people into action and accompanying them in this process. In contrast to the examples presented, the interests of your participants would not be described as environmental or humanitarian, but rather the group's desire would be to campaign against the influx of refugees. How would you react? What options for action would be available to you?