Political education under pressure

What is this episode about?
Much has been written in recent years about the question of how political education should respond to the challenges arising in the context of the new rise of right-wing populism in Germany. The perspective of these contributions is mostly aimed at deriving perspectives for action by more precisely defining problem situations. We attempt to close this gap in this episode of the Evening School. The aim is not only to ask how political education should react appropriately, but also what its fundamental task is and how the central principles of the Beutelsbach Consensus should be understood under difficult conditions.

Before we start:
The episode "Political education under pressure" is around 35 minutes long and is based on a text that appeared under the same title in APUZ 14-15/2020.

The central question is:
How can and should political education respond to the increasing aggression, brutalization of content and extreme polarization of political debate that has recently been deplored? In what way is political education itself affected by these phenomena? How can and should it position itself as a state institution with regard to social and political conflicts, and what challenges arise in this context?

These questions are the starting point of the lecture presented here. With regard to the argumentation, there are four central steps:

Step No. 1: The aim here will be to describe the concrete problem situation as well as its visible effects on educational programs in the field of political education.

Step 2: This step focuses on the behavior and typical reactions of those responsible for education.

Step No. 3: Here we discuss the difficulties and perspectives for action with regard to dealing with right-wing populist challenges in civic education.

The article concludes with step no. 4 and presents 12 concrete recommendations for action.

Who am I listening to?
The author and speaker in this episode is Prof. Dr. Anja Besand. She is the Director of the John Dewey Research Center and holds the 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 (2020) Politische Bildung unter Druck - Zum Umgang mit Populismus in der Institution Schule, APuZ 14-15/2020 pp. 4- 9. accessible online here

• Besand, Anja (2020): What tolerance of ambiguity (possibly) is not. In: Schnurr, Ansgar et al. (eds.): Shaping ambiguity. Ambiguity and the formation of democratic attitudes in art and pedagogy, Bielefeld (forthcoming).

• Besand, Anja (2019): The benefits of (recent) populism research for political education Saxony as a laboratory. In: GWP Society. Economy. Politics 3/2019. reading sample

• Besand, Anja (2018): Beutelsbach as a weapon. On the intimidation attempts from the far right and how schools, the state and teachers can respond. In: SOWI Online, accessible online here.

• Besand, Anja (2018): Learning from Saxony. Or what appropriate "processing strategies" for right-wing populist movements could look like. In: Bitzegeio, Ursula/ Decker, Frank/ Fischer, Sandra, Stolzenberg, Thorsten (eds.): Flucht, Transit, Asyl - Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf ein europäisches Versprechen, Bonn, pp. 394-409.
• Behrens, Rico (2014): As long as they behave decently in the classroom. Politics teachers and how they deal with right-wing extremist youth culture at school. Schwalbach/Ts.

Self-assessment tasks:

Question 1: Have you yourself experienced challenging situations when dealing with right-wing extremist or right-wing populist incidents? Please briefly describe the case, describe the questions and challenges that arose for you in this context and, if necessary, suggest solutions.

Question 2: The "Beutelsbacher Konses" is seen by many people as a reminder of political neutrality. What is the reason for this and what would you explain to a colleague if you had the impression that they were guided by the idea of having to be neutral?

Question 3: Various recommendations for action are formulated in the lecture "Political education under pressure". Please evaluate these recommendations: which ones seem sensible and feasible to you, which ones less so and why?