How participation can succeed

What is this episode about?
Enabling participation and promoting skills in this area is an important task of political education. Unfortunately, this is not so easy. In this piece, we explore the question of why participation programs often fail and what you need to pay attention to if you want to take participation seriously in the context of civic education.

Before we get started:
This episode of Evening School, like the vast majority, is almost exactly 30 minutes long. However, it contains a few questions for which you, as a listener:in, should pause the film briefly and answer this short question.

The central question is:
How participation can succeed and definitely also what often causes it to fail despite the best intentions.

Who am I listening to?
The author and speaker in this episode is Prof. Dr. Anja Besand, Director of the John Dewey Research Center 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:

Authors' group on subject didactics (2016): What is good civic education? Guidelines for social science teaching, Schwalbach: Wochenschau.

Besand, Anja (2019): Hope and its peril - civic education in the age of illusion crisis. In: This/Overwien, Bernd/Zorn, Peter (eds.): Politische Bildung mit Gefühl, Bonn: Federal Agency for Civic Education, pp. 173-187.

Blühdorn, Ingolfur (2013): Simulative democracy. Neue Politik nach der postdemokratischen Wende, Berlin: Suhrkamp.

Bohnsack, Fritz (2013): How pupils experience school. On the importance of recognition, affirmation and the acceptance of weakness, Opladen/ Berlin/ Toronto: Barbara Budrich.

Burdewick, Ingrid (2003): Youth - Politics - Recognition. A qualitative empirical study on the political participation of 11- to 18-year-olds, Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

Dewey, John (1993): Democracy and Education. An Introduction to Philosophical Pedagogy, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz.

Hafeneger, Benno/ Niebling, Torsten (2008): Children's and youth parliament. In: Kersting, Norbert (ed.): Political Participation, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp. 123-141.

Rieker, Peter/ Mörgen, Rebecca/ Schnitzer, Anna/ Stroezel, Holger (2016): Participation of children and young people. Forms, conditions and opportunities for participation and co-determination in Switzerland, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Fatke, Reinhard/ Niklowitz, Matthias (2003): "Giving children a voice". Partizi- pation von Kindern und Jugendlichen in der Schweiz, Zurich: Pädagogisches Institut der Universität Zürich - in collaboration with Jürg Schwarz and Elena Sultanian on behalf of the Swiss Committee for Unicef.

Helsper, Werner/ Böhme, Janette/ Kramer, Rolf-Torsten/ Lingkost, Angelika (2001): Schulkultur und Schulmythos - Rekonstruktion zur Schulkultur, Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

Krüger, Hans Peter (2008): Political participation of young people in the community. An international comparison: Leipzig - Lyon, Leipzig u. a.: Peter Lang.

Maßlo, Jens (2010): Young people in politics. Opportunities and problems of institutionalized youth participation, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.

Oser, Fritz/ Biedermann, Horst (2006): Participation - a term that is a master of confusion. In: Quesel, Carsten/ Oser, Fritz (eds.): Die Mühen der Freiheit. Problems and opportunities for the participation of children and young people. Zurich and Chur: Rüegger, pp. 17-37.

Wittwer, Stefan (2014): Political participation of children and young people in Switzerland. Definition of the term "participation" and needs analysis on the political participation of children and young people, Bern, available online

Self-assessment tasks:

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.

Question 1: When you think back to your own school days, what experiences of participation did you have during this time? were you allowed to co-decide (especially at school) - if so, in which cases? Where did your opinion was taken into account? At what point was power shared with you and what consequences did you draw for yourself from these experiences? Please describe examples and evaluate them with regard to long-term positive and negative learning effects in the context of your personal political socialization.

Question 2: In the lecture "How participation can succeed", typical patterns of perception are presented with which students look at the offers of student participation. Is the presentation in this form convincing for you? Are you missing patterns of perception and how would you justify them?

Question 3: The central message of the play "How participation can succeed" is: Avoid apparent participation! In order to guarantee this, it is important to grow fine antennae where apparent participation occurs. Please provide us with an example of an offer that ultimately represents apparent participation. It is welcome to be subtle.

Question 4: Develop an outline of a project aimed at real participation and involvement in political education in a school context. How do you ensure participation?

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.