"Leave the kids alone with this crap!" or vice versa: Why political education can't start early enough

What is this episode about?
In this episode, we take a look at childhood research from the perspective of political education and try to find out when the best time is to start education in this area. Or perhaps we should ask the other way around: when should/must children be kept away from political issues?
The play has been developed as a complementary or partner play to our play Political Education in the Daycare Center by Jens Hoffsommer. It focuses more on the question of what we know for sure about how children understand and deal with political issues than on how work with them can succeed in practice. The practical questions are bundled in our daycare center part. We recommend watching the two parts together.

Before we get started:
This episode is a little longer than most evening school episodes. It is divided into questions and looks systematically at findings from political socialization and youth research.

The central question is:
When do children actually understand something about politics? When is their sense of democracy awakened? How much responsibility can they assume in this context and what does this mean for the design of appropriate educational programs?

Who am I listening to?
The author and speaker in this episode is Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ 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:

BMFSFJ (2020): 16th Children and Youth Report. Promoting democratic education for children and young people, Berlin.

Jugel, David /Hölzel, Tina /Besand, Anja : Inclusion and political education - courageously thinking (further) and testing together! in: Meyer, Dorothee /Hilpert, Wolfram / Lindmeier, Bettina (eds.): Grundlagen und Praxis inklusiver politischer Bildung, Bonn, pp. 23-37.

Buhl, Monika (2006): Trajectories: Processes of political identity in adolescence, in: kursiv 1/2006, pp. 14-21.

Henrich, Nicole (2012): Political-social awareness at the transition from kindergarten to elementary school, Münster.

Vollmar, Meike (2012): King, mayor, federal chancellor? Political knowledge of primary school pupils and the relevance of family and school resources, Wiesbaden.

Online materials for in-depth study:

Wissenschaftlicher Dienst des deutschen Bundestages - Dokumentation: Informationen zur Partizipation von Kindern und Jugendlichen Beiträge zum aktuellen Stand auf Bundesebene und im Bundesland Thüringen; available online here.

Dossier of the Federal Agency for Civic Education: Children see war; available online here.

Mayr, Lisa: Why a girl could end the "Negro debate" in no time, in Der Standard from 22.01.2013; available online here.

Self-examination tasks:

We provide users of the evening school with 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: Try to remember when you asked yourself your first political questions. When was that? What was the occasion? How did you explain the context to yourself and what can be derived from this self-observation with regard to the design of learning processes?

Question 2: The study by Monika Buhl presented in this episode makes it clear that the course for developing an interest in politics is generally set before the age of eleven - i.e. during primary school. In your opinion, what would a good learning program look like that takes these findings seriously? And what contribution can extracurricular political education for children and young people make to this?

Question 3: This episode addresses the sequencing debate. This debate is about the question of the best order in which (political) learning topics should be addressed or presented. Or, in simple terms, what do we start with in civic education? Comment on the thesis presented in the play that the close-up should not always take precedence.

Question 4: What do you think would be an appropriate participation format for children under the age of 10?

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.