Civic education at school

What is this episode about?
At first glance, the topic of this evening school play might seem like pretty basic. You might think that enough has already been said and written about civic education in schools. But here at the JoDDiD evening school, we want to look at this topic from a special perspective and that is the perspective of extracurricular political youth and adult education.

Before we get started:
Like most evening school episodes, the episode is just under 30 minutes long and is based very much on findings from the ,,Ranking politische Bildung'' by the University of Bielefeld, which we also strongly recommend for in-depth reading.

The central question is:
What should or must one know about school-based civic education from the perspective of non-school-based political youth (and adult) education, or perhaps even more fundamentally: why should one be concerned with school-based education from this perspective?

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.

We hope you enjoy it and look forward to your feedback.

Literature for further reading:

Becker, Helle (2014): Partizipation von Schülerinnen und Schülern im GanzTag. In: Institut für soziale Arbeit e.V. Münster, Serviceagentur„Ganztägig lernen in NRW (Hrsg.): Der GanzTag in NRW: Beiträge zur Qualitätsentwicklung, 10. Jg., H. 27, Münster. online verfügbar

Brombach, Stephanie (2015): Politische Bildung in der Berufsschule und die Kooperation mit einer außerschulischen politischen Bildungseinrichtung. In: Götz, Michael/ Widmaier, Benedikt/ Wohnig, Alexander (Hrsg.): Soziales Engagement politisch denken. Chancen für Politische Bildung, Schwalbach/ Ts., S. 53-61.

Chehata, Yasmine/ Thimmel, Andreas (2011): Politische Jugendbildung und Schule. Voraussetzungen und Wege gelingender Kommunikation, Köln.

Deinet, Ulrich/ Gumz, Heike/ Muscutt, Christina/ Thomas, Sophie (2018): Offene Ganztagsschule – Schule als Lebensort aus Sicht der Kinder. Studie, Bausteine, Methodenkoffer, Opladen/ Berlin/ Toronto.

Erben, Friedrun/ Waldmann, Klaus (2018): Lernziel Verantwortung. Politische Jugendbildung und Schule, Schwalbach/ Ts.

Fachstelle politische Bildung (2017): Gemeinsam stärker!? Kooperationen zwischen außerschulischer politischer Bildung und Schule, Essen. online verfügbar

Fuhrmann, Brigitte (2016): Konsequent dialogische Bildung. Professionalisierungsfragen im Rahmen der Projektbegleitung „Dialog macht Schule“. In: Goll, Thomas/ Oberle, Monika/ Rappenglück, Stefan (Hrsg.): Herausforderung Migration. Perspektiven der politischen Bildung, Schwalbach/Ts., S. 108-114.

Gemeinsame Initiative der Träger der Politischen Jugendbildung (GEMINI) (Hrsg.): TEAM UP! Außerschulische politische Jugendbildung in Kooperation mit Schule, Wuppertal.  online verfügbar

A new brochure has been published by GEMINI. This is the name under which the nationally organized providers of political youth education have joined forces, including the Federal Working Group on Work and Life. It provides an insight into the current situation of cooperation between political youth education and schools and identifies future potential. In addition, concrete practical examples are presented and critical conditions for good cooperation are formulated. The brochure is therefore aimed at political educators as well as teachers, school administrators and political decision-makers.

Gesemann, Frank (2012): Final report on the evaluation of the project "Berufsbildende Träger und Schulen für Demokratie, Gleichwertigkeit und Pluralismus (RAA Berlin)", Berlin. available online

Gökbudak, Mahir/ Hedke, Reinhold/ Hagedorn, Udo (2020): Ranking Civic Education. Political education at lower secondary level and in vocational schools in a comparison of federal states 2020. available online

Götz, Michael/ Wohnig, Alexander (2015): Opportunity(s) for civic education. Approaches and demands. In: Götz, Michael/ Widmaier, Benedikt/ Wohnig, Alexander (eds.): Thinking social engagement politically. Opportunities for civic education, Schwalbach/ Ts., S, 85-97.

Sander, Wolfgang (2013): Politics at school. A brief history of political education in Germany, Marburg.

Schröder, Achim/ Balzter, Nadine/ Schroedter, Tommy (2004): Politische Jugendbildung auf dem Prüfstand, Weinheim/ Munich.

Steht, Ilona/ Möcklinghoff, Daniel/ Meyer, Dana (2014): RevierVersion 2.1. we get involved! A lifeworld-oriented participation project, Gelsenkirchen.

Wohnig, Alexander (2016): Creating cooperation! Social engagement and political education between schools and extracurricular educational institutions. In: Journal for political education, vol. 6, p. 2, pp. 58-64.

Self-assessment tasks

For the 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: This episode addresses various conditions for successful cooperation between school and non-school civic education, which do you find particularly relevant and why? Which ones are missing and need to be added?

Question 2: The development of all-day schools represents a special opportunity for new cooperation formats between school and non-school civic education. Outline a utopian future project that is suitable for this area. There are no limits to your imagination.

Question 3: Between attitude and restraint: As state institutions, schools are particularly called upon to exercise political restraint and not to unduly influence their students politically. Extracurricular projects can generally act more freely. But what happens in cooperative situations? Describe a (possibly fictitious) situation in which challenges arise at this point.

Question 4: If you could bake a school from the perspective of a non-school provider of civic education, what would it look like? What would you do with this school? Which cooperation projects would only be possible under these conditions?

Self-assessment tasks

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.