A new evening school play on the subject of "What the F*** is 'Mündigkeit'"? is published today

What is this episode about?
This episode is about the concept of majority. As a legal term, majority refers to the capacity to conduct business and commit offenses or crimes and is associated with reaching a certain age - the age of majority. Citizens are usually only allowed to vote from this point onwards. Philosophically, since the Enlightenment, "Mündigkeit" has been associated with an inner and outer capacity for self-determination and personal responsibility. "Mündigkeit" is a state of independence and the ability to speak for oneself. So far so clear. But what does this have to do with political education?

Before we get started: Since the episode really only focuses on this one term, it is a rather short and manageable 30-minute episode.

The central question here is: in this episode, we take a closer look at the concept of maturity, because it is very clear that civic education is about maturity, even in a specialist discussion that tends to be contentious. But what on earth is maturity? And how can maturity be promoted? This is where things start to get complicated. After all, the consensus formula of maturity ultimately conceals quite different ideas of what self-determination means and how to achieve it. It is possible that the concept of maturity has only managed to become a broad consensus formula in political education because it is so vague at the same time. Let's try to shed some light on the context.

Who am I listening to?
The author and speaker in this episode is Prof. Dr. Anja Besand, Director of the John Dewey Research Centre and Chair of Didactics of Civic Education at Dresden University of Technology. We hope you enjoy it and look forward to your feedback.

You can also find out more about this evening school play here.

Contact for media inquiries:
Nele Mai or Tina Hölzel
Research Associates

JoDDiD
John Dewey Research Center for the Didactics of Democracy
www.joddid.de

TUD Dresden University of Technology
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science
Institute of Political Science
Chair of Didactics of Civic Education
01062 Dresden

Phone: +49351-463 41142
Fax: +49351-463-36928
E-mail: Tina Hölzel Nele Mai