Abstract
Welcome to the second Special Issue of the journal Citizenship, Social and Economics Education with reference to the 11th biennial conference of the International Association for Citizenship, Social and Economics Education (IACSEE). The articles in this issue build on keynote speeches and papers presented during the 3-day conference “Political and economic systems under challenge – assessing the role and potential of citizenship education,” which took place at the University of Göttingen, Germany, in July 2015.
This issue contains two keynote speeches as well as five academic articles from the domains of civic and economic education. The first keynote article by Susan Seeber, Professor for Business Education and Human Resource Development at Göttingen University, focuses on vocational education and training (VET) which strives to enable young adults to meet the challenges of the labor market in a globalized world, reduce the mismatch of supply and demand of qualifications, and improve social cohesion. From an individual perspective, VET should develop young adults’ vocational competencies, support their individual personality development and their integration into the labor market and society, help secure their livelihood, and enable them to lead self-determined lives as citizens. Therefore, the assessment of competences obtained in VET programs has emerged as a critical issue. The article provides insights into the modeling and measurement of competencies in VET, discussing cross-occupational economic competencies and occupation-specific commercial competencies in the area of business and administration. Both constructs are based on economic theories, concepts and central terms, while their situation-specific context and requirements may vary substantially. Thus, Susan Seeber argues, different approaches to define and measure both constructs are required.
In his keynote, Thomas Krüger, president of the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), first introduces the mission, organization and projects of the bpb, quite a unique institution fostering non-partisan civic education in Germany, and presents its transnational initiative “Networking European Citizenship Education” (NECE). Thomas Krüger reflects on the potential and challenges of citizenship education in times of global change. The keynote emphasizes that civic education remains an indispensable condition for the political participation of all citizens, by providing knowledge and competencies to engage in the political process. People who are politically educated, who are able to make up their opinion and to judge on the basis of a reasonable argumentation, are the sine qua non of a true and vivid democracy, Thomas Krüger argues. He points out that in a time of growing tensions and conflicts, we need to consider more thoroughly the very foundation of politics, that is, the conflicts of interests and their ideological and political justifications. Citizenship education thus has to be political, and it also has to be daring: The point is not to challenge the notion of democracy as such, but to question the ways our democracies currently operate.
Following these two keynotes, five papers offer further perspectives on civic, social and economic education. In their paper, Marko Böhm, Sabina Eggert, Jan Barkmann and Susanne Bögeholz argue that in order to comprehensively address global environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss, citizens need some level of understanding of the socio-economic fundamentals of human behavior in relation to natural resources. For this, Global Citizenship Education (GCE) as well as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to provide a core set of socio-economic competencies useful to tackle such challenges. The authors introduce a competence model and its adaption in an empirical study analyzing the ability of German students to evaluate solutions for real-world SD-challenges in a quantitative way (ERSQE scale). Their study indicates that the ERSQE items form a one-dimensional competence scale, and that this competence is related to (general and subject-specific) formal education. At the same time, the findings underline the need for basic economic competencies to be incorporated in ESD and GCE.
Georg Weißeno and Barbara Landwehr turn to civic education at German secondary schools and present the results of an intervention study measuring the development and interconnectedness of pupils’ political knowledge, motivation and attitudes. In the intervention group, civics classes on the European Union (EU) used specially developed teaching material, while in the two control-group classes (a) regular textbooks were used for teaching about the EU resp. and (b) classes didn’t relate to the EU at all. The classes using theory-led teaching materials display a greater growth of pupils’ political EU knowledge than can be observed in the control groups, with knowledge being positively correlated to civic virtue, but not to trust in the political system. A positive subject-specific self-concept had a positive impact on pupils’ knowledge acquisition.
In their article, Monika Oberle and Johanna Leunig also focus on teaching about the EU while analyzing the potential of active learning tools for promoting pupils’ political competencies. By use of partially standardized questionnaires accompanied by interviews, their study investigates the effects of political simulation games on pupils’ political knowledge, motivations, volition and attitudes as well as pupils’ subjective evaluation of the game, controlling for different background variables. The games, simulating the decision-making of the European Parliament in three policy areas, were conducted by professional teamers at German secondary schools. The study’s results underscore the potential of simulation games to help pupils “understand parliaments from the inside” (Schöne). Along with knowledge on the EU, important motivational orientations such as internal political efficacy are fostered by participation in the game, while learners’ EU attitudes tend to become more positive.
Alexander Wohnig in his article turns to the intersection of social and political learning focusing the approach of service learning. Here, students’ social engagement is used as a tool to get young people involved in politics. However, as Alexander Wohnig shows, these programs often are more characterized by the aspiration to attain pro-social attitudinal changes than by aiming at political understanding and democratic behavior. With reference to several international studies as well as to his own qualitative analysis of selected German service learning programs, the author argues that students’ evaluation of the political context of social problems cannot be taken for granted in this teaching approach. The article points out key structural shortcomings of common practices of service learning while underscoring their general potential to transfer social to political learning if accompanied by appropriate measures of civic education.
Finally, Karin Schnebel stresses the fact that politics is inseparable from conflict. She argues that a widespread understanding of politics as a conflict-“solver” which ought to make conflicts disappear leads to the false impression that it is due to incompetent and not-trustworthy politicians when we just don’t get rid of conflicts in our society. Thus, in civic education, it is important to convey the general meaning and legitimacy of conflicts, to analyze and controversially discuss specific conflicts, in order to promote the competence to deal with political controversies and conflicts constructively. In her article, Karin Schnebel introduces the “quadrate of value and development” as an approach to dilemmas relating to inequality and underscores the instrument’s potential to strengthen a culture of civil political discourse urgently needed in a heterogeneous society and to enhance learners’ understanding of politics as a never-ending process of problem solving.
This CSEE issue, the second of two Conference-related Special Issues, provides further insights into a range of current debates in citizenship education and assembles a fine selection of empirical research projects from the domains of civic, social and economic education resp. the interdisciplinary ESD. Looking at the demanding political, economic and social challenges we are witnessing today, the international academic exchange in the field of citizenship education as it was fostered by the IACSEE Conference 2015 is of salient importance. Building on scientific research will help citizenship education to realize its potential and to generally gain more recognition.