Protest & Participation

Good politics and social studies lessons are practical, rather than – for example – being taught as an abstract study of institutions. Conflicts that directly affect young people are particularly well suited to sparking an interest in politics and often offer a wide range of opportunities to get involved outside the classroom – in clubs, initiatives or political parties. Examples can be found almost everywhere: the planned power line in the neighbourhood, a building project in the local area, major projects such as ‘Stuttgart 21’ or the bid to host the Olympic Games. 

Such public disputes illustrate controversies and conflicts in the pupils’ immediate everyday lives and enable the exploration of key aspects of learning about democracy: legitimacy, deliberation in participatory democracy between civil society, the state and the economy, conflicts over values and distribution, (civil society) participation, political decision-making and democratic decision-making.

Peter Massing has outlined the cyclical interconnection of dimensions of political competence. According to this, political attitudes and motivation promote the acquisition of (further) specialist knowledge and encourage political judgement and political action. Sibylle Reinhardt describes three levels of competence in social science analysis, ranging from a focus on specific situations and individuals (elementary level), through establishing connections between the individual and their immediate social environment, to overarching rules and institutions (intermediate level) to the identification and assessment of systemic interrelationships (highest level). Our proposals for harnessing conflicts are based on both approaches, as overarching questions can be discussed from an illustrative level. Building on individual specialist knowledge, expert knowledge – in the sense of conceptual knowledge (according to Massing) – is developed and expanded, thereby strengthening the basis for the ability to judge and act.

By ‘Protest & Participation’ – the overarching title of the materials, case studies and concepts presented here – we therefore mean a subject area within democracy education. Given the multitude of quite different approaches that bear the label of ‘democracy education’, this clarification is important. Our focus here is not on participation in the classroom, nor on concepts of democratic schooling, nor on moral courage, but on the propensity for political participation – be it in the form of initiatives, citizen participation initiated by the administration or required by law, or as an element of direct democracy (for example, citizens’ petitions, referendums).

The case studies presented here were selected on the basis of their exemplary nature. All the lesson plans we have designed and are presenting here follow the didactic principles set out above and are conceived in such a way that they can be applied as effectively as possible to the selected case studies.

We have compiled important information on our teaching concept, its application to other cases, and general teaching materials on the topic of ‘Protest & Participation’ in the document on the right-hand side of this page, together with further reading recommendations.

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