Intensive civic education

Civic (youth) education today must take seriously the great loss of trust and the deeply felt scepticism of many (young) people towards the democratic state process – as well as their resignation to increasing social inequality. Above all, it will pay attention to the growing emotionalization and brutalisation of public language in and outside of social media – and the hostility towards democracy and humanity that often results from this – and seek ways of personally confronting these detrimental affects.
However, many conventional educational methods are not effective enough when it comes to affects, emotions and sensitivities. This is particularly the case if the aim is to reach young people who are already far from a democratic understanding of values and a democratic way of life – for example because this corresponds to their environment and they have to cope with challenging social conditions or because they are burdened by difficult personal development tasks.

Creating a personal approach to politics

In contrast, intensive civic (youth) education can promote emotional political intelligence and cultivate political affects and emotions – and thus create personal skills and motivations that are crucial for a democratic and human rights-based way of life and social engagement. It does this by creating a deeply personal and authentic approach for each individual to the so-called political - which is achieved through a life-world focus and by means of experiential and biographical-narrative methodology.
This intensive pedagogical approach to civic education combines two neighbouring but often still unconnected areas of action: the area of education and school on the one hand and the area of event-related individual intervention or preventative psychosocial counselling/psychotherapy on the other - in line with the concept of the first professorship for intensive pedagogy in Germany, which has been held by Prof. Dr Menno Baumann since 2015.  

An interdisciplinary approach

Intensive civic education thus always spans an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral framework - and it always works in close local integration, which includes, for example, the fields of action of family, child, and youth welfare.

Anyone wishing to organise a civic education project day at a secondary school in a rural community in eastern Germany, for example, or to hold corresponding curricular class lessons, will quickly realise that there are a wide variety of needs within the same social sphere. These range from civic education in the narrower sense – historical-civic education, factual information, empowerment/engagement promotion, intercultural understanding and mediation, etc. – to individual needs for event-related counselling/interventions for personal development. The latter can include, for example, psychotherapeutic/social-psychiatric and other child, youth, or family support services, possibly also distancing or exit work, counselling for substance-related addiction, conspiracy beliefs, sexualised violence or spiritual abuse of power and more.

Paving the way for democratic and socially responsible awareness

Looking at these two types of needs – civic education on the one hand and personal intervention/counselling on the other – is important because they can reinforce each other, which increases the risks. This is because acute family and psychosocial stress, especially if it remains unattended to for a long time, can also cause political feelings of enmity and hostility towards democracy. On the other hand, alleviating and preventing them through sustained intervention/counselling can pave the way for a democratic and socially responsible awareness. This is because processes of personal development and counselling prevent all forms of loss of confidence and resignation.

Intensive political (youth) education thus prevents psychological, social, political, and security-related risks – and it fulfils what has been discussed all too vaguely and indecisively for some time under the heading of ‘civic education and emotion’.

The interdisciplinary interlinking on site must go beyond a mere referral mechanism between the local actors. Rather, integral, multi-method procedural hybrids of civic education and counselling or intervention are required, which can be effective in natural social contexts such as schools and their municipal environment.

One example of this is the narrative discussion groups developed by Cultures Interactive, which represent a narrative and dialogue-building process with lasting effects on democratic personal development. Key elements of this – intensive educational – method are derived from group psychotherapy and group dynamics, and the techniques used for framing and moderating discussions are derived from narratology and the biographical-narrative interview method. A key factor in the sustainable impact is the interfaces with youth and family support and other municipal services and with systemic ‘school counselling from below’ from the perspective of the pupils and ultimately with subject teaching (e.g., history, ethics and social studies).