Publication Selber machen - Politische Weiterbildung (en) Educational Processes

A new booklet on designing effective, open-ended learning processes in political education

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Series

Book

Publishers

Julia Lehnhof, Iven Saadi, Hana Pfennig,

Published

September 2021

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Available

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The new booklet Educational Processes, originally published by the Academy for Political Education in 2016 and now available in a revised, English edition, is devoted to designing learning processes in political education. The focus is on planning a sequence of steps and interventions that make good learning plannable for educators and participants of educa­tional events, but at the same time do not prescribe too much. Different types of interventions are possible for this purpose: depending on the aim of the educational event as well as preliminary considerations of the setting and target group, they can be used and varied in different ways—for example, in their sequence, intensity, and design. This is what we understand as the meaning of designing educational processes.

Julia Lehnhof works as an advisor for critical political education at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Focal points of her work are the foundations of global emancipatory education as well
as a reflection of the work of political educators and networking of multipliers.

Iven Saadi is a freelance educator and facilitator and supports groups, teams, and organizations in learning and change processes. He is also a lecturer on child rights and working children and youth. He approaches all these activities with an emancipatory and intersectional/anti-discriminatory focus. As an educator and facilitator, he works with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Germany and internationally.

Hana Pfennig works as an advisor for the executive of the international department of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, where she focuses on internal and external communication, qualification, and networking of  international work.

The booklet adds a meta-level to the goal–>content–>method planning ap­proach widely known in Germany. This meta-level consists of clarifying the po­litical purpose of the respective educa­tional event. Clearly, political education should address the topic of refugee poli­cy, for example. But with what purpose? Is it about the networking of actors, or should encounters take place, includ­ing with refugees? Is the aim to build a foundation of knowledge or to share ex­periences? Should political activities be trained or is the goal to develop political demands? Should people be won over to participate or is it a matter of initiating one’s own projects? Depending on the purpose, a different sequence of process steps will prove to be suitable within the temporal and spatial framework of political education.

The booklet seeks to establish a basis with which the perceived need for political education can be support­ed with an encouragement to act. It is aimed both at actors who are not confident in certain event formats as well as those who are looking for new inspiration. We invite colleagues from throughout the field of political educa­tion to joyfully face the challenges of political education, to question their doubts, and to give something new a try. Those expecting rehashed content, standardized methods, and plug-and-play answers in this booklet will probably be disappointed. Those who are looking for inspiration to translate content into (learning) process­es will find what they are looking for.

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