Annette Scheunpflug and her team are part of the research association "Zukunft der Demokratie". They aim to analyse attitudes of immigrants of Turkish origin and their consequences for political education.
Making political education accessible to immigrants
“Democracy-oriented, globally-societal orientations of Turkish immigrants and their consequences for political education – a study on the attitudes of immigrants of Turkish origin and their consequences for political education” is the title of the project that is part of the chair for General Pedagogy’s participation in the Bavarian research association “Zukunft der Demokratie.” As a result, the University of Bamberg will be provided with roughly 194,000 Euros until 2022.
Prof. Dr. Annette Scheunpflug and her team aim to analyse how immigrants of Turkish origin deal with globalisation and its inherent societal transition and what their perceived opportunities for political involvement are. The third objective of the study is ascertaining which learning experiences have the potential of supporting an open interaction with the challenges of the 21st century and of supporting an active participation in the democratic processes. The researchers want to pay special attention on the human-rights related beliefs of immigrants as well as on the role that Islamic religious orientations play in their lives: What is the significance of subjectively perceived societal processes of inclusion and exclusion? What are the experiences immigrants from Turkey have had regarding societal participation? The study results are to serve the purpose of creating a concept of political education that is especially tailored towards the needs of immigrants.
The project by the team of pedagogues from Bamberg is part of a new humanist and social-scientist research association on the subject of “The Future of Democracy” (ForDemocracy). Prof. Dr. med. Marion Kiechle announced that, over the course of the next four years, the Free State of Bavaria will provide roughly 3.4 million Euros for the purposes of the association. The association takes the democracy crisis as a starting point and poses the question of how processes of participation and decision making can be modified in order for them to be met with more acceptance and for society to be able to adequately react to the problems of the 21st century.
“ForDemocracy” includes eleven sub-projects and the work of researchers from the universities in Bamberg, Munich, Passau and Würzburg, the Bavarian School of Public Policy at the TU Munich and from the Landshut University of Applied Sciences and the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg. The association includes work in the following fields of research: Political Science, Social Sciences, Pedagogy, Psychology, Theology, Philosophy, Communication Science and Law.
To ensure practical relevance and tob e able to incorporate findings effectively into societal processes, relevant actors from society will, from the outset, form a dialogue with researchers. A first conference on experience and practice is supposed to be held in November of 2018.
This News was translated by Andreas Böhler.