Event Documentation

Regional Conference "Mission possible: New ways of political adult education"

05.06.2023 | Online

Mission possible: New ways of political adult education

As a contribution to the implementation of the European Agenda for Adult Education (EAAL), the National Coordination Office EAAL together with Transfer für Bildung e.V. / Fachstelle politische Bildung - Transversalen organised a regional conference with 50 participants on new ways of political adult education.

The composition of the participants of the conference was very diverse and thus already promised a good intensive exchange and a gain of perspectives for the topic. It was a mixture of participants from established and new institutions and providers of adult education, new academies, the Ministry of the MKW NRW, foundations, programme participants and representatives of practice, theory-practice research and science.

keynote

The conference began with an inspiring keynote speach by Jürgen Wiebicke, renowned book author ("10 rules for democratisers") and well-known radio presenter ("The Philosophical Radio weekly on WDR 5).  Jürgen Wiebicke provided an impulse for discussion:

Good Places - Making Democracy Experiential, Tangible. From big issues to one's own self-efficacy.
What approaches and paths are viable and meaningful for me in this time of crises?

This raised the question of good places, spaces of expression and shaping the future.

He began by describing the role and responsibility of political education in a time of social change and uncertainty. He attested an "emotional imbalance" to the current mental state of society. Society is characterised by a latent depression, which manifests itself in an excess of crisis narratives. People had hardly any hope and confidence, but were dominated by fatalism and fear. To move only in crisis narratives, however, is a toxic state that endangers democracy in the long run and paralyses the ability to act and creativity.

 

Current developments and debates in adult political education were discussed in four workshops:

 

Workshop 1

Europe and the EU - more than just a topic of adult political education (Susanne Zels, Values Unite)

Central findings are: Cooperation as an opportunity, EU as a topic, trying to promote. How can European cooperation reach new supporters? The EU must be experienced through current issues. From "nice to have" to a regular task, including in municipalities/city partnerships, create opportunities for greater funding and, among other things, funds for personnel and processes.

 

Workshop 2

Old wine in new bottles? New formats in political adult education (Ahmad Zaza, Willi-Eichler-Akademie e.V.)

Not necessarily new, but unconventional to get attention and generate new access. As a "new format - outreach political education" it includes: lifeworldly and self-effective in the social space - partly beyond measurability or only after years. Clarify the relationship between social work and political education and develop funding structures accordingly. To develop and structure new concepts. And yet the formats, equipped with new understandings, point far beyond the classic understanding of political education.

 

Workshop 3

Necessary Fusion: Political Education and Media Education (Nils-Eyk Zimmermann, Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e.V.)

A stronger movement towards each other, especially with regard to new target groups and the expansion of the pedagogical instruments (e.g. ways of addressing them) makes sense. With the cooperation, further knowledge is included and made usable. The focus is on resource orientation instead of deficit orientation. The European dimension with regard to regulation and a digitalisation strategy are further dimensions.

 

Workshop 4

You there too?! New and previously marginalised providers of political adult education (Yasemin Soylu, Teilseiend e.V.)

There was disagreement about the definition of new and marginalised. The question of sponsorship vs. target group was also mentioned. Which resources can be accessed by whom? There is also the question of access, including the most diverse perspectives from plural positions, in order to reflect the plural society and to bring everyone along.

 

Panel Discussion

It started with the demand for sustainability in the structures, which was put forward as a necessity for new providers of political education. The tension between structural funding and project funding was discussed. The difficulty today is that there are many different interfaces as perspectives and topics to be worked on in the work - less classical formats - and this applies to ALL organisations. In order to serve these interfaces, there is a lack of structural and personal continuity to deliver sustainable good quality. The question of continuity on a structural level in order to enable qualitative developments based on this was raised.

Emphasis was placed on the thematic added value through a more diverse landscape of providers, new perspectives for added value in the discourse, which under structural transformational aspects can be considered "exclusive", were the topic. The question of added value cannot mean that this is determined solely by those who do "political education" today, but that an opening is necessary. But at what point do we speak of political education and not of self-assurance discourses? When should an institution be considered "worthy of support" or is the perspective in the discourse not already to be seen as enrichment. The claim to shape society together needs places for expansion of discourse, but also real influence on social developments. This is more than empowerment, it is taking responsibility and overcoming powerlessness and experiencing self-efficacy in creative spaces. Diversity and a growing number of actors are desirable. Structural expansion, however, also needs financial expansion. Who is in, who is out? Marginalised groups and organisations have no structural access or recognition. Diversity in society should also be reflected in political education.

Tailwind from the WGs and for the public discourse comes, for example, for the desire for more money and also EU funds, which are not being asked for. How does the money come to us? How can this process become available for e.g. smaller institutions? Co-operations can help. The individual does not always have to be the applicant. E.g. create, look for or strengthen a Europe working group, town twinning or consortium/association as professional exchange platforms, network and multipliers? Where and how can a partnership organisation help? To this end, the profile of political adult education must be rethought, e.g. locally, for example, also under the umbrella of Europe and its programmes. For new organisations, however, the hurdles are rising again. We cannot afford to do without the potential of new perspectives. The question of a programme for a structure of support from the old to the new executing agency can possibly offer an answer. The boundaries of political education are being crossed, the central question is the dissolution of boundaries in educational processes, also under the umbrella of internationalisation and also digitalisation.

Jürgen Wiebicke said: "Something is coming to an end in political education and the new beginning is now being prepared here. The vision - to be out and about politically. With which issues on the ground - or are they simply born on the ground? Who do we take with us, who is there, who is missing? What are the new funding arrangements for which topics? What is the wish and vision of political adult education with regard to the big questions of climate change, migration, digitalisation and international structures such as Europe and the UN?"

The EU as a topic, financier, field of cooperation and meaningful dimension of an educational subject in the sense of a society-building formative power.

The question of forms of cooperation and financial resources in the sense of participation in an expanded European transformation process. EU funding on the one hand, with its possibilities, offers a great deal of potential. Promotion of platforms for network-like learning at European level. Association of networks for joint application procedures, forms of cooperation such as city partnerships, etc. Question of strategies for facilitating access.