Research Projects
Democratic Dispositions: Political Education and the Transformation of Democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-2000:
A central minimum condition of a functioning modern democracy is a broad consensus on the norms of its citizenship. Democracies, however, cannot simply prescribe or impose such standards, as to do so would run counter to the key principle of freedom of opinion underlying democracies and thus undermine the democracy itself. Focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany, this research seeks to explore the remit of school-based civic education as regards identifying and cultivating democratic citizenship norms (which I term ‘democratic dispositions’ with reference to German cultural theory). The controversies relating to citizenship education in schools can cast new light on the ways in which German society has adopted, interpreted, and shaped democracy since 1945.