GPJE-Jahrestagung 2023

Emotions and Civic Education

Emotions have been playing a more significant role in political discourse for some time now—whether in light of the prevalence of perceived truths, calls for sensitive language, the recognition of the perspectives of those affected, the resurgence of political utopias, and/or the growing importance of their disciplinary and regulatory functions, which find expression, for example, in shifting discourses of justification (flight shame, meat consumption, etc.).

This growing significance is also increasingly reflected in political pedagogy and political education. At first glance, and especially in light of the extremely powerful dualism of reason (ratio) on the one hand and emotion (emotio) on the other—a dualism founded by René Descartes (1596–1650) and his famous cogito, ergo sum—this is somewhat surprising. This dichotomy has gained traction particularly in political pedagogy and political education, as appealing to base instincts and emotions has (and continues to be) a proven means of political indoctrination in dictatorships and autocratic systems. It is therefore not surprising that most political education scholars—especially given the universally shared goal of rational political judgment—have clearly rejected emotions. For example, Sutor (1997: 97) contrasts rationally grounded judgment on the one hand with “mostly emotionally colored,” mere opinion on the other, and Hättich (1977)—albeit against a somewhat different backdrop—declares rationality to be the very goal of political education. Emotions, according to the long-held view, lead to a loss of reflexivity (Ruhloff 2005); those who allow themselves to be emotionally swayed are potentially persuaded rather than convinced by sound reasoning.

Yet as real as this danger may be in the face of COVID-19 deniers and self-proclaimed “lateral thinkers,” simply conceiving of emotions as an unavoidable residual factor in rational political judgments (Massing 1997: 119) not only falls far short but also fails to do justice to the state of research. Instead, both (German) political science and political education have simply slept through the “emotional turn” that began as early as the 1960s. In any case, since that time, the once-solid foundation upon which the aforementioned dualism has stood for centuries has been crumbling. Thus, emotions have increasingly become the subject of inter- and transdisciplinary discourse, particularly in the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences; in the course of this, not only have the terms and concepts previously in common use been fundamentally called into question, but the aforementioned dualism itself has been sharply criticized. Thus, Descartes’ cogito a sentio, ergo sum has been countered (Damasio 2000); at times, emotions are even declared to be the basis of all our actions (Mees/Schmitt 2003). The fact that emotions have gradually found their way into both political science (APuZ 2013; Korte 2015; Weber 2016) and political education (zdg 2011; POLIS 2018, Frech/Richter 2019; Schröder 2020) and that a significantly more conciliatory tone is now being struck (Breit 2016; Besand/Overwien/Zorn 2019) indicates, consequently, an opening in the discourse (see also Weber-Stein 2022). Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear what implications the recognition of emotions for political judgment and action has for the design of political teaching and learning processes. In any case, the developments outlined above have not yet found much resonance in conceptual thinking within political didactics (May 2020). Relevant questions therefore include:

How are emotions currently addressed in political didactics and political education?
Is emotional competence a legitimate goal of political education?
Can emotions—and, if so, to what extent—serve as catalysts for understanding subject-specific questions and issues?
Do emotions play a role in the development of political education theory, and if so, to what extent?
What empirical methods are used to study emotions in political didactics?

We would like to explore these and other questions together with you at the GPJE 2023 Young Scholars’ and Annual Conference and look forward to your participation.