“Learning to read the world ...” holistic learning of democracy with a focus on crosscultural competence

Abstract

This articles handles methods and theory of the didactics of democratic learning and points out the importance of reflection in the learning process to create sustainable learning in the area of democratic and political education. There are countless methods in this area in many diverse disciplines, for example global and intercultural training, socio-political education and civic education, human rights education and peace education. Without reflection on social and structural circumstances and without the readiness to take responsibility on democratic society, all these methods have no real influence on student’s learning outcomes. This paper gives an overview of the main theories and methods and shows how to teach these disciplines in a sustainable way. It gives impulses to reflect on teaching methods and to find a good balance between theory and self-awareness-games. The focus lies on a training-program over 3 half-day-trainings/lesson which comprises impulse-questions, self-awareness-methods and theoretical insights.