What characterizes effective subject-specific instruction? Which approaches and methods have proven effective in fostering students’ competencies? Research on effective subject-specific instruction systematically analyzes various subject-specific teaching methodologies and their practical application in the classroom to identify which concepts, models, and methods prove effective in achieving the respective competency goals. This is a relatively new field of research. The Institute for Political Science is playing a key role in the further development of this research area through a project involving Prof. Dr. Volker Reinhardt.

Learning about democracy is an essential component of political education. This involves recognizing and understanding democracy as a way of life, a form of society, and a system of government, along with the values, norms, structures, and processes associated with it. It also involves empowering children and young people to exercise their rights and fulfill their duties as responsible citizens and to actively participate in democracy. Political education in schools, as well as extracurricular political education—and the school itself as a place of learning and daily life—make an important contribution in this regard. What effects are achieved through democracy education? What is effective in terms of the competency goals of democracy education? The primary goal of this research focus is to provide a systematic overview of existing research on the effects of democracy education, to identify gaps in the research, and, building on this, to plan further projects.
 

Right-wing populism and extremism pose a major challenge to democracy and are therefore a central topic in political education. Among other things, this involves researching the causes of right-wing populist and extremist attitudes and beliefs, as well as their impact on democratic processes and structures—and also on democratic values and norms, as well as social cohesion. One central question that the Institute for Political Science addresses, for example, is the relationship between political education, prejudice, group-focused hostility, and anti-democratic orientations.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to empower children and young people to think and act with a view to the future in the spirit of sustainable development. This goal is closely linked to the goal of fostering civic responsibility in political education. ESD and political education strengthen participation, as well as the ability to act and make sound judgments. If societal transformation is the goal for achieving sustainable development, then this requires not only knowledge and new technologies, but also participatory decision-making, strong and democratically legitimate institutions, conflict resolution, and changes in behavioral patterns. How can this be achieved through ESD and civic education? What is the relationship between ESD and political education? How does political education contribute to sustainable development? What challenges arise, for example, from the Beutelsbach Consensus? How effective is ESD? This research focus addresses precisely these questions. In addition to ESD in general, there is a special emphasis on climate education.

EUTEG is an ERASMUS+ project that develops and implements simulation games and corresponding teacher training programs on European environmental and climate policy in the context of the European Green Deal. The project aims to help ensure that the topic of EU environmental and climate policy—which is often complex and rarely addressed in the classroom—is tackled in schools in a clear and participatory manner. EUTEG contributes to this by expanding and deepening subject-specific and pedagogical knowledge regarding the EU and its environmental and climate legislation in teacher education and professional development.

Central to the project are two simulation games on two specific topics: eco-design and LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry). These areas directly impact the daily lives of students and teachers; they are strongly European in nature but highly complex. The simulations are designed to make decision-making processes in the EU transparent and understandable, to clarify competing interests and conflicting goals, and to highlight the roles of business, civil society, and academia in such processes. These simulations enable learners to gain a deep understanding of EU institutions, legislative processes, decision-making, and the unique characteristics of democratic processes.

Further information about the project can be found here. 

The FREI Day concept from the “Schule im Aufbruch” initiative is one of many ESD concepts currently being adopted in schools. The FREI Day concept offers concrete ideas and approaches for how school life could be experienced differently.  For example, it focuses on students’ self-efficacy, allowing them to develop, implement, and evaluate their own projects over the course of an entire school year within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. On the other hand, according to “Schule im Aufbruch,” the concept is deliberately designed as a low-threshold entry point into ESD-based democratic school development.

Whether and in what ways the introduction of a FREI DAY-inspired concept at a school leads to structural change and the closely related cultural shift has not yet been empirically demonstrated. In the 2024–2025 school year, our project team will therefore conduct a scientific study of four schools in the Freiburg area that have very different profiles and are situated in various contexts.

In an empirical study with a qualitative research design in the field of school development research, we are investigating the extent to which school-specific FREI DAY concepts open up “spaces of freedom” that can foster structural and cultural transformation within the school. Drawing on school development models and the Whole School Approach, we analyze which “spaces for autonomy” have been shown to foster development in terms of democratic structures and the structural embedding of ESD. We analyze this development from the perspective of the participating teachers in order to describe, as a process, the subjectively perceived changes regarding these “spaces of freedom” from the perspective of both teachers and school administrators. To this end, we conduct semi-structured interviews with school administrators and teachers at various points in time and additionally collect data via short questionnaires throughout the school year. At the end of the school year, we also incorporate the perspectives of students through group interviews, allowing them to reflect on their experiences, describe their perceptions of the concept modeled after FREI DAY, and share their views on school development. We incorporate this perspective to exploratively capture students’ views on this concept and to contextualize the objectives of the concept’s development, as well as its implementation by teachers and school administrators, in a different light. With specific reference to educational practice, we use the findings of the study to identify which forms of (external) support have the potential to effectively and efficiently support school-based developments, strengthen schools in their democratic and ESD-related school development, and drive change processes forward.

“Freiräume” Project Team: Prof. Dr. Astrid Carrapatoso & Dr. Jutta Nikel (project leaders), Dr. Susanne Paulus (project staff member); as a team of researchers in political science and education, we bring many years of expertise in the areas of Education for Sustainable Development, democracy education, and school development.

“Freiräume” at FREI DAY – On the Path to ESD-Based Democratic School Development is a project of the PH FR in collaboration with the Academy for Innovative Education and Management gGmbH (aim).”
 

MECCE’s Goals

The goal of the international MECCE project is to improve the quality and quantity of climate change education (CCE) worldwide in schools, professional development (e.g., teacher training), and public awareness campaigns in order to effectively address climate change.

The MECCE project team aims to achieve this goal through the collaboration of three interconnected strands (project groups) over a six-year project period.

Objectives of Axis 1: Based on case studies and comprehensive, systematic literature reviews, a deeper understanding of CCE will be developed.

Objectives of Axis 2: A set of CCE indicators will be developed to support global CCE objectives and monitoring. Initial data collection will then be conducted.

Objectives for Axis 3: The insights and findings obtained by the project groups will be effectively communicated and disseminated to the public in order to provide meaningful impetus for policy and (educational) practice.

MECCE Research Team at the University of Education Freiburg

 As an interdisciplinary team (Prof. Werner Rieß and Dr. Eva-Maria Waltner,  biology and its pedagogy, as well as Prof. Astrid Carrapatoso and Julia Stössel, political science and its pedagogy), we bring many years of expertise in the fields of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and climate policy, which enables us to integrate diverse perspectives into the development of CCE indicators.