Transnational Political Education

Transnational political education is an area of ​​extracurricular political youth and adult education that has emerged from project practice . The contents and forms of political education processes are related to a topic and developed together in the context of transnational projects. The aim is to initiate problem-solving processes through comprehensive, democratic forms of communication and interaction. This transnational political problem analysis and problem processing helps to solve specific current European and global crises or to overcome them with the help of social innovations generated in the process.

Transnationality and Political Education

The term “transnationalization” refers to the social, cultural, political and economic relationships and interactions between people and institutions. With this view, one leaves the level of intergovernmental relations, in which governments are usually the actors. Geography is becoming less important in the formation of identity and collectivity, and new cross-border opportunities for belonging are created. Transnational connections are evident in cross-border feelings of belonging, cultural similarities, interwoven communication, work contexts and in everyday life. In addition, they are realized in the related organizations such as B. Trade unions, the social order and types of regulation that are reflected across borders in social structures and spaces.

Transnationalization must be viewed as an expanding and deepening process in which the increasing international movement of goods, people and information creates new social practices, symbol systems and artefacts. These economic, social, cultural or political dimensions interact with one another and ultimately form human “entangled relationships”. In Europe and beyond, such transnational processes have long been a reality and can be perceived on closer inspection. This refers to the political dimension of this transnationalization and the question of how this development process is taken into account in the diverse political education practiced in Europe. Within the framework of European projects, forms and methods of political education are being developed that can contribute to the promotion of a “transnational democracy”.

Contents and forms

The contents and forms of problem processing are developed in a democratic and participation-focused communication and interaction process, in which the problem situation is first clarified. Theoretical backgrounds play a role here, which have developed on the basis of philosophical pragmatism. For example, John Dewey describes a problem situation as a “contextual wholeness” that relates objects and events to one another and turns them into objects of experience and judgment. Objects and events and their relationship are determined or redefined. The common and democratically organized problem analysis therefore initially helps to clarify terms and their meanings. The meaning of the respective objects and events and thus their terms are concretized by examining possible problem-solving approaches with regard to their consequences for the future socially effective action of all those involved. The consequences of possible change processes, which are jointly considered to be desirable, form the basis for targeted planning of a problem-solving strategy.

Transnational political education using the example of EU projects

Such a new form of cross-national and cross-cultural political education, for example, was the basis of the EU project “Quali2move - development and dissemination of an understanding of labor policy education in Europe” carried out jointly by trade unions and trade union education providers from eight European countries. With this example, European projects become visible as transnational and political space for experience and learning.

In the project, “work”, “education” and “politics” were related to each other on the conceptual basis of a transnational political education and linked to current European labor and education policy. In this context, the term “labor policy” does not only refer to industrial relations between the social partners, to labor market policy or European employment policy. It goes beyond the usual meaning of “labor policy” in the German context. The expanded concept of “labor policy” places the fundamental question of the definition of work at the beginning of political and thus educational theoretical considerations and seeks an understanding of the importance attached to work as a basic human need. This transnational basic understanding about “work” enables a common political ability to judge nationally very different “labor policies” and about the intentions, contents and forms of corresponding educational measures.

The specific topics that are discussed in the context of the project are shaped by current political discourses. On the one hand, Quali2move was about “competencies” that are suitable for jointly shaping a European labor market (in the broader sense). “Mobility” of employees was viewed from a trade union perspective and directed towards a related “understanding of labor policy education in Europe”.

The terms “skills”, “mobility”, “education” and “European dimension” have a variety of meanings in the European context. Because the different cultural, historical and political situations flow into the development of the terms in the context of communicative processes in the national context. Current European discourses also fill the layer of meaning of central terms or even transform them. As an example, reference is made to the debate on “Civic Education” and “Active Citizenship”. The definition of terms is therefore at the beginning of productive European projects.

The perceptions and meanings of the term “mobility” already differ in the national context, and so the question arose as to what is meant by “mobility” when this quality is required of Europeans and is to be achieved with the help of education. Is the term about a "dream scenario" of a free European labor market, when the dream job lures a Swedish engineer to Portugal and a Greek geriatric nurse to France, i.e. well-trained and multilingual employees who live out of pure lust and curiosity and thus the center of their lives? switch? The real life and work situation is far from it. The current "mobility" in times of the European crisis shows that economic and existential emergencies are often the reason why people have to be "mobile". In the first half of 2012 alone, sixteen thousand Greeks, eleven thousand Spaniards and six thousand Portuguese (an average of 70 percent more than in the previous year) came to Germany. The exchange of information about the current situation in the countries of the project participants made it clear that successful communication with the help of the known and relevant repertoire of terms can only be achieved if the real working and living conditions to which the terms refer are discussed.

Development of interactive cultural sensitivity in transnational political education projects

In transnational educational projects there is the possibility to have a systematic exchange about terms and different cultural, historical and political aspects and situations to which the terms refer. It's not just about getting to know cultural differences. If these perceived differences are not considered, not much is gained for “European learning” - in the form of transnational political education. Intercultural competence is not limited to a broad knowledge of cultural differences, which consists, for example, of knowing the different meanings of gestures. Tom Kehrbaum, for example, describes what needs to be developed as “interactional cultural sensitivity”. According to this understanding, culture exists in the close connection between social practices and the ideas that these practices leave behind in the thinking of the group members. Anyone who wants to interact in a transnational, ethical, meaningful and successful way should therefore develop a sensitivity for the connection between social practices and collective ideas about them. Transnational political learning processes thus go far beyond the exchange and getting to know differences, in that comparable experiences and their interpretations are to be expressed in language and questioned and reflected upon together.

The ideas about social practices are culturally conditioned - or, more precisely, are “culture”, since the community into which people are born and in which they grow up has already made certain decisions and thus limits the range of possibilities for thinking and acting. These “natural cultural restrictions”, which make cultural comparisons possible in the first place, paradoxically generate security of action and form the basis of “freedom” in people's thoughts and actions - they mostly belong to the unconscious. “Culture” thus offers an unlimited pool of “educational potential”. Because the individual and collective development process takes place, for example, in the conscious acceptance and rejection of certain culturally conditioned social practices and the corresponding ideas. In the conflict and in the conscious confrontation between external and self-determination or adaptation and obstinacy, processes of self-understanding take place within the framework of certain cultures. This creates individual as well as collective identities. Anyone who deliberately rejects cultural artifacts and their corresponding social practices, e.g. B. the rejection of brass music, develops or refers mostly to new collective identities, z. B. "Heavy Metal Lovers". The more collective beliefs and thus identities develop that are directed against certain cultural artefacts, as is the case with genital mutilation, for example, the more social practices are called into question in a public debate and can thus be changed.

Interactional cultural sensitivity can be systematically developed in pedagogical processes if, in order to compare culturally determined social practices, the ideas about them are always learned and analyzed and these are related to one's own ideas about comparable social practices. The special thing about the pedagogical process in the context of transnational education is the self-understanding through external understanding. In other words: deeper knowledge of others leads to a deeper knowledge of oneself. A central aspect of transnational and intercultural learning is thus a special process of common concept formation.

This process was systematically created in three steps in the “Quali2move” project. In the first step, the respective practice of trade union education was presented and categorized (general state of trade union education, self-image, goals, values, topics, content, methods, transnational competencies). Sometimes the same but also different terms were used. The terms that obviously play a central role in the field of trade union education were then collected in a second step and assessed with regard to their practical relevance. Between the workshops, the terms were determined and described based on the respective national understanding. Thirdly, this was discussed at the next meeting, which made it possible to analyze the ways of thinking about the respective trade union educational practice. The practical contexts were then examined again and described in more detail, in which the terms were used and the ways of thinking about social practices were explicitly discussed. Through this exchange about the terms and the specific contexts and situations of everyday work and life, common general terms emerged. The practical insights filled the initially relatively indefinite - because culturally differently occupied - terms with a shared meaning.

Methodologically, this procedure is based on central aspects of philosophical pragmatism. On the one hand the pragmatic maxim of Charles Sanders Peirce , which connects the meaning of a term with the practically relevant effect of the use of the term. According to Helmut Pape , the pragmatic maxim is conceived as a methodical rule that is intended to serve the purpose of increasing the clarity of our thoughts. It reads: “Consider what effects, which could conceivably have practical significance, we ascribe to the object of our concept in our imagination. Then our concept of this effect is the whole of our concept of the object ”. On the other hand, the pragmatic maxim also had a great influence on John Dewey , who decisively shaped the concept of transnational political education with his educational philosophy.

The terms “work”, “education” and “politics” have been redefined by expanding their practical meaning. These new provisions now form the new basis for future joint action, for example in joint educational measures or cooperation within the framework of multinational companies.

Development perspectives of transnational political education

The concept of transnational political education promotes the development of practical, interactive cultural sensitivity through democratic processes of problem solving and generating ideas that require diversity. That is why this new area of ​​extracurricular political youth and adult education is of great importance for today's societies, which are characterized by diverse crisis situations, in the preservation and further development of the social, economic and ecological foundations of a democracy that is highly conducive to participation. This form of cross-cultural and problem-related political education can thus, on the one hand, contribute to a productive redefinition of fundamental concepts of intercultural competence , which up to now have only been based on the approach of individual cognitive knowledge transfer, and which do not systematically consider the educational potential of interactive problem-solving processes. On the other hand, the debate on political education in Europe can receive important innovative impulses through this expanded conceptual approach generated from practice, which contribute to the productive further development of trend-setting approaches to European and global political education.

Individual evidence

1. ^ IG Metall: Trade union education for a Europe based on solidarity! Goals, concepts and methods of transnational political education . Ed .: IG Metall Board of Directors, Department of Trade Union Education. 2012 ( innovationsdemokratie.de [PDF]).
2. ↑ Pries, Ludger, 2008: The Transnationalization of the Social World, Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp
3. ↑ Tom Kehrbaum: Innovations through transnational education, in: IG Metall Executive Board, Department of Trade Union Education (ed.), 2015, Education, Participation and Innovation in Multinational Companies - Impulses for European Industrial Policy, (2nd revised and expanded edition of the Net2Quali project -EWC), pp. 15–17 - http://www.innovationsdemokratie.de/mediapool/58/584093/data/Handbuch-Net2Quali_2Aufl_5_.pdf
4. ↑ Elias 1986, quoted in Pries 2008, p. 45: The transnationalization of the social world . Ed .: Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main.
5. ↑ Breser, Britta: Rethinking political education, Europe needs transnational democracy skills . 2017, ISSN  2305-2635 ( oegfe.at [PDF]).
6. ^ Habermas, Jürgen: On the Constitution of Europe, an essay . Ed .: Suhrkamp. Berlin 2011.
7. ↑ Oskar Negt, Adam Ostolski, Tom Kehrbaum, Christine Zeuner: Votes for Europe . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2015.
8. ↑ Tom Kehrbaum: Building Europe out of the crisis! Basics and perspectives of necessary further development of European learning. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-86930-759-6 , p. 50 ff., footnote 10 .
9. ↑ Helmut Pape: Dewey's situation - failed action, successful recognition and the good life . In: General journal for philosophy . Volume 34, No. 3 , 2009, p. 332-352 .
10. ↑ Oskar Negt, Adam Ostolski, Tom Kehrbaum, Christine Zeuner, Clemens Korte, Martin Roggenkamp, Fernando Benavente Tendillo: Project Quali2move. In: Trade union education for a Europe based on solidarity! Goals, concepts and methods of transnational political education. IG Metall Executive Board, Department of Trade Union Education, 2012, accessed on August 19, 2017 . 
11. ^ Lösch, Bettina: International and European conditions for political education - on the criticism of European citizenship education . In: Journal for Pedagogy . tape 55 , 2009, p. 849-859 ( pedocs.de [PDF]).
12. ^ Federal Statistical Office: quoted from Jürgen Trabant . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (Ed.): Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 17, 2012, p. 23 .
13. ↑ cf. in the following Tom Kehrbaum: Building Europe out of the crisis! Basics and perspectives of necessary further development of European learning . Steidl, Göttingen 2015, p. 52 ff .
14. ↑ Tom Kehrbaum: ibid.
15. ↑ Tzvetan Todorov: The fear of the barbarians, Cultural Diversity versus clash of civilizations . Hamburger Edition, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86854-221-9 .
16. ↑ Charles S. Peirce quoted from Helmut Pape: What was the talk about ? Misunderstanding as a failure of identity claims . Lecture in Bamberg, April 22, 2007.
17. ↑ Stefanie Rathje: Intercultural Competence — State and Future of a Controversial Concept . Ed .: Journal for Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching. September 2006 ( stefanie-rathje.de [PDF]).
18. ↑ Adolf Brock, Jochen Dressel, Christina Herrmann, Wilfried Wienen, Christine Zeuner: Political participation through social competence . Ed .: European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture. 2015 ( europa.eu ).