Volks-Uni

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Volks-Uni is a collective term for educational initiatives that are self-organized beyond examination regulations and see themselves as alternatives - and not as a supplement - to the existing universities. They also operate under the titles of critical university , open university or counter-university .

history

People's universities as institutions of workers' education

In the course of the workers' / popular education emerging in the 19th century , Max Hirsch founded the first people's university, the Humboldt Academy . On December 2, 1900, a call for the constitution of a people's university was published in Austria , which he signed along with Michael Hainisch , Ernst Mach , Rosa Mayreder and Julius Tandler . At the many adult education centers founded in Austria, democratic research could be carried out until they were broken up in 1934.

In Russia , Alfons Schanjawski founded the first People's University, which from 1908–1920 in Moscow was able to very successfully fulfill its mandate of imparting education regardless of gender, previous education, status, income, nation and religion.

In the course of the university reform movement in Latin America , Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre , who later founded APRA , propagated the idea of ​​the Universidades Populares (people's universities) while still a student . The first People's University of Peru was inaugurated on January 21, 1921.

In the proletarian cult of the early Soviet Union there was the idea of ​​the workers' university . In Poland, Henryk Grossmann worked after 1921 as chairman of a communist-dominated people's university (Uniwersytet Ludowy). At the beginning of the 1930s, the French Communist Party founded the Workers' University of Paris (l'Université Ouvrière de Paris), at which u. a. Georges Politzer taught. It remained in existence until it was dissolved in the year of the German occupation in 1939.

From 1950, attempts were made in Yugoslavia to convert adult education centers into workers' universities (Delavska Univerza), which should have three main focuses: self-management, vocational training and general education. Between 1950 and 1960, all adult education centers were converted into workers' universities. After 1989, most of the Workers' Universities were renamed People's Universities.

In Spain, the people 's universities (Universidades Populares) existed from the end of the 19th century until the beginning of the Franco regime and were only reintroduced in 1981 - but based on the German adult education concept. The level of the Spanish Volksuniversität is on the lower secondary level and vocational training .

Republican Clubs and Critical Universities

In May 1968 , the Sorbonne University in France was declared a public university open to everyone . Around 400 action committees were set up in Paris. It formed at the Sorbonne u. a. the action committee of the footballers , the North African workers , the committee workers - students , the Committee of Advertising experts , the committee Furious - Situationists and the Council to maintain the occupation .

There were similar but more moderate developments in Germany. As early as 1967, at the beginning of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO), there were critical universities in various cities such as Hamburg , Berlin , Munich and Frankfurt am Main . In the summer semester of 1968, a joint critical student day , prepared by representatives of the critical universities , the student union and the republican clubs took place. The main idea was to abolish the separation between politics and science. This also included acquiring science for oneself, without any form of communication of knowledge by lecturers, which is referred to as mastery communication. However, this did not mean that lecturers were not tolerated. Some left-wing professors participated in the Republican clubs on an equal footing.

This movement was primarily rooted in the anti-authoritarian left : In its arguments it referred to Wilhelm Reich , Sigmund Freud and Peter Brückner . Lectures are superfluous, it was argued, since book printing was invented - seminars are not a solution either, as they are authoritatively determined by lecturers . The alternative to this is collective work.

The following were requested:

  • Recognition of the student working groups as full-fledged courses
  • Providing rooms for the working groups of the critical universities
  • The financing.

This movement came to a temporary end in the early 1970s.

During the strike in the winter semester of 1988/1989, students at the Free University of Berlin tried to tie in with the tradition of critical universities and founded “autonomous seminars”. The demand for funds for self-determined learning was partially successful. From January 1989 until the summer semester 2002 there were so-called “project tutorials”.

Summer universities, science shops, counter-universities

Much changed at universities in the first half of the 1970s. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, it was planned to convert all universities into comprehensive universities . But this has been refrained from over time. This created a new scope for counter-concepts.

Summer universities emerged within the women's movement , which established women's studies and feminist philosophy of science . At the same time and with some overlaps, the alternative movement developed , which dealt critically with large-scale technologies such as atomic energy. Science shops emerged within this movement . Finally, at the end of the 1970s , counter-universities took place - mainly organized by the General Student Committees (ASten) .

In this context, the VolksUni Berlin came into being , which still meets today at Whitsun. The name VolksUni was inspired by the Stockholm Folk University , which was organized annually by the Centrum för Marxistik Samhällestudier (CMS), which is close to the Swedish Left Party. Wolfgang Fritz Haug brought this name to Germany for the VolksUni Berlin, which he co-founded in 1979.

In their founding concept from 1980 it says:

[...] Opposite the block of privileges, rule and wealth stands - the people, the plebeian traditions and the forces of work, critical science, the women's movement, the Greens, the student movement and alternative culture. The Volksuni should be dedicated to them.
The Volksuni should offer the forces of work, science, culture and the environmental movement an opportunity to deal with their problems theoretically.

In a three-day series of lectures and discussions, contributions on theory, history and current problems of the labor movement and alternative culture have taken place annually since then . The Volksuni is run by trade unionists and scientists, but not by organizations. The aim was to bring left-wing people from the education system together with people from the trade unions and works councils:

The Volksuni would like to take up the tradition of the critical university of students and women's studies and bring them together with the elements of work-oriented science and alternative culture.

Volx universities

In the mid-1980s a larger movement emerged again - this time under the title VolxUni. With the x instead of the k , one wanted to differentiate oneself from a folkish interpretation, and it also deliberately signaled a proximity to the popular kitchen on the occupied Hafenstrasse in Hamburg. Unlike the counter-university concept of the 1970s, which also includes the VolksUni in Berlin, the VolxUnis relied more on learning festivals than on lectures. Tinkering with windmills, separatist women's groups, political discussions, alternative medicine , ... are just a few examples of the more than one hundred seminars that took place over three days at these learning festivals. These were prepared by numerous working groups, which met in plenary throughout the year and exchanged ideas.

In February 1985, a federal contact point for the Volksuni was founded. Differences between the VolksUnis became apparent at the nationwide meetings. While the VolksUnis in Bonn , Gießen , Cologne , Aachen , Göttingen , Heidelberg , Marburg , Karlsruhe , Bochum and Münster were financed by the ASten and they saw their focus on self-determined learning, the VolksUnis in Berlin , Hamburg and Zurich were financed through donations and Membership fees. The focus here was on the networking of left-wing forces and lectures by left-wing intellectuals took place.

For learning festival of Volksuni in Zurich said in an interview:

“The Volksuni learning festivals were incredibly attractive. There were also people whom I had never seen in the law firm or at a demo. The office became more and more a meeting place for different groups. There was, among other things, a kafi, the Xenix cinema, the women's floor, a kindergarten, the historical Aussersihl association, various groups of foreigners, a video workshop and a women's ride-sharing center. "

- Christine Goll : woz.ch

The Volksunis sometimes also led to concrete results, such as the Wyberrat in Zurich (a network of various women's initiatives) or the Black Widow (a women-lesbian archive) in Münster.

Due to political issues, some VolksUnis could not take place because some rectorates and the RCDS intervened.

At the end of the 1980s this movement was over again. It was continued in the coordination of alternative course catalogs and occupied universities.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zoran Jelenc: Workers university or community college workers in: Paolo Federighi, Ekkehard Nuissl (ed.): Training in Europe. Terms and concepts , German Institute for Adult Education July 2004
  2. ↑ Chronicle 1970–1988. In: web.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved February 12, 2018 .
  3. ↑ cf. Women and science. Contributions to the Berlin Summer University for Women , Berlin 1977
  4. ^ Wolfgang Fritz Haug: On the Volksuni project. (PDF; 401 KB) In: wolfgangfritzhaug.inkrit.de. Retrieved January 18, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Heinz Nigg: Finally rooms for learning! Interview with Christine Goll. In: woz.ch. October 19, 2000, accessed January 7, 2019 .