GEI Policy Briefs

Racist ideologies and practices remain deeply embedded in societies, which poses a number of challenges. Educational media play a central role in raising awareness of the social consequences and complex effects of racism. Such media can stimulate processes of reflection in order to question racist knowledge bases, to change attitudes and to demonstrate possibilities for countering racism.

There has been a noticeable rise globally in violent extremism, and consequently there has been a corresponding increase in recent years of the profile of research into the prevention of extremism and radicalisation processes and of the resources available. Central to such research is the role of preventing extremism within the education system, where an analysis of how extremism is addressed in the classroom is of great significance.

Curricula and textbooks play a special role in guiding young people’s understandings of the past, especially when it comes to events that defy explanation, such as those involving extreme violence and mass atrocities. However, informal media provide an ever-growing source of historical knowledge and understanding, which partly supplant formal educational materials and thereby raise two main questions.

There is a general consensus among specialists in history and civic education that it is important to prepare students to navigate plural societies in an increasingly divisive and polarised world. An effective means of achieving this end is to teach them how to deal with controversial issues and how to disagree while still respecting one another. This includes equipping students to identify and reject false claims or conspiracy theories.

It would be impossible to understand or conduct politics in Germany without comprehending and recognising the European dimension. The decisions made by the European Union (EU) are relevant to the everyday lives of citizens – in terms of increasing participation processes, their own sense of identity and controversial social debates. Schools are one of the central institutions providing political education, so it is therefore important to take an in depth look at how the EU is addressed in…