Alexandra Budke: Und der Zukunft abgewandt. Ideologische Erziehung im Geographieunterricht der DDR

Since the end of the German Democratic Republic and with it the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the termination of the Cold War, efforts have been stepped up to define the real essence of the East German state and thus to understand and classify its consequences in economic, social, psychological and educational terms.
In this volume, Alexandra Budke analyses the school subject of geography, which was one of the major subjects besides civics and history, in which ‘civic, philosophical and ideological education’ as defined in the curricula was imparted from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. The author examines to what extent geography lessons in East Germany were used to communicate and propagate the geopolitical interests of the state. Her detailed analysis of geography lessons enables her to assess whether school students were politically manipulated, and what options for action were perceived by the key actors in lessons – namely the teachers and the students – within the scope of the curricula imposed by educational policy.

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