Constructivist Treatment of Political Values and Identities in the Educational Process

The main aim of this e-module

This e-module aims at presenting several sensitive topics in the educational process such as the interpretation of political values (i.e. liberty, equality etc.), manipulative behaviour as an inherent part of the private human as well as public social and political life or the problem of the narrativization and collective (national) interpretation of the past in the possible constructivist methodological framework. In this regard, the e-module endeavours to demonstrate that sensitive and “dangerous” topics should be neither omitted from the educational process nor treated in the universalist and falsely objectivist (black-and-white) way; instead of it, all meanings of values and interpretations should be presented and taught as a part of discursive understanding of social reality which respects the crucial language difference between “signified” and “signifier”.
 

Abstract

This e-module applies the constructivist approach to the sensitive topics of political values and collective identity in the process of postmodern education in the 21^st century with the contextual reflection of Central European environment. The e-module presents the main theoretical concepts regarding the trends of teaching civics and political science as well as procedural and discursive interpretation of social reality which enables to work with historical dilemmas and collective (self)-identification in a more pluralist and open-minded way. Based on these theoretical approaches, this e-module develops students’ social science soft skills such as critical thinking, argumentation, political literacy and civic culture through the exercises focused on the philosophical and critical discursive understanding of values, re-interpretation of manipulative behaviour and narrativization of the history.
 

General Key Objectives:

• to ensure that students are able to perceive social values and terms like “nation,” “democracy” and “freedom” as historically, culturally or politically determined phenomena which thus need to be permanently discussed and defined;
• to enhance the principle of discussion as the optimal platform for the fabrication of social values and attitudes and to present argumentation as a kind of “art” that requires long-term training as well as ability and empathy to perceive the world through pluralist perspectives;
• to support the pluralist world-view as an inherent essence of social reality where conflict must be accepted as a natural part of human life that should not be eradicated, but managed and cultivated through rational public discussion;
• to support students’ awareness of their own collective identities by defending the principle that every citizen should be willing to think about their own co-responsibility for the preservation of such identities;
• to demonstrate that sustainable concepts of democracy and citizenship require thought about understandings of human and society which represent alternate challenges for possessive individualism and egoism (MacPherson, 2010; Thayer-Bacon, 2006)
   

Target group:civic education (upper secondary school), history education (upper secondary school), grammar school students

Keywords: constructivism, pluralism, democracy, citizenship, ideological manipulation, discursive understanding of values, sensitive topics