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Didactics of Pedagogy and Social Sciences

Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner, Prof. Dr. Bettina Lösch, Prof. Dr. Birgit Weber


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The didactics of pedagogy and of the social sciences deal in teaching and research with questions of pedagogical, economic and political education in school and non-school contexts. 
The didactics of the social sciences addresses social relations of power and domination from the perspective of political education. Political education addresses how educational processes can contribute to a critical examination of social conditions and pursues the goal of enabling learners to act politically. From the perspective of economic education, the didactics of social sciences aims at those competencies that people need in economically shaped situations as consumers, professional voters, employed persons and as citizens in order to self-determinedly and responsibly assess and impact the economically shaped life situations and their framework conditions. 
The didactics of pedagogy deals with the question of how the reality of education can be taken up as an object of learning in schools and how students can be enabled to critically examine education in social contexts in order to lay the foundations for responsible action in pedagogical fields of action and interactional contexts in the sense of »pedagogical awareness«.


Key questions

  • The relevance of students' conceptions of political and economic phenomena and their influence on society.
  • The professionalization of teachers for teaching pedagogy, politics, economics and social sciences.
  • The importance of subject oriented knowledge, a political, economic and pedagogical competence of analysis, judgment, decision-making, action and co-creation as the subject and goal of an integrative and inclusive social science and pedagogical education, including their mutual enrichment and complementation.
  • Global political, economic and social transformation processes as occasions for irritation, reflection and co-creation for teaching in pedagogy, politics and economics. 


Selected publications

  • Hentges, G. (2013). The state and political education. From the »Zentrale für Heimatdienst« to the »Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung« (with a foreword by
  • Christoph Butterwegge), Wiesbaden: VS Springer Verlag 2013.
  • Lösch, B. & Thimmel, A. (Eds.) (2010). Critical political education. A Manual, Schwalbach/Ts.: Wochenschau Verlag.
  • Weber, B (Ed.) (2018). Effective teaching of economics. Baltmannsweiler


Selected research projects

  • The significance of race-class-gender for political education (own project) (Lösch)
    Pragmatic socio-economic education – Conceptual foundations and core curriculum  (1.10.2014-1.12.2017 funded by Hans-Böckler-Stiftung) (Weber)
  • Digital political education in times of Corona. Critical reflection on conspiracy ideologies and anti-Semitism in school and extracurricular (digital) political education - in cooperation with Birgit Jagusch, Cologne University of Technology, and Marcus Meier, Cologne Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation (5/2022 - 4/2024 Sponsor: RheinenergieStiftung / Federal Agency for Civic Education) (Hentges)