Structure and Characteristic of Hermann Giesecke’s Theory of “Politikdidaktik (Didactics of Politics)”:

Focusing on his Concept “Conflict”

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to clarify structure and characteristic of “Politikdidaktik,” a theory of didactics of politics by Hermann Giesecke, who is one of founders of the academic discipline for didactics of politics in Germany. Firstly, based on the issues of political education theory in the 1950s, I clarified the meaning and characteristics of Giesecke’s concept of “conflict”. Secondly, I discussed Giesecke’s theory of educational contents, i.e., the concept of “Bildungswissen,” “Orientierungswissen,” and “Aktionswissen” as knowledges obtained through the analysis of actual political conflicts, and pointed out that he emphasized the formation of subjective political judgment that cannot be rationalized by science. Thirdly, I discussed the category-analysis that Giesecke conceived as a method for creating Aktionwissen, together with his teaching model and the teaching practices based on it. Through this study, we reconsider the meaning of “treating controversial issues as teaching materials” in Japanese education, where the study of controversial issues is flourishing, and provide suggestions for locating learners’ subjectivity in the study of controversial issues. Giesecke not only proposes to treat controversial issues, but also defines politics as a state in which there is room for value judgments that cannot be captured by an objective framework of recognition. Therefore, by emphasizing learners’ subjectivity, he shows how education should not be substituted for political indoctrination.