Dr Stephan Benzmann: Narratological approaches to the teaching of politics

This lecture presents the theory of learning-narratological political didactics, which provides an analytical approach to the subject-specific and media-appropriate description of political education textbook units. The theoretical components are explained using examples from a research corpus of 194 political science textbook units addressing the question of Turkey’s possible accession to the EU. A central theoretical element identified is that political science textbook units can be understood as learning narratives. In addition to elements of learning narratology, such as the subject-specific narrative voice and the implicit learner, the patterns of interpretation of political reality contained within these learning narratives are conceptualised as learning narratives. The presentation demonstrates how units in school politics textbooks can be empirically described and analysed on this basis.