From workers education to societal competencies: Approaches to a critical, emancipatory education for democracy

Abstract

This article presents two conceptions concerning critical political education for workers, developed in Germany in the 1960s and the 1990s respectively. First, the conception of "Sociological Imagination and Exemplary Learning" ublished in 1968 by the German philosopher and sociologist Oskar Negt (1975). Further the elaboration of this conception, which since the 1980s is known as "Societal Competencies" (Negt, 1986). These competencies concern fundamental knowledge, which enables people to make political judgments, and act politically in democratic societies in an enlightened and reflected way. This conception deliberately distinguishes itself from the economic, instrumentalist notions of key qualifications and key competencies, which at least since the 1970s have been discussed with the aim of maintaining individual employability and competitiveness. 'Societal competencies' aim for individual and collective emancipation, the development of the capability to make judgments, and autonomy in the sense of the enlightened political agency and participation in democratization processes.