Adult education and civil society organisations: Learning spaces in times of democratic turbulence

Nils-Eyk Zimmermann, in his column, argues that adult education addressing civic competence and active citizenship should be better supported. According to him, civil society organizations play a key role in bringing about social change and solving problems in societies.

When I was three years old, everything was stable: in 1976, there was a 90.7% voter turnout in West Germany, three parties in the parliament and three television channels. However, change was already simmering under the surface, driven by citizens’ initiatives, for example. Stability became more dynamic, describing a more pluralistic balance.

Today, many feel that this balance has been disturbed. In Germany, a recent study conducted by Friedrich Ebert Foundation on the attitudes of the social middle class revealed that trust in the media is declining while a feeling of powerlessness is increasing.

Particularly worrying is a rising belief in conspiracy theories (38% of respondents) and populist attitudes (32.6%). An international study conducted by More in Common speaks of a quarter to a half of respondents with “democratically ambivalent” attitudes, albeit with high general approval of democracy (94%). Ambivalence includes different ideas about democracy. The authors currently see a “discourse crisis” coupled with a “crisis of trust”.

Not as polarised as feared

On closer inspection, not everything seems to be as drastic as the polarisation in social media would suggest. In sociologist Steffen Mau’s view, the middle spectrum of the population is ambivalent and not always coherent in its attitudes, but not as polarised as feared. Instead of polarisation, he speaks of “trigger points” that radicalise the fringes of the opinion spectrum and are set by “polarisation entrepreneurs”.

These findings highlight the importance of democracy-related learning opportunities for adults, through which they can talk about their attitudes with and regarding their fellow citizens, their expectations towards the community and the state as well as their wishes for future developments. Such educational opportunities must reach the breadth of society, including the formally educated.

The findings highlight the importance of democracy-related learning opportunities for adults.

This expands the concept of civic competence into a transformative dimension: cohesion, democratic attitude, systemic understanding, participation and critical thinking become systemically relevant attitudes and abilities for citizens to get through the transformations.

Learning spaces for democracy

Civil society organisations are as important as democracy-related education. From an educational perspective, they are informal or non-formal lifelong learning spaces for democracy. They also play a key role in bringing about social change, such as the new social movements mentioned at the beginning, solving problems at various levels in a society and drawing attention to grievances.

However, something else is also essential: organisations enable strangers to trust each other and thus produce social glue that makes a democratic culture possible. I find the perspective of resilience-related research to be very helpful at this point.

Resilience in social systems arises from a dynamic interrelationship between persistence, adaptability and innovation. Today, the overly output-oriented view of civil society has blinded us to the balance between these three factors.

Above all, the promotion of innovation and demands for adaptability – while stability and persistence are taken for granted – hinders us from reaching this balance. However, social glue and trust require stable organisations.

References:

Krause, L-K.; Gagné, J.; Hawkins, S.; Hüsson, F. (2021). It’s Complicated. People and Their Democracy in Germany, France, Britain, Poland, and the United States. More in Common Deutschland, Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH: Stuttgart https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en/publication/its-complicated-people-and-their-democracy-germany-france-britain-poland-and-united

Zick, A.; Küpper, B.; Mokros, N. (2023). Die distanzierte Mitte: Rechtsextreme und demokratiegefährdende Einstellungen in Deutschland 2022/23. Hg. für die Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung v. Franziska Schröter. Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf.: Bonn. https://www.fes.de/referat-demokratie-gesellschaft-und-innovation/gegen-rechtsextremismus/mitte-studie-2023