This contribution examines teaching materials, which were self-made by teachers for their Civics Courses (Staatsbürgerkunde) in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Staatsbürgerkunde was based on Marxism-Leninism according to which the evolution of human societies from capitalism to socialism is determined by a set of general laws of societal development. This normative theoretical framework as „Standpunkt der Arbeiterklasse“ (view of the working class) could not be called into question. In methodological debate special attention was consistently paid to the term „Anschaulichkeit“ (Feige 1979), a concept of vividness, clearness, as a way to shape desired political beliefs by implementing Marx’ method of rising from the abstract to the concrete. It was consensus, that illustrations of economic and moral superiority of socialism were important to enlarge the pupils’ interest and mental activity as well as to stimulate a socialist-scientific way of thinking. Therefore, the visualization of political facts as maps, schemes, graphics or diagrams was considered a necessary condition of successful teaching. 

      Since most research on Staatsbürgerkunde is based on more or less official documents such as directives, curricula, monographs and school books, we know little about actual teaching practices (Grammes 2006). How did teachers attempt to convince their pupils of the validity of the socialist ideology? Against this background, this paper analyzes, based on the rare and, moreover, unexplored source of the so-called Pedagogical Lectures, visual representations of political facts and arguments in blackboard images, worksheets, examinations, cartoons etc. 

      Starting from the premise, that the specific graphical designs and visual arrangements of the political facts were intentionally made to suggest a certain perception, the teaching materials are analyzed with a focus on both content and form. Assuming that perception is influenced by visual arrangements (see Wertheimer 1923), I am asking how civics courses teachers in the former GDR made use of different design principles in order to pre-structure understanding and to socialize the pupils’ views (Vogler 1999). What was shown and what was not in order to work out the intended political understanding of the youth? Thus, I will reveal typical patterns of composing arguments, texts, symbols, graphics and drawings for leading the viewer’s eye. Furthermore, I will analyze correlations between specific layouts and topics. Did they use different figures, shapes and argumentation patterns when speaking about the rise of socialism or the decline of capitalism and which patterns were used? How stable were these over time?

The second part of the paper addresses the question to what extent the teaching materials differ from each other in terms of content and form. Against a common misunderstanding, Staatsbürgerkunde could and should not be equally taught in every lesson at every school (Grammes 2011). Even if the space for creativity was highly limited, slight variations among the teaching materials in selection and composition can be discerned. In that regard, this paper also makes a contribution to the question of the teacher’s discretionary space in a highly ideologically controlled educational system as in the former GDR. 

The examples analyzed in this paper are part of the so-called pedagogical lectures, which are teaching experience reports within the context of further education, written by the ‘best’ teachers to guide other teachers to increase the efficiency of educating future socialists. They reveal how teachers reflected problematic situations in classroom, such as how to deal with undesirable opinions and discussed methods, and how they prepared lessons. For instance, the lectures contain own experiences on how to teach moral values, how to ensure an effective confrontation with the capitalist ideology or how to use teaching materials. The analyzed lectures in this paper can be considered as success stories or best practice examples, because they were designated for publication by a jury of leading methodologists to contribute to the pedagogical discourse. Deviations from legal requirements for Civics Courses are not expected due to massive state control of all published documents in the GDR by the Ministry of National Education (Ministerium für Volksbildung). On the contrary, they indicate the officially allowed amount of leeway for planning classes as well as creating teaching materials. To answer these question, the examples are compared with illustrations in official documents such as curricula, „Unterrichtshilfen“ (lesson toolkits) and articles in the academic journal. Since they are a collection of about 200 documents, nearly from the beginning to the end of the GDR (1963–1989), change and continuity of the learning materials can be retraced over time. However, it must be noted that we look at classes from a certain perspective. We only see the product, not the process of teaching. It remains unclear how the teaching materials were used in teacher-student communication. At the same time, we know nothing about pupils’ receptions of the indoctrinating visual political arguments. However, we know at least about the didactic approaches and relations the materials are bound in due to the special characteristics of pedagogical lectures.

First findings show that there are strong relations between the manner political facts are visually represented and the intended thinking of Marxism-Leninism. The layouts of the images can be seen as introduction to the socialist way of thinking. In order to stimulate the desired political understanding of the youth political processes were never shown. Pupils should not ask about the often conflicting politics dimension but rather rely on the rightness of the socialist teleological understanding of the development of human societies. In according to that, the patterns identified were very stable over time to ensure that they can easily be recognized and internalized.

Feige, Wolfgang (1979): Unterrichtsmittel im Staatsbürgerkundeunterricht. Berlin: Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. Grammes, Tilmann, Schluß, Henning, Vogler, Hans-Joachim (2006): Staatsbürgerkunde in der DDR. Ein Dokumentenband. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Grammes, Tilmann (2011): Commentary – Staatsbürgerkunde (Civics and Politics) in the former GDR, in: Journal of Social Science Education. Volume 10. Number 1, 59–69. Vogler, Hans-Joachim (1999): Zur Politisierung des Blicks im Staatsbürgerkundeunterricht der DDR, in: Unterrichtswissenschaft. Zeitschrift für Lehr- und Lernforschung. Volume 4, 337–356. Wertheimer, Max (1923): Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II., in: Psychologische Forschung. Volume 4, 301–350.