The research project "On the importance of peers for the political and future ideas of children and adolescents in heterogeneous life situations - A reconstructive longitudinal study spanning all phases of life" has been carried out since October 2020. It examines the importance of peer groups and friendship relationships for dealing with politics and the shaping of the future. Politics is examined in the narrower and broader sense. According to Bock/Reinhardt (cf. 1999: 721), the narrow concept of politics relates to the actions of political actors. All interactions across all living and system worlds would become political if, in the sense of a broad political term, the need for coordinating regulations were made the starting point. In the current 16th report on children and young people by the German Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, an open understanding of politics is used "which aims to establish, enforce and question generally binding and publicly relevant regulations within and between groups" (BMFSFJ 2020: 47). The definition of the political in the context of the project consists on the one hand in the reference to a narrow political term, which relates to a content-related, process-like and framework dimension of the political and on the other hand, the political is understood in the broad sense as political communication that begins with the production collectively binding decisions based on power, as well as the creation of collectives and the public, gives the political its form. Taken together, the political consists of actions (thinking, communication, action execution) that relate to regulations in a public context. The public is given when there is the possibility of communicative connection between the members of society in an indirect (via media) or direct (via political actors) way.

Against the background of the Covid 19 pandemic, which will spread globally in 2020, new types of regulations for public and private interaction are not only at the center of political control, but also intervene in the everyday lives of children and young people. External determination becomes a cross-generational issue, but for 13-15 year olds this takes place at the transition into youth as a phase of self and autonomy development by detaching from the parental home and turning to peers (cf. King 2002/2013; Köhler 2016). Community experimentation, opposing, but also imitating and orienting are possible spaces of identity development accompanied by the central questions of life: Who am I? What has shaped me and where do I want to go? The central question is how 13- to 15-year-olds experience politics and how they behave in view of their limited opportunities. What support do you get from your peer groups? How is the shapeability of the future experienced? Can any differences be made out regarding the heterogeneous life situations of 13-15 year olds? The planned talk will focus on the 13-year-olds' future ideas. How is the immediate near future related, e.g. the end of the pandemic and how is the distant social and individual future assessed? In doing so, it is worked out in more detail how this relates to politics and one's own chances of participation (cf. Wiezorek/ Brademann/Köhler 2006). Ultimately, we are interested in how this is connected to the habitual orientations of the socio-cultural milieu of origin and how this is documented using the orientations and practices of the peer group as a peer milieu. The focus of the talk is on two socio-culturally different cases that differ in terms of how they deal with uncertainty about the future. In addition, they create contrasts with regard to their political experiences and ways of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The research project is being carried out in cooperation with the “Political Socialization and Promotion of Democracy” section of the German Youth Institute in Halle. The German Youth Institute also examines pre-political socialization from a longitudinal perspective and collects 15 cases per longitudinal section and this in urban and rural regions of different federal states (Lower Saxony and Saxony). The sample of the DJI is extended by a sample of the project. This additional sample is collected in the same cities but includes 13-15-year-olds who are at high risk of exclusion, e.g. due to their educational career, a refugee experience or a disability. The overall sample thus comprises 25 cases that can be contrasted with regard to their possibilities in the school system and their heterogeneous socio-cultural environment. In this way, both research contexts can rely on stronger contrasts in the sense of theoretical sampling (Glaser/Strauss 1970). In addition, an exchange of results is planned, which is very promising, since the identical research strategies are used in both projects. With the 13 to 15 year olds, narrative biographical interviews are carried out at two points in time. For the first time in 2020/21 at the age of 13 and for the second time at 15 years of age in 2022/23. Late childhood was chosen as the starting point, as the process of detachment from the family and turning to peers can be observed from the start. Furthermore, following previous findings on political socialization research, the first political interests are expected (cf. Helsper/Krüger 2006: 15). The interviews contain open questions about the first childhood memories, family life, previous school days and leisure activities. One focus is on peers as a clique and close friends, but also as opponents in conflicts. In addition, some open questions are asked about media behavior, which should not be underestimated for the formation of political judgments. The documentary method according to Ralf Bohnsack (cf. Bohnsack 2010) is used as a qualitative evaluation strategy. Based on the sociological of knowledge (cf. Mannheim 1980). It is assumed that the implicit knowledge as tacit knowledge according to Polányi (1966) and the explicit knowledge can be reconstructed on the basis of transcribed interviews but also group discussions.

The Ignite Talk on “Crisis, Politics and Future Uncertainty as Topics in Peer Group Communication” takes up a relevant field of research in childhood and youth by referring to political education and socialization. Starting from late childhood, the transitions into adolescence are examined from a longitudinal perspective. So far, the age group of 13 to 15 year olds has hardly been the subject of empirical research on political socialization. For a long time it was considered that political thinking, the development of a political opinion and identity only develops when entering the youth phase and is still open and vague in the majority of 16 to 17 year olds (cf. Fend 1991: 240). But how current is this finding? Another research desideratum is taken up by making a contribution to time research related to children and young people. The conceptions and practices of time, which includes a view of the past, present and future, have so far been considered mainly from a psychological perspective and mainly with quantitative research approaches (cf. Köhler 2020). From a qualitative research perspective, the ideas about the future in relation to the experience of and handling of politics have hardly been examined. Diversities in dealing with uncertainty about the future are easy to imagine. For the Ignite Talk as part of the “Social Justice and Intercultural Education” network 07, the final question is to what extent the foreign and the own is also experienced and how this leads to delimitation or communitarisation of the peer group under the conditions of the Covid 19 pandemic. The generation is divided on the basis of those who look impotently towards an uncertain future and those who experience themselves as self-effective and discover the political for themselves in order to be able to participate in decision-making in the future.

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