Rapid societal changes do not only challenge education as such, they also involve specific requirements for civic education which intends to foster the students’ understanding of societal development and their competencies of political judgement. When principles and foundations of democratic, state or legal legitimacy are called into question or become fragile, there is also a need to reflect on the legitimating function on civics courses (e.g. Massing 2002). Particularly political systems with a democratic self-concept depend on citizens, who are capable of participating, in their own interest of legitimation. Though, this aim needs also a reflection of possible instrumentalizations of participation or other dysfunctional effects (Hedtke/Zimenkova 2013). Specifically, it needs, again, fostering the students’ competencies of judgement in order to enable them making their own reasoned decisions (Jehle 2022). With this aim didactic scholars emphasize the relevance of principles of multi-perspectivity and controversity which might be considered as basic principles within concepts of democracy education in increasingly pluralistic societies (e.g. Hess 2009; Reinhardt 2015; Müller 2021). However, societal changes, crises and controversies provoke reflections on the normative foundation of societal and political orders and might also challenge didactic principles and strategies that were taken for granted before (e.g. Rovira Kaltwasser 2017).

Against this backdrop, the paper introduces historic video cases as a specific dimension of didactical research in order to contribute to this ongoing conceptual debate. The selected case studies are part of a larger collectivized and contrastive case study design on the basis of twelve video classroom observations of civics courses in East-, West-, and then unified Berlin from 1978 until 1993 (Jehle 2022). First, the paper presents a group of videos during the early phase of transition (1990-1991) from the context of teacher education for teachers form the German Democratic Republic (GDR) who had to teach the new subject of social studies (Jehle 2021). The implementation of the new subject was accompanied by controversial discussion on adequate teaching concepts in this phase which was highly characterized by uncertainty. In this context the recordings present experimental teaching settings: the teachers use distinct activating teaching methods – which are expected to establish a democratic, communicative, and cooperative learning atmosphere (Ministerium 1990) – in order to initiate discussions on democratic decision-making processes with a specific focus on the opportunities of citizens’ movements in and from the GDR. Second, it presents a further group of video recordings from teacher training contexts in the early 1990s in which the teachers implement simulative teaching methods in order to reflect the current controversy on the criminal law provision concerning abortion. Both groups of recordings provide insights into the kinds of topics and teaching practices deemed relevant with regard to the aims and didactic principles. As sources from the context of teacher education they also shed light on the relevance of professional knowledge in teaching practice when implementing particular methods of instruction or in the organization of classroom conversation. Due to the specific historic context they also illustrate the significance of biographical perspectives on the subject matter (Jehle 2022).

The paper will analyze and discuss selected examples with a focus on the relation between the official goals and the documented practice in each case. In this way, the implemented concepts and practices of subject instruction will be studied from a comparative perspective against particular contemporary history contexts and its specific challenges. In doing so, the paper intends to shed light on possible tensions and friction in civics course teaching practice “under societal pressure” in order to initiate a discussion of how to integrate these reflections into the current discourse.

Reflecting the methodological issue that videographic documentation cannot offer insights into mental processes of integrating experiences through self-reflection the participants’ perceptions of the documented situation (e.g. Winckler 2014; Blikstadt-Balas 2016) the analysis uses a specific reconstructive approach to interpret the classroom conversation with regard to possible processes of political learning. In accordance with the method of Ethnographic Microanalysis (Erickson 1992; 2006) the analysis organizes the video data in subsequences. In this manner, the interpreter gains initial insight into how the teacher organizes the whole course of classroom interaction which allows assumption to be made on his or her didactical intentions. On that basis, one can select key sequences in relation to these intentions. The micro-analysis of these sequences follows the principles of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (Breidenstein/Tyagonova 2012). Interpreting particular patterns of Initiation-Reply-Evaluation (I-R-E) (Mehan 1979) the researcher can explore the organization of the communicative practices as co-constructive meaning-making with regard to the subject (Jehle/Blessing 2014). Subsequent comparative analysis of selected sequences using the principles of minimal and maximal contrast enable, then, a discussion of limits and possibilities of the didactical approaches with regard to their particular contexts and their specific challenges (Jehle 2020).

The case studies offer the opportunity to analyze challenges and friction in teaching practice when there occur uncertainties in handling new concepts and teaching methods and/or teachers still feel insufficiently prepared (Jehle 2021). Specifically, the retrospective enables enlightening analyses of how distinct biographic backgrounds might (pre-)form perspectives on and interpretations of the controversy debated in class. Thus, the presented results also intend a discussion on how societal changes challenges established balances of distance and involvement with regard to the teachings subjects – which is a highly controversial issue in the case of civics (e.g. Reinhardt 2015) –, the need of constant acquirement of knowledge or possible feelings of discomfort concerning the topic itself (Jehle 2022). Seen from this angle, the case studies might also offer impulses for discourses on teacher trainings for migrant teachers. On the other hand, the case studies illustrate and offer also strategies how teachers succeed in initiate political learning processes by fostering the students’ competencies of analyzing current societal changes and making their own reasoned decisions. Thus, these case studies contribute to an overview of various ways participants deal with the concrete requirements of a specific teaching setting with the further intention of overall assertions to be made on requirements for the planning and organization of learning processes in the context of rapid societal change.

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