Publisher's Synopsis
On the relationship between political science and political education
Political education is always dependent on the political and social conditions in which it takes place. At the beginning of the Federal Republic of Germany there were two central motives with which political education was justified: a historical and a constitutional motive. Both of them focused on maintaining and consolidating the new democratic system.
Political science was mainly interested in normative questions, but its model of democracy and its demands on citizens were far more realistic than what was advocated by the educators of political education. The prerequisites and the functional conditions of democracy were worked out in a differentiated manner. Nor did the normative orientation of political science by any means lead to social and political reality being placed in line with the constitutional ideal and the discipline predominantly performing an affirmative or merely legitimizing function.
