انسان ضعیف و صرفه جویی در دولت رفاه: ادراک دانش آموزان آلمان از تغییرات اجتماعی آینده و تغییرات محرک ها

Social change has often been seen as a desired goal of critical pedagogy. Interestingly; there is little research about how pupils in Germany perceive the concept of social change and what drives social change. This article presents the outcome of a three year long research project that aimed to analyse how a sample of German pupils makes sense of social change and what forces drive social change in society through future narratives (written assignments and interviews). The study finds that pupils have an implicit and explicit understanding of politics and the state as a driving force, but that this is challenged by external drivers such as the global economy/technology and internal drivers such as human self-interest/egoism and insecurity/fear. In this study, the pupils often describe the present economy as being organised and the future economy to become more and more disorganised. Using future narratives in critical pedagogy can be a way to work more closely with the students and their perceptions of social change and drivers of change.

Social change has often been seen as a desired goal of critical pedagogy. Jara suggests that education should help pupils to become agents of social change and enforce an ethical and emancipating rationality [30]. Freire argues that humans are not passive spectators of history, but they interact with the social world to change it [14]. Education is often understood in critical pedagogy as an opportunity to develop political alternatives to contemporary society and predominant discourses. According to Giroux, one of the most important aspects of education is to give pupils the possibility to “imagine different futures” [18]. Achieving social change is a goal of critical pedagogy and Freire argues it “is not a call to armchair revolution – true reflection – leads to action … an authentic praxis” [15]. Social change is therefore seen as one of the most important aspects of critical pedagogy. Interestingly, there is relative little research about how German pupils perceive the concept of social change and what drives social change. This paper suggests that if we want pupils to become agents of social change there is a need to analyse how pupils make sense of social change and how they understand the drivers of social change.

This article aimed to use pupils’ future narratives as a way to research how young German pupils make sense of social change/drivers of change. This article focused on how pupils perceive the drivers of social change that could determine the future. This article presented the outcome of a three year long research project that aimed to analyse how a sample of German pupils in the subject of political science makes sense of social change and what forces drive social change in society. The study finds that pupils have an implicit and explicit understanding of politics and the state as a driving force, but that this is challenged by external drivers such as the economy and internal drivers such as human self-interest/egoism and insecurity/fear.