Sami Adwan • Armin G. Wildfeuer (eds.) Participation and Reconciliation
Schriften der Katholischen Hochschule Nordrhein-Westfalen
Band 16
Sami Adwan Armin G. Wildfeuer (eds.)
Participation and Reconciliation Preconditions of Justice
Verlag Barbara Budrich Opladen & Farmington Hills, MI 2011
Diese Publikation wurde finanziell gefördert durch den DAAD.
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Table of Contents
Sami Adwan – Armin G. Wildfeuer Editors‘ Preface .............................................................................................. 9
Josef Freise The Joint Project of Bethlehem University and the Catholic University of Cologne ........................................................ 11
I. Debating “Participation”: Contributions of the Lecturer Conferences 2008
Armin G. Wildfeuer – Christina Wirth
The Ideas of ‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Participation. Some Philosophical Remarks on the History and the Presence of the Notion ‘Participation’ .................................................... 17
Josef Freise Education and Participation – General Considerations and Exemplary Consequences for Political Youth Education and Teaching at Universities ......................................................................... 27
Huda Musleh
Participation in Education ............................................................................. 33
Heinz Theisen
Participation in Times of Globalization ........................................................ 43
Elise Aghazarian
The Arab Intellectual: Polemics of Participation in the Knowledge Society .................................... 57
Ria Puhl Participation – as a Central Right of Service Users in Germany ................... 71
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Eman Abusada
Participation between the Rhetoric of Western Donor NGOs and the Reality of Social Work and Social Development Practice in Palestine .................................................................................................... 79
Gertrud Hundenborn
Participation from the Point of View of Nursing Pedagogy ........................ 101
Nelly Husari Innovative Participation: Teaching/Training Ten Students from Gaza to be Occupational Therapists ................................................... 107
II. Debating “Human Rights and Social Justice”: Contributions of the Lecturer Conferences 2009
Armin G. Wildfeuer Justice and Reconciliation ........................................................................... 119
Josef Freise Socio-Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions of Intercultural Learning and Peace Education ........................................... 133
Heinz Theisen
European Values and the Social Market Economy ..................................... 141
Ria Puhl Human Rights and Social Justice and the Relevance of Social Work Theory and Practice ........................................................... 151
Minerva Qassis-Jaraysah
Killing Women in the Name of so-called ‘Family Honor’............................................................................................ 159
Iyad Amawi Denial of the Right to Freedom of Movement and its Implications on Human Development ............................................. 173
Ingeborg Tiemann
On Rachel’s Tomb: Some Considerations on Identity in a Palestinian-Israeli Border Area ............................................................ 183
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III. Results of the Projects and Evaluation
Ingeborg Tiemann – May Jaber – Eman Abusada
Debating Participation: An Interdisciplinary Pilot Project between the Catholic University of Cologne and Bethlehem University Based on Video Conferencing and Workshops in Bethlehem and Cologne – Spring and Fall Semesters 2008 .......................................... 205
Ronza Al-Mabouh – Sanaa Al-Muhtaseb – Juliane Dahlheimer – Raphael Nabholz – Christina Wirth Debating Participation – Experiences of Students ...................................... 215
Josef Freise – Sami Adwan
Values and Value Education among German and Palestinian Youth .......... 221
Sami Adwan – Josef Freise Palestinian and German Youth with Islamic and Christian Backgrounds: Religion as an Indicator of Behavior. A Comparative Study ...................... 231
Sami Adwan
Evaluation of the Inter-Cultural Exchange Program between Bethlehem University and the Catholic University of Applied Science ...... 247
List of Contributors ..................................................................................... 265
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Josef Freise
Education and Participation – General Considerations
and Exemplary Consequences for Political Youth
Education and Teaching at Universities
1. Criticism of traditional education
The Brazilian researcher and educator Paulo Freire described in his “pedago-gy of the oppressed” a participatory way of education and he formulated one of the most comprehensive critiques of traditional education in school. He criticized the traditional system of education because of the relationship be-tween teachers and students. The process of education is a sick transmission which is characterized by the teachers’ knowledge as something static and unchangeable and the student as a recipient who has to deposit the knowledge in his head like saving in a bank. (Freire, 1972: 73-92). Teachers and students are two opposing poles and schools are run in the following way:
“The teacher teaches, and the students are taught. The teacher knows everything, and the students do not know anything … The teacher speaks and students listen obediently to the teachers … The teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the students are mere objects” (Freire, 1972: 75).1
This is a wrong way of learning and in this process the creative force of stu-dents is constantly eradicated. Paulo Freire was part of the leftist movement in Brazil in the 1970s, but he also criticized the left, when the leftist move-ment overtook the old and traditional methods of education, only changing the content and he said:
“The revolutionary society which practices the repressive education, is either misguided or it distrusts the people … You cannot liberate people through alienating people. True libera-tion – a process of humanisation – is not another deposit which is put into the head of people” (Freire, 1972: 83).
1 The quotations are translated from the German editions of Freire’s books as indicated.
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2. Education as a process of dialogue and participation
Paulo Freire described an alienating process of education and as an alterna-tive he submitted a practice of dialogical education, through horizontal teach-er-scholar relationship which is characterized by critical thinking and by common practical action.
Paulo Freire sees dialogical education as a process at various levels. First of all mankind is made up of dialogical beings. Each human being is in con-versation with himself or herself, when he or she is thinking. Thinking is a dialogical act. Education is an encounter between people, their thinking and action concerning the world, “which is to transform and to humanize“. From this perspective education can no longer be that fixed transmission of un-changeable ideas. Freire sees the process of education as a dialogue between teachers and students who reflect the world together in order to change and to humanize it. In this dialogue, both teachers and students exchange their views and they can learn from each other. Teachers are learning human beings, and students are teaching students. Their encounter is horizontal, contra factum: Of course, there is a “power gap” between teachers and students, but in the learning process free communication should rule. The educational dialogue is critical reflection. The world does not appear as unchangeable but as dynam-ic, changeable and as a reality that can be influenced. This is the main goal of the so called “problem-formulating method” of Paulo Freire: Teachers and students both participate in a process with the aim being to understand and to humanize the world.
In the old-fashioned way of teaching the teachers are the active subjects of the process and the students are passive objects. Teachers and students should be both active subjects in the dialogical way of education. They both ask questions and they both look for solutions.
3. The refusal of participation in the process of education
It is not only because of the teachers that the students are often objects and not subjects in the process of education. Sometimes the students themselves refuse to become subjects of the learning process. Paulo Freire described this phenomenon as “the silence of the internalized oppressor”. Students have “learned” to be silent, because it seems to be the easiest way to live. They do not want to change the world or even to change themselves. From a viewpoint point of system theory the students have established their personal world and they do not want to change anything, because the process of change could be painful. It is important to challenge students.
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The former social legislation in Germany saw unemployed people and even unemployed young adults as passive recipients of social care. They got financial support to survive but often they did not receive enough assistance to change their lives and to find work. Today, unemployed people and espe-cially young people without professional formation under the slogan ‘assis-tance and challenge’ are invited to train their labour skills, and they receive financial support only if they are willing to take part in an educational meas-ure. This is certainly a kind of pressure, but if it is well presented it can be seen as an impetus to further personal development.
4. Participation in political youth education
The report of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Commission of the European Union on the theme “participation of youth 2005“ (BMFSFJ, 2005) highlights political participation as the best way to raise political interest among young people (BMFSFJ, 2005: 5). Political interest among young people in Germany has diminished rapidly over the last 10 years. It is reflect-ed in the declining turnout of voters and first primary voters. In various stu-dies the changes among youth with its impact on the political commitment is described: Nearly two-thirds of young people in Germany are no longer members of youth organizations, youth associations or clubs. Not even half of the 18-23 years-olds see the parliament and the institutions of the representa-tive democracy as positive elements of the society. They do not trust these institutions anymore (BMFSFJ, 2005: 5). Participation of young people in society should help to raise political awareness. Municipalities have estab-lished youth councils as well as children’s and youth parliaments. Schools encourage the establishment of representative organizations of students. In particular various opportunities for young people are being organized to vo-lunteer in social, ecological and cultural institutions after school before start-ing studies at university or before beginning practical training courses. This period of voluntary work should help them to gain democratic skills and en-courage participation in society (BMFSFJ, 2005: 9). Children and adolescents are also involved in planning processes which concern their lives: Children and Youth reports are no longer drawn up by experts without the participation of the younger generation. When new school buildings are planned, children and young people are involved as co-researchers in the planning. School life becomes more and more important for children and youngsters, because they spend more time in school also during the afternoon for recreational activi-ties.
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5. Participatory teaching and research at University
The good teacher lets his students know, as Freire says, that one of the beau-ties in our life as historical beings in and with the world is the possibility to get to know the world and to interact and to change the world at the same time. Our knowledge of the world is historical. Through interacting with the world we change the world and we also produce new knowledge. By produc-ing this new knowledge we overcome old knowledge and this new knowledge will be overcome tomorrow. That is why it is as important to get to know the existing knowledge as it is to produce new knowledge. Teaching, learning and research are moments, stages of a cycle. In one stage we learn and teach exist-ing knowledge and in another stage we create new knowledge which did not exist before. It is Paulo Freire’s conviction that you cannot separate teaching and learning from research. “There is no teaching without research and no research without teaching” (Freire, 2008: 29).
Paulo Freire based his reflections on education on the idea that teachers and students share their views of reality, in order to reflect and to change the world together. They have different backgrounds and roles, but the same aim: to understand the world in a scientific way more deeply. From this point of view all courses must be scrutinized critically. Often the professors offer a fixed content of knowledge with a fixed substance which has to be repro-duced by the students without showing any critical attitude. Teachers are asked to organise their curriculum as a problem-formulating curriculum with open questions. They should express their own open questions on the issues they are researching, and the students should participate in these open issues and express their own personal, critical ideas concerning these problems. For sure, students have sometimes to learn even by heart what is already thought and written about concerning the formulated issues. But it is important for them to know the research context and the open questions. To learn a foreign language, to learn methods of research like dealing with statistics, it is not good just to memorize contents by heart without any context. If you know the context, why it is good to learn a language or why you need an understanding of statistics, it is much easier to learn. This is what motivational research teach us: You learn a language e.g. in a better way, when you create real situ-ations of communication like an international exchange program as e.g. be-tween Bethlehem University and the Catholic University of Cologne. At uni-versity students should participate in the process of the professors’ research and as a result they are eager to learn more and to understand different scien-tific approaches. In the way Paulo Freire tackles the idea of teaching, there is no teaching without research and no research without teaching: no teaching without research, because the good professor does not see his task as trans-mitting a fixed closed shop of knowledge to the students, but to let them par-
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ticipate in his research with all open questions; no research without teaching, because research is a dialogical process and students can contribute with their own viewpoints and experiences to the research programs. To link teaching and research at university is a challenge for all professors and teachers. In-stead of simply relying on textbooks, it is desirable, that professors and teach-ers put their investigation and research at the centre of their teaching. The combination of teaching and research is an indicator of excellence at universi-ty.
Reference List
BMFSFJ. (2005). Bericht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland an die Kommission der Europäischen Union – Partizipation der Jugendlichen. Berlin.
Freire, P. (1972). Pädagogik der Unterdrückten. Stuttgart. Freire, P. (2008). Pädagogik der Autonomie. Notwendiges Wissen für die Bildungs-
