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Human Rights Education from the Perspective of the Pragmatist Didactics of Politics

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Human Rights and Religion in Educational Contexts

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights ((CHREN,volume 1))

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Abstract

The pragmatist concept of education for democratic citizenship and human rights involves a process of reflective judgment formation in which people make their own practice the subject of consideration. This self-reflection allows for a describable normative concept in which it becomes clear that democratic values and human rights are to be initially implemented as practical tasks. This does not mean forgoing the content dimension (knowledge of human rights), because in the reflection process on practice we can successfully identify these values in their correspondence with core human rights (liberty, equality, recognition of the person).

Originally published as Menschenrechtsbildung aus der Sicht der pragmatischen Politikdidaktik, in: M. L. Pirner, J. Lähnemann, H. Bielefeldt (Hrsg.) Menschenrechte und inter-religiöse Bildung, EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt e.K., Berlin 2015.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. in this context the contributions of Pape and Scherb, in: POLIS 3/2005, p. 12 ff. and p. 17 ff.

  2. 2.

    Cf. Solzbacher (1994), p. 171 ff. in reference to Lyotard.

  3. 3.

    This description of the learning process is referred to as “pragmatic” because the focus is the consideration of the parties regarding the question what needs to be done, what is to do (Greek: πραγμα) (see Dewey, 1910/1951, p. 72).

  4. 4.

    Dewey and Tufts (1908/1932), pp. 237 f., 343 f., 383, 386.

  5. 5.

    This leads to the assessment that the American pragmatism does not represent a danger to the democratic constitutional state only because it is “saturated through natural law.” See Detjen (1988), p. 401.

  6. 6.

    See the extensive discussion in the habilitation thesis of Erny (2005), p. 67 ff. with reference to the normativity of the pragmatic maxim.

  7. 7.

    Originally: (…) dass “jeder dem anderen grundsätzlich die Aufstellung plausibler Hypothesen, keiner aber dem anderen den Besitz absoluter Wahrheit zutraut.”

  8. 8.

    Cf. in this context the discourse-theoretical justification of the principle OPENNESS in Scherb (1996), p. 182 ff.

  9. 9.

    Originally: “Jeder, der den ernsthaften Versuch unternimmt, normative Geltungsansprüche diskursiv einzulösen, (lässt sich) intuitiv auf Verfahrensbedingungen ein, die einer impliziten Anerkennung von >U< gleichkommen.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Germany

    Armin Scherb

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  1. Armin Scherb
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Correspondence to Armin Scherb .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Religious Education, Friedrich-Alexander-Univ Erlangen-Nürnb, Nürnberg, Germany

    Manfred L. Pirner

  2. Religious Education, Friedrich-Alexander-University, Nürnberg, Germany

    Johannes Lähnemann

  3. Lehrstuhl für Menschenrechte und Menschenrechtspolitik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universtiy Erlangen-Nuremberg, Nürnberg, Germany

    Heiner Bielefeldt

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Scherb, A. (2016). Human Rights Education from the Perspective of the Pragmatist Didactics of Politics. In: Pirner, M., Lähnemann, J., Bielefeldt, H. (eds) Human Rights and Religion in Educational Contexts. Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39351-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39351-3_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39351-3

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