Politische Partizipation, Selbstkonzept und Fachwissen: Ergebnisse einer Studie

Traditionally, the didactics of civic education considers political action, encouraging political engagement amongst students, and imparting political knowledge as key educational goals. This contribution explores not only the interrelation between factual knowledge and the willingness to participate in politics but also possible influences such as self-concept and gender. The main goal of civic education being the acquisition of specialised knowledge raises a fundmental question: how is knowledge acquisition influenced by participatory influence and the willingness to participate on the one hand, and by subject-specific self-concepts as a motivational variable on the other.We conducted a survey with 669 Grade 9 students from 28 classes (46 % girls; 54 % boys). Results show that participatory experience impacts students’ willingness to participate and their subject-specific self-concept under the control of knowledge. However, no evidence was found for participatory experience affecting knowledge. Subject-specific self-concepts influence political knowledge in an interpretable and highly significant way.