This is a response to “The Ethical Knower: Rethinking Our Pedagogy in the Age of Trump” by Elana Michelson. We appreciate Michelson’s critical evaluation of the appropriateness of transformative learning and the use of personal narrative, as well as the frames and tools she offers to help us deal with current challenges such as “epistemological chaos” in the “age of Trump.” Michelson’s distinction between epistemological and hermeneutic analysis, as well as her conception of meaning perspectives as social/cultural foundations of identity, are helpful insights. The educational practices she finds disturbing are indeed ineffective approaches to teaching, and we are inspired by her invitation directed to “us as a community to struggle toward a more honest assessment of how our field might better respond to the phenomena that led to the age of Trump.” In this response, we talk further about some points made in Michelson’s article, elaborating on several issues and offering alternative perspectives that we believe may be productive paths forward. We do this in three parts, by (a) engaging in a critique of some of Michelson’s statements and positions, (b) elaborating on the conceptions of transformative learning in practice, and (c) expanding on the discussion of epistemological and hermeneutic analysis.

This article explores both the prerequisites and barriers of perspective transformation in the context of two Eastern European societies as examples of post-totalitarian states. Although personal cognitive development is considered as an outcome of perspective transformation, I will demonstrate that certain manifestations of cognitive development as well as autonomous thinking are rather preconditions for engaging in the critical reflection and rational discourse necessary for perspective transformation. These manifestations cannot be taken for granted in societies with a long and still vivid tradition of totalitarianism.

This paper argues that propaganda poses a (new) challenge to civic education. It examines the tension between education and propaganda in relation to civic education for adults considering (1) civic education as protection against propaganda attempts and (2) propaganda as a possible element of civic education. This paper explores didactical approaches and core principles of civic education that strive to both resist and deal with propaganda. The core proposal of the paper is to root civic education in the tradition of the German concepts of Bildung and Mündigkeit in order to contrast civic education with propaganda or manipulation.

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The process of migration to a new country brings with it a host of challenges, and therefore also learning needs. Some countries have systems in place to facilitate the transition of migrants into society, often including adult education programs. Those programs, however, cannot be effective if blithely designed in ignorance of the interrelationship between established systems for facilitating integration and the experiences of migrants during the integration process. Focusing on the transition into the labor market and drawing on the expertise of adult educators who work in these systems in Germany, this article explores several stumbling blocks that make a successful integration for migrants more difficult and describes three strategies to address them: challenging the logic of the labor market, dealing with failure, and acknowledging multiple forms of discrimination. The analysis of Germany can provide insights that are useful in other national contexts.

Migrants, coming to Germany, must attend integration courses in order to obtain a residence permit. These courses are comprised of a language section as well as an orientation section. The latter's purpose is, according to the German Federal Agency for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the transmission of knowledge of the German legal system, culture, and history and especially of democratic values of the German political system (BAMF, 2017, p. 6). This article examines the challenges that instructors and participants of those courses face when it comes to the teaching and learning of democratic values, based on a qualitative research conducted in 2018. As the theoretical lens, this article incorporates the concept of dialogue by Martin Buber.

This article addresses the self-images of adult educators in view of exercising their professional agency in contexts of social transformation after the fall of the communist regimes. It draws on research undertaken in Poland, Ukraine and Russia in 2009 which investigated the self-perception and self-evaluation of adult educators with regard to their own educational practice-vis-à-vis the challenges of transition in general and of the need of rethinking the dictatorial past in particular. The interviews with 91 adult educators in three countries illustrate the impact of socio-political change in the period

Politische Bildner*innen können aufgrund ihrer beruflichen Position teilweise Macht über andere ausüben. Die pädagogische Berufsethik muss sich daher explizit mit Fragen der Manipulation, Indoktrination und Propaganda auseinandersetzen, um die Legitimität ihrer pädagogischen Praxis in unterschiedlichen Kontexten und Formaten zu gewährleisten. Tetyana Kloubert beleuchtet im vorliegenden Buch Erfahrungen im Umgang mit Propaganda und Indoktrination in der Praxis von Civic Education in den USA.