Networking with partner universities
Democracy education as a common interest
It is not necessary to find people dealing with the same issue. On the contrary, it is better to find somebody who has similar interests in a different scientific area.Daria Hejwosz-Gromkowska, Faculty of Educational Studies at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań, Poland
In Poznań, the team met with three staff members who were interested in democracy education within Europe: Dr Czech-Włodarczyk, Professor Hejwosz-Gromkowska and Dr Hildebrandt-Wypych. Our Professor for the Didactics of Political Education, Dr Susann Gessner who shares this substantive interest and the desire for networking, was deemed to be a suitable contact at the University of Marburg.
Initial steps towards cooperation
It soon became clear in the first online meeting to get to know each other that there are common interests in both teaching and research as well as mutual goodwill. It was agreed that digital guest presentations financed, administered and supported by the LiMa project should be given by Polish lecturers in a political science and didactics lecture to provide the first tangible objective to the cooperation efforts. An idea based on this positive cooperation experience was developed to conduct a joint research project that would investigate democracy education and the perception of it by prospective teachers in a comparison of both countries (‘Prospective Teachers‘ Perceptions on Democratic Citizenship and Civic Education – A German-Polish Study’).
Development of a sustainable research project
The LiMa summer school in 2023 was used for a face-to-face meeting in Marburg and intensive discussion. This formed a solid basis to create a concept for the joint research project, submit a funding application and undertake planning for a joint publication. Even though it took a while to acquire funding for the research project, a sustainable cooperation independent of LiMa had become established. This was mainly due to the high substantive motivation of the participating researchers, their compatible interests and expertise, and their mutual appreciation. This was founded on the networking activities enabled by Lehramt.International whose methodologies can be transferred to other aspects in the internationalisation of teacher education.
