About the book:

„About Political Education“ – was also the title of a speech in 1891 in which the newly-elected president of the Vienna University, jurist Adolf Exner, demanded political education to be an assignment of universities for the very first time. Exner predicted, that the 20th century would be a „political century“, in which political difficulties would not be to come to terms with without political education.

How did this prediction develop? In his inaugural lecture in Vienna, Wolfgang Sander highly values Exner’s thoughts, summarizes the factual developments of the political education in the 20th century and outlines the contemporary self-conception of this subject area and its didactics. In a concluding outlook he asks for a new challenge for the political education in the 21st century – in an atmosphere, in which politics are increasingly shaped by europenization, globalization and the development towards global citizenship.