Comics as Educational Media in the Federal Republic of Germany (1960s-1980s)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sylvia Kesper-Biermann
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 466830384

The proposed project opens up a new field of research for (contemporary) historical research on education. Given the current expansion of comics in pedagogical practice, it examines comics as educational media in the Federal Republic of Germany from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1980s. The source material consists of printed sources such as monographs, brochures, magazine articles, educational plans and framework guidelines as well as archive sources from the educational policy and administration of the State of Hesse. These materials will be examined applying the method of historical discourse analysis. In the course, we will pursue four objectives. First, we will analyse the debate about comics in educational contexts. This centres around social negotiations about picture stories, their focal points and shifts as well as the actors involved. Second, the example of Hesse shall serve to examine the way in which these considerations were incorporated into the legal standardization of state-institutionalized (school) education such as framework guidelines or educational plans. Third, we will analyse causes, influencing factors and framework conditions for both the increasing and the decreasing boom of comics in educational contexts. To this end, fourth, we will take transnational interdependencies into account.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants