Orientation in time and world through history and civic education: curricular frameworks and teachers’ perspectives in Austria

This article explores the connection between historical and political learning as well as their contribution to the promotion of democratic consciousness in Austrian lower secondary education. The analysis is based on the assumption that students need not only historical orientation skills but also competence in political judgement and political action to develop into historically critical, mature citizens. Against this background, the Austrian curriculum for the combined subject of History and Civic Education at the lower secondary education level was categorised historically and examined for points of reference regarding the promotion of democratic consciousness. Using the deductively derived categories of democracy, orientation and maturity, the article finds that while the curriculum refers to democratic values and human rights as an overarching goal, historical and political competences are not consistently linked. In addition, it includes teachers’ perspectives on the subject combination of history and civic education and their teaching and learning objectives. The analysis of 43 expert interviews shows that the combination of subjects is mainly considered from the perspective of history teaching. Although the interviewed teachers make various references to democratic participation in the present or to citizenship, many of them find it difficult to systematically relate the different subject perspectives (historical, political, democratic) to each other. To further explore this relationship between historical consciousness and democratic consciousness, the article concludes that more interdisciplinary cooperation between the respective subject didactics is ultimately needed.