Abstract (eng)
As a teaching principle, citizenship education is part of every subject in Austria. Especially in geography, there are many content-related points in the curriculum. Didactic principles, a competence model and a basic decree, which was renewed in 2015, provide a framework on how citizenship education should look like. However, various studies show that the theoretical framework conditions are poorly received in practice and are not implemented by all teachers for various reasons - such as too little time, too little materials or fear of citizenship education. In addition, the focus is often placed too much on institutional studies and professional competence, which means that the abilities to act and judge are being disregarded. This predominantly affects socio-economically disadvantaged young people particularly. Therefore, their willingness to participate in politics is below average, as studies show. One reason for this is that this group of young people often does not have Austrian citizenship and is therefore excluded from most elections.
This master thesis illustrates how citizenship education classes can encourage and enable students to participate in politics, with a focus on socio-economic disadvantaged young people. After the existing literature has been processed in the theoretical part of the work, the empirical part accompanies a citizenship educational project at two schools. A result of this is that socio-economically disadvantaged young people often feel that they have not been heard in social discourse. Therefore, a strong focus on their everyday life and the world surrounding them is particularly important in order to convey the connections between politics and one's own life.