Home | Gesellschaft für sozioökonomische Bildung und Wissenschaft

NELA e. V. Socioeconomic education enables citizens to understand economic and social contexts as well as to question them. To do so, a critical, well-grounded analysis of the present social-ecological challenges as well as discussion about the already available, possible and diverse solutions are necessary. Therefore, socioeconomic education lays the foundation to shape ... more

Prof. Dr. Udo Hagedorn Socioeconomic education is a fundamental part and framework of a well-grounded argument about vocational education programs. The educational aspects as well as the one of socioeconomics are in their connections reflection points for a pedagogical, didactical and professional-didactical discussion to develop, analyze and implement curricula into wide social responsibility. The ... more

Prof. Dr. Jakob Kapeller Socioeconomic means the attempt to examine economic correlations against the background of their social embedment. Therefore, a socioeconomic perspective perfectly enables an interdisciplinary and problem-driven approach that the modern social science oftentimes misses. more

Christian Fahrbach The issue of low-profit is a financial-scientific reclaimed land and an interdisciplinary challenge for the socioeconomic education. On the one hand, this includes that businesses lay out innovative CSR-measures and simultaneously prefer welfare aims to financial aims. On the other hand, businesses need cheap capital to finance demanded investigations. Because ... more

Prof. Dr. Thomas Vogel Our whole culture nowadays is percolated by economic thinking. Overt, but too often subliminal and unconscious as well, this thinking drives human actions and, in doing so, practices a great, oftentimes anonymous power over humans. The economy’s gain of greater importance as well as the global economic crises increase the ... more

Prof. Dr. Walter Otto Ötsch We live in an economic-dominated society; economic calculations and rules have become determining factors for many areas of life. The economic science has become society’s leading science. Among other things, this became possible because the economic science began to understand itself as “imperial”. Here, it cannot define any borders for ... more

Dr. Thomas Köller The economy is part of how people live together and how they interact with nature. However, it may make sense to isolate this economic aspect analytically, and declare it the subject of a scientific discipline. On the other hand, such a discipline would simply give up its scientific aspiration, if ... more

Prof. Dr. Martin Höpner The matter of economic education must not be understood as the mediation of the misbelief that everyone is having a better life if everyone only thinks about themselves. It is rather about the understanding of our economic system within its political, social, historical and international contexts and to learn that ... more

Prof. Dr. Doris Neuberger At the latest since the global financial and economic crisis, we have known that pure economic education leads to a dead end. Socioeconomic education helps to comprehend the economic system as a social and unbalanced system, to better understand its opportunities and risks for society as a whole, to critically ... more

Prof. Dr. Till van Treeck Socioeconomic education motivates teachers and students to recognize scientific and social controversies about economic contexts as central parts of the economic science. All too often, present influential economic standard literature, which are embossed by dominant economic thinking from the time before the major financial crises at the beginning of the ... more

Prof. Dr. Wolfram Elsner Relevant economics is workable only as a comprehensive socio-economics, which reflects the complexity of reality. And as such, it has to be interdisciplinary and pluralistic. A pseudo-science of closed equilibrium models with physical analogies of the last century leads to nowhere, or, at worst, to the current catastrophic economic, social ... more

Prof. Dr. Birger P. Priddat The economy is highly effective but not necessarily efficient. It misses many normative requirements to “re-rationalize” the visible deficits. It is an economy of guess, far apart from its own logistic understanding. The rich offers by other sciences remain unused as long as the economy misunderstands itself as a closed ... more

Prof. Dr. Günter Kutscha Uncontrolled globalization, escalation of systematic crises and accumulation of technological- and economic-caused natural crises, exploitation of natural resources and new forms of poverty and impoverishment – these key words may be enough to reveal that the reference to one-dimensional logics of action as the economic rationality and market efficiency, for ... more

Prof. Dr. Matthias Thiemann Socioeconomic education has to be more than just a “tool-kit” which enables students to properly orientate themselves in a financialized world. It rather has to encourage the critical reflection of social changes and financialization and point out alternative ways of being. Society needs criticism to be governed and shaped not ... more

Prof. Dr. Fritz Helmedag As early as 1921, the industrialist and politician Walther Rathenau remarked: “The economy is our destiny”. Since then, this statement assuredly even became more important. In fact, the capitalistic genesis is characterized by an increasing orientation of human beings towards economic considerations instead of religious traditions. But also in economics ... more

Helmut Schoele From the experience of over 30 years of educational work within the field of vocational education in various jobs that require training, a revision of the contents of the subject “economy and social studies” seems absolutely necessary to me. The present one-dimensionality of this subject’s neoliberal canon contradicts the trainees’ ... more

Prof. Dr. Johannes Hirata It does not matter whether it is climate change, the fear of globalization or a housing shortage; economic interpretations of present challenges fall short due to their methodological one-sidedness and oftentimes can only offer orientation to questionable efficiency terms during the search of good economic development. Because of that, a ... more

Philipp Kenel Mature citizens need a socioeconomic education and science! Today, our world is becoming more and more complex and even if the economy, politics and society have never been isolated domains, the interconnectedness between them become more and more obviously. Socioeconomic education and economy contribute to a better understanding of this ... more

Dr. Christoph Gran Oftentimes, (college) students’ contact with the subject “economy” is reduced to them learning the dominant approach of the neoclassical thinking (by heart). Homo oeconomicus, market balance, technical progress, growth and efficiency build the paradigm in which future members of society will learn how to act. This “knowledge” is yet too ... more

Dr. Moritz Peter Haarmann Socioeconomic perspectives make economy in its feature as social challenge understandable and encourage us to argue with structures of economic power. Because of this, it is a democratic command that economy at schools and universities be implemented within its social interdependence. more

Prof. Dr. Christoph Schank Every economic act is inevitably normative and should not be separated from ethical questions. In fact, a conscious cogitation about the cultural life design is needed, as we, as a society, try to realize a human-serving economy. In this sense, a well-understood economic rationality has to critically question the emerging ... more

Prof. Dr. Ulf Schrader We need a socioeconomic education because traditional economic education is always exposed to the danger of an economic constriction. A school subject “economy” with economic science as the only reference discipline is not suitable, from my perspective, to optimally support students in their development of an appropriate, critical view on ... more

Dr. Maria Hofmann-Schneller Undoubted, we live in a society that is marked by a rapid political, social and economic change and is permanently questioned in its “certainties”. A skill-centered socioeconomic education should put students in the position to deal with complex, controversial and pluralistic opinions in their daily routine, in politics, in the ... more

Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Walker In the best sense, socioeconomic education is a critical education because socioeconomic education is genuine, interdisciplinary and applied and enables college students not only to a holistic and pluralistic problem analysis but also to a subjective reflexivity. Exactly because of this, it is possible for socioeconomic education to empower college ... more

Prof. Dr. Silja Graupe These days we are facing the mystery of how, according to its genesis, a distant and extremely one-dimensional economic science can simultaneously be enormously influential in society as a whole. If socioeconomic thinking wants to solve this present and urgent mystery, it does not only have to consciously embed economy ... more

Kathrin Leipold To engage myself in the empowerment of a socioeconomic education means to advocate a participation-friendly and solidly united society. more

Dr. Mario Vötsch As much as socioeconomic education must warn of the dangers of a one-sided economization of society, it is just as important to remain vigilant for the many gaps, irregularities and ambiguities in human activity. I am just as interested in the value chains of global capitalism as in the fleeting ... more

Michaela Eibler In the Austrian “Bildungslandschaft”, a disturbing trend of deproblematising socio-economic phenomena is discernible. Its facets range from being satisfied with the visual flawlessness of learning products and offers to passing on social responsibility to less powerful individuals and culminates in the negation of contingency. Urgent social transformation processes are caught ... more

Prof. Dr. Thomas Hermann For me, economic education means the education of critical thinking, deep learning and critical questioning of seemingly matters of course. In doing so, future graduates of business and social economics will later learn to find answers to the present social questions together with others. A teaching, which uses narrative structures ... more

Dr. Matthias Schmelzer In order to understand and deal with the current social, political and ecological crises, society needs critical, transformative, socio-economic science and education. Only in this way can we understand capitalism, question the increasing economization of society and nature, and develop the capacity for utopia – and not only in the ... more

Dr. Christian Fischer In order to support teenagers in their search for their own political position, it is important that they learn about and analyze different economic orders in school. Real processes of exploration and (self-)location are tied to pluralistic education offers. That is exactly what socioeconomic education and science stand for. Its ... more

Benjamin Minkau Economic connections have great influence on humans’ living environment and their prosperity. Simultaneously, humans within a liberal society can shape this living environment actively. Thus, a strong economic education is highly relevant for the mature citizen. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the socioeconomic education should take an over-dominant role ... more

Prof. Dr. Nikolina Fuduric A reductionist worldview in research, education and in practice has the tendency to leave out very important externalities to humankind’s detriment. It also supports the notion of narrow expertise and hierarchies when what the world really needs is humility and cooperation. The idea of observing, working and reflecting in larger ... more

Dr. Lene Rachel Andersen We need to rethink economics as well as the economy. Just one example: We used to talk about micro-economics and macro-economics; the former was households and companies, the latter regarded countries. Now we need at least six levels of economics: households, companies, neighborhoods, countries, continents, and the globe. For each ... more

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Bieling Theories and perspectives of analysis are always connected to specific cognitive interests. Political-economic and socioeconomic approaches will focus on questions that address the power relationships, interests, discourses and also the reasons of economic and social development and crisis processes. more

Volker Schwier A socioscientific reflective subject of social studies offers already manifold connecting factors to support socioeconomic educational processes prematurely. But while primary students are not only expected to orientate themselves within a complex social world, but also have to expand their freedom of possible actions, various didactical proposals for the primary ... more

Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner Socioeconomic education has to accommodate the demands for a renewal of economy by presenting its self-concept as less a natural, but more as a multiparadigmatic social science to obligate itself to the principles of interdisciplinary and controversy and also the permanent ethic reflection. During times where more and more social ... more

Dr. Lukas Bäuerle In common economic education, the focus is not (anymore) on economics. Today, the centre of attention is marked by the practice of a thought method (“economy”), which has implied requirements that are not highlighted. The problem is that this has nothing to do with education in the classical sense. Thus, ... more

Julia Kristina Backhaus The black-yellow government in NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia) has recently (November 2018) decided to introduce a new subject at secondary schools: “Economy-Politics” (“Wirtschaft-Politik”). The previously used slogan “Economy into the school” makes it obvious to me what this is all about: a monoparadigmatic mediation of economic knowledge and thinking. As a ... more

Prof. Dr. Leonhard Dobusch Social events are a consistent phenomenon. From its great tide the ordering hand of the researcher forcibly lifts out the economic facts,’ reads the first sentence in Schumpeter’s “Theory of Economic Development“ published in 1912. For me, socioeconomics means to be open to diverse methods such as theories and to ... more

Kasra Azimivaghar If socioeconomic education wants to redeem its entitlement for social majority, it cannot only provide orientational knowledge but must also firmly foster the capability of creating utopias. The economic education has failed here greatly. Therefore, it is even more important to have a socioeconomic education that encourages the cogitation about ... more

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Hiß Socioeconomic education is the key to a complex and networked thinking. It prepares the foundation for a balanced discussion about the diverse social, political, ecological and economic challenges of the future. more

Anna Saave Which economic education helps to understand and shape the late capitalist Anthropocene? How must socio-economic education be designed to enable people not only to deal with value in a quantitative way, but also to make socially balanced and sustainable decisions? Which insights does economic education have to teach in order ... more

Greta Fexer Socio-economics education aims to meet political, social and economic challenges. A socio-economic approach enables a multi-perspective view, while at the same time highlighting controversial aspects of integrative disciplines. To keep up with the constant changes in politics, society and the economy, a socio-economic education must continuously reflect the economic reality. more

Dr. Dirk Ehnts These days, socioeconomic education in economy is a highly demanded approach because the economic element cannot be separated from the social one. Financial crises are symptoms of social and economic problems. Therefore, their common appearances have to be analyzed socioeconomically. The fact that modern money mediated access to resources demands ... more

Lisa-Marie Schröder Present and future key problems and related issues are characterized by enormous complexity and versatility. In order to be able to deal with these, a multi-perspective, pluralistic approach is required, which only networked socioeconomic education and research can offer. more

Prof. Dr. Annette Hoxtell Economic action always takes place within a social context – it influences it and it is influenced by it. One-dimensional explanations do not satisfy this complexity. In the worst case, they cause a “simplistic” standardized opinion that is transferred to other domains to encourage unethical and self-exploiting action. Socioeconomic education ... more

Prof. Dr. Werner Nienhüser We need socioeconomic education because of three connected reasons: Firstly, because economy’s dominant discourse is marked by escapist or even counterfactual theories that cannot convincingly explain economic structures (e. g. the legacy in business competitions) and processes (e. g. crises). Secondly, because the dominating assumption is that “the market” is ... more

Prof. Dr. Andreas Oehler The widely spread information paradigm or information model creates the illusion that everyone could know and does everything at every time. However, many theoretical and empirical results suggest that not all of the important information within every life and consume area can be noticed, processed, retrieved, saved and considered in ... more

Prof. Dr. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath In the light of my own research, socio-economic “Bildung” has two dimensions: First, it is about the ability to critically reflect on economic analyses, theories and policies and to arrive at one’s own position; second, this requires conscious value attitudes that are emotionally rooted. The latter means adopting an attitude ... more

Dr. Alexander Lenger For the pervasion of the increasing complex economic and social processes, an informed and well-grounded socioscientific education is an indispensable condition. For this, a cultural or respectively contextual view that complements the one-dimensional and shortened orientation of the so-called mainstream economic science is needed. Because, to reach realistic and practical ... more

Prof. i. R. Dr. Gerd-E. Famulla The teaching of the universal application of the cost-benefit-calculation onto all life situations strengthens learners’ self-economization and conveys the certainty that the economic worldview is the right one. The socioeconomic education on the other side acknowledges the diversity of motives of action and treats the “homo oeconomicus”, who aspires to ... more

Janina Urban Economy is a fascinating subject and thus, should not be avoided by students with questions about this world. But not only this: All questions of a globalized, highly unequal and, itself, political closing world can, from my perspective, only be understood in a (futuristic) socioeconomic research and educational program. more

Prof. Dr. Oliver Bierhoff Socioeconomic education and science as an interdisciplinary project is a chance, apart from the basic economic “set of figures” and “blind spots” of the disciplinary and paradigmatic narrowed economic mainstreams, to fully grasp “the whole of economy”. Economy could be understood as a social event from which politics, culture, social ... more

Prof. Dr. Anke Uhlenwinkel The idea of “the economy” as a political relevant unit is a relatively new concept. With its neoclassical approaches, this idea is also very well suited to lever out democratic processes. Several young British economists call the result “Econocracy”, an incapacitated form of society’s organization that, according to their argument, ... more

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nölke The extreme specialization among modern social science prevents an analysis of economic processes that reflect upon their historical, political and social conditionality. Socioeconomic education has to be designed in a multidisciplinary manner in order to lead again to an appropriate engagement with economic questions. more

Dr. Peter W. Heller Socioeconomic education, its consolidation and distribution that the ASEER demands, is also an issue for endowments. This is because swimming against the hegemonic tide of neoclassical research and education at German universities requires solid support by the civil society to function as a counterbalance compared to the impact of federal ... more

Prof. Dr. Bettina Zurstrassen We need a socioeconomic education because in a democracy, learners have the right to interpret economic embossed social problems and life situations from the perspective of various theoretical approaches and experiences from sociology, political science and economics. The handling of complex social challenges and life situations demands the skill to ... more

Dr. Harald Hantke To be individually relevant, economic education has to orientate itself at the lifeworlds of its learners. Such a constructed economic education is socioeconomic education. It offers learners the opportunity to critically reflect upon their roles in the tension between economic, ecological and socio-cultural thinking and acting. Socioeconomic education can thus ... more

Dr. Enrico Schöbel More than ever, our times are being shaped by social transformation, migration, globalisation, technical innovations and climate change. The simple economic model of perfect markets offers a theoretical reference point for economic thinking. However, pending questions need to be answered through a variety of scientific (some of them conflicting) disciplinary ... more

Prof. i. R. Dr. Sibylle Reinhardt General education neither prepares for specific jobs nor for the study of specific subjects at university bur rather supports young learners with their handling of various situations: private or social or political. Modern society is also an economic society which means that many life areas are influenced by economic principles. ... more

Dr. Dr. Frank Fehlberg Economic science is a science by humans. Its topics are developments, conditions and futures of civil economy. It demands historical, legal and social information as well as universal-theoretical reflexive research and education. In this context, today’s political economics requires a course correction. In doing so, a matching discipline type of ... more

Sandra Stieger The Austrian school subject “Geography and Economics” defines economic action as spatial-historical embossed, socially embedded and individually meaningful. Thus, it follows a socioeconomic understanding of education. Nevertheless, the subject, as in other countries, is confronted with the repeated demand that the domain “economy” should be separated from its spatial-socioscientific dimensions. ... more

Dr. Christian Riel For me, socioeconomic education is a sheet to be written on, which ideas of a good economic education can be documented. more

Prof. Dr. Reinhold Hedtke The answer to economy’s diversity, complexity and controversy and with it the connected social sciences is called socioeconomic education. Scientific probity and social responsibility demand a pluralistic teaching at universities as well as schools about economy and its relations to society. Only those who know about scientific thinking’s diversity about ... more

Prof. Dr. Georg Tafner We are living in an economic-orientated Europe. Meyer (2005) talks about the culture of rationality and Vietta (2012) about the empire of rationality. How should and can an economic upbringing and education look like in a society in which rationality, functionality and economic thinking are central, highly important and influential ... more

Marcel Beyer It disturbs me that a rational logic does not only percolate more and more social areas, but also percolates the thinking and locations – educational institutions and subjects – where these should be trained. Socioeconomic education prevents a (paradigmatic) constriction of thinking and acting. With the help of diverse perspectives ... more

Prof. Dr. Andrea Maurer The modern social science wants to explore contexts and structures within society, economy, politics, culture and many more to eventually provide scientifically-proven, factual knowledge. Sociology, business economics, political economics and others are part of this social-scientific overall project and only together will contribute to a preferably good and realistic image ... more

Prof. i. R. Dr. Gertraude Mikl-Horke Socioeconomic education is necessary to reconnect economic action with social action and society. This presupposes that the economy enters a dialogue with the sociosciences and that sociology, as well, engages itself in economy and economic theories. Here, socioeconomic has to give itself a problem-oriented outline so that it can develop ... more

Marcus Erben Every socioeconomic education has to start with the clarification that the German “economic wonder” was no wonder. Based on this (alienated) provocation, one can retrace what a education means that integrates the social into the economical and vice versa: the comprehended and understood appropriation of social, political, economic contexts, economic ... more

Prof. Dr. Frank Beckenbach In contrast to most (proclaimed) “postmodern” loosening in other social areas, the political economy at universities is on its way to becoming a basic-science solidification and closure in favor of a “modern” neo-classical standard. The research-driven forces in this development also mirror themselves – according to a layout by the ... more

Marc Casper Neither “economic science” nor “education” exists beyond the “social”. Does that mean that socioeconomic education is a tautology? Unfortunately not, when we look at how instrumentalist economic issues are treated at many schools and universities under the label “education”. As an economic educationalist I want to contribute through research and ... more

Prof. Dr. Christian Fridrich The subject “Geography and Economics”, which is well institutionalized at Austrian schools on the secondary level, understands economy as socially embedded and shapeable. In the center of it stand the humans, in social, spatial and economic acting contexts. A central aim is to foster young learners’ responsibility as well as ... more

Dr. Subin Nijhawan Socioeconomic education and science enable a humanistic access for everyone to present “big questions” in respect to a sustainable future for our world. more

Prof. Dr. Kazuhide Hattori Social studies as a subject has the task to foster the basic skills of shaping a democratic society. Therefore, the most important issue in school is that students treat the society not as fixed but rather as something that they can newly shape themselves. To do so, a problem-oriented learning ... more

Prof. Dr. Dr. Helge Peukert In light of the massive manipulation efforts by the private economy, financial economy and compliant scientific inside workers for a well-behaved market liberal perspective, a socioeconomic education that provides pluralistic viewpoints on our economic system has never been as important as it is today. The almost daily horrific news about ... more

Dr. Stefan Müller Socioeconomic education itself contributes to an interdisciplinary thinking about the society’s establishment. Requirements for this are pluralistic approaches that can be questioned themselves. Thus, within competing models, theories and concepts, their implicit assumptions, normative reference points, central thinking and argumentation figures as well as their social consequences and effects will ... more

Dr. Christiane Thole The professional identity of the employees is the so called “Human Capital“ which is the basis for the quality of life and prosperity of all. Promoting their development must therefore be at the core of vocational and socio-economic educational processes. more

Robert Hantsch It’s the economy, stupid.” To be honest, when I was a student of business education and also in my early days as a research assistant, I rejected the economic side of my studies and discipline for a long time. It’s seemed to me that economic education, was somehow arrogant to ... more

Richard Bärnthaler Economy serves humans living together. It ensures an organized cooperation and enables everyday life to be kept together. In this spirit, the socioeconomic analyzes economy as embedded into society and nature. Therefore, sustainable economic acting means that the economic improvement-calculation is replaced by a holistic and systematic view onto socioecological ... more

Prof. Dr. Tatiana Zimenkova Oftentimes college students, viz. future teachers, hold a highly disciplinary view on the contents related to socioscientific (school) subjects. For example, they categorize economic phenomena as mono-disciplinary; through this one-dimensional framing, teachers might construct the concerned subjects’ meaning for the reality of the students. Thus, the market’s development and logic ... more

Magdalena Prieler Getting to know the economy within a socioeconomic understanding embedded into society and nature is essential for students of economic sciences. Only then, they can develop a good understanding for the challenges of our time as well as inequalities or ecological and climate crises. more

Socioeconomic Education and Research

ASEER Award