• Socio-scientific prerequisites of political education
  • Political economy and political education
  • Historical horizons and political mentalities

Subject didactic study components are a special feature of teacher training. The reason for this is that it is well known that it is not enough to know a subject in order to be able to pass it on. There is a considerable, often painful difference between "being able" and "being able to explain", "knowing" and "passing on knowledge", "understanding something" and "making something understandable". It is the task of didactics to reflect on this specific difficulty of teaching and learning, to fathom its conditions and to seek ways of overcoming it. Didactics today focuses first and foremost on the students, because they are the "subjects of learning" for whom school takes place in the first place. The first task of didactics is therefore to sharpen the view of future teachers for this circumstance and to open up ways in which teachers can find out something about the preconditions and attitudes of adolescents, their life worlds and ways of perception, and include them in their lesson planning and pedagogical considerations. To this end, subject didactics takes up results and perspectives from sociological youth research, developmental psychology, and educational sciences, such as intercultural education and media pedagogy. As indispensable as it is to "pick up" learners where they are, to engage with them as they are, it would be wrong to stop there (although mystics of didactics believe that everything else develops by itself with the help of clever methodological arrangements). Children and young people are curious and want to know more about the world than their own living environment tells them. And because they are the ones who will have to cope with this world tomorrow, education - and political education in particular - has the task of initiating ways in which social and political contexts and developments can become more transparent to them, so that they become capable of political judgment and action. On the part of the teachers, this requires considerable and constantly renewed scientific and contemporary diagnostic competence. Therefore, especially from the point of view of didactics, the necessity of a solid subject-specific education has to be emphasized, which has to provide basics and potentials of renewal for a long professional life. From this point of view, the task of subject didactics consists above all in developing the ability to adopt a didactic point of view from which relevant social and political questions (which are at the same time topics/subjects of the corresponding subject sciences) fit into the horizons of learning processes of today's adolescents. The didactic view thus opens up learning opportunities from the wealth of social and political events, because it is at the same time familiar with their scientific treatment and sees the adolescents and their learning prerequisites. Here it becomes particularly clear that didactics is a specific professional form of intellectual activity, a reflection that has to bring together and mediate quite complex spheres of its own (the circumstances of the adolescents, the social and political events, the scientific knowledge) with regard to the learning processes of adolescents. This ability can hardly be acquired by reading didactic manuals, but only by facing the challenge of didactic reflection on the concrete example itself. Opportunities for this are offered both by the subject didactic internship and the respective subject didactic seminars of the main course of study, in which factual topics or political-social problems are approached from the perspective of their didactic development and the development of teaching concepts. Without these two basic didactic competencies - the informed attention to the subjects of learning and the subject-related view of learning opportunities - the other didactic competencies and their teaching in the course of study would remain without foundation. This is especially true of methodological competence, which is often strongly emphasized today. The ability to organize a role play, for example, can obviously only be applied meaningfully if a problem or conflict situation has been analyzed beforehand from a didactic point of view with regard to its learning opportunities and - in this case, for example - a meaningful development and shaping of the roles seems possible. As is well known, methods are a means to an end. Where they begin to develop a life of their own, they become lazy magic whose entertainment value is very limited, even for adolescents. On the other hand, even didactically well-founded learning processes can fail if they are methodologically unsuccessful or reach only some of the students. Therefore, the ability to choose and apply methods that are appropriate to the subject matter and the learning group is a prerequisite for successful teaching. Suggestions for building up a repertoire of methods and for developing methodological imagination are an integral part of the subject didactic courses offered, either in the context of topic-related development of teaching ideas or as an independent course. Political science teachers teach a subject whose content and problems are more relevant to current events and changes than in any other subject. For this reason, they must be more prepared than teachers of other subjects to work independently on teaching topics or sequences. The didactic courses therefore also aim to familiarize future political science teachers with this special feature of their profession. Therefore, the development of topic- or case-related information via the media, recently especially the Internet, is a regular aspect of the subject didactic events. Equally important in this regard are the seminars offered every three to four semesters on the development of the latest contemporary diagnostic literature. This refers to a genre of literature that discusses new social developments or problems in a factually reliable and sophisticated manner, often opening up new questions or new horizons of understanding. Both skills - accessing current information and developing literature that is diagnostic of the times - can be stimulated in the course of studies and must be developed and perfected in professional practice, just like all the other competencies mentioned here. Lifelong learning is therefore a lifelong reality for teachers of politics - anyone who does not want to engage with this should not enter this profession.

Biographical Information

After studies in the sixties - German language and literature, politics, history, philosophy and education in Hamburg and Heidelberg - collaboration in a project on the history of science and in contemporary practical projects of political change.

Since his traineeship as a teacher for grammar schools in the early seventies, he has been involved in school reforms, both practically and theoretically, both in the renewal of curricula in the area of political education (framework guidelines, later framework plans for social studies) and in the development of an integrated comprehensive school.

From 1978 to 1984 responsible for practical school studies at the TH Darmstadt,

In 1984, doctorate with a thesis on political-social debates about curricula and educational goals.

Since then, lectureships at the TH Darmstadt and publications on theoretical and practical questions of historical-political education, mostly as a reflection of own teaching activities or as a result of cooperation in teacher training and curriculum development.

Mainly between 1984 and 1998 teacher at a cooperative comprehensive school in grades 5-13 with long-term and intensive classroom and subject teaching activities as well as SV teacher.

Since 1992 also seconded to the Hessian Institute for Educational Planning and School Development for the development of the new framework plans for social studies, history, geography and corresponding teaching materials introduced in 1995.

Since summer semester 1998 at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Kassel as professor for didactics of social studies.

Retired since 2007.

Since summer semester 1998 at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Kassel as professor for didactics of political education.

Since 2001 co-editor of the "Jahrbuch für Pädagogik".

From 2003 - 2010 chairman of the German Association for Civic Education, regional association of Hesse.

Retired since 2007, lives and works in Wedel near Hamburg and Frigiliana/ Malaga; teaching (at the University of Vienna and Wuppertal), lectures and conferences, editorial activities (ins. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik) and publications.

2015

Gerd Steffens together with Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Andrea Liesner, Ingrid Lohmann, David Salomon, Jürgen Matthias Springer and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Inklusion als Ideologie. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2015. Frankfurt 2015. 351 pp.

Gerd Steffens together with Benedikt Widmaier (eds.): Political Education after Auschwitz. Remembrance work and culture of remembrance today. Schwalbach/Ts.(Wochenschau Verlag) 2015. 191 pp.

Gerd Steffens/Benedikt Widmaier: Political education after Auschwitz and the culture of remembrance today. In: Widmaier/Steffens, Civic Education after Auschwitz, op. cit., pp. 5 - 11.

Gerd Steffens: Europeanization of Memory? Discourses on the Past in Spain, Poland and Germany. In: Widmaier/Steffens, Politsisch Bildung nach Auschwitz, op. cit., pp. 176 - 187.

Gerd Steffens: "Public Sphere" or "Transparency"? - Has the Concept of the Public Sphere had its day in the Digital Age? In: Schulpädagogik heute. H. 12 (2015) Transparency - in teaching and in school.

2014

Gerd Steffens together with Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Andrea Liesner, Ingrid Lohmann, David Salomon, Jürgen Matthias Springer and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Transhumanism. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2014. Frankfurt 2014. 393 pp.

Gerd Steffens with Ingrid Lohmann/Sven Kluge: Editorial.Transhumanism. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2014: Frankfurt a.M. 2014. p. 9-15.

Gerd Steffens: Crisis discourses on the left - a collective review. In: Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2014, op. cit., pp. 347 - 362.

Gerd Steffens: The crisis as a learning opportunity. For a political education interested in the world. In: Tim Engartner/Jens Korfkamp (eds.): Grenzgänge. Traditionslinien und Spannungsfelder in der politischen Bildung. Schwalbach/ts. 2014. S.227 - 236

Gerd Steffens/Haydée Mareike Haass: Civic education and the dynamics of its subject area. In: Andreas Eis/David Salomon (eds.): Shaping Social Upheaval. Transformations in Civic Education. Schwalbach/Ts. 2014. pp. 22 - 27.

Gerd Steffens: Volksgemeinschaft, Weltkrieg, Holocaust - Fol gerungen für die politische Bildung. In: Journal für Politische Bildung 1/2014: Historical competence. S. 22 - 30

2013

Gerd Steffens together with Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Andrea Liesner, Ingrid Lohmann, David Salomon, Jürgen Matthias Springer and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Krisendiskurse. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2013. Frankfurt 2013. 314 pp.

Gerd Steffens: Crisis and social learning. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2013: crisis discourses. Frankfurt a.M. 2013. pp. 41-51.

Gerd Steffens: Critique and education - A reification. Yearbook of pedagogy 2013: discourses of crisis. Frankfurt a.M. 2013. pp. 229-238.

Gerd Steffens: "Mutti passt auf unser Geld auf" - Angela Merkel, die Eurokrise und die Deutschen. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2013: crisis discourses. Frankfurt a.M. 2013. pp. 279-290.

Gerd Steffens: Ian Morris: Who rules the world? Yearbook of pedagogy 2013: discourses of crisis. Frankfurt a.M. 2013. pp. 298-302.

Gerd Steffens: Hans Jochen Gamm: Pedagogy as a humane system of knowledge. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2013: crisis discourses. Frankfurt a.M. 2013. pp. 305-306.

Gerd Steffens: Educational potentials of critique - A necessary reminder. In: What does critical political education mean today? Ed. by Benedikt Widmaier and Bernd Overwien. Schalbach/Ts. 2013. pp. 256-264.

Gerd Steffens: Why political education today needs a cosmopolitan perspective of world perception. In: Knowledge and Ability. Paths to professional action in civic education. Edited by Klaus-Peter Hufer; Theo W. Länge; Barbara Menke; Bernd Overwien; Laura Schudoma. Schwalbach/Ts. (Wochenschau Verlag) 2013. pp. 220 - 223.

2012

Gerd Steffens together with Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Andrea Liesner, Ingrid Lohmann, David Salomon, Jürgen Matthias Springer and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Brave new mission statements . Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2012. Frankfurt 2012. 366 pp.

Gerd Steffens: Serial visions - entrepreneurs occupy the future. In: Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2012: Beautiful new mission statements. Frankfurt 2012. p. 29-33

Gerd Steffens: Audacity as a lifestyle - Guttenberg and his audience. In: Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2012: Schöne neue Leitbilder. Frankfurt 2012. p.305-317

Gerd Steffens: Political education. In: ABC of Alternatives 2.0. from Everyday Culture to Civil Society. Ed. by U. Brand, B. Lösch, B. Opratko, St. Thimmel. Hamburg 2012. pp. 208-209

2011

Gerd Steffens/Thomas Lange: Der Nationalsozialismus. Vol. 2. Volksgemeinschaft, Holocaust und Vernichtungskrieg. 1939 - 1945. Fundus Quellen für den Geschichtsunterricht. Schwalbach/Ts 2011. 366 p.

Gerd Steffens together with Armin Bernhard, Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Ingrid Lohmann, Andreas Merkens, Johanna Mierendorff and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Menschenrechte und Bildung. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2011. Frankfurt 2011. 362 pp.

Gerd Steffens/Edgar Weiß: Editorial. Human Rights and Education. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2011. Frankfurt 2011. pp. 9 - 14.

Gerd Steffens: Völkische Homogenität als regressive Utopie - Sarrazin's anti-humanist political draft. In: Human Rights and Education. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2011. Frankfurt 2011. pp. 175 - 191.

Gerd Steffens: Generation as a hermeneutic concept. In: Friederike Heinzel (ed.): Generationenvermittlung in der Grundschule. Bad Heilbrunn 2011. pp. 70 - 89.

Gerd Steffens: Political education in a world of upheavals and crises. In: political education in the world society. Ed. Wolfgang Sander u. Annette Scheunpflug.Bonn 2011. pp. 385 - 398.

Gerd Steffens: Politically Incorrect - Memory Politics in Europe in Crisis. In: Hessische Lehrerzeitung 11/2011. p. 16-17.

2010

Gerd Steffens together with Armin Bernhard, Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Ingrid Lohmann, Andreas Merkens, Johanna Mierendorff and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Der vermessene Mensch. A critical look at measurability, normalization and standardization. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2010. Frankfurt 2010. 310 p.

Gerd Steffens/Guido Steffens/Martina Tschirner: Vom Curriculum zum Bildungsstandard - Implikationen und Folgen einer Umsteuerung der Schulen. In: Der vermessene Mensch. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2010. Frankfurt 2010. pp. 113 - 125.

Gerd Steffens together with Benedikt Widmaier (ed.):Weltbürgertum und Kosmopolitisierung. Interdisciplinary Perspectives for Political Education. Schwalbach/Ts 2010. 191 p.

Gerd Steffens: Autonomy and Identification - Two Models of Cosmopolitan Morality and their Significance for Civic Education. In: Cosmopolitanism and Cosmopolitization. Edited by Benedikt Widmaier and Gerd Steffens. Schwalbach/Ts 2010. pp. 136 - 149.

Gerd Steffens: Does critical-emancipatory education need a new foundation today? In: Critical Political Education. A Handbook. Edited by Bettina Lösch and Andreas Thimmel. Schwalbach/Ts 2010. pp. 25 - 36.

Gerd Steffens: Politics and History: "Narrativity" and "Discursivity" and their Common Third. In: Ingo Juchler (ed.): Kompetenzen in der politischen Bildung. Series of the GPJE vol. 9. Schwalbach/Ts 2010. pp. 59 - 69.

Gerd Steffens: Verstehen als Überlebenskunst. On Louis Begley's Novel Autobiography "Lies in Times of War". An Interpretive Essay. In: Jens Birkmeyer/Anette Kliewer (eds.):Holocaust im Deutschunterricht. Models for Secondary Level II. Baltmannsweiler 2010. pp. 107 - 124.

Gerd Steffens: The crisis as a learning opportunity - A plea for a political education interested in the world . Hessische Lehrerzeitung 7/8 2010. p. 8-9.

Gerd Steffens: In Hessian Berlusconia - Roland Koch and the spectacle of power. Hessian Teacher's Journal 1/2 2010. p. 22-23

2008/2009

Gerd Steffens together with Armin Bernhard, Martin Dust, Sven Kluge, Ingrid Lohmann, Andreas Merkens, Johanna Mierendorff and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Entdemokratisierung und Gegenaufklärung. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2009. Frankfurt 2009. 387 p.

Gerd Steffens: From "communicative silence" to "seizing the word". Notes on the discourse history of the postwar period. In: Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2009: Entdemokratisierung und Gegenaufklärung. Ed. Sven Kluge, Gerd Steffens and Edgar Weiß. Frankfurt 2009. pp. 15 - 40

Gerd Steffens together with Thomas Lange: Der Nationalsozialismus. Vol. 1: State Terror and National Community. 1933 - 1939. Fundus Quellen für den Geschichtsunterricht. Schwalbach/Ts 2009. 238 p.

Gerd Steffens together with Armin Bernhard, Hans-Jochen Gamm, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): 1968 und die neue Restauration. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2008. Frankfurt 2009. 376 p.

Gerd Steffens: Mündigkeit als pädagogisches Paradigma und die Globalität der Revolte von 1968. - Ein innerer Zusammenhang am Fallbeispiel. In: 1968 and the new restoration. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2008. Frankfurt 2009. pp. 239 - 250.

Gerd Steffens: 1968 as a Literary Event 2008. In: 1968 and the New Restoration. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2008. Frankfurt 2009. pp. 341 - 351.

Gerd Steffens together with Benedikt Widmaier (ed.): 2008: Political and Economic Education. Concepts - models - controversies. Wiesbaden 2008. 145 pp.

Gerd Steffens/Benedikt Widmaier: Politische und ökonomische Bildung. Zur Einführung.In: Political and Economic Education. Concepts - Models - Controversies. Edited by Gerd Steffens and Benedikt Widmaier. Wiesbaden 2008. pp. 3 - 9.

Gerd Steffens: Wirtschaftssubjekt und Staatsbürger. Competing models and concepts of political education? In: Political and Economic Education. Concepts - Models - Controversies. Edited by Gerd Steffens and Benedikt Widmaier. Wiesbaden 2008. pp. 27 - 37.

Gerd Steffens together with Armin Bernhard, Hans-Jochen Gamm, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Unemployment. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2007. Frankfurt 2008. 378 p.

Gerd Steffens: Sociological Concepts of Exclusion and the Political Debate on Minimum Wages. In: Unemployment. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2007. Frankfurt 2008. pp. 13 - 24.

2006/2007

Gerd Steffens (Ed.): Political and Economic Education in Times of Globalization. Münster 2007. 320 p.

Gerd Steffens: Introduction. In: Political and Economic Education in Times of Globalization. Ed. by Gerd Steffens. Münster 2007. pp. 7 - 16.

Gerd Steffens: Is homo economicus socially acceptable? - Approaches to Economics and Political Education. In: Political and Economic Education in Times of Globalization. Ed. by Gerd Steffens. Münster 2007. pp. 258 - 274.

Gerd Steffens together with Hans-Jochen Gamm, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Infantilisierung des Lernens? - New learning cultures- A controversy. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2006. Frankfurt 2007. 358 p.

Gerd Steffens together with Dieter Kirchhöfer: Editorial. Infantilization of Learning? Yearbook of Pedagogy 2006. Frankfurt 2007. pp. 9 - 14.

Gerd Steffens: Under the Neoliberal Truth Regime - Forms of Enforcement of Neoliberal Educational Policy - A Case Study. In: Infantilization of Learning? New learning cultures - a case of dispute. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2006. Frankfurt a. M. 2007. pp. 289 - 298.

Gerd Steffens: Pedagogy from a Neoliberal Perspective. On the Neoliberal Paradigm Shift in Educational Policy and Educational Science. In: Reflecting in Contradictions. Gernot Koneffke's Critique of Bourgeois Pedagogy. Edited by Harald Bierbaum, Peter Euler, Katrin Feld, Astrid Messerschmidt, Olga Zitzelsberger. Wetzlar 2007. pp. 115 - 125.

Gerd Steffens: Politics as Discourse. In: Basiswissen Politische Bildung. Handbook for Social Science Education. Edited by Dirk Lange/Volker Reinhardt. Vol. 2 Strategies of political education. Ed. Dirk Lange. Baltmannsweiler 2007 pp.10 - 21.

Gerd Steffens: Curriculum. In: Basiswissen Politische Bildung. Handbook for teaching social sciences. Edited by Dirk Lange/Volker Reinhardt. Vol. 4 Research and Educational Conditions. Ed. Volker Reinhard. Baltmannsweiler 2007.pp. 109 - 118.

Gerd Steffens: Introduction/development of the question. In: Basiswissen Politische Bildung. Handbook for teaching social sciences. Edited by Dirk Lange/Volker Reinhardt. Vol. 5 Planning Political Education. Ed. Volker Reinhardt. Baltmannsweiler 2007. pp. 62 - 68.

Gerd Steffens together with Wolfgang Keim (eds.): Bildung und gesellschaftlicher Widerspruch. Hans-Jochen Gamm and German Pedagogy since the Second World War. Frankfurt a.M. 2006. 464 p.

Gerd Steffens: Can the Memory of the Holocaust Contribute to the Construction of a Cosmopolitan Morality? A discussion of a new proposal for the universalization of Holocaust remembrance. In: Wolfgang Keim/Gerd Steffens (eds.): Bildung und gesellschaftlicher Widerspruch. Hans-Jochen Gamm and German Pedagogy since the Second World War. Frankfurt a.M. 2006. pp. 155 - 167.

Gerd Steffens together with Hans-Jochen Gamm. Thomas Gatzemann, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Religion - State - Education. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2005. Frankfurt 2006. 352 p.

2004/2005

Gerd Steffens: Jorge Semprún - The Century of Extremes as a Topology of Intellectual Memory. In: The Intellectual and the Mandarin. For Hans-Martin Bock. Edited by Franҁois Beilecke and Katja Marmetschke. Kassel 2005. pp. 431 - 450.

Gerd Steffens: Weltwissen, Teilhabe, Lebenshilfe - woran orientiert sich politische Bildung? In: E. Jung (ed.): Standards for political education. Between world knowledge, participation and life assistance. Wiesbaden 2005. pp. 15 - 29.

Gerd Steffens together with Sigrid Blömeke, Hans-Jochen Gamm. Thomas Gatzemann, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Globalization and Education. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2004. Frankfurt 2004. 426 pp.

Gerd Steffens/Edgar Weiß: By way of introduction: globalization and education - an outline of the problem. In: Globalisierung und Bildung. Yearbook of Pedagogy 2004. Frankfurt 2004. pp. 9 - 34.

Gerd Steffens: Bush's Iraq War as a Counter-Revolutionary Challenge (also) to Education. In: Globalization and Education. Yearbook of Education 2004.Frankfurt 2004. pp. 375 - 386.

2002/2003

Gerd Steffens together with Detlef Sack (ed.): Violence instead of Recognition? Aspects of 9/11 and its Aftermath. Frankfurt 2003. 263 p.

Gerd Steffens with Detlef Sack: Violence instead of Recognition after 9/11. An Introduction. In: Detlef Sack/Gerd Steffens: Violence instead of Recognition? Aspects of 9/11/2001 and its Consequences. Frankfurt 2003. pp. 7 - 35

Gerd Steffens: "World events", discourses of self-understanding and political education. Did September 11 have an impact on concepts of democracy and political education? In: Detlef Sack/Gerd Steffens: Violence instead of Recognition? Aspects of September 11, 2001 and its Consequences. Frankfurt 2003. pp. 243 - 259.

Gerd Steffens together with Kurt Beutler, Hans-Jochen Gamm. Thomas Gatzemann, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.): Erinnern - Bildung - Identität. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2003. Frankfurt 2003. 406 p.

Gerd Steffens: Familiengedächtnis, Didaktik und Geschichtspolitik. On two new studies on dealing with the Holocaust in Germany and the USA. In: Remembering - Education - Identity. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2003.Frankfurt 2003. pp. 173 - 183.

Gerd Steffens: The World Citizen as Subject. On the Inner Side of Imperial Unilateralism, in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 11/2003. pp. 1333-1341.

Gerd Steffens: Rechtsextremismus als Extremismus der Mitte und die Aufgaben der politischen Bildung in der Schule. In: Eberhard Jung (ed.): Rechtsextremismus als gesellschaftliches Problem. Schwalbach/Ts.2003. pp. 89-98.

Gerd Steffens together with Kurt Beutler, Hans-Jochen Gamm. Thomas Gatzemann, Wolfgang Keim, Dieter Kirchhöfer, Christa Uhlig and Edgar Weiß (eds.):Kritik der Transformation - Erziehungswissenschaft im vereinigten Deutschland. Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 2002. Frankfurt 2003. 436 p.

Gerd Steffens: Rechtsextremismus - Zwischen Skandalisierung und Normalisierung. In: Critique of Transformation - Educational Science in Unified Germany. Yearbook for Pedagogy 2002. Frankfurt 2003. pp. 361 - 369.

Gerd Steffens: A Contemporary Political Education? A Critical Review of the New Political Curricula for Hessian Schools. Frankfurt (GEW) 2002

2000/2001

Gerd Steffens: In the Generation Container. The 68ers and their successors. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 6/2001. pp. 737 -746.

Gerd Steffens: Do Crises Politicize? An Attempt at a Snapshot of the Effects of the Party Donations Affair among Young People. Gegenwartskunde 1/2001, pp. 103-116.

Gerd Steffens: Return of the Fetishes. Fashions of concepts and ideas in the discourse on education. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 9/2000, pp. 1125-1133

1984 - 1999

Gerd Steffens: Martin Walser or the Untouchability of Happiness. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik. 4/1999, S. 486-494.

Gerd Steffens: Exclusion, Persecution, Expropriation, Deportation, Extermination. The History of the Suffering of the Jewish Population in the Area of Today's Darmstadt-Dieburg County 1933 - 1945. In: "L'chajim" - The History of the Jews in the Darmstadt-Dieburg County. Ed. county of Darmstadt-Dieburg. Thomas Lange. Reinheim. S.169 - 270

Gerd Steffens: Loss of Publicity. Observations and Reflections on a Current Problem of Political Education. In: Contemporary Studies 1996. pp. 531-540.

Gerd Steffens: The Presence of Auschwitz. On Pedagogical Dealing with the Reality of the Unbelievable. In: Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 1995. Frankfurt 1995. S. 73 ff.

Gerd Steffens: The Practical Refutation of Racism. Forbidden Love and its Persecution. In: F. Dorn/K. Heuer (eds.), "I was always good to my Russian". Structure and Practice of the Nazi Forced Labor System. Studies and Materials on Right-Wing Extremism. Ed. by Eike Hennig. Vol. 1. Pfaffenweiler 1991, pp.185 ff.

Gerd Steffens: Who only understands, understands too little. A discussion of the demand for "historization of National Socialism". In: Political Pedagogy. Contributions to the Humanization of Society. Ed. Friedhelm Zubke. Weinheim 1990. pp. 153 - 177

Gerd Steffens: The New Irrationalism in Educational Policy. On the pedagogical counter-reform using the example of the Hessian framework guidelines. Frankfurt/New York 1984. 179 p.