Democratic Education Within The Standard Curriculum At TU Berlin - A Quantitative And Qualitative Analysis

Introduction - Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) was founded after the Second World War on the ruins of its predecessor. At its inauguration it was bound to promote democracy through its education. This view is further held up through the university law of the federal state of Berlin which states that the disciplinary competences are to be acquired in such a way so that students are able to act democratically. This spirit is still alive at TU Berlin and over the past decades it led to several educational concepts which reach beyond traditional methods of teaching/learning and which expand the limits of what is seen as classical content. Yet, a closer examination is needed as to what role democracy plays within higher education at TU Berlin. Methods - A quantitative research provides descriptive statistics as to how many times the words “democracy” or “democratic” show up in study programs and modules. A limitation to these two terms is appropriate as they are the most comprehensive terms in comparison to others like participation or inclusion. Results - The initial research shows that the two terms only show up in 3 out of 130 study programs as well as in only 16 modules out of thousands of modules. Discussion - The curriculum at TU Berlin shows almost a clear lack of democracy/democratic education. An extension of this research to other universities is already on its way.