Chair of Business Education and Human Resource Development

Non-monetary returns to further training: participation in civil society - funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Projekt duration: 01.02.2016 - 31.01.2019

Brief description:

The empirical evidence about the link between education and participation in civil society is well documented. Political participation is one of the most central topics to understand contemporary representative democracies. It encompasses many activities (like voting, have membership in a political party, for instance) used by citizens to influence decisions on politics. However, inGermany research about the link between education and political participation is not considering the opportunities given within the German educational system. Furthermore, previous studies about the relationship between vocational education and political participation struggle with both different concepts and measures of vocational education and political participation. On the other hand, the direction of the effect is not proved. Do different educational tracks and certificates lead to different levels of participation, or is the correlation between the type of education and political participation the result of different determinants (like social networks)? Current bivariate analysis mainly used to discover the link between education and political participation allow to distinguish between different individual characteristics (age, sex, income, or education, for instance). However, previous research on this issue draws exclusively on one-shot cross sectional data and yields no empirical evidence about the influence of school education and vocational education such as work environment on the level of political participation. Hence this project is a major attempt to clarify the impact of educational tracks, educational certificates acquired in vocational trainings, employment position and different work environments on the level of political participation.

Joint project management:


  • Prof. Dr. Schrader, Josef; German Institute for Adult Education (DIE)


Joint project partner:


  • Prof. Dr. Baethge, Martin; Sociological Research Institute at the University of Göttingen (SOFI)
  • Dr. Lischewski, Julia; Sociological Research Institute at the University of Göttingen (SOFI)
  • Prof. Dr. Thomsen, Stephan; Institut of Economic Policy at the University of Hanover
  • Dr. Ruhose, Jens; Institut of Economic Policy at the University of Hanover
  • Rees, Sai-Lila, M.A.; Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Tuebingen
  • Rüber, Ina Elisabeth; German Institute for Adult Education (DIE)


Project lead of the University of Göttingen:


  • Prof. Dr. Susan Seeber; Chair of Business Education and Human Resource Development


Project staff of the University of Göttingen:


  • Robin Busse M.Ed.; Chair of Business Education and Human Resource Development





"This project is being sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF, Funding number: NEWZ1). Responsibility for the contents of this publication rests with the authors."

BMBF_eng.