Project and Research Reports

The political participation of young people in general and rural youth in particular is not optimal. Consequently, they are underrepresented in politics, which in turn affects the extent to which their interests are reflected in...

Starting in August 2022, Social Science Works conducted a project with children in Rangsdorf who live with their parents in the two refugee homes located in the community. These are often children who have not...

Democratic institutions around the world seem to be losing appeal for an increasing number of citizens. Many of the debates in Western social and political science and philosophy in recent decades have revolved around notions...

De politieke participatie van jongeren in het algemeen en die van jongeren op het platteland in het bijzonder is niet optimaal. De betrokkenen zijn dan ook ondergerepresenteerd in de politiek, hetgeen weer gevolgen heeft voor...

In an increasingly interconnected world in which national borders are losing significance, promoting social tolerance is critical. Unfortunately, maintaining harmony and peace in emerging multicultural societies has proven challenging. This article shows the effects of...

In 2019 Social Science Works enjoyed a close cooperation with a district-school in Hamburg. We formed two groups of about 12 pupils each that volunteered to participate in our deliberative project on discrimination, respect and...

Many of today’s democracies are in crisis, when considering the decreasing levels of voter turnout, party membership, and trust in established political institutions and actors (Blokland 2011, 1ff; Dalton et al. 2004, 124). Political democracy...

Gender equality is a pivotal topic in many of the deliberative workshops we have implemented in the last couple of years in Germany. Originally, German authorities considered it important to discuss the rights of women...

We are in a small town in rural Brandenburg and talk for two days with 32 long-term unemployed people. Most of them are older than 50. They opted to become a part of a reintegration-program...

We are in a less affluent part from Hamburg for a two-day Workshop. About 70% of our 32 participants have a migration background. We talk for about 10 hours with two different groups of about...

This “Schule mit Courage” in a town East of Berlin has in total 330 pupils. About a third are first generation migrants or refugees (mostly from Syria or Afghanistan). The school works with a refugee...

Since 2016 Social Science Works has implemented more than forty rows of workshops with refugees and natives in which we discuss, among others, ethical and political pluralism, democracy, civic society, freedom (of expression, association and...

Like many other western countries, Germany still has medical doctors, therapists and priests that believe that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured. For instance, the weekly Der Spiegel recently reported on Gero Winkelmann...

by Hans Blokland and Raíssa Silveira Since 2016 Social Science Works has organized and implemented almost forty rows of deliberative workshops with refugees and German natives. Together with the participants, in our workshops we try...

This year, Social Science Works has been working on the project ‘Deliberation Against Populism’ in which we have contacted citizens in Brandenburg that expressed an interest in populist political parties and arguments online. We have...

This year, as part of the Social Science Works project ‘Deliberation gegen Populismus’ we have been monitoring right-wing populist Facebook pages associated with Brandenburg. The project was financed by Tolerantes Brandenburg and included work from...

In the deliberative project “Deliberation against Populism” we organized two events with citizens from Brandenburg, Germany, to discuss the problems that trouble them. The prime goal of the project was to find new ways to...

The article here was published in German in Die Linke’s Lotta magazine: issue 12, January 10, 2017 and is available here. The original article was written by Sophie Freikamp and was translated by Sarah Coughlan. What is...

This year we have been working with the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung in Brandenburg to recruit German and German-speaking men to work with refugee men in Brandenburg in our buddy project. The idea of the...

  Complex social issues are often more easily resolved when they are connected up with other societal problems. Habitual approaches to thinking and problem solving, as well as the ways we have divided up our...