Competent.Civic.Education. Competence Framework for Facilitators in Non-Formal Civic Education

Civic educators are confronted with a whole host of expectations and challenges. These range from having to tackle current issues and implement new methodologies in learning settings through to managing institutions and organisations. The shifting conditions affecting the field, such as generational change (particularly at the management level), a shortage of skilled practitioners, and the growing influence of anti-democratic forces is making the work even more demanding and difficult.

The questions of how to recruit the next generation of civic educators, what these people actually need to know, and what they need to be able to do – that is, the specific competences they require – are of crucial importance to the Association of German Educational Organisations (AdB), as well as for its member institutions and for civic education as a whole, since these questions have an effect on the quality and evolution of civic education. As such, it serves as a guiding framework for the evolution of training and professional development programmes and for maintaining high standards in civic education practice.

In order to cater to different use cases and demands, the competence framework is divided up into a total of ten different sections. The first section Putting Ethos into Action forms the basis for all of the nine areas of competence that follow. These areas are intertwined and in many instances refer directly to one another. In some cases, this is made visible in the text. The sections on Communicative Competence, Facilitating Learning Processes, Methodological Competence, and Action-Focused Learning form the pedagogical core of this competence framework and are closely related with one another. The sections on Personal Competence, Learning to Learn, and Working in Teams make up the social and personal competences and are likewise closely interconnected. The competence areas of Organisational Competence and Networking and Cooperation cover the field of education management.

Each competence area is assigned to a chapter, meaning that each competence area can be used independently according to individual needs (e.g. for self-reflection, developing opportunities for further training, staff development, etc.). Not unlike a toolbox, the competence framework is designed to allow the individual areas to be put to use in whichever way is needed.

The Competence Framework is available as a comprehensive 52-page brochure as well as an A1 poster. Both formats are published under the Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike).

Publisher: Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e. V. (AdB)
supported by funds from Stiftung Deutsche Jugendmarke e. V.
Typesetting and Layout: BAR PACIFICO, Berlin
Translation: Rowan Coupland & Joel Scott for Gegensatz, Translation Collective
© Association of German Educational Organizations (AdB) 2025

(also available in German)