Zentrum für Prävention und Intervention im Kindes- und Jugendalter (ZPI)

Empowering Police Officers and Teachers in Arguing Against Antisemitism

Anti-Semitism is a widespread phenomenon in schools and in public. Teachers and police officers are the professional groups whose original task is to intervene in cases of anti-Semitism. With the new statutory provision of Section 46, II StGB1 , the German Bundestag has extended the circumstances to be taken into account when sentencing to include the offender's anti-Semitic motives and aims. In order to be able to identify motives and objectives as anti-Semitic in this sense, future civil servants need to be professionalised in this regard and anti-Semitism-related knowledge needs to be integrated into their curricular training. This would also convey the empathy of the state and society to those affected by anti-Semitism, which they currently often lack.

This is where our innovative project comes in with an ambitious approach to the interdisciplinary development of "joint empowerment". The project ending date consists of the development, implementation and evaluation

• a core curriculum on anti-Semitism prevention and repression (KAP) for the training of future police officers and teachers
• a psychometrically validated digital large-scale test to record knowledge and attitudes, initially in NRW, and
• an intervention for the target groups.

The aim of the parallel development of a valid test instrument and the intervention is to have a test that can also be used in related areas in the context of anti-Semitism prevention at the end of the project period, which can also be used in combination with validated course materials on the KAP in multiple training and further education contexts in schools and the police and beyond (e.g. judiciary, Federal Armed Forces, Office for the Defence of the Constitution, Foreign Service). Such possibilities are already being explored and conceptualised with the members of the advisory board during the course of the project. The representativeness of the test beyond NRW for the Federal Republic of Germany is also being explored and strived for. The KAP core curriculum and the principles of intervention are to be implemented in training and further education programmes through cooperation with practical partners from teacher and police training. The standardised KAP test and the qualitative interview guidelines will be used as evaluation tools and also independently to record knowledge and attitudes.

Partners

• Bielefeld University, ZPI - Centre for Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence: Dr Marc Grimm
• Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of History: Prof Dr Nicola Brauch & Dr Marcel Mierwald
• University of Tübingen, Hector Institute for Empirical Educational Research: Prof Dr Ulrich Trautwein & Lisa Zachrich
• HSPV - University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration North Rhine-Westphalia in Gelsenkirchen: Dr Sarah Jahn & Jana Frommer
• Tikvah Institute gUG Berlin: Volker Beck & Deidre Berger
• Ruhr University Bochum, CERES: Prof Dr Alexandra Cuffel & Jonna Mäder

 

Bielefeld sub-project "Basic social science research on current anti-Semitism in youth milieus and on attitudes among police officers"

The sub-project includes the preparation of a scientific contribution to the development, implementation and evaluation of a course programme for prospective teachers and police officers on the prevention of antisemitism based on the KAP, which provides for the development of the characteristics of acute antisemitism, especially in youth cultural milieus, for the four educational modules of the intervention.

In addition, a qualitative survey will identify police officers' knowledge on the topics of antisemitism and Judaism, which will allow the KAP to be tailored to the identified needs of the target group and strengthen the skills of police officers in recognising and naming antisemitism.