Political Understanding: To the Dialectic of Political and Social-Moral Cognition

Levels of complexity have to meet requirements which cannot alone be achieved through statistical modeling in the field of political knowledge. Different complexities are to be distinguished within particular contents especially; that within the understanding of "spiral curriculum" (Bruner, 1957), meaning that the same topic can be approached in various ways with respect of complexity. To realize this, structures of understanding must be connected with facets of development. Otherwise there is danger to mix up different domains, such as morality and politics. In ICCS (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study) levels of complexity of political knowledge and understanding are worked out for the first time indeed, but its gradations of complexity are more based on differentiations between contents than within. In a further step therefore we demonstrate with a developmental-psychologically pilot study, how different complex, reversible and contextual inter-linked political constructs can be thought and understood at this place using the example of political "power".