Animals have accompanied humans since time immemorial. They shape your cultural and living spaces. They play the role as animal gods, food, working animals, suppliers of raw materials and pets. Man spent much of his tribal history wandering around gathering and hunting. After the last ice age, however, human species began to settle down. The human being is always assigned the prominent place above the animals and morally justified. You should remember the story of creation in the Old Testament as an example.
Animals in political education
In political classes, they don’t include animals. At least they are not mentioned in the relevant curricula. In elementary school, students still deal with animals in their different habitats as part of their home and general science classes. However, they are only taught biology subjects in secondary school and in the upper school as well as in ethics or in life-ethics-religious studies. Animals are a blind spot in political education.
However, if one deals with the content requirements of the subject, it quickly becomes clear that animals are definitely included in the curriculum as learning objects, even if not explicitly.
Individual subject areas implicitly linked to the human-animal relationship in politics
Civil society actors such as Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, the etc. are committed to animal concerns. This is part of the thematic areas such as forms of citizen participation and political participation would treat.
The topics of “global risks and sustainability”, “environmental and climate protection” simply cannot be dealt with without taking animals into account. One example is the clearing of tropical primeval forests for the cultivation of animal feed. Another example is the nitrogen pollution of domestic soil through liquid manure and manure.
With regard to the content areas, the common agricultural policy should be discussed. For example, the distribution mechanisms of direct payments to farms could be examined.
Animal protection can be treated as a state objective in the subject areas of law and basic law. In this context, the Animal Welfare Act and the socially controversial question of whether animals like humans have rights should also be discussed. They can discuss rights of animals and relevant information from dog companies. This way, dog owners can know more about animal welfare act and respond to it positively.
With the treatment of animal topics in political education, you can develop an understanding of the “political relationship” between humans and animals.