Participation and public spheres: democratising society by participatory action research in social work

The article is based on a participatory action research project with refugees, volunteers and concerned citizens in rural Germany facing the challenges of integration in diverse communities. Integration is an interactionist and open-ended process with the aim of fair chances of participation in society. The word 'integration' is still the political term for concepts to regulate transnational immigration. Participation here means that all concerned groups should have chances to express interests, which needs organised spaces - social public spheres - where these dialogical processes can take place. We firstly present aspects of a participative theory of democracy and link action research intrinsically to it. Secondly we discuss a conception of generating social public spheres in the context of social work which uses methods of participatory action research to organise communication. Last we will describe the Project 'DIWAN - Dialogue and Mobile Exhibitions to Develop Good Coexistence in the Post-Migrant Society' in which we intend to initiate the building of social public spheres in migration societies by organising future workshops in rural communities. DIWAN shows that the process of societal learning as an element of democratising societies has to be moderated, which is a main task of community-based social work.