Educational science with focus on pedagogical practice and professionalism

Our department focuses on the following areas in the field of teaching:

• Theories of professional action
• Theory of Eduaction
• Professional practices in extra-curricular educational areas
• Teacher's knowledge of pedagogical practices
• Qualitative teaching methodology

Main areas of emphasis in teaching: Professional theory and theory of education

Professional action is distinct from intuitive, every-day action on the one hand, by its predictability, rational resilience and capacity for justification. On the other hand, the salient features of educational action are unpredictability and a somewhat ambiguous relationship between cause and effect. For this reason, our teaching content addresses the question as to how the push-pull relationship existing between the claim to professionalism and the problem of unpredictability manifests in various areas of pedagogical practice.


Main emphasis of teaching: Professional action in fields outside of the school and knowledge of pedagogy and action on the part of teachers



Distinctions can thus be made concerning educational areas according to whether they are more performance orientated or acceptance orientatde; what options they offer to the actors involved in order to enable them to adequately cope with all the associated proximity/distance problems; whether more or less clearly formulated expectations from outside can be applied to them. Typical problem structures of pedagogical practice can thus be better understood across the different fields. Our teaching is therefore orientated along teh question of what specific educational problems arise for professionals in the school classroom, in adult education, youth services etc. How is the handling of these problems reflected in eductional self-image, in particular of teachers and in their action routines?


Teaching focus: Qualitative methodology

We make every effort to give students the opportunity to complete individual internships at different educational institutions. This is intended to enable the collection of data (in the form of field notes, vignettes, audio transcripts of interviews and interaction sequences) which will then be evaluated at the advanced seminars. Which survey method is the most suitable depending on the issue? Which evaluation method promises greater depth of inside into the typical structural problem of pedagogical practice? These are issues that we explore in the teaching units of qualitative methodology