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The paper proposes to study side effects of accountability in education within the theoretical framework of enactment research. The potential value of this approach for the study of side effects is shown by using the example of the side effect "Dependency on Expert Judgements." Therefore, findings from the research project "Unintended Effects of Accountability in the School System" (acronym "Nefo") are presented. The project entailed an analysis of policy documents to describe the accountability contexts under study, as well as a survey study with 2637 participating teachers and principals to examine the distribution of side effects in the no- and low-stakes contexts of the four German federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Rhineland-Palatinate. The findings for Berlin and Thuringia are triangulated with the results from a qualitative in-depth group-discussion substudy of the Nefo project on how teachers in Berlin and Thuringia deal with accountability measures. The analysis of policy documents reveals that in Berlin, performance results gain the status of objective data that teachers need to improve their work, while teachers in Thuringia are prompted to judge by themselves the meaning of performance results for their teaching. This suggests that "Dependency on Expert Judgements" is a larger issue in Berlin than in Thuringia. However, contrary to what would be expected, the findings of the survey study indicate that the side effect plays a greater role in Thuringia than in Berlin. To explain this counterintuitive finding, teachers' responses to standards-based accountability in Berlin and Thuringia are delineated. The paper shows that the study of meaning-making processes, which is central to the enactment framework, must not only be ignored if one tries to understand the processes that lead to the occurrence or absence of side effects. It is also important to prevent fallacies in the interpretation of survey data.

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The term "Bildung" is notoriously difficult to translate. Though it is often translated as "education," this does not entirely convey its meaning nor entirely explain its use in a myriad compounds such as "Bildungssprache" (language of/for education), "Bildungsweg" (path to education), "Allgemeinbildung" (general education/knowledge expectations), Ausbildung (education for professional purposes), "Halbbildung" (semi education). Richard Rorty (2009) attempted to transfer this term into English more fittingly by coining the term "edification" as a portmanteau of education and qualification; other translators have focused on its meaning as a formative process (for an individual's personality).

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Diversitätsforschung und -Management is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper analyzes the relationship between various economic and financial crimes such as corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering as a function of age, gender, education level, and occupation. The methodology is based on a survey in Germany with 1,742 responses and is underpinned by statistical models such as the chi-square and intensity assessment. The results suggest that education and related awareness of the importance and significance of combating financial and economic crime is a potentially key factor. Also of great importance are age and, to some extent, occupational status. The results represent a valuable contribution especially for states, governments, schools, but also for the interested public. The results are not only important for Germany, but also for other countries that can use the survey as an example and learn from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we make a theoretical and methodical case for combining Institutional Ethnography and Reflexive Grounded Theory to investigate linguistic transition processes of newly-arrived students in the German school system. Legitimised by a missing knowledge of German, the students are separated into preparatory classes in order to prepare them (linguistically) for the regular classes. This article develops a reflexive institutional-ethnographic approach that problematises and visualises the various voices and practices of social actors engaged in these transition processes. We elaborate the theoretical premises, methodical steps and procedures of a combined approach which allows to reconstruct the transition moment and its attendant tensions, stakeholder perspectives and embeddedness in wider social processes of migration-related multilingualism. The paper enriches the methodological landscape in language, education and migration studies and offers implications for engaging with educational research sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes to study side effects of accountability in education within the theoretical framework of enactment research. The potential value of this approach for the study of side effects is shown by using the example of the side effect "Dependency on Expert Judgements." Therefore, findings from the research project "Unintended Effects of Accountability in the School System" (acronym "Nefo") are presented. The project entailed an analysis of policy documents to describe the accountability contexts under study, as well as a survey study with 2637 participating teachers and principals to examine the distribution of side effects in the no- and low-stakes contexts of the four German federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Rhineland-Palatinate. The findings for Berlin and Thuringia are triangulated with the results from a qualitative in-depth group-discussion substudy of the Nefo project on how teachers in Berlin and Thuringia deal with accountability measures. The analysis of policy documents reveals that in Berlin, performance results gain the status of objective data that teachers need to improve their work, while teachers in Thuringia are prompted to judge by themselves the meaning of performance results for their teaching. This suggests that "Dependency on Expert Judgements" is a larger issue in Berlin than in Thuringia. However, contrary to what would be expected, the findings of the survey study indicate that the side effect plays a greater role in Thuringia than in Berlin. To explain this counterintuitive finding, teachers' responses to standards-based accountability in Berlin and Thuringia are delineated. The paper shows that the study of meaning-making processes, which is central to the enactment framework, must not only be ignored if one tries to understand the processes that lead to the occurrence or absence of side effects. It is also important to prevent fallacies in the interpretation of survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) introduced multiple changes in its study design, the most extensive being the transition from paper- to computer-based assessment. We investigated the differences between German students' text responses to eight reading items from the paper-based study in 2012 to text responses to the same items from the computer-based study in 2015. Two response features - information quantity and relevance proportion - were extracted by natural language processing techniques because they are crucial indicators for the response process. Showcasing potential differential relationships, we additionally examined gender differences. Modelling effects of the round of assessment, gender, and response correctness on the response features, we analysed responses from 15-year-olds and ninth-graders in Germany. Results revealed differences in the text responses between the rounds of assessment in that students included more information overall in 2015, and the proportions of relevance varied substantially across items. As the study investigated the mode change in PISA's natural (not experimental) setting, the differences could mirror cohort trends or design changes. However, with the evidence reported, we conclude that the differences could indicate mode effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to undertake a comparative investigation of school administration to understand further the frames of curriculum making. School administration is an under-illuminated aspect of curriculum research. The paper commences from the notion that, in mass education, a school system is operationalized by many schools, which are coupled to each other and to political decisions. Here is the curriculum vital. Building on the classic work of Stefan Hopmann, a curriculum is part of the administrational structure of the school system. The Article suggests several categories that can describe the nature and function of school administration in various contexts. There are external matters of schooling, such as school buildings, school food, etc. and internal matters of schooling, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Individual schools and school administration are coupled via licences, and programmatic, professional, and procedural supervision. The article employs these categories with a comparison of a decentralized Sweden and a centralized Germany. The comparison investigated 290 Swedish municipality school administrations and 45 state education authorities in 4 German federal states. In this comparison many interesting similarities between both contexts can be hightligthed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from PISA 2018 in Germany to explore how the students'chronotype (known as larks and owls) and their academic achievement is related to truancy. We used an adapted version of the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) to measure the students' chronotype. The results demonstrate a correlation between the students' social jet lag, student achievement, and truancy. Finally, we discuss the potential inclusion of chronotypes as a measure in large-scale international student assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In medical studies, pharmacology is a subject with a high teaching and study load. The COVID-19 pandemic–related switch to distance learning implies challenges for students and teachers. To identify changes of behavior, attitudes, and needs among students and teachers in clinical pharmacology during the pandemic, regular surveys were conducted at Ulm University, Germany. Overall, 884 students and 5 teachers answered the survey. Over time, students' usage of learning materials in print form and further literature (textbooks, guidelines) constantly decreased. In turn, most students used digital materials provided via a learning management system. Attitudes and opinions of students and teachers significantly differed regarding (i) the benefit of certain teaching formats and learning materials, (ii) open-mindedness towards e-learning, and (iii) future visions. Most students and lecturers stated that they spent more time on study or teaching-related activities, respectively, and had less contact with fellow students or colleagues in comparison to pre-pandemic times. Furthermore, the subjective teaching load for most lecturers (80%) increased during the pandemic. To identify determinants of learning success, the survey data were correlated with students' gradings in the written exams of clinical pharmacology. In the first online semester (summer term 2020), the use of paper-based learning scripts was correlated with better exam grades. No correlation with grade was found for any other learning materials. Age was inversely correlated with exam grading. Striking a balance between the future visions and needs of students and teachers implies a particular challenge for the educational system of the next years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employability has become one of the most important outcomes of higher education despite it being weakly conceptualised for the sector. The lack of an accepted conceptualisation to address students' and graduates' employability results in difficulties when comparing research findings and therefore in assessing quality in higher education provision. This paper addresses this gap in the conceptualisation of employability and adapts an established framework so that it aligns with the higher education sector. Employability is defined as 'the ability to find, keep and progress in graduate employment'. A holistic framework composed of four categories ('individual factors'; 'individual circumstances'; 'enabling support system'; 'labour market') is used to classify and measure employability. This allows for an understanding of how specific initiatives enhance the employability of students and graduates, and suggests ways to measure this impact. Also, the limitations of HEIs to impact students' employability are addressed using the framework. The examples of Germany and England show how differences in employability occur due to differences in the surrounding labour market. The paper concludes that in a complex and holistic discussion it is necessary to highlight the various indicators, including the labour market, which were used to report more nuanced aspects of employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines intra-individual "script switching", alternation between Kurrentschrift ("German script") and "Latin script", within nineteenth-century handwritten German texts. We attribute a semiotic value to the textual surface and assume that graphic variation conveys meaning and should therefore be considered a communicative practice. After an overview of the development of Kurrentschrift and of the functions and ideologies behind script switching with a particular focus on nineteenth-century German schools, our paper presents three case studies from different contexts of lower-class writing. First, we analyse the writings of a tailor in a southern German psychiatric hospital, who not only used script switching to comply with the relevant conventions, but also to make his texts appear "educated". The second case study focuses on the French–German border region, which, especially Alsace-Lorraine, has historically been characterised by multilingualism and shifting national affiliations. Here, the use of different scripts and languages reflects both contemporary norms and the writers' identity. Finally, we examine the letters of two Frisian sailors who had migrated to America and wrote home after adjusting to life in their new home country. Frequent switches between different scripts and languages index both cultural practices and their hybrid identity in a multilingual context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of family trajectories during childhood in explaining inequalities by maternal education in children's math and reading skills using harmonized, longitudinal, and nationally representative surveys, which follow children over the course of primary and lower secondary school in four high‐income countries (England, France, Germany, and the United States). As single parenthood and family transitions are more likely among less educated parents and are associated with fewer resources for children, we explore whether growing up outside a stable two‐parent family mediates educational inequalities in math and reading scores. Results show a strong educational gradient in family trajectories in the four countries, but this varies by child age and by country. Children who experience a family transition record lower test scores, although the magnitude differs by the type of postseparation arrangements. Overall, family trajectories are strongly associated with children's math and reading scores but, because of the importance of selectivity in family trajectories, they play only a modest role in explaining the skills gaps by maternal education, considerably less than determinants such as income. The penalties associated with not living within a stable two‐parent family are always larger in the United States and England than in France and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peace Education is considered to be an important pillar in preventing armed conflict and promoting positive peace. The aim of this article is to understand if education systems help development of peace processes in post-conflict settings and if the idea of implementing Peace Education into the formal curriculum could advance prospects for peace. In the paper three case studies are investigated more deeply – Japan, Germany and the South Caucasus. The article uses secondary sources to present the issue. The literature review includes academic books, articles, and official declarations of international organizations. The paper concludes that examples of integrating Peace Education principles in formal school education curriculums are not numerous, and the lack of a comprehensive data on Peace Education around the world could have been the reason that prevented governments from seeing the importance of implementing Peace Education within their national education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting quantitative research involving adolescents demands a thoughtful approach to the question of supervision, given that each option comes with its distinct set of implications. This study reviews these implications and empirically tests whether differences in data quality can be found among three modes of standardized survey research with medium-sized groups of adolescents (12–17 years). The data basis is a quasi-experimental survey study testing different forms of digital, hybrid, or in-person supervision that took place in 2021 in secondary schools in Germany (N = 923). The aim of this study is to test how aspects of data quality—item nonresponse, interview duration, drop-out rate, and response patterns—differ between these forms of supervision. Results could help researchers surveying young people to decide (1) whether they allow confidants or other adults to be present during interviews, (2) if they can rely on teachers alone when surveying classrooms, and (3) if it is cost-efficient to send out external supervisors for classroom sessions. While drop-out rates do not differ, item non-response, interview duration, and response patterns differ significantly; students supervised at home by external interviewers answered more questions, took more time to answer, and were less likely to give potentially meaningless answers in grid questions. The implications drawn from the findings question the common approach of solely relying on teachers for survey administration without the support of external supervisors or adequate training. Recruiting respondents via schools and surveying them online in their homes during school hours has been shown to be a robust method with regard to the analyzed indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Unternehmung: Swiss Journal of Business Research & Practice is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Whilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the '5A's model of creativity' and a view of professional development taking place within 'landscapes of practice', the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence‐base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on data-driven learning (DDL), or teaching and learning languages with the help of electronic corpora, has shown that it is both effective and efficient. Nevertheless, DDL is still far from common pedagogical practice, not least because the empirical research on it is still limited and narrowly focused. This study addresses some gaps in that research by exploring the effectiveness of DDL for teaching low-proficiency learners lexico-grammatical constructions (verb-preposition collocations) in German, a morphologically rich language. The study employed a pretest-posttest design with intact third- and fourth-semester classes for German as a foreign language at a US university. The same collocations were taught to each group during one class period, with one group at each course level taking a paper-based DDL lesson with concordance lines from a native-speaker corpus and the other one taking a traditional rule-based lesson with textbook exercises. These constructions were new to third-semester students, whereas fourth-semester students had been exposed to them in the previous semester. The results show that, whereas the DDL method and the traditional method were both effective and resulted in lexical and grammatical gains, DDL was more effective for teaching new collocations. The study thus argues in favor of using paper-based DDL in the classroom at lower proficiency levels and for languages other than English. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper targets the principle of full inclusion as articulated by Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and General Comment #4 through an analysis of the CRPD Committee's Concluding Observations for Poland, Germany, and Australia. We find inherent tensions and dialectical contradictions between the ideals of full inclusion embodied in Article 24 and the reluctance of the State Parties to meet the targets. To date, the obligations entailed by Article 24 have failed to retrofit education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses two high-profile cases of alleged plagiarism in doctoral theses to discuss the debate on academic malpractice in the German context. The two cases received intense media attention which led to a hitherto unseen interrogation of academic standards in higher education and of the integrity of the research community. The paper analyses this debate and highlights structures and developments in German higher education that potentially explain academic malpractice. The focus of the analysis is on postgraduate education and the way doctoral supervisees are inducted by their supervisors into good academic practice. The paper also discusses the notion of ‘academic relativism’ regarding standards of academic practice that, while permissible in a certain era, are not acceptable today. Against this background, the paper argues in favour of a critical evaluation of the ways in which the German higher education sector has become the subject of narrowly defined aspects of performance management regimes, regulating institutions and incentivising researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of CEPS Journal is the property of University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Aspects of open science and scholarly practices are often discussed with a focus on research and research dissemination processes. There is currently less discussion on open science and its influence on learning and teaching in higher education, and reversely. This paper discusses open science in relation to educational practices and resources and reports on a study to investigate current educational practices from the perspective of open science. We argue that offering students opportunities via open educational practices raises their awareness of future open science goals and teaches them the skills needed to reach those goals. We present online survey results from 210 participants with teaching responsibility at higher education institutions in Germany. While some of them try to establish more open learning and teaching settings, most respondents apply rather traditional ways of learning and teaching. 60% do not use open educational resources – many have not even heard of them – nor do they make their courses open for an online audience. Participants' priority lies in resource accuracy and quality and we still see a gap between the benefit of open practices and their practicability and applicability. The paper contributes to the general discussion of open practices in higher education by looking at open science practices and their adaptation to the learning and teaching environment. It formulates recommendations for improvements of open practice support and infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle-class parents' strategies of reproduction and social closure and their role as a driver of school segregation are already well-reported. Our two independent research projects in Finland and Germany have additionally revealed a somewhat surprising and not yet fully understood tendency of certain middle-class parents to actively avoid the most reputable schools. Using these findings as a starting point, the paper investigates the motives and reasoning behind middle-class parents' avoidance strategies in the cities of Espoo (Finland) and Mülheim an der Ruhr (Germany). The analysis shows that in educational transitions where choice is not constrained by a risk of children being left behind, some families with high educational resources and imbued with a certain ethos give precedence to 'ordinary' schools over highly selective elite schools. If this ethos can be skilfully integrated into urban educational policies, it may help develop effective equality strategies supported by parents and seen as justified by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the transformation of the field of early education in Germany. It poses the question whether these changes can be generally related to the German concept of Bildung – as denoting the children's autonomous activity of engaging themselves and the world. Investigating film material on practices of documentation in early education the paper seeks to clarify the impacts that Bildung has for the constitution of children's subjectivity. Does Bildung bring about a regime of individualization that obfuscates modes of sociality and being with? Are there alternative ways to interpret the modes of subjection in observation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In recent years, the universal right to education has been emphasised by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In this paper, we mapped policies relevant to special education needs and parental involvement of children with autism at an international level and in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium., Methods: A policy path analysis was performed using a scoping review as an underlying methodological framework. This allowed for a rapid gathering of available data from which a timeline of adopted policies was derived., Results and Discussion: Internationally, the universal right to education has been reinforced repeatedly and the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been reiterated with every reinforcement. Also, the additional support that a child with special education needs requires is acknowledged and measures are taken to facilitate access to any education for all children. There are slight cross-country differences between the countries under study, attributable to differences in national regulation of education. However, all countries have progressed to a state where the right to education for all children is integrated on a policy level and measures are taken to enable children with special needs to participate in education. Recently, an attempt to implement a form of inclusive education was made as a form of special needs provision. Nevertheless, nowhere has this been implemented successfully yet., Conclusion: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a critical juncture in international policy and created an environment where the universal right to education has been implemented for all children in the countries under study., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© The Author(s). 2019.)

This article examines the life of Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten in the 1840s. It describes how the kindergarten and its impact in Germany and the United States. It spread at the international level of education because German kindergarten teachers relocated it to other countries when it was banned in Germany. In the years from 1851 to 1914, kindergarten had much greater success in the United States than in Germany. In 1900, most German school authorities refused to incorporate the kindergarten into public school systems, but many American school systems included kindergarten classes after it was accepted. This paper provides a summary of Froebel's life and his gifts to children in Germany and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Klaus Mollenhauer (1928–1998) is one of the most important German theorists of education in the postwar era. Mollenhauer is often remembered in Germany today for his first book titled Education and Emancipation: Polemical Sketches, but he received international renown for his final monograph, Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing. Although Mollenhauer characterized Forgotten Connections as actually working to move towards a more "substantial conception of emancipation," many of his followers and colleagues such as Kaufmann et al. saw it as nothing less than an act of "infidelity to those who had taken on his emancipatory pedagogy" (Kaufmann et al., 1991 : 86). In the light of these differences in emphasis and interpretation, this paper provides an overview of Forgotten Connections that (following Wivestad and Saevi) sees it as presenting six main questions and themes—ranging from "Why do we have children" to "How can we respect and draw out a child's inherent character?" However, in doing so, this paper simultaneously traces Mollenhauer's own efforts to develop a more substantial concept of personal and political emancipation in this text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we employ a comparative life course approach for Canada and Germany to unravel the relationships among general and vocational educational attainment and different life course activities, with a focus on labour market and income inequality by gender. Life course theory and related concepts of 'time,' 'normative patterns,' 'order and disorder,' and 'discontinuities' are used to inform the analyses. Data from the Paths on Life's Way (Paths) project in British Columbia, Canada and the German Pathways from Late Childhood to Adulthood (LifE) which span 28 and 33 years, respectively, are employed to examine life trajectories from leaving school to around age 45. Sequence analysis and cluster analyses portray both within and between country differences – and in particular gender differences – in educational attainment, employment, and other activities across the life course which has an impact on ultimate labour market participation and income levels. 'Normative' life courses that follow a traditional order correspond with higher levels of full-time work and higher incomes; in Germany more so than Canada, these clusters are male dominated. Clusters characterised by 'disordered' and 'discontinuous' life courses in both countries are female dominated and associated with lower income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How self-evident is a colonial rationality today? This paper begins by tracing a ‘text trajectory’ about nineteenth century imperialism and colonialism through several educational spaces: curricular guidelines, textbook, teachers’ reflections on history education, material discursive classroom interactions and pupils’ communication about the topic. In a first step, we observe how entrenched and common sensical a great-power discourse about imperialism and colonialism is in current educational practices. We suggest that pupils ‘hyperstate’ a discursive position on colonialism which appears shocking when stated explicitly, but which is already subtly entextualised in curricular and media discourse. However, in a second step, the analysis orients to the molecular lines and foldings, the unexpected intra-connections and unplanned ‘lines of flight’. In this way, the apparent stability of the colonial rationality begins to wobble (just slightly). The memory practices enacted by pupils, curricula, teachers, authors and the material affordances of textbooks repeat entrenched colonial hierarchies and racisms, ‘and also’ exceed any overly simple understanding of how colonial rationality plays out in contemporary discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Experiencing something of a renaissance, the German pedagogical idea ‘Bildung’ has recently been reconsidered for contemporary education. Historically proposed by von Humboldt, Bildung’s interplay represents a relational movement between a learner and the world that aims for personal freedom and growth. It is also identified as a means by which learners might become aware of their personal capacity to develop responses to daily experiences. Thus, it attends to agency and has resonance with children’s spirituality. Whilst such a notion of learning might be promoted as an alternative to a functionalistic educational paradigm, this paper highlights ethical concerns regarding pedagogical freedom. It highlights philosophically the illusion of freedom and considers critically the place of power in learner-led methods. Finally, the paper proposes how a nuanced, Kierkegaardian application of Bildung might address the ethical concerns raised and proposes how a re-considered understanding of the notion might be valuable for education today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the role of different types of post-compulsory education in determining civic engagement (political interest and election participation) in England and Germany. The educational systems of England and Germany provide ideal comparators for investigating the social benefits of education, in particular those that accrue from vocational education. The paper uses two longitudinal panel surveys, the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel for empirical purposes. Contrary to our expectations, our findings revealed few differences between the two countries: the level of political interest is the same for youth who had a vocational degree as those without any further qualifications, in both England and Germany. Similarly, greater levels of interest in politics were observed in adulthood for youth who had achieved academic qualifications in both countries. Likewise voting behaviour in particular was associated with the achievement of academic qualifications in Germany and to some extent with the achievement of mixed vocational and academic qualifications in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with identification and analyses possible factors obstructing successful integration of several generations of Turkish migrants in Germany, based on the analysis of MIPEX model, as a unique specific index for the evaluation of migration integration policy based on its score. There are already 3 generations of Turks living in Germany and their full integration of Turks is not possible due to the existence of several problematic areas, including in particular: higher unemployment rate of immigrants in comparison to locals, xenophobic attitude of majority society and immigrants' lack of education. Therefore, Germany should put more emphasis on the improvement of integration measures, which ensure the most effective immigrants' integration into majority society. German government should focus more attention on the problems in education system for the young generation of Turks and other legal immigrants in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary education is associated with a comparatively high level of inequality in Germany. This has often been attributed to the early ability-based between-school tracking in the German school system. However, as yet there has been no empirical evaluation of the actual impact of initial track placement on social inequality in final school attainment. Since educational reforms in the 1960s increased educational mobility after track placement, it can be expected that initial track allocation has become less important for the process of secondary educational attainment and the inequalities therein. By drawing on longitudinal life-course data for different birth cohorts from the 1930s to the 1980s, this paper analyses temporal developments in the connections between track placement, educational mobility and social inequality in final school outcomes. The analyses reveal that the impact of track placement actually diminished for those cohorts exposed to the reformed school system. Instead, social inequalities in school attainment are increasingly influenced by processes of educational mobility after track allocation. Furthermore, the analyses show that developments in educational mobility have contributed more to declining inequalities in access to upper secondary education than changes of the selectivities in the transition to secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective skill formation builds on a long tradition of cooperation between state actors, unions, and employer associations. As such, it can be considered strongly path‐dependent, which also refers to deeply institutionalized arrangements reconciling economic and social objectives across public and private actors. Yet, given structural changes in the economy and crises on the training market, dual apprenticeship training has been increasingly challenged to maintain its balance between economic and social objectives. In this context, I analyse the expansion of short‐track dual apprenticeship training, which represents a lower‐cost, lower‐qualification variant of traditional dual apprenticeships in Germany and Switzerland. In these countries—both of which are core examples of collective skill formation systems—such short‐tracks were expanded starting in the early 2000s. However, German unions have heavily opposed this expansion, while Swiss unions have actively supported it. I carry out a comparative historical‐institutional analysis to address this puzzle and unpack the respective change processes. Focussing on the dominant governance modes, I find that in Switzerland, the expansion of short‐tracks is linked to path reinforcement in terms of a liberal corporatist system characterized by polite employer domination. In contrast, in Germany I observe that the developments around short‐tracks are associated with a path switch from a social to a more liberal collective skill formation arrangement but one that is linked to rather 'hostile' employer domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany about half of the adult learners who start second chance education drop out before graduation. In this paper we aim to contribute to an explanation for this low success rate. We focus on the normative expectations of learners: What are their expectations concerning teachers' attention to their personal abilities, teacher support and the recognition of their needs, and to what extent are these expectations met by teachers? Our main assumption is that the greater the difference between learner's expectations and teacher practice, the more likely learners are to become disengaged and be absent from school, and this may lead to school dropout in the future. We use a database of N = 420 learners in 7 randomly selected institutions of second chance education in Germany. Results show, that (1) on average, adult learners tend to expect teachers to take an interest in their personal problems and to take responsibility for their learning process. However (2), 30% of learners experience teachers who are a) more or b) less learner-oriented than they expected them to be, and (3) students in group (b) show considerably lower school engagement and higher absences than students in group (a). Results are discussed with regard to practical implications for second chance education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is exacerbating the loss of competences in the workforce and simultaneously young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs) are struggling to be reengaged in employment. These issues, which are deemed priorities for the European policy agenda, could be addressed by triggering active aging dimensions, valuing and exploiting older adult entrepreneurs' knowledge for enhancing youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes, through mentoring. This paper reports the results of a study based on an intergenerational learning program, carried out in 2018 in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The study was aimed at developing and testing one training on mentoring addressing 41 older adult entrepreneurs (55 and over), and two intergenerational learning trainings aiming at boosting entrepreneurial competences of 33 NEETs (aged 18–29). The impact of the program on older adult entrepreneurs and NEETs was assessed through a pre and post-evaluation using qualitative and quantitative tools. Findings at country level were treated as national case-studies and then the latter were compared by considering them as a multiple embedded case-study. Results indicated that, to different extent in the study countries, mentors learned and enhanced mentoring competences, e.g. active listening and the capability of orienting, improved well-being and self-esteem, social inclusion and active aging attitude. Moreover, NEETs acquired entrepreneurial and socio-relational competences by benefiting from the full exploitation of mentors' know-how and the trust relationship with them. Companies, trade unions, educational and voluntary organizations should cooperate to adopt intergenerational learning programs as good practices for older adults and NEETs' lifelong learning promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how different concepts of "nature" were applied in secondary education in Germany around 1900 by examining the discussions on and practices in particular boarding schools. It will first scrutinise Enlightenment debates on "human nature" and how they were perceived in German secondary education in general and boarding schools in particular. While Goethe's term of a "pedagogical province" was central to the debates, the utopian concept had only low impact on social reality. Second, the paper will examine how the growing criticism of bourgeois urban culture and traditional education at the end of the nineteenth century was associated with a different perception of "nature" as natural environment and how newly founded boarding schools played an important role in promoting such perception amongst the middle class. In a third section, it will illustrate how this development did not stand in contrast to major social trends. It was rather, as will be argued in the conclusion, part of a more general transformation in educational discourse and practice in Germany around 1900. It can first and foremost be characterised in a shift from an inward-looking understanding as "human nature" to an outside focus on "natural environment" and "authenticity". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although psychosomatic medicine is not recognised as a medical specialisation globally, it has proven useful for treating many disorders in Germany. This paper reports on the impact of an educational workshop as a tool for raising awareness about psychosomatic medicine among international psychiatrists. Methods: Psychiatrists from eight different countries were educated on psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy during a 90-min workshop using a video, a slide presentation and an innovative teaching format called 'speed coaching'. Learning outcomes were assessed by analysing questionnaires completed by the participants before and after the workshop. Results: Half of the participants who initially rejected the notion that psychosomatic medicine should be a specialisation on its own changed their minds in favour for it to be a separate discipline (p = 0.125). Awareness about which diseases and patients psychosomatic doctors deal with was increased. The intent for treatment of patients with eating disorders by a psychosomatic physician quadrupled among the participants (p = 0.004). Conclusions: A brief educational intervention can influence psychiatrists' decisions to opt for approaches by doctors specialized in psychosomatics for certain disorders. Further studies may explore why psychiatrists agree or disagree that psychosomatic medicine should be a separate specialisation on its own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fewer than 15% of primary school teachers in both Germany and the UK are male. With the on-going international debate about educational performance highlighting the widening gender achievement gap between girl and boy pupils, the demand for more male teachers has become prevalent in educational discourse. Concerns have frequently been raised about the underachievement of boys, with claims that the lack of male 'role models' in schools has an adverse effect on boys' academic motivation and engagement. Although previous research has examined 'teaching' as institutional talk, men's linguistic behaviour in the classroom remains largely ignored, especially in regard to enacting discipline. Using empirical spoken data collected from four primary school classrooms in both the UK and in Germany, this paper examines the linguistic discipline strategies of eight male and eight female teachers using Interactional Sociolinguistics to address the question, does teacher gender matter? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines state that heart failure nurse specialists (heart-failure nurses) with specific competences are essential for a successful heart-failure-management programme. Thus, the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC developed the heart failure nurse curriculum (HFA curriculum). Several ESC member states developed cardiovascular education programmes to enable nurses to deliver high specialist care, but little is known of whether these curricula are in line with the HFA curriculum. Therefore, this paper describes the extent to which cardiovascular education programmes in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany correspond to the HFA curriculum. Methods and results: A case study approach was adopted to obtain an in-depth understanding of the programme contents in relation to the HFA curriculum. For this purpose, representatives of the educational programmes and/or delegates of the national cardiovascular nursing organization shared their educational curricula. All of the studied cardiovascular education programmes aim to provide heart failure and/or cardiovascular nurses with essential competences for implementation of evidence based and guideline derived care. However, every cardiovascular education programme has a different focus/area of attention. Cardiovascular education in Belgium discusses aspects of all core-learning objectives of the HFA curriculum and emphasizes mostly knowledge aspects of these. Learning objectives in cardiovascular education in The Netherlands focus on chronic diseases in general and on learning objectives concerning patient education, support in self-care and management of device and pharmacological therapy. Cardiovascular education in Germany discusses most learning objectives; however, not all learning objectives receive equal attention. Conclusions: Although local cardiovascular education programmes adopt certain aspects of the HF curriculum, the curriculum as a whole is not adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the students' perception of STACK tasks is vital for optimizing the students' learning. Questionnaires are a common method to learn about their experiences, but they are time-consuming for teachers and students. Plus, they are usually answered with a certain delay after students have completed the task. To solve these problems, we developed STACKrate, a JavaScript-based tool that allows teachers to easily integrate a collection of evaluation questions directly into STACK questions. Thus, the evaluation is done directly after the students completed their work on the tasks. The tool uses a star rating principle and is designed to be intuitive and easy to use for students. In this paper, we describe the features and benefits of STACKrate and tell about the use of the tool in a course at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. We then discuss the added value of STACKrate in evaluation over the use of questionnaires alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with an empirical study examining the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teaching in biology and physical education (PE) regarding the students' growth in knowledge. The study was conducted with 141 German sixth form students. In groups, they were taught three hours a week for a period of six weeks. In order to compare the effectiveness of regular lessons with the project, the study uses a test and control group design. This means a test group takes part in interdisciplinary teaching (IdT) lessons while a control group of peers receives subject-related lessons. After being exposed to the different kinds of lessons for a certain time, we then compared the effects on the students' skills in a pre-/post-test. The IdT lessons are designed to complement each other so that the biology lesson supplies explanations for processes occurring in PE, whereas the PE lesson provides a visualisation of the theoretical biology content. In this paper, fi rst the current German curricula requirements as they relate to interdisciplinary teaching will be outlined. After this, the state of research concerning interdisciplinary teaching, methodical-didactic expectations and learning targets will be provided. Following on from this, the data investigated in the course of the study will be presented, such as the study design and measuring instruments. The results of the pre-/post-test will be described and then discussed in the conclusion. They indicate a signifi cant growth in knowledge with the test group (IdT) when compared with the control group (F(1,113.24)=126, p<0.01, n2p=0.43). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of public discussions regarding Germany's standing on international rankings of student achievement, increased attention was focused on enhancing cognitive stimulation in preschools. There are some concerns that preschool curricula that focus more on cognitive stimulation rather than on socio-emotional skills might neglect the socio-emotional development of children. These concerns are rooted in the tradition of German preschools focussing more on the stimulation of social than of cognitive skills. This paper examines these claims by drawing on the German preschool programme ‘KiDZ’ in order to analyse the socio-emotional development (well-being, joy of learning, and worry) of children attending a preschool with a more academically oriented curriculum. This study also investigates effects of domain-specific preschool quality and if any effects of participation in KiDZ might be explained by the quality of the preschools. Positive effects of the children's participation in KiDZ are found and will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A brief, problem-oriented phase such as an inventing activity is one potential instructional method for preparing learners not only cognitively but also motivationally for learning. Student teachers often need to overcome motivational barriers in order to use computer-based learning opportunities. In a preliminary experiment, we found that student teachers who were given paper-based course material spent more time on follow-up coursework than teachers who were given a well-developed computer-based learning environment (CBLE), leading to higher learning outcomes. Thus, we tested inventing as an instructional method that may help overcome motivational barriers of teachers' use of computer-supported tools or learning environments in our main experimental study (N = 44). As a computer-based environment, we used the 'Assessment of Learning strategies in Learning journals'. The inventing group produced ideas about criteria to evaluate learning strategies based on student cases prior to the learning phase. The control condition read a text containing possible answers to the inventing problem. The inventing activity enhanced motivation prior to the learning phase and assessment skills as assessed by transfer problems. Hence, the inventing activity prepared student teachers to learn from a CBLE in a motivational as well as cognitive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Owing to their high political and social impact, studying elites is a growing strand of scholarship in sociology. In this research note, we investigate immigrants' pathways into the income elite, that is, the top 1% of Germany's income distribution. Using data from the German Microcensus from 2009 to 2018 covering more than three million observations, we examine the prevalence of immigrants in the elite and immigrants' pathways to access the elite, that is, education, self-employment, country-of-origin effects and integration. Our results show that immigrants are underrepresented in the elite by 46%. Smaller returns to education and self-employment compared with natives drive this underrepresentation. Regarding immigrant-specific pathways, immigrants from EU countries, who face fewer legal, cultural and social barriers, have higher chances of being in the elite than immigrants from non-EU countries. Finally, we find no evidence of integration, that is, years since migration, affecting immigrants' elite status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The refugee influx in the European context has challenged national systems and individual higher education institutions to develop and iterate solutions for prospective and, increasingly, enrolled university students. In the German setting, enormous federal investment has supported a robust response, though one which in several aspects lacks cohesion. This paper discusses possible implications of refugee student enrolment in German universities, and offers recommendations for policy initiatives in the same context. Key proposals include: revisiting the numerus clausus admissions system; expanding the existing student services model; emphasizing an early focus on subject-specific language proficiency (Fachsprache); emergency funds for small student expenses; the development of internships for refugee students; and support for student and staff collaboration and information sharing at both the state and federal levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]