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This paper examines new forms of study-abroad expertise on social media and their role in mediating Indian student mobility to Germany. Firstly, it explores how mutual-support Facebook and WhatsApp groups—used by prospective international students in India to support each other through the process of applying to German universities—have contributed to the emergence of new forms of education consultancy, offered by Indian students or graduates of German universities, whom I call 'Student Guides'. In addition, it shows how some Indians studying in Germany have started 'Study in Germany' YouTube channels, aimed at aspirant student migrants, and have become important 'study-abroad influencers'. The paper analyses how these new forms of study-abroad expertise offer prospective international students social and cultural capital important for successful student migration, apart from shaping their imaginative geographies of Germany, and embedding them in cultures of mobility. Furthermore, the paper highlights how these new forms of study-abroad expertise intersect with, and critique, a more 'traditional' study-abroad expert: the professional education consultant. The paper draws on a digital ethnography of 'Study in Germany' Facebook and WhatsApp groups and YouTube channels, as well as interviews with the YouTubers, Student Guides, and Indian students in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many authors argue that candidates are more popular among voters from their own region. Two potential explanations have been suggested: voters' identification with their home region, and the representation of regional interests. The information on candidates' residence can be transmitted to voters in different ways, the most easily accessible way being information printed on the ballot paper. However, most studies on "friends and neighbour voting" use aggregate data. Studies that rely on individual level data usually put respondents in hypothetical situations and confront them with synthetic candidates, reducing their realism. To bridge this gap and to test the effect of providing information on the candidates' residence, we use data from a survey experiment to analyze voters' responses to ballot paper information on the regional background of real candidates in the 2014 European election in Germany. We find that voters in an open list PR election are more likely to support regional candidates if ballot paper information on the candidates' geographic background helps them to do so. The appeal of personal ties is a stronger explanation for vote preference than the one based on regional interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on migrant youth's school transitions has focused on the country of residence, ignoring migrant youth's pre-migration lives in the country of origin. Drawing on 14 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork between Ghana and Germany, this paper instead analyses school transitions through migrant youth's mobility trajectories, encompassing all geographic moves and concurrent family constellations over time and space, both before and after migration. A mobility lens shows how resources gained in the country of origin – including confidence, discipline, respect, and adaptability – help migrant youth navigate their school transitions in the country of residence, thus becoming forms of transnational cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 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.)

This paper examines school management and policies in Germany and Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study, which is comparative and qualitative, explores the interrelationship between different levels of governance and the responses of teacher unions. The inquiry is informed by the perspectives of historical institutionalism and path dependency, and the document analysis is conducted by utilising the justification categories of value, collective, and formal and procedural driven arguments. We argue the contestation which occurred between different levels of school governance and the teacher unions amidst the pandemic created the potential for changes in policy settings and influence over the administration of schooling. However, there is no indication of fundamental shifts in the organisation, policy direction or control over schooling in Germany or Australia. Instead, there is a conformity to established institutional arrangements and path dependencies, which secure and protect the vested interests of the different policy actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of self-service technology (SST), particularly self-checkout and self-scan services, has gained increasing attention from German retail. But to date, end-customer SST use has not developed extensively. The majority of German customers still prefer to use the traditional checkout service counter. The purpose of this paper is to explore how trust, fun, and usefulness can attract inexperienced prospective adopters and experienced customers to use SST. For this, our study investigated the intention to use an SST as a holistic system (self-scan and self-checkout) and considered trust in the SST technology for the first time. Also the interplay between fun and perceived usefulness has not been investigated before. The data were collected using an online questionnaire and in front of a German hypermarket that offers SST. The sample (n = 222) consists of both inexperienced and experienced customers. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in SmartPLS4. Results demonstrate fun is a decisive factor for a holistic SST system that incorporates the task of self-scanning and self-checkout. This also holds for trust and perceived usefulness. With regard to experienced and prospective users, the results show different effects in the importance of both groups. Fun is crucial for prospective users. For experienced users, benefits and trust become more important for long-term usage. Trust is an essential aspect for both user types. Managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve qualitative case studies in German and Canadian hospitals and IT companies were used in this mixed-methods study analysing the labour market outcomes of immigrants. The reported case studies investigate the immigrants' recognition, integration process and the usability of foreign qualifications, skills and work experiences in the labour market. Furthermore, the strategies and rationales of employers and employees within the recruiting process are analysed. Here, the focus lies on the transferability and obstacles of cultural and social capital across country borders as well as the relevant framework conditions. This paper refers to Bourdieu's approach towards different types of capital as well as the rational choice theory. The results demonstrate that immigrants in both countries face more obstacles accessing the labour market within the health sector than within the IT sector. The context of the recruiting situation strongly affects the strategies and behaviour of the employers or the recruiters. Within these sector- and country-specific confines, individual factors determine the immigrants' labour market success. Furthermore, the sector and the country affect the relevance of each individual factor in the recruiting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic led to restrictions in production worldwide. Numerous firms were affected and unable to keep up production due to lockdowns. In disruptive events like this, the resilience of the production system is of central importance, as the survivability of the entire firm depends on it. In this context, the literature argues that cutting-edge technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), raise the proactive and reactive capabilities of firms, enabling them to better resist and recover from disruptive events and thus, show a higher resilience. This paper takes up this topic and observes the Covid-19 pandemic with the aim to analyse whether a firm's AI-readiness had an impact on its production resilience during the spring 2020 lockdown in Germany. For this purpose, we combine two large-scale surveys containing data from 237 manufacturers in Germany and test hypotheses based on quantitative analyses. Our results show that firms could indeed benefit from AI-enabled production during the lockdown. However, it is also clear that manufacturers have to exceed a certain AI threshold to significantly increase their resilient capabilities and realise positive effects. Our findings not only hold implications for research, but also provide recommendations for the resilience management of manufacturers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Sustainable Development' can be understood as a widely used discourse that has become even more prominent since the publication of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in 2015. In this paper we analyze the way sustainable development discourse unfolds within the context of development aid in Germany by undertaking a discourse analysis of reports on development policy published 1973–2017 by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Our analysis reveals that the sustainable development discourse is characterized by distinct components and storylines that change over time. We detect, in general, a shift away from a focus on environmental protection toward an emphasis on the role of the private sector in leading sustainable development. We argue, therefore, that although development is now only legitimate if it is 'sustainable', the discourse apparently facilitates the uneven allocation of development aid. The concern that arises here is that although Agenda 2030 pledges to take "bold and transformative steps' to secure the planet and to leave 'no one behind" the least developed states who cannot provide 'private sector opportunities' or fulfil 'national self-responsibilities' for sustainable development are indeed being 'left behind'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Climate Strike Movement (or Fridays for Future) is one of the most prominent transnational protest movements nowadays. In this paper, I examine the reactions of politicians to this movement to answer the research question: To what extent have German Members of Parliament (MPs) been responsive to local environmentalist street protests by focusing their attention on the Climate Strike Movement and Environmental Policy? To this end, I apply dictionary-based quantitative text-analytical tools to study German MPs' political communication through 292,949 Facebook posts and 43,644 parliamentary debates between September 2017 and February 2020. Focussing on the effect of the first global climate strike in March 2019 and leveraging varying protest frequencies between the electoral districts, I show that MPs are responsive to protest events in their districts. More local street protest events in an electoral district led to more attention to the Climate Strike Movement and Environmental Policies by political representatives associated with that district. Comparing different discursive arenas, I show how politicians adjust their communication according to the arena's audience, with protests affecting the political attention to environmental policies more in parliamentary debates than on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the career development of postdocs in academia, universities in Germany are offering mentoring programs to postdocs. They aim to encourage, support and mentor the postdocs toward professorship via face-to-face mentoring, workshops, and networking support. The mentoring programs are carefully designed; however, their success is dependent on multiple factors. The study explores the communication patterns in mentoring between professors and postdocs, and its impact on their professional development. Data was collected and analyzed using Grounded Theory. The data was collected from twenty-five semi-structured in-depth interviews with professors and postdocs across Germany. Classicand Constructivist Grounded Theory was used for data analysis. The paper presents a Communication in Mentoring Model for the professional development of postdocs. The model can be used as a tool to ensure successful communication for better professional relationships in mentoring as well as in professional environments. The paper recommends a longitudinal study to further explore Communication in Mentoring and its impact on postdocs over a period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts Group Delphi-study and foresight approach within a five-year horizon in the field of digital education, with a specific focus on Continuing Education (CE) in a post-pandemic society. The study examines the impact of increasing digitalisation on the significant population of low-qualified individuals (approximately five million in Germany). The project identifies both opportunities and risks associated with digitalisation in CE for the low-qualified. The study focuses on 1) the impact of digitalisation on the participation of low-qualified people in CE, 2) the impact of accelerated digitalisation on the planning of programmes and services for this target group, 3) the transformation of programmes and services for low-qualified people due to digitalisation, and 4) methodological innovations for predicting the impact of digitalisation in the CE sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the Hilfsschule (special school) is contested and multifaceted. For the German context, most research to date has focused on institutions or professional pioneers in special education. This paper, through a "New Historicism" perspective, asks how a group of pupils, described as "retarded", could become a new pedagogical object within a discourse among teachers, psychiatrists, school doctors and local administrations at the end of the nineteenth century. Linking national and local discourses, this paper analyses the emergence of the special school pupil (Hilfsschulkind) in Germany within a broader discourse of educability as well as through knowledge practices, namely record-keeping systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do far-right actors and issues structure public debates and become mainstream over time? Previous research has shown that far-right actors are central actors in political conflicts in Western Europe, partly due to their dominance in struggles on cultural issues. The entrenchment of the far right substantially depends on their networks and public visibility. However, we still lack a long-term understanding of public debates about far-right actors and their discursive interconnections across issues. In this paper, we deliver the first longitudinal analysis of the evolution and structure of far-right discourse networks and the diffusion of far-right ideas in public debates since the 1990s. Methodologically, this paper innovates by combining discourse network analysis with automated text analysis to investigate how the relations between far-right actors and issues are represented in mass media. We analyze more than 500,000 newspaper articles in six different mass media outlets in Germany. The results show that far-right actors have gained more public visibility since the 1990s. The study demonstrates that the mass media debates have introduced and amplified cultural issues "owned" by the far right. Far-right discourse networks in mass media have grown, discursive interactions have intensified and discourse networks have become more centralized. Our results indicate that the discursive mainstreaming of the far right evolved in the context of the "refugee crisis" in 2015, and was linked to the AfD's institutional access. Overall, the study aids in developing a better understanding of the success of the far right and the crucial role of public debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of economic crisis, academics, policy-makers, and pundits often debate the correct level and best use of government debt. This paper argues structural political and economic factors grant core economies more fiscal space than peripheral economies. While the federal governments of the US, Germany, and other core economies may easily issue and sell debt in private markets, smaller economies, both municipalities within countries, and countries in the global periphery, are more vulnerable to demand fluctuations. All economies may benefit from explicit commitments by monetary authorities to resume their historic roles as governments' banks, especially during crises. By highlighting present political constraints, monetary structures, and market factors that may inhibit governments' successful placement of bonds, this paper deepens present debate about the potential feasibility of functional finance to facilitate fiscal activity, even in unprecedented times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context for this paper is a shift in the way citizens engage in democratic processes which has received increasing attention in the literature. Building on previously conducted research, this paper contributes to the conceptualisation of citizenship activities in terms of young people below the voting age from rural communities. Based on reviewing current research, seven emerging contexts that can assist with exploring young people's citizenship activities are proposed, namely unofficial, individual, glocal, sporadic, online, issues-based, and justice-oriented. These contexts were translated into a framework which is introduced and explored in this paper. To explore this framework, focus groups (n = 26) and a qualitative questionnaire (n = 106) were conducted with young people aged 13–16 from a secondary school in Germany. The proposed framework extends previous conceptualisations of emerging citizenship contexts by looking beyond citizen types and taxonomies to explore the spaces, modes, goals, and the frequency of participants' citizenship activities. Results indicate that the proposed framework was useful in exploring multiple emerging citizenship contexts. Focus group and questionnaire participants were particularly engaged in glocal, unofficial, sporadic, and issues-based contexts and to a lower degree in individual, online, and justice-oriented contexts. A key challenge is achieving conceptual clarity around the seven contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the politics of refugee arrival and integration at urban level in Germany following the migration influx in summer 2015. How have cities redefined themselves? How have newcomers and residents with different subjectivities constructed their identity, social belonging, and justified their rights-claiming? What kind of changes can be observed in city's social spaces? Supported by critical geography, securitization, ethnographic approaches, the paper aims to identify the grey areas of the urban social spaces and presents two accounts centred on: (1) city as sites of bureaucratic politics, austerity urbanism and surveillance; (2) city as sites of sanctuary/solidarity practices. It argues that the refugees' arrival offers the chance for German cities to envision a social project through engaging a politics of 'bounding' which involves the re-framing of refugee displacement in relation to urban development by covering both the lived (camp) experiences of those on the move and local population's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German government appointed an advisory committee to negotiate the design of a structural change prompted by energy and climate policy. The Coal Exit Commission was assigned with this complex mandate on how to end coal-fired power generation. Against many expectations, the Commission, comprised of stakeholders with competing interests, achieved a consensus outlining the coal exit in Germany by 2038. Considering that the result of this compromise serves as the basis for a major policy change, it is legitimate to ask if the final recommendations of the Coal Exit Commission were balanced, reliable and socially robust, and if the Commissions' advice satisfies the need for quality standards in negotiated multi-source policy advice? This paper investigates the Commission in that regard, while testing a framework for hybrid multi-source stakeholder advisory committees. The research shows broad compatibility with the framework. Simultaneously, this paper argues for additional factors such as the careful reflection of the composition of a hybrid advisory group, a precise, clear-cut mandate, development of trust between group members, independence of the adviser from the appointing authority. Finally, while the Coal Exit Commission seems an interesting model to reach consensus in difficult societal issues, the paper critically assesses its limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a theoretical perspective for the comparative analysis of the advocacy behavior of political parties and interest groups in legislative policy-making. It conceptualizes the policy-centered and group-centered statements of political actors as policy frames and constituency frames, respectively. In order to gauge the analytical leverage provided by policy and constituency frames, I will theorize the extent to which political parties and interest groups rely on these two types of frames respectively. The empirical relevance of both types of frames is assessed in two cases of legislative policy-making in Germany. Drawing on parliamentary debates, position papers presented in committee hearings, and press statements released by interest groups, I show, amongst others, that constituency frames play a significant role in these actors' advocacy. While the use of policy and constituency frames varies between radical and moderate parties, there are hardly any differences in their use between parties and interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-compliance with EU environmental policy not only impedes Europeanization, but jeopardizes the protection of human health and the environment. However, research on failed policy implementation still applies traditional top-down or bottom-up approaches and disregards complex actor constellations and contextualization. The research in this paper applies a comprehensive multi-level governance (MLG) approach to overcome this gap and explain non-compliance with EU environmental policy. We conducted a qualitative analysis of non-compliance with the Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC) within an MLG context, based on a case study in Germany. Our findings revealed a dynamic interplay of local government's lack of action, an absence of serious support and pressure from superordinate levels, business actors exerting influence across all levels, and media reporting contributing to misinformation, all of which contribute to non-compliance. At the same time, there was a lack of awareness of the negative effects of air pollution and thus a lack of public pressure to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Syrian refugee crisis posed enormous challenges for the child welfare system and immigration authorities in Germany. Based on qualitative interviews and publicly available data, this paper explores the responses of frontline workers to the surge in unaccompanied refugee minors (UAMs) during the crisis and how their actions were experienced by UAMs. Results illustrate how frontline coping strategies created effective barriers to UAMs being united with their families. The findings raise questions about the relationship between ambiguous policy goals, frontline practice and formal legislation in the context of the right to asylum and the best interests of the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While antiracist protest has gained increasing prominence in Europe in recent years, the lack of representative data has so far prevented an assessment of the scope and drivers of antiracist protest outside of the United States. This paper addresses this gap drawing from a unique survey (N = 5003) on racism in Germany. Building upon sociological and social psychological theories of protest, the article explores the scope and role of key demographic, cognitive, and emotional factors for protest practice and protest potential. Our data suggests that antiracist protest is supported by considerable parts of German society and finds that mediated experiences of racism and emotional reactions matter as drivers of mobilization: those with and without a personal experience of racism are more likely to protest if they were told of racist experiences by others. This effect is even more pronounced if participants are emotionally affected by personal and mediated experiences of racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College students have been recognized as a risk group for substance use. Nevertheless, coherent risk factors for stimulant use remain to be elucidated. The objective of this paper is to identify risk factors associated with the recreational use of MDMA, cocaine, amphetamine and methamphetamine. An online questionnaire was distributed among colleges in Berlin. A sample of 12,914 college students participated, of which 9,382 met the inclusion criteria. Past-month prevalence was 7.0% for MDMA, 6.7% for amphetamine, 5.8% for cocaine and 0.1% for methamphetamine. Associated factors included male gender, "other" gender, homosexual and bisexual orientation, open relationship status or being single, engaging in sexual risk-taking behavior, having a psychiatric diagnosis, tobacco use, drinking alcohol and an increased number of (illicit) substances consumed in the past month and in life. Berlin college students showed a substantially higher prevalence of stimulant use compared to both the general population and college students in other cities. Certain parameters, e.g., polydrug use, were particularly high in this group. The results can be used in further development of prevention efforts. However, conclusions about causality are limited by the cross-sectional nature of this study, highlighting the necessity for longitudinal studies in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data journalists have become established in online newsrooms. Previously considered tech-savvy journalistic outsiders, they have repeatedly been described as their own closed community which has only recently gained severe attention and importance due to heavy data-driven reporting (e.g., COVID-19, investigative journalism, climate crisis). This is particularly true for data journalists in Germany who have repeatedly received worldwide attention (e.g., cum ex, Panama papers). Taking on a perspective of re-negotiated journalistic boundaries, this study sets out to describe this influential journalistic sub group and presents a most-representative quantitative survey among N = 102 data journalists in Germany. Results indicate that data journalists in Germany are everything but journalistic outsiders in that they share strong journalistic backgrounds, high formal education, and long-lasting journalistic employment. Daily routines less often include large projects but regular translations of ready-made data into journalistic value. Thereby, data journalists in Germany enjoy large degrees of autonomy and perceive themselves as scrutinizers and adversaries of political leaders by means of factual information and analyses. Conclusions are drawn for journalistic curricula and the urgent need for a negotiation around quality norms and standards in a rapidly institutionalizing field that is data journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the beginning of the European integration process, Germany’s role within the EU has been a contentious topic in political and intellectual debate. Following German unification, this has been further exacerbated by various crises. On the one hand, many have expressed concerns about power politics aimed at establishing a ‘German Europe’ or a ‘European Germany’, as Thomas Mann declared in 1953. On the other hand, voices across Europe have criticised Germany for its lack of more forceful power politics. At the same time, German leaders have repeatedly pledged to assume greater responsibility after being accused of showing insufficient commitment, no doubt borne out of pacifist sentiments, reflecting the dark shadow of Germany’s history. In this paper, we examine not only how the coalition government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz that came into office in 2021 has articulated a tacit and increasingly explicit claim for leadership, but also how the Chancellor has transformed his narrative in line with the ‘Zeitenwende’ following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We argue that the key to understanding Germany as a driving force is its remarkable shift from a federalist narrative to an adapted geopolitical, security-driven master narrative covering a broad set of policy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global climate budget for 1.5°C necessitates distributing future CO2 emissions to individual countries. In Germany, this translates to 3.1 billion tons (January 2022). All sectors must engage to meet this target, particularly the lignite (i.e. low-grade brown coal) sector. This entails leaving significant reserves untapped. Also, economic factors are already driving a decline in coal consumption, aided by Germany's renewable expansion and rising CO2 prices. Forecasts suggest lignite phase-out by 2030, prompting reevaluation of mining plans without devastation of villages. The paper proposes new mining plans for the main lignite regions Rhineland and Lusatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While maker platforms, such as FabLabs and Makerspaces, are commonly perceived as drivers for transformative trajectories, little is known about how the dynamics of experimental collective agency are mobilizing transformative capacities that foster change on the local level. This paper contributes to the understanding of collective innovation dynamics of maker platforms that aim to support collective experimentation and translate novel practices to incumbent institutions on the local level. By drawing on the strategic niche management literature, a comparative case study of six maker platforms in Germany is conducted. Findings indicate three relevant modes of translation that could be identified: Firstly, translation by active shielding and institutionalized adaption emphasizes the role of harbouring universities in fencing off market pressures and offering events as well as workshops to regime actors. Secondly, translation by enabling learning mechanisms highlights the effect of implementing proper formats for assessment and learning on mutual translation. Thirdly, translation by sustained cooperation and coordination between maker platforms and local institutions stresses capacities for cooperation and a demand-oriented coordination between maker platforms and incumbent institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

AbstractTenants all over the globe face the challenges of increasing rents and even forced evictions, particularly in the private urban rental sector. Affordable housing shortage and displacement have become severe societal problems for the lower- and middle-income segments. Certain legal institutions, including tenancy law, provide a decommodifying capacity for more tenure security and stability. This paper studies this capacity of tenancy law by comparatively examining the tenants’ and landlords’ rights in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland through the lens of decommodification. The focus is (1) on the rules of access to housing for new residents entering the housing market and (2) the rules of exit that govern the ability of the occupants to continue living in their apartments. Findings show that while tenants’ rights in Switzerland are weakly protected by law, tenants in Austria and Germany receive robust protection. Austrian and German tenants cannot be evicted at short notice, nor are landlords allowed to dismiss them unless they declare legitimate self-usage. Also, tenants remain protected from arbitrary rent increases in case of rental upgrading. Conclusions help practitioners to consider tenancy law as an influential way to counteract the market-driven dynamics in housing and to enhance the protective capacity within renting property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 not only put the public health system under considerable pressure, but it also posed a huge challenge for established routines of intergovernmental coordination in Germany. As the Länder are responsible for implementing infection prevention measures, the most senior intergovernmental council, the minister presidents' conference (MPK), became the central body for pandemic crisis management. In light of high uncertainty, time pressure and public attention, drastic actions were taken to contain the dissemination of the corona virus. Against this background, our paper investigates how party politics impacted on horizontal coordination in times of crisis. The analysis shows that indeed territorial party politics interferes with routines of intergovernmental coordination. While congruence between the federal and Länder governments promotes homogenous implementation of joint MPK resolutions, increasing coalition size and intense party competition make deviations more likely. Finally, partisan ideology plays a key role as parties pursue clearly distinct pandemic management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple conflicts of spatial planning are currently intensifying in the context of sustainability transformations. This paper aims to better understand the conflicts involved in planning inter-municipal commercial areas (IMCA) in city-regional constellations. Choosing an explicit conflict perspective integrating different strands of literature, a qualitative in-depth case study using cognitive-affective mapping (CAM) is carried out. The case study analyzes a region comprising a large urban center and multiple smaller surrounding communities in Southern Germany, where several attempts to cooperate have failed, ostensibly due to poor urban-rural relations. Our findings reveal that the situation is more complex: IMCA is hindered by vertical and horizontal governance conflicts and sectoral conflicts of interest. While land use conflicts on where to implement IMCA are hindering concrete projects, a deeper conflict potential lies in the question of whether to plan new commercial areas at all. Albeit IMCA are proposed as the solution for reducing land take and realizing economic growth, the planning of IMCA reflects this global tension on the regional and local level without being able to solve it per se. We conclude that an explicit conflict perspective as well as the CAM method can be fruitful for planning research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how girls' education developed in Norway and Prussia (and later North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW) during the first and second wave of women's political mobilisation. It analyses how organisations and activists of the women's movement were included in different cross-interest coalitions in education politics. The cases are interpreted in light of Rokkanian cleavage theory. In Germany, the women's movement was split along class lines but also along denominational lines. The Catholic women's movement became a part of the Catholic and later the Christian democratic political alliance. In Norway, influential sections of the women's movement were linked first to the liberal movement and later to the social democratic movement. In both cases, women's rights activists left a mark on education policy, but Norwegian women's rights activists enjoyed successes earlier and more consistently. This is a result of the Norwegian women's movement's comparatively greater unity and related to the different cleavage structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been found to be beneficial for the development of children below three years. However, many children do not attend ECEC facilities. Frequently, structural family characteristics (SFC), such as migration background, educational attainment and income, are used to explain differing probabilities of attendance, while parental attitudes are mostly not considered. Thus, assuming that SFC influence attitudes, this paper investigates whether the attitudes and views of parents towards ECEC explain why one- and two-year-old children from disadvantaged families attend day care less often, although they would strongly benefit from high-quality ECEC. The underlying data are from the German DJI Child Care Study (KiBS). The results show that parental attitudes substantially contribute to explaining diverging attendance probabilities. The more positive parents evaluate day care, the higher the probability of their child attending. However, SFC maintain most of their explanatory power. Besides, SFC and parental attitudes interact. The probability of ECEC attendance increases differently depending on the (varying degree of positivity of) attitudes by SFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lines between journalism and public relations (PR) have become increasingly blurred with the rise of organizational media. Within this landscape, certain publications mimic journalistic formats while concurrently serving as PR instruments to promote organizational interests. These hybrid endeavors are commonly known as "brand journalism." This paper presents the findings of a quantitative survey conducted among brand journalists in Germany, focusing on the perceptions of their roles and ethical orientations. We compare their responses to those of German journalists surveyed as part of the Worlds of Journalism research project. The data suggests that brand journalists largely align with journalists in terms of their professional roles and ethical orientations, with only a few noteworthy distinctions. One such distinction is that brand journalists tend to perceive their role less as critical observers who scrutinize political leaders and businesses. In essence, our study underscores the remarkable resemblance in role concepts between brand journalists and journalists, offering insights into the convergence of organizational media with modern journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major challenge for journalism. In the case of Germany, critics very early on voiced concerns over the quality of mainstream media coverage. Mainstream media were attacked for the intensity of their coverage, for reporting too much and unnecessarily frightening audiences, for not presenting a diversity of viewpoints on the pandemic and the measures taken to mitigate it, and for being one-sided and too close to the government. Against this background, this paper examines the intensity and viewpoint diversity of the coverage of 13 mainstream and two alternative media in Germany in 2020 and 2021. Based on a comprehensive manual content analysis of almost 9000 news stories, we conclude that the mainstream media did not cover the pandemic in a fundamentally exaggerated or one-sided way. However, they did not always report intensively when the pandemic was particularly severe, and they tended to warn against the pandemic rather than criticize the measures taken. In contrast, alternative media coverage tended to be more one-sided and generally biased against government measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training (VET) and higher education serve different purposes and pursue different logics. However, in view of the increase of qualification requirements for skilled workers, many education systems are responding by linking VET to higher education. Therefore, the borders between VET and higher education have developed in different ways in different nations. In our paper, we analyze different approaches of tertiarization and academization of VET to answer to what extent VET and higher education are affected by the described changes. To answer these questions, we use a heuristic that includes an objective, an organization, a program, and a system dimension. We analyze the cases of China and Germany as they differ greatly in the dimensions of the heuristic. The study is based on the analysis of documents in the selected countries. Based on our findings, we point out consequences for the purpose and equality between VET and higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate determinants of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, core affect regarding using telerehabilitation, and digital competencies in rehabilitation professionals in Austria and Germany before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional paper-based and online survey was conducted before and during COVID-19, respectively, with three cohorts of rehabilitation professionals. Outcomes were the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation evaluated using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology; willingness of technology use using the short scale for assessing the willingness of technology use; digital competencies and core affect using the Digital Competence Framework and semantic differential, respectively. Multivariate ordinal regression analysis was performed to determine predictors. Included were 603 rehabilitation professionals. Analysis revealed differences between Austria and Germany and before and during the pandemic for most outcomes. German residency, the pandemic, and a higher educational level were most important predictors of higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. The pandemic increased most aspects of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. Results confirm that rehabilitation professionals with higher degrees are more prone to adopt innovations in healthcare.Registration: German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00021464) The willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is associated with external factors increasing the need for alternative rehabilitation delivery, such as COVID-19, and with financial facilitators, such as reimbursement. As the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is higher among speech and language therapists and dietitians, efforts are necessary to enhance its use in physiotherapists and occupational therapists. As a higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation was observed in younger rehabilitation professionals and those with higher education, increasing the importance of telerehabilitation in education curricula and further knowledge transfer into practice for those already working in the field seems necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an example of transformative learning afforded to social work students participating in an international study program between United States and Germany focusing on Genocide and the Holocaust. Using epistemic justice as a frame, it foregrounds the experience of a Black female social work student who was the target of microaggressions while abroad and highlights the critical theories, such as critical consciousness, critical realism, and intersectionality, used to help students reflect on and make meaning of their experiences. Through self-reflection and sustained dialogue, the experience offers examples of how students were engaged in a learning process that enabled them to become critically aware of the various individual and social forces that impact the lived experience of others. It also demonstrates how examining past issues of social injustice and oppression can be central to transformational learning about agency and advocacy in the modern day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the determinants of support for future generations, using novel survey data for the case of Germany. I find significant, but not overwhelming support for prioritizing the needs of future generations vs. the acute needs of present-day citizens. Moreover, individual-level and contextual factors matter too. High-income and highly educated citizens are on average more supportive of the needs of future generations, the elderly and women less so. Left-wing supporters are equally more supportive of future generations, especially supporters of the Greens and those subscribing to 'green-alternative-liberal' values. Supporters of the right-wing populist AfD are most strongly opposed. General political trust boosts support for future generations, and economically thriving local economies are associated with higher levels of support for future generations as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees are perceived as a category of people that are 'vulnerable' per se. However, once they have arrived in (high-income) hosting countries and are supported by a welfare state, vulnerability needs to be rethought, as they face new challenges and potential sources of inequality. In this paper, we have measured vulnerability as the probability of experiencing jointly three interdependent risks: social isolation, financial worries and poor health. For this purpose, we estimated a trivariate logit model to evaluate how individual and household characteristics are associated with vulnerability and also made inferences regarding the residual association between pairs of risks, conditionally to a set of selected covariates. Using the 2016 wave of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP survey of refugees in Germany, we demonstrated the significant correlations between the risks experienced by refugees and assessed a 'propagation effect' that affects vulnerability when the three risks come together. Taking this result into account may be useful in preventing vulnerability among refugees when they are faced with even one of these risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between education and technological rationality from the perspective of the philosophy of education, and to show that while education is deeply related to technique, skills, or technology, it can never be reduced to technical knowledge, and that there are things in education that overflow technical knowledge. I will here ask why there is something in education that overflows technical knowledge — I will define it as knowledge of pathos — and why it is necessary to redefine the meaning of education in terms of knowledge of pathos. In order to address this issue, I will first examine the relationship between technology and transcendence in the world of education in Kei Hachiya's Education and Transcendence. Second, I will show that recent outstanding theoretical achievements of Japanese philosophers of education — Satoji Yano's Education from the Perspectives of Gift and Exchange, Yasuo Imai's Medial Perspective on Education, and Tsunemi Tanaka's Clinical Theory of Human Becoming — are all located within the problematic area of 'technology-pathos-education'. Finally, I would like to propose a 'philosophy of education built on fragile parts', with a view to redefining education through the knowledge of pathos, paying attention to the experience of pathei mathos and the opportunity of weakness in the philosophy of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to reinterpret asylum theory (1954) propounded by Ortwin Henssler (1923–2017) as a free-space theory of education, as a way of grasping the problematic nature of 'pedagogical protection.' The theoretical potential of Henssler's thought has been more appreciated, accepted, and developed in Japan than in his native Germany. First, I outline Henssler's theory of asylum and show how his theory has been received and developed in Japan, especially in the fields of historical researches. Secondly, I discuss the possibility of reading Henssler's thought of asylum as a theory of 'pedagogical protection.' Thirdly, I consider whether it is possible to interpret 'free space' in education based on the model of asylum. Finally, I delineate some prospects for and challenges involved in connecting the theory of asylum to the theory of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of climate and ecological crises, it is vital that car use be reduced, while simultaneously shifting towards different powertrains and reducing the size, weight and energy demand of vehicles. This poses a challenge to the global car industry, as its business model historically centres on selling more and larger cars. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social-ecological limits of industrial restructuring in Germany. A narrative literature review through the lens of Marxian political economy sheds light on intertwined system-immanent barriers to achieving social and ecological sustainability at the sectoral level. Consequently, powertrain electrification is structured by technological dynamism, which fuels appropriation in the quest for metals and rare earths, with significant social and ecological disadvantages. This generates an impasse for the industry's transition strategies. Understanding how capitalist tendencies generate interlaced and mutually re-enforcing barriers to achieving social-ecological sustainability is key to understanding why industrial transitions are insufficient from a social-ecological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some of the founders of American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology were part of the transregional Jewish and non-Jewish German speaking community, Jewish anthropology, and anthropology by or on Jews in German-speaking countries, was seriously impacted by the Shoah. Some sources in the area of historical anthropology engage with Jews, who were anthropologists, and who were murdered or who fled, others focus on the appropriation of Jewish cultural heritage and zoom in on discourses about Jews. Living Jews are oftentimes covered in dissertations, after which the nascent ethnologist/anthropologist vanishes from academia, or leaves the country: research on living Jews seems an unsustainable career move. This paper is a first attempt to sketch out the developments of Jewish anthropology – in the broadest sense – in Germany post-1945. It will pay due attention to structures, societal, social, and academic; the place of anthropology within these structures; and Jews, as an ethno-religious group being researched by anthropologists (and other ethnographers); and the anthropologists/ethnographers who research them. By paying close attention to the anthropologists and ethnographers themselves, it is possible to "map the margins" (Crenshaw 1991) of anthropological and ethnographic work in an emotionalized, ideologized, and politicized field, a field that is indicative of post-genocidal intergroup relations in situ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in professional sports organisations highlights the positive external effects of CSR, while employee-related and organisational outcomes are widely ignored. We aim at filling this gap by analysing the relationship between perceived CSR (PCSR) and perceived organisational performance (POP) in professional sports organisations (PSOs) and how this relationship is mediated by organisational identification and employee satisfaction. Based on a systematic literature review on the organisational outcomes of CSR we derive our research model and three hypotheses that are tested using parallel regression analyses. We hypothesise that PCSR is positively related to POP and that this relationship is positively mediated by organisational identification and employee satisfaction. Our sample consists of 338 employees of professional football, basketball, handball, ice hockey and volleyball clubs in Germany. Our results suggest that PCSR among employees of PSOs is positively related to POP, when controlling for age, gender, income, education, sports discipline, and organisational level. Furthermore, our results provide evidence that the positive relationship between PCSR and POP is positively and partially mediated by organisational identification and employee satisfaction. Our paper enlarges prior knowledge on internal outcomes of CSR in professional sports organisations by quantifying existent contributions on the impacts of PCSR on POP and providing a model for how this relationship is affected by organisational identification and employee satisfaction. Our results provide scholars with a framework for further scientific investigation and practitioners with a concept for integrating the positive impacts of CSR into approaches to developing both their organisation and its employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are substantial differences across regions regarding COVID-19 infections and deaths, which are partly explained by differences in practicing social distancing. In this paper we argue that the portrayal of COVID-19 in regional media might be an important factor in explaining regional differences in social distancing. By using mobility as a proxy, and analysing data on regional news coverage in Germany, we investigate empirically whether the geographical heterogeneity in COVID-19-related news reporting has translated into spatial variations in social distancing. Our results confirm that the frequency of and the element of fear in COVID-19 news have a significant, albeit time-varying, relationship with social distancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the private higher education (HE) systems in Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We examine the historical, political, and demographic contexts of private universities in both countries, as well as the role of the state in regulating and shaping the private HE sector. We then explore the interrelation of the public and private HE sectors in Germany and the UAE, with a focus on how competitive and market forces, as well as state regulation, affect the HE system. Finally, we reflect on the homogenising and differentiating drivers that contribute to explaining the private HE landscape in both countries. We use neo-institutionalist approach to identify different varieties of isomorphism in the two countries. Even though the growth and shape of the private higher education sector in both countries reflect international normative, mimetic and coercive pressures, our study suggests that the development of the private sector is moderated by country-specific historical developments as well as by political contexts that accelerate or slow down market dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although people may make sense of concepts like 'talent' and get influenced through discourses reinforced in the media, not much research has investigated the construction of 'talent' in the media or in relation to football, yet. By applying Laclau and Mouffe's discourse-theoretical analysis and aspects of quantitative content analysis to forty-four news articles, this study compares how German and Swedish media construct and reinforce discourses of 'talent' in football. The findings suggest that cross-cultural media share common reference points in shaping discourses on 'football talent'. However, these nodal points are allocated and formed in distinct ways within each country, thus constituting floating signifiers. The study unveils that 'talent' constitutes an empty concept within and across specific cultural settings. Nonetheless, the conceptual notions surrounding talent seems more uniform in Swedish media compared to Germany. Moreover, gender disparities in the context of 'football talent' discourses predominantly link talent with male football players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the interpretation of object-initial sentences in German-speaking children. We addressed the following questions: (1) Which morphosyntactic cues do children deploy to process object-initial sentences? (2) Which executive function (EF) abilities support them during this task? This study examined the effect of case and number agreement morphology in 4;6-year-old German-speaking children (N = 27) on their interpretation of unambiguous S(ubject)-V(erb)-O(bject) and OVS sentences by combining an offline (sentence-picture matching) and an online (looking-while-listening) paradigm. Participants' working memory and cognitive control abilities were assessed by means of a (forward) digit-span test and a flanker task. Case-marked OVS sentences were processed more accurately than number-marked ones, although both conditions were less accurate than SVO sentences. We found a comprehension facilitation driven by higher cognitive control skills that enhances, specifically the interpretation of the more demanding number cue in OVS structures already in 4;6-year-olds. Higher working memory skills are generally associated with children's processing skills as they support the correct parsing of all online conditions and of both SVO and OVS in the offline case condition. We conclude that while case-marking appears to be processed more reliably than number by preschoolers, also number information alone can be processed, especially by children with higher cognitive control skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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