Institute of Education

The Institute of Education (IfE) brings together in its current 13 research group studies from the fields of general pedagogy and didactics, research on pedagogic organisation, professionalisation and instruction, socialisation in childhood, youth and family, and in the main thematic area of diversity and heterogeneity. A special feature of the IfE by nationwide comparison is the range of its theoretical bases and research approaches, which represent the different disciplinary perspectives in educational science in their full breadth. These different perspectives are reflected in ongoing research at the IfE, encourage productive debate over developments in the fields of child development and education, and are potential sources of cooperation and networking.

Members of the IfE played a leading role in 2017 and 2018 in organising the 26th Congress of the German Society for Educational Science (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft, DGfE), the International Conference of the Special Interest Group on Moral and Democratic Education within the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI) at InZentIM, and two doctoral training events on “Participation in qualitative educational research” at the IZfB, and “Interdisciplinary research perspectives on migration and acculturation in a school context.”

The IfE simultaneously creates the setting for many studies and projects in the fields of theoretical and applied research and structural development in higher education. Special attention should be drawn here to the DFG projects “Leadership and school improvement in context. A systematic comparative analysis of North Rhine-Westphalia and California” (2017–2019, Dr. Esther Dominique Klein) at the IZfB, “Relevant predictors for multiple language and intercultural learning. A quasi-experimental study on multilingual orientation in French as a foreign language instruction” (2016–2020, Prof. Kerstin Göbel), and a research network likewise funded by the DFG, “Being young – growing older: temporalities in transition” (2017–2020, Prof. Alexandra König and Dr. Sebastian Schinkel). Projects that relate to application in practice other than development of the local school landscape are chiefly concerned with teaching and learning concepts, evaluation of practice-based projects, and structures for pedagogic professionalisation, like those being developed in the university-wide project “Professionalisation for diversity” (ProViel) under the “Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung” teacher training quality campaign.

In terms of international cooperation, the “Center of Excellence for Technology Education (CETE)” (2015–2018), an international network led by Prof. Ingelore Mammes with funding from the DAAD, and the EU-funded research project “A New Way for New Talents in Teaching (NEWTT)” (2016–2019), led by Prof. Hermann Josef Abs, stand out in particular. Other international connections exist through research visits, teacher mobility projects, and joint research networks and initiatives. Finally, cooperation with the IZfB and InZentIM and proposal initiatives that are already under way by individual members build the foundation for the development of new international research contexts in the near future.