"Educational Disadvantage" as a Topic of Education Professionals in All-Day Schools

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Coelen; Professor Dr. Bernd Dollinger
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231964997

The reduction of educational disadvantage is a central legitimation for the recent expansion of all-day schools in Germany. Current information indicates that a reduction of educational disadvantage is not only a goal of education policy, but also education professionals at all-day schools strive to reduce educational disadvantage and put special needs opportunities in place. These expectations can only be realized by label-ing specific pupils as being disadvantaged. It is to be assumed that categorical differentiations are used as a basis for professional actions. Hence the central question is which orientation patterns of educational disad-vantages and related special education needs can be reconstructed for education professionals in all-day primary schools. This will be methodically conceptualized using two comparative dimensions: Firstly, the researchers take into consideration that all-day schools vary organizationally and offer, in some cases, all-day schooling for only certain grade levels. Therefore, the project analyzes which differentiations occur with respect to disadvantage and special needs according to the organizational type. Secondly, a feature of all-day schools lies in the cooperation of different occupational groups as central duties are taken over by teachers and additional other education personnel. It is expected that the orientation patterns of both occu-pational groups differ systematically since their educational approach is based on a different occupational socialization and habitus. To understand these aspects, this project uses a research design that is capable of reconstructing implicit habitual orientations. This requires the use of group discussions. Both occupational-homogeneous and occupational-heterogeneous group discussions will be conducted at all-day schools for the varying organizational types. This enables complex orientation patterns of the individual occupational groups to be reconstructed. In addition, the research design provides insight on the interactions and possible conflicts that occur at the conjunction of different orientation patterns as well as on the potential differences across all-day primary schools with varying organization types.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants