Newly immigrated pupils in lower-secondary education. A qualitative study on language education during the transition from preparatory to mainstream classes

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sara Fürstenau
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 427446374

Although migration does not represent an unknown phenomenon for the German education system, new migration from 2015 onwards (once again) presented schools and teachers with challenges. Newly immigrated pupils in secondary schools are taught primarily in preparatory classes, where the focus is on the systematic acquisition of German. The subsequent transition into the mainstream system, which is considered particularly challenging and has been little investigated so far, is the subject of this research proposal. The theoretical framework includes (1) an understanding of school development in which the integration of newcomers does not represent an anomaly to be met with special measures but rather an everyday task in the organisation of school and teaching in a migration society, (2) a concept of language education that combines the acquisition of German as a second and academic language with the constructive consideration of migration-related multilingualism and (3) an investment model from the research on language learning, according to which language is both a cognitive and a social process. The first aim is to deliver findings on how language education options and the interlinking of linguistic and subject-specific learning are organised in lower-secondary education on an individual school level. The second aim is to deliver findings on which of the opportunities on offer during the transition from a preparatory class into a mainstream class pupils can use to their advantage. Ethnographic research methods will be used to compile school portraits and case studies of selected pupils.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants