Achievement: A social practice in Primary School. An International Comparative Analysis on Germany and Italy (APra)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Michaela Kaiser
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 543490985

The project investigates, against the background of an international-comparative perspective, how achievement and achievement differences are produced in discourse-practice formations in primary school classrooms in Italy (Bolzano/South Tyrol) and Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia). For this purpose, the professional habitus of teachers in their professional biographies and the classroom practices of teachers and students in primary schools with their collective aspects are reconstructed (first level). Further, the relationship of this dimension to educational policy is examined, taking into account discursive knowledge orders (second level). The project investigates, against the background of an international-comparative perspective, how achievement and achievement differences are produced in discourse-practice formations in primary school classrooms in Italy (Bolzano/South Tyrol) and Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia). For this purpose, the professional habitus of teachers in their professional biographies and the classroom practices of teachers and students in primary schools with their collective aspects are reconstructed (first level). Further, the relationship of this dimension to educational policy is examined, taking into account discursive knowledge orders (second level). The relationship to the nation-state and to transnational aspects of achievement and achievement difference as a socially produced construct will also be addressed. The guiding research question is therefore: what understandings of achievement underlie the actions of primary school teachers in different educational systems and how are these related to political norms? This is done against the backdrop of an understanding of academic achievement as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon that can take on different meanings in different historical and cultural contexts. In the planned study, this will be done using a more stratified (Germany) and an only weakly stratified (Italy) school system.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy
• Partner Organisation: Autonome Provinz Bozen - Südtirol
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Simone Seitz