Topic

Traumatized young people spend much more time in educational institutions than in clinical settings. But educational research on traumatized students has not been as intensive as expected. It is assumed that these students have special needs regarding the teacher-student-relationship and the structure of the school’s schedule. Therefore, the study “Traumatized students in the classroom” aims at increasing pedagogical knowledge about traumatized children.

Theoretical Framework

Following a long period of neglect, traumatized children have been focused on by psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience and psychoanalysis during the last two decades. It can be shown that emotional neglect as well as family-based physical and sexual violence are responsible for the majority of severe traumata.

There is a need for a pedagogical understanding of trauma, especially of the emotional and intellectual impacts of it. It is also necessary to gain knowledge about the teachers’ emotional burdens. Teachers working with traumatized students need to be empowered to be able to keep on with their particularly difficult work. As described in the methodology section, research on childhood trauma requires a focus on teachers and further staff in schools as they possess the most comprehensive information about their students’ backgrounds and their current living conditions.

The gap in educational research specified above can at least partly be bridged by the presented research project.

Research questions

Research questions are in accordance with the three steps the project is composed of. All components focus on the teachers’ perceptions.

In a first step (October 2013 – January 2014), using an empirical, questionnaire based enquiry, we asked 92 professionals from elementary and special schools about their experiences with traumatized students. The main questions were:

a)      How many traumatized students do teachers recognize in their classrooms?

b)      What are the dominant kinds of traumatizing experiences in childhood and adolescence (i.e. physical violence, traumatizing breakup of parents)?

c)      How do teachers perceive the impact of traumatization regarding the individual’s intellectual and emotional development as well as the development of the peer group?

d)     What do teachers need to be able to work with these children and adolescents?

In a second step (February 2014 – August 2014), using qualitative interviews, we are going to ask teachers about the characteristics of their interpersonal relationships to traumatized children. The most important questions of interest are:

1.      Which recurrent patterns of relationship behavior do traumatized children show?

2.       What kind of trauma-related emotions do teachers observe in traumatized children?

3.       What kind of emotions do teachers feel in their work with traumatized children and adolescents?

During the third step, we are going to offer trauma focused further education for these teachers. By doing so, we will measure the change in subjective competence working with traumatized students. Therefore, the main question is:

1.      Do trauma-focused (and psychoanalysis-based) trainings have an influence on the teachers’ subjective competence when working with traumatized children?

Objectives

Taking into account that these children and adolescents can be seen as a marginalized group in educational research, the study will gain basic knowledge about numbers and impacts of traumatic experiences from a pedagogical point of view. Further on, it will help to conceptualize “trauma” as a pedagogical category with special regard to the dimension “relationship”. Last but not least, this study will generate results about the effects of trauma-focused trainings for teachers.

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