The paper provides an insight into classroom research from the perspective of Bildungsgang didactics. We translate the German compound that combines “Bildung” and “Gang” as “learner development and educational experience” as it is based on teacher-student interaction. Theory: In the first part of our presentation, we develop core aspects of the theory of Bildungsgang didactics (Trautmann 2004, Meyer 2007, 2008). We focus on the process of Bildung which is a dynamic, sense making process based on the biographical background and on the developmental tasks the students have to cope with. It is the learning subjects’ orientation in their world and includes the possibility of transformation of what the grownups offer as meaningful (Peukert 1998, Koller 2008, Koller 2014). We have investigated how children, adolescents and young adults behave in teaching and learning situations. We have analysed how they experience school and instruction and how their biographical background influences their actions, and we have analysed – as Havighurst (1948/1972) put it - how they combine societal constraints and individual freedom. We reconstruct the students’ developmental processes with their ups and down, crises, and breakthroughs, and examine how they become responsible persons or drop outs in an increasingly complex and difficult world. Case study: In the second part we present and discuss data and results from a qualitative research project on Content and Language Integrated Learning (Wegner 2011). The underlying research question is in which way the teacher’s appreciation of the perspective of the students can foster processes of Bildung. As the comparison of teachers’ and students’ viewpoints plays a major role, the case study is based on classroom observation, and teacher and student interviews. Results, expectations and comparative perspectives: The data show that teachers and students interact in a way which is too often characterized by misunderstanding and pseudo-communication, but in spite of that students have clear ideas concerning their own learning difficulties and how teaching could be improved. The findings suggest that teachers should foster negotiation of meaning and feedback in both directions, thus increasing their competences as reflective practitioners. The findings can be read as an invitation for comparative classroom research and comparative theory construction. We will therefore discuss whether Joint Action Theory in Didactics, as it has been introduced by Gérard Sensevy (2011), Brigitte Gruson, Monique Loquet and others, can be used in order to assess the theoretical qualities of Bildungsgang didactics.

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