University Students’ Reflected Professionalization in the Context of Bologna-dominated Teacher Training

Author(s):

David Zimmermann(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 04,

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

09:00-10:30

Room:

W2.11

Chair:

Michael Jopling

Contribution

For teacher training with the focus on heterogeneity and disability, two core political decisions have had extensive implications: the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Research Strategy (Keeling, 2006) on the one hand and the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (2008) on the other. Although rooted in different levels of intergovernmental practice, the interplay of both reforms has given rise to substantial changes to the overall university system, and especially to teacher training:

1. Starting with “Bologna”, university education has changed towards modularized instruction which students complete in uniform rhythm. Critics argue that students have less opportunity to deepen their knowledge about relationship processes and to interrelate scientific knowledge to pedagogical work in schools (Kessl, 2015).

2. Induced by the UN Convention, the aim is to train a rising number of university students for inclusive education. This is accounted for by the fact that most of the upcoming teachers will work at inclusive schools. Therefore, they have to cope with a wide range of heterogeneity, such as disability, gender or cultural backgrounds. Here, the group of children with severe learning or emotional difficulties is of utmost importance (Willmann & Seeliger, 2016., p.2). They not only represent the majority of students with specific difficulties. Taking into account the scientific discourse in anglophone and German-language journals, the group of students with severe emotional and behavioral difficulties is seen as an acid test for the quality of inclusive education, too (Scanlon & Barnes-Holmes, 2013). Most of them do not have any diagnostic attribution (Macleod 2010, pp. 96–97; Stein, Müller 2015).

3. A shift in research mainstream has accompanied the higher education policies outlined above. Here one can find an extraordinary dominance by quantitative empirical generated data, headed by the OECD-driven PISA-Studies. In contrast to the boom of empirical educational research, the affective and emotional dimension of learning, usually investigated by qualitative research approaches, is funded and realized on a remarkably lower level. Consequently, the paradigm in university teaching has been changing from reflective professionalization towards the acquisition of evidence based training programs that are seen as the heart of successful classroom management (Durlak et al., 2011; Hillenbrand, 2015).

What unifies both reforms is that they require the imparting of a high quantity of knowledge within a short time. Not only, but especially with the focus on children at risk, this forces the issue of an adequate approach towards the professionalization of university degree courses.

Starting at Leibniz University Hannover and continuing at Humboldt University Berlin, we could establish a project for Master Degree Students in which the participating men and women accompanied a child or a youngster once a week during one year. Some of these children or adolescents were refugees; all of them lived under difficult circumstances. There were no specific instructions respecting developmental goals or academic achievements. Instead, students are required to shape a pedagogical relationship, led by the interests and wishes of the child or adolescent.

To facilitate relationship work, we offered reflection courses every fourteen days. Case work has been at the focus of these seminars from the very beginning. This needs to be complemented by the analysis of the broader social context in which the companionship is taking place. The material the students present implies directly accessible parts of the interaction as well as information about emotions and reflections. By using this material, we have been expecting to contribute to students’ professionalization through intensive thinking about relationship processes (Müller & Schwarz, 2016).

Method

Research questions therefore focus on the effects of a relationship-centered approach in teacher training. That is why the main question focuses on the anticipated growing capacity to reflect on the child’s inner world and the relationship. Within the project’s first year, the subject of dealing with no specific task emerged. Therefore, this became a second research question, especially as dealing with no specific task can be seen as a fault within Bologna-centered degree courses. A third question emerged as most of the students do work in educational institutions during their training. We wanted to find out how they evaluated the opportunities to transfer reflection focused approaches to pedagogical practice. For a good part of the questions, an Action Research (Sagor, 2000) approach including the accompanying students seemed to be adequate. Therefore we asked the students to document their companionships through photos and transcripted narratives from the children and adolescents. Here, some problems emerged, as most students found it difficult to merge the interpersonal relationship they had with the children with accomplishing a scientific task. We hereby understood that this could potentially be seen as an interference into their relationship work. Therefore, we have limited data from this portion of the research. Secondly, a depth hermeneutic approach was necessary to reconstruct the potential change in reflective capacity on the students’ side. With this end in mind, we invited the students to join a group discussion (Morgenroth, 2012). We transcripted, analyzed and discussed two group discussions (one after the first year, one after the second year of the training) (Zimmermann, Mueller & Scheele, 2017). By interconnecting manifest and latent data (Lorenzer, 1974), developmental capabilities and barriers for a relationship-centered university course can be derived. The results facilitate a critical reflection on current developments in Bachelor and Master degree courses, as they reveal real faults in the Bachelor-Master programs for Inclusive Education.

Expected Outcomes

Focusing on research aspects, we’ve been expecting profound insights into the professional development of more than 20 students who participated in the project. In particular, the triangulation of manifest and latent data facilitates the understanding of the developmental processes of students getting in touch with children and adolescents living in difficult circumstances when they have the opportunity to intensively reflect on the process. As is accepted in qualitative work, it is not the intention to generalize the results on a quantitative basis. However, a theoretical generalization is possible, since the project is embedded in an elaborate theoretical foundation. As we use theoretical approaches from special education, psychoanalytic theory and empirical educational research as reference discourses, we expect to contribute to suitable concepts for professional education with the focus on children at risk. This should be seen as a contribution to university development, too, as new ways of teaching and preparing for pedagogical work are overdue. Last but not least we can expect an important contribution to the questions of communication within universities. Since the professor-student relationship changes when taking part in a reflection-focused project, anyone must be aware of the limits and opportunities. Therefore we will go through the data once again with that focus in mind and hope to derive statements regarding the setting and developmental tasks for professional cooperation.

References

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dynmicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D. et al. (2011). The impact of enhancing students social and emotional learning: a meta analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development 82, 405-432. Hillenbrand, C. (2015). Evidenzbasierte Praxis im Förderschwerpunkt emotional-soziale Entwicklung. In R. Stein & T. Müller (Hrsg.), Inklusion im Förderschwerpunkt emotionale und soziale Entwicklung (S. 170–215). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Keeling, R. (2006). The Bologna Process and the Lisbon Research Agenda: the European Commission’s expanding role in higher education discourse. European Journal of Education 41 (2), 203-223. Kessl, F. (2015): Ökonomisierung von Bildung und Erziehung: Von der Dynamisierung eines anhaltenden Prozesses durch TTIP. Erziehungswissenschaft 26, 17-24. Lorenzer, A. (1986): Tiefenhermeneutische Kulturanalyse. In: Kultur-Analysen. Psychoanalytische Studien zur Kultur (pp. 11-98). Frankfurt: Fischer. Macleod, J. (2010). Identifying obstacles to a multidisciplinary understanding of ‘disruptive’ behaviour. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 15 (2), 95-109. Morgenroth, C. (2012). Deciphering Political Utopias. Unions, Female Night Work, and Gender Justice. Forum Qualitative Research. Online: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1898 (05.01.2017). Müller, C., Schwarz, U.J. (2016). Psychosoziale Aspekte der pädagogischen Arbeit mit geflüchteten Kindern und Jugendlichen. Sonderpädagogische Förderung heute, 61(1), 23–38. Sagor, R. (2000): Guiding School Improvement with Action Research. Alexandria: ASCD. Scanlon, G., Barnes-Holmes, Y. (2013). Changing attitudes: supporting teachers in effectively including students with emotional and behavioural difficulties in mainstream education. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 18 (4), 374-395. Stein, R., Müller, T. (2015). Verhaltensstörungen und emotional-soziale Entwicklung: zum Gegenstand. In R. Stein & T. Müller (Eds.), Inklusion im Förderschwerpunkt emotionale und soziale Entwicklung (pp. 19–43). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. United Nations (2008). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol. Online: www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf (05.01.2017). Willmann, M., Seeliger, G.M. (2016). SEBD inclusion research synthesis: a content analysis of research themes and methods in empirical studies published in the journal Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties 1996-2014. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13 632752.2016.1255441 (05.01.2017). Zimmermann, D., Mueller, C., Scheele, L. (2017). Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der reflexiven pädagogischen Beziehungsarbeit. In. Rauh, B., Gingelmaier, S., Kreuzer, T., Abstinenz und Verwicklung, Leverkusen: Budrich: in press.

Author Information

David Zimmermann (presenting / submitting)

Humboldt-University Berlin

Special Education

Berlin

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.