The abrupt rise in the number of refugees coming to Germany in 2015 constituted a challenge not least for the educational system: First and foremost with regard to the sheer amounts of children and adolescents who had to be integrated into day-care centers and schools (see Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung 2016: 193ff.), but also in terms of the quality of education and teaching that could be provided for refugee children and youths. What is more, there were discussions about the general effects of integrating refugees into the German educational system. However, instead of referring to these events as a “refugee crisis”, they might also be seen as a potential learning opportunity, in that they upset the practical routines, either of the educational organizations or of their personnel.

Following these considerations, the proposed talk shall present the results of a research study that aims to further inquire into how educational organizations and their personnel have reacted to the aforementioned events: (How) did they learn and, if they did, how can differences in the ways of learning be explained? Referring to cultural learning theory (cf. Hodkinson et al. 2008) the study understands learning as a situated process (cf. Lave/Wenger 1991) that is based on experiences rather than on (changes in) cognitive representations. The study furthermore considers disruptions or upsets in practical routines as the cause or starting point for learning processes (cf. inter alia Dewey (1985[1916]), who, concerning this matter, refers to the negativity of experience). Furthermore, and following the cultural theory of Bourdieu (1994; 2000) as well as the sociology of knowledge as laid out by Mannheim (1982), the study draws on the basic differentiation between two sorts of knowledge – reflexive or theoretical knowledge on the one hand, and practical or incorporated knowledge on the other –  and on the assumption that it is the latter kind of knowledge which gives orientation for action. This practical or incorporated knowledge emerges on the basis of common experiences in socialization and life history and links the actors to each other - and this conjunction can be referred to as a social milieu. The study then takes a dual perspective on (educational) organizations: On the one hand, organizations are considered to consist of a set of formal rules or role assignments that have to be met by actors to acquire and maintain organizational membership (Luhmann 1964). This perspective allows for a distinction between organizations and the social milieus that operate within organizations, where the affiliation to a milieu and the respective incorporated or practical knowledge regulates if and how rules and role assignments are put into practice. On the other hand, and taking up the objection that organizations cannot be described as a set of rules or explicit knowledge structures only (cf. inter alia Weick 1995), the study tries to take into account the existence of a set of practices and implicit rules characteristic for one single organization, which some authors refer to as an “organizational milieu” (Nohl 2007).

Following this perspective, the study aims to analyze primarily two aspects of the ways educationalists and educational organizations have reacted to the aforementioned events: Firstly, it aims to analyze the modes in or by which the educationalists relate the knowledge and abilities in place before and after the events, i.e. their (collective) “learning orientations” (Nohl 2014). Secondly, it aims to analyze the learning processes of the educational organizations occurring in reaction to the events, specifically the phases of learning, e.g. with regard to changes to the formal structure of the organization as well as to the practices and implicit rules of the organization as a whole.

The study applies the Documentary Method of Interpretation (Bohnsack 2014; Bohnsack et al. 2010), which refers in particular to Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, through which Mannheim established a perspective of analysis where the actors’ knowledge is the basis of analysis, even though the aforementioned concepts allow for a clear distinction between the actors’ common sense and scientific interpretation. Documentary analyses primarily focus on the empirical reconstruction of (collective) incorporated or practical knowledge and the milieu affiliation of social actors. However, the method has already been applied to analyze organizations, taking into account different dimensions of theoretical knowledge as well (cf. Amling/Vogd 2017). The study addresses six educational organizations and their personnel in three different educational domains: social work (caring for unaccompanied minor foreigners), early childhood education (in day-care centers) and teaching (primary schools). The organizations differ with regard to their experience in dealing with cultural diversity, thus, facilities in districts with a relatively high or low proportion of foreign population will be addressed. Besides, the focus will be on organizations that existed before the events of 2015, so as not to mix up learning processes occurring in the course of the emergence of an organization with such learning taking place in reaction to the events. In each of the six organizations three different methods of inquiry will be applied: 1.) Group discussions (Bohnsack 2010) will help to identify different modes of learning regarding the actors’ (collective) ‘learning orientations’, as well as allow for the reconstruction of the overall organizational practice (cf. Mensching 2017). 2.) Narrative interviews (Nohl 2010; Schütze 2014) will shed further light on the professionals’ experiences that lead to specific modes of learning. 3.) Analyses of documents of the organization (Erne/Bohnack 2017), i.e. of their profiles or files in general, will primarily serve to identify the changes to the organization’s formal structure and/or its ‘corporate identity’.

First and foremost, the study aims to provide an empirical reconstruction of the modes of learning of educationalists as well as a typification of phases of learning in educational organizations stemming from different areas or fields. It will try to show how the educationalists and educational organizations have dealt with the disruption or upset to practical routines due to the aforementioned events, trying to generalize the findings with regard to their learning processes in general. In doing so, the study tries to take into account the different levels of learning taking place in educational organizations and to discuss the relations between them: How does a learning process at the level of the organization (i.e. changes in the formal structure or in the practices and implicit rules characteristic for one single organization) affect the learning processes of its members – e.g. do formal changes facilitate or inhibit such learning processes or are these processes decoupled? Do the learning processes of the members add up to a change in the characteristics of the organization as a whole? Third, the study aims to give information about the contexts or conditions that lead to certain forms or modes of learning: Can similarities in the modes of learning the educationalists apply be caused by similar professional backgrounds, i.e. training and education? Or is there evidence that the districts in which the organizations are situated make a difference? What relevance does the single organization have in this respect? Finally, the study will discuss the outcomes against the background of debates on educational professionalization: Do the learning processes contribute to an improvement in dealing with cultural diversity? Can best practices be identified, i.e. recommendable forms of learning in reaction to the admission of a great number of refugees into educational organizations?

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