The aim of the project is to analyze measures that reduce social inequality on the level of school organization. Only by generating informed knowledge about concrete measures it can be examined which measures actually work. The work contributes to the ultimate justification of which ‘direction of impact’ (Solga & Dombrowski 2009) should pursue science, practice and politics in order to reduce social inequality demonstrably in this context.

Pertinence:

Despite improved educational backgrounds as well as educational participation of children and adolescents in recent years, Germany’s educational report in 2017 states that it has still not been possible to sustainably break the close link between social background and educational success (BAMS 2017). Schools as public institutions are required to fulfill their social and educational task to give people with diverse social backgrounds access to higher education (Möller 2015).

Research of the last decades has mostly been focused on individual educational decisions and institutional barriers, such as transitions on the educational system. In summary, we can speak of theoretical and methodical tendencies. Processes within the school usually remain hidden: The strong focus on the inequality development at the transitions of the school system has led to the fact that school as an organizational context as well as the processes taking place here have rarely been studied so far (Berkemeyer & Meißner 2017). School-type or school-specific offers of individual support as well as targeted measures to reduce educational disadvantage, or rather a lack of those, are also relevant (Ditton 2016).

Theoretical framework:

In order to analyze the reduction of social inequality on the level of school organization, the theoretical framework of the project deals with different organizational theories on the one hand as well as, derived from this, with the consideration of the specificity of the school from an organizational theory perspective. On the other hand the focus is on a variety of causes and mechanisms of action, which are responsible for the emergence and manifestation of education inequality, based on knowledge of socialization and school effectiveness research, which finally shows what measures can potentially contribute to the reduction of social inequality in schools.

In addition, the level of school organization processes in schools are examined more closely. According to Fend, it describes the school as an ‘educational unit of action’ (Fend 2008) in which the school administration acts as a central actor. Based on this, the organizational structure of the school includes (infrastructural) areas, conceptual devices as well as other contextual framework conditions. Measures to reduce social inequality can therefore be designed in very different ways, such as: a languages learning curriculum or financial support. From a different perspective, these measures may target the languages, habitual patterns and practices, as well as capital-oriented resources of individual students.

Research questions:

In summary desiderata are present especially in the study and analysis of these concrete measures, which aim to reduce social inequality on the level of school organization. In addition, as it is currently unclear what measures will be taken in practice alongside those already discussed in science, the project analyzes both scientific and practical teaching skills. The questions of the research project are:

What measures to reduce social inequality can be found on the level of school organization?

-          What measures to reduce social inequality at school organizational level can be found in educational science (using selected literature from the past ten years and expert interviews with researchers in educational science)?

-          What measures to reduce social inequality at school organizational level can be found in school practice (using the example of expert interviews with school administrators)?

As a result of these questions, it will be shown, what knowledge about these measures is available both within educational science and in the concrete school practice and to what extent the findings from both directions fit together, to reveal concrete needs. Since, in a first step measures for the reduction in educational science are analyzed, the project then methodically applies the document analysis to a systematic mapping. With this qualitative-interpretive procedure for the analysis and evaluation of already existing data, it is possible to take a closer look at documents of (educational) literature. The data is generated by hand searching in influential German journals (for example Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft) and in other databases. The subsequent interpretation of the documents is based on the qualitative content analysis according to Mayring (2016) and is structured and evaluated on the basis of deductive and inductive categories. Nationwide and cross-school-formative results are included in order to take potential measures to reduce social inequality at the level of school organization into consideration as far as possible. Based on this material and the related findings from the document- and content analysis, interviews with experts in educational science will be conducted in order to generate further insights from a scientific perspective. In a final step and for the analysis of concrete measures, the school-practical side is looked at, using interviews of school administrators, who deal with the issue of inequality in school, and realized measures are taken into consideration. In order to be able to identify these school managements, the LEAD tool is used in advance: The Leadership for Equity Assessment and Development (LEAD) Tool has been explicitly generated in the US for school development teams and school administrators to facilitate the development and structuring of internal school development processes for reducing educational inequality (Barton & Larson 2013). After this internal evaluation has been translated and revised to fit the German school system, it serves as a preliminary study for the identification of precisely those schools, which demonstrably focus on the reduction of educational inequality. The schools will be specifically interviewed within a commune using the LEAD tool. The administration of the schools that comprehensively specify measures in the LEAD tool in this preliminary study will then be interviewed with the help of a guide interview.

On the one hand, the first indications suggest, that at least within educational science there is a research dispute. Thus, only a few studies that deal with measures to reduce social inequality on the level of school organization are shown. Instead, there are more frequent suggestions found in research about how social inequality could be reduced on the level of school organization, so that, for example a ‘transitional advice’ (Müller-Benedikt 2008) is recommended. However, no further information is available on the benefits or concrete application of such measures. On the other hand a ‘translation problem’ (Heinrich 2013) is suspected between educational research and school practice suspected. Although previous initial knowledge does not point to a transfer problem between science and practice, there is also the possibility that either in science or in practice, ideas, suggestions, concepts or concrete measures are present, without being scientifically sound in research or applied in practice. The analysis of previously proposed or practiced measures to reduce social inequality on the level of school organization does not claim to provide evidence of the benefits of this measure. How these measures work and whether or what benefits they emanate can only be analyzed in a further step – after having knowledge of which measures are actually being discussed in this context. The aim of the project is to generate this comprehensive knowledge in order to be able to transparently investigate to solving the problem of social inequality in the long term.

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