Pedagogic practice defined as an interactive and communicative exchange is subject to a complex structure of requirements that can be analyzed on different levels (e.g. so called social norms, expectations, discourses, organizational requirements, biographical resources of the actors, etc.). The proposed paper deals with the crucial challenges of educational practice. Because of structural changes of post-modern societies (Castells, 2017), the challenges are not only transformed, but new challenges can also be said to arise. Taking a profession-oriented theoretical perspective on these phenomenons, we will track central challenges for educational practices at the interface of two topics, namely inclusion and mediatization (Lundby, 2014). By this we hope to highlight current and upcoming challenges for educational practitioners in order to realize inclusive media education.

Setting a focus on educational practice in order to research professions allows for identifying numerous challenges, for which educational practitioners should be sensitized and prepared. Specific challenges for individual educational fields of work can be diagnosed as for example adult education (Nittel, 2000), social work (Schütze, 2000) or the school sector (Helsper, 2002). These challenges are described results of empirical analyses of specific educational contexts and therefore are also limited to these in their informative value. In order to identify a comprehensive understanding of challenges for educational work basic problems of educational practice have to be looked for in the light of structural and social transformations irrespective of the specific field. The paper will take up these presumptions and discuss them alongside inclusive and media education. 

Inclusion is thus understood as a “regulative idea” (Heinrich, Urban & Werning, 2013), that aims at minimizing discrimination and maximizing participation through educational practice (Ainscow, Booth & Dyson, 2006). In doing this historically developed forms of how actions are coordinated between various actors within educational fields are challenged. This applies both to actions coordinated on a school-structural level (e.g. models for the allocation of resources, demands for the dissolution of special schools) as well as to the level of the development of educational organizations and interactions. Therefore especially two areas of interest seem relevant: a demand for de-categorization versus necessary categorizations and the claim for recognition of egalitarian differences within educational practice versus the meriotocratic principle within the school system (Katzenbach, 2015). 

In consideration of contemporary discourses of media educational topics the discourse on questions of digitalization seems to be of central relevance. Here, not only questions of adaptive learning systems, learning analytics and data mining are evaluated (Swertz, 2018), but resulting challenges for educational practice are also discussed critically especially in relation to questions of social participation and social inequalities (Verständig & Iske, 2014). Therefore, questions of inclusion and exclusion can be discussed also in relation to a critical understanding of topics such as the quantification and datafication of educational contexts, which opens up further questions in relation to which realities and exclusions are created on the basis of what these data represent (Popkewitz, 2012).

In the combination of contemporary discourses on inclusive and media education, with a focus on educational practice from a profession-oriented theoretical perspective interesting findings emerge, that are relevant both for a discourse on inclusive education and media education. As the findings focus on overarching topics of educational practice related to transformations of post-modern societies, processes of digitalization and a focus on inclusion, they are relevant not only on a national level, but include also an international perspective on this subject. Thus while we will reflect on differences and similarities between different cultural educational practices shortly, the findings we present are relevant to wider international perspectives.

The paper will present a programmatic approach to understanding the challenges that result out of combining the disciplines of inclusive and media education from a profession-oriented theoretical perspective. Using different theoretical references from the disciplines of professionalization, inclusion and media education, we aim at tracing the described challenges on a theoretical level. In order to do this we will draw on existing theoretical concepts as well as empirical studies stemming from the fields just mentioned. The consideration of empirical studies from different educational sectors allows to avoid work-field-specific, organizational and/ or professional distortion effects and explicitly look for overarching challenges across a range of educational fields.

The paper discusses the proposed topic from an inter-disciplinary perspective focusing on the structures and challenges of educational practices. The structures and challenges identified hereby are of central relevance from a profession-oriented theoretical perspective precisely because they overarch individual fields of work and sectors of educational practice. This perspective allows to draw up demands for the qualification of educational professions, already virulent in different educational sectors today. Because of this, the paper not only allows for finding scientifically relevant results, but also identifies aspects that are valuable for a theoretical-practical transfer.

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