In the discourse of teacher education, the term “Erziehung” and its implications for classroom interactions are critically discussed. Originated from the discussions that children need support and guidance, a variety of theories address the question of how to nurture children and prepare them for a life in society (Winch & Gingell, 2008). In addition to that, there are specific discourses in the field of school education about how students, and children in general, should be educated regarding their development of values, morals and social interactions (i. a. Dewey, 2002). Conclusions to these questions are related to historical, cultural and social circumstances and therefore differ between nations and their implementation in school guidelines and curriculums.

The term “Erziehung”, originated in the German speaking countries, addresses specific perspectives on education and the development of students. Its meaning varies from teaching certain values to developing or preserving personality traits which are perceived as desirable by (groups in) society (i. a. Wiater, 2012).

Schools and teachers play an important part in the development mentioned above because children spent a significant time of their life in schools and in the classroom, where they constantly face challenges regarding their personal and social development (Buddeberg, Hornberg & Zimmermann, in print). For example, students have to deal with peers, schoolmates, teachers and school staff, adapt to different roles in these interactions, observe rules and interiorize routines. The school and teachers, on the other hand, have the responsibility to arrange and support these aspects of the student’s development deliberately.

The approach of the documentary educational research is based on the theoretical assumption that besides an explicit knowledge, which we are able to recall, there is also an implicit knowledge (in other theories also referred to as a “tacit” or intuitive knowledge). This implicit knowledge is rooted in social practice and applies to “Erziehung” as a part of a teacher and classroom practice (Budde, 2020). Thus, teachers (and their students) often act intuitively rather than being aware of all their actions in situations or moments of “Erziehung”. The implicit knowledge, which is expressed in the actions of the teachers and students, is referred to as “orientations” and can be made accessible to the researcher by reconstructing the interactions between them.

So far, documentary educational research has just recently begun to examine interactions regarding “Erziehung”. Yet, there are two studies in particular which lay the foundation of this approach. Firstly, Nohl (2020) exemplary reconstructs the interaction between a toddler and nursery school teachers to show how “Erziehung” can be understood as an imposition of “basic rules”. “Basic rules” are in this case gestures, facial expressions and language (by the baby: “sounds”) which are directed at somebody or something and are perceived by somebody as meaningful or relevant so they eventually react. The basic rules are necessary to make mutual communication possible. The second study by Asbrand & Martens (2020) focuses on interactions between teachers and students outside of lessons. They reconstructed a variety of impositions, which mostly indicate a divergence in the orientations between the teachers and students.

Following this approach, the aim of this poster presentation is to discuss the meaning of orientations for a better understanding of “Erziehung” while the lesson is in progress. Furthermore, we will show how to reconstruct those orientations to make “Erziehung” empirically accessible.

The study is realised in the context of the project DoProfiL, which is part of the German quality initiative for teacher training at TU Dortmund University. To be able to reconstruct the orientations of the teachers and discuss their meaning regarding interactions of “Erziehung” while the lesson is in progress, we chose a qualitative approach and analysed two lessons per school. The sampling includes two primary schools and one comprehensive school in Germany. As a methodology, the documentary educational research (Asbrand and Martens, 2018) enables the reconstruction of implicit knowledge of social practice. By using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010) we are able to examine what the students and teachers do and, especially, how the interactions are realised in order to extract meaning that might not be explicit or even accessible to the observed persons. By using classroom videographies as a data collection tool, the documentary method is extended to a multimodal interaction analysis, which allows reconstructing simultaneous and complex classroom interactions (Asbrand & Martens, 2018). Referring to Nohl (2020), “Erziehung” is demonstrated in interactions between teachers and students, something which can be understood as a procedure of imposition. Therefore, we examine interactions where the teacher imposes an orientation regarding certain patterns of communication and interaction which the student is supposed to adopt. Since we obtained the audio-visual data material used for the following analyses from inclusive lessons in a primary school, a large part of the interactions take place on a non-verbal level. In order to address this non-verbal level in the analyses, we focus on micro-perspective interaction processes. Methodologically, we add the video-based documentary interaction analysis according to Nentwig-Gesemann and Nicolai (2015) which aims at the early childhood education context. This allows us to focus particularly on the micro-perspectivity of classroom interactions. To analyse the classroom interactions we use selected video sequences and a written transcript of the lessons. According to the methodical procedure, we scan the material with regard to condensed scenes first. The next step is to perform a descriptive “formulating interpretation” (what is happening in the lesson?). The third step requires a “reflective interpretation” (how are the interactions organised?) which is performed in exchange with a research team in order to obtain multi-perspective facets of the material. Following these three steps, the scenes are analysed based on a case-internal comparison of each lesson filmed and afterwards interpreted in terms of a cross-case comparison.

The current findings give an important first impression of how to understand classroom interactions regarding “Erziehung”. Overall, our reconstructions indicate a variety of approaches and actions of the teachers and students while interacting with one another in the lesson. All these actions and approaches are realised to a certain extent, reoccur subsequently to other actions, and are evident between specific persons and/or group of persons. Therefore, we can conclude patterns of behaviour which are linked to certain situations and can be reconstructed as orientations of teachers and students. Recurring approaches and actions are, for example, that almost exclusively teachers are the ones who initiate and conclude interactions with their students. They even ignore propositions of their students, when they are not performed in a specific manner. This means that through the teacher-student-interaction certain patterns of behaviour are imposed on the students. In reference to the mentioned approach and conclusions of Nohl (2021), the reconstructions so far suggest that there are “basic rules” in the course of interactions in a lesson. The teachers, however, are not explicitly communicating these “basic rules” in the interaction with their students. Rather, they are implicitly directed at the students through their actions and patterns of responding. In conclusion, the actions and patterns can be understood as impositions, because the students have to implement them if they want their teachers to react to their proposition and requests in the lesson. The results of our observations and reconstructions are relevant to specify how the development of students is realised in the lesson and which challenges students and their teachers are facing to fulfil them. As basic research, our research set a foundation for further research regarding the specification of “Erziehung” as a classroom practice, especially in terms of valid quantitative approaches in the future.

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