German education policy attaches great importance to returnees from German schools abroad: Through their professional mobility, they are expected to acquire relevant competencies for intercultural and multilingual education as well as language-aware teaching and to put these skills into practice back in Germany (KMK 2017: 6). The starting point of this paper is to examine whether this educational policy assumption is viable and supported by academic findings. An international literature review focusing on English- and German-language studies points to the benefits of teachers' professional stays abroad, such as broadening their worldview, developing a range of professional skills, learning new teaching methods, approaches, tools and materials, and so on (Bense 2016: 45). However, when these teachers return home, they are unable to use these skills and knowledge because they are not recognised in terms of salary and career opportunities (ibid). In particular, in our own case study of a returnee from a German school in Turkey (Fißmer & Rosen forthcoming; Fißmer, Rosen & tom Dieck under review), it became clear that the teachers increased competence in language-sensitive teaching and multilingual education was not only not recognised, but also devalued in the face of the “monolingual habitus” (Gogolin 2008) of the German school. Following this, we present another case study of a teacher who worked at a German school in the USA and returned during the “long summer of migration” (Römhild et al. 2018) in 2015. To combine ethnographic and biographical research perspectives, we present the analysis of a biographical narrative interview with her from 2020, in which she reflects on her experiences abroad. Secondly, we draw on participant observations of her teaching of a language support measure for newly arrived and refugee students immediately after her return (see Rosen & tom Dieck 2022 and tom Dieck & Rosen 2023 for additional ethnographic analysis in this educational setting). A key exploratory finding is that a devaluation of the teacher's professional competence is also reconstructed in this case study, as the teacher had to wait another six years for a permanent position after her return. This seems all the more serious as she practices a migration-sensitive teaching style that avoids othering and instead focuses on shared experiences of everyday life abroad. In the concluding discussion, reflections on professionalisation are offered on the one hand, and a critical perspective on the partly missionary character of the German school abroad is raised on the other.

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