The diagnosis of a serious illness in children and adolescents not only poses great challenges for the patients and their parents, but is also an important issue for schools and educators. Serious and long-term illnesses represent developmental tasks for pupils that deviate from their usual life routine, which - if not successfully overcome - can be accompanied by further emotional and social challenges. There has been a discussion about further training for teaching during illness since the 1970s. There is a consensus that teachers need additional pedagogical and didactic skills in this field, but there is still no curricular or state-recognised training or further education in German-speaking countries. With regard to adequate schooling in the sense of pedagogy during illness, it can therefore be stated that there is a lack of clarification of (political, financial, scientific and pedagogical) responsibilities as well as a lack of systematisation and evaluation of pedagogical action. In addition, there is a lack of interconnection between practical expertise and scientific knowledge in this area, which is all the more problematic as it is of great relevance, especially in stressful situations such as illness, that pupils receive appropriate educational support in a timely manner. The illness-specific educational support requirements lead to special demands on teachers.

The focus is on questions of professionalisation in the face of the great heterogeneity of sick pupils and special schools as inclusive places of education. The contribution focusses on vulnerability as a heterogeneity dimension using the example of illness and how to deal with it in terms of inclusive education.

This symposium will present findings from projects that deal with pedagogy in the case of illness. One project aims to establish the first international network of Swiss universities in the field of "pedagogy during illness" and "hospital schools" - initially with Germany and Austria - and subsequently with the UK. A sustainable transnational network between universities (science) and hospital schools (practice) has been established in the D-A-CH network (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), in which empirical analyses of the requirements and practical professional goals of hospital schools have been carried out. These empirical analyses will result in the form of a curriculum for a Master's degree course in Hospital School Pedagogy anchored in Switzerland, which will contribute to the professionalisation of teachers at hospital schools and to the further development of pedagogy in the event of illness. In this regard, specific pedagogical aspects that need to be taken into account in pedagogy during illness will be analysed and presented at the symposium.

Another project is investigating the use of digital educational technology for children and young people with chronic illnesses. The question of whether and in what way telepresence systems, such as the AV1 avatar, can enable pupils with chronic illnesses to be included in everyday school life and what opportunities but also hurdles need to be taken into account for educators is being investigated. To this end, an interview study was conducted and presented and discussed at the symposium.

Overarching, the contributions deal with the question of the professionalisation of how teachers deal with sick pupils both in special schools and in mainstream schools in terms of inclusive education. This research question is addressed methodologically in the individual contributions, both empirically and quantitatively.

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