The proposed contribution likes to approach the “Network 14” topic of school-community relationships and educational research by focusing on German-speaking families who have taken their children out of state schools due to a mixture of state and school criticism in pandemic times. Based on data of a long-term multi-sited ethnography (2021–ongoing) on the establishment of pedagogical alternatives con-/post-covid, the presentation seeks to explore the educational hopes and disappointments, as well as the “social imaginaries” (Taylor 2004)  that are woven into these small new educational spaces (Löw and Weidenhaus 2017). The ethnographic field research took place with families who, over the past few years, have left their previous educational paths, and in some cases also their countries, and are seeking new familial paths in different pedagogical and social orders. For example, a few hundred German-speaking families have emigrated to Paraguay, many to other European countries, while others are establishing new private educational and homeschooling spaces in their regions. Ethnographic research so far took place in Paraguay (2022 and 2023), Switzerland (2022-2024), partly in Germany and Spain (2024), as well as in the digital realm. In the larger habilitation research project, I am interested in the epistemic orders of these new educational spaces and their modes of authorization (Jaeger 2024). Based on the empirical data, I ask: What do we learn about social conditions by reformulating the institutionalization of education and childhood con-/post-covid, which epistemic orders are invoked, negotiated and practiced? But also: What kind of everyday life unfolds for children and their families in the respective contexts? I pursue this line of inquiry from a practical-theoretical perspective, doing participant observation in various educational spaces that have newly emerged among families critical of schools and the state in recent years (Reich 2016). The intellectual agenda intends thereby to sharpen pedagogical alternativity as an analytical concept of educational research.

For the ECER conference, I would like to take up two areas of thought from the Network Call in more depth and discuss them using the empirical material: On the one hand, I would like to discuss the relationship between mistrust in state institutions and the promise of hope of new educational spaces (Thelen and Alber 2018). What processes of social boundary-making take place in these educational spaces, and how does this relate to the respective pedagogical configuration? On the other hand, I would like to discuss the question of how to define the relationship between community engagement and school development across cases and countries. I argue that a heuristic of pedagogical alternativity helps us to productively integrate processes of social and pedagogical closure and the opening of new educational spaces into educational research, and how small-scale processes of pedagogical and social ordering are connected to digital spaces of resonance, inspiration and impact (Androutsopoulos 2024).

The paper is based on a long-term qualitative study that takes a child-centered look at new educational practices in a variety of locations. The sampling is based on various new educational initiatives of German-speaking families beyond state schooling, and the explorative studies from Paraguay, Spain, Germany and Switzerland reconstruct the implications of the new educational practices in a contrastive and comparative way. The ethnographic research approach is characterized by a primary interest in the discursive and tacit practices of very different fields, and a scientific willingness to expose oneself to the dynamics and logic of a field (Breidenstein et al. 2020, 9). The ethnographer's reactivity in the field and thus her research relationships with the families and children who have detached themselves from state orders and state schools con/post-covid are analytically incorporated into the research. The aim is not to avoid the reactivity of the field, but to observe and analytically utilize it (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007: 95). The contribution – based on empirical data – makes suggestions for the methodological debate in the social-scientific analysis of educational processes in the online-offline nexus (Blommaert and Jie 2020), in which it is systematically shown how digital resonance and communication spaces accompany and dynamize educational practice offline.

The analytical reading that I can offer based on the empirical findings serves to analytically differentiate pedagogical alternatives con-/post-covid, and to understand childhood as it unfolds in these new educational spaces. It makes me reflect on disruptive forms of re-institutionalization of school practices, and on the tendencies of social closure and opening at educational spaces that decidedly define themselves as counter-publics to statehood. A heuristic of pedagogical alternativity is used to show the status of the question of trust in the establishment of alternative educational expertise, and the empirical findings are placed in the context of broader educational science debates about epistemic trust.

Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2024. «The Offline–Online Nexus». In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, herausgegeben von Robert Blackwood, Stefania Tufi, und Will Amos, 1. Aufl., 441–55. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350272545. Blommaert, Jan, und Dong Jie. 2020. «Postscript: When Your Field Goes Online». In Ethnographic Fieldwork, 86–98. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781788927147-008. Breidenstein, Georg, Stefan Hirschauer, Herbert Kalthoff, und Boris Nieswand. 2020. Ethnografie: Die Praxis der Feldforschung. 3. Aufl. München: UVK Verlag. Hadar, Linor L., Yotam Hotam, und Arie Kizel. 2018. «No school is an island: negotiation between alternative education ideals and mainstream education- the case of Violin school». Pedagogy, Culture & Society 26 (1): 69–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2017.1352612. Hammersley, Martyn, und Paul Atkinson. 2007. Ethnography: principles in practice. 3rd ed. London ; New York: Routledge. Jaeger, Ursina. 2024. «„Schau hier, alles Reichsbürger, so sehen heutzutage Nazis aus!“ Ethnografische Forschung mit deutschen Auswanderfamilien in Paraguay im Angesicht komplexer Positioniertheiten». Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung 1 (Soziale Arbeit und Forschung im Kontext (extrem) rechter Verhältnisse. Von der Notwendigkeit relationaler Perspektivierungen): 34–50. Löw, Martina, und Gunter Weidenhaus. 2017. «Borders That Relate: Conceptualizing Boundaries in Relational Space». Current Sociology 65 (4): 553–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117694804. Reich, Jennifer A. 2016. Calling the Shots Why Parents Reject Vaccines. New York: New York University Press. https://rds-tue.ibs-bw.de/link?kid=1687093784. Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822385806. Thelen, Tatjana, und Erdmute Alber, Hrsg. 2018. Reconnecting state and kinship. 1st edition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.