Urban segregation profoundly shapes modern cities, globally as well as within Europe. As levels of racial segregation seem to stagnate, social segregation is on the rise (Friedrichs & Triemer, 2009; Marcińczak, Musterd, Ham & Tammaru, 2016; Musterd, Marcińczak, van Ham & Tammaru, 2017). Furthermore, urban and educational segregation are linked and seem to reproduce each other: The social composition of schools in socially polarized urban areas can become increasingly homogenous, with high qualifying schools in wealthier areas on the one hand and low qualifying schools in poorer areas on the other. The effects of those dynamics can be profound and reach from the socio-spatial consolidation of the educational ›achievement gap‹ to the reproduction of stigma and misrecognition for youth in marginalized contexts (Baur & Häussermann, 2009; Beach & Sernhede, 2011; SVR, 2013; Wacquant, 2007). Divided cities, so it seems, have even more dividing school systems at risk of increasing social disintegration. 

But what happens when students from the opposite sides of segregated class and milieu spectrums are brought together through pedagogical exchange? Which potentials of education, self-development, and ›Bildung‹ will be set free when they engage in mutual cultural practices, such as theater play, music, and arts? And can such an exchange promote social cohesion and help to address the manifold challenges of social segregation shaping the everyday experiences of young people within the divided cities of the 21st Century? 

Such are the questions at the core of a pedagogical exchange program organized by four schools and in cooperation with actors, musicians and artists within a German major city. The four schools consist of two high qualifying schools (Gymnasium) from affluent, inner-city areas as well as one comprehensive school (Gesamtschule) and one low qualifying secondary school (Hauptschule) situated within highly marginalized urban contexts. This project, which shall henceforth be called »4 schools together«, was initiated in 2022. After an opening event, the participants and their teachers meet for various workshops once at each school over the course of one school year. The project ends with a closing event where the students present their mutual work to a broader audience. The project aims at transgressing milieu boundaries and draws on principles established within the context of cultural learning and international student exchange, such as gaining experience, increasing one’s self-esteem and widening one’s horizon through a confrontation with ›the other‹ and different cultural realities (Brougère, 2018; Hutteman, Nestler, Wagner, Egloff & Back, 2015; Wulf, 2018) . It applies those principals to a local urban context: Intercultural experience is treated as something to be acquired through local urban exchange – and between schools and students from milieus and classes otherwise divided. The »4 schools together project« can therefore be characterized as an approach to desegregate students lived experiences without having to change the institutional structure of a segregated school system.

The paper at hand will present first results of a research project which accompanied the described pedagogical initiative over the course of one year (2023/24). Drawing on a qualitative approach, the project aims to reconstruct pedagogical orientations framing the project and strives to shed light on the stimulation as well as inhibition of potentials of ›Bildung‹ for students participating in it. We follow an understanding of ›Bildung‹ as a crisis-induced process of subjectivation, in which a subject does not simply acquire new information but fundamentally changes their relation to themselves and to the world (Kokemohr, 2007; Koller, 2017). 

The research project »Educational Potentials of local Student Exchanges. Analyses on an Initia-tive Project to reduce educational Segregation« (»Bildungspotentiale lokaler Schü-ler*innenaustausche. Analysen zu einem Initiativprojekt zum Abbau sozialräumlich segregier-ter Bildungsteilhabe«, BiLoS) is based on a qualitative approach. During the data acquisition phase, we conducted interviews with pedagogical staff (n=5) as well as group discussions with students (n=4) from all four schools which were recorded digitally and later transcribed verbatum. Data was obtained during the school year 2023/24. The inter-views are analyzed using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010, 2017). This method draws on concepts from Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge and is based on the assumption that social practice is driven by different ›layers‹ of knowledge. While theories, programs and institutional norms are constituted by explicit knowledge, everyday social practice and routine behaviors are mainly driven by habitual and practical knowledge. This type or layer of knowledge is produced within and through collective experience and remains mostly implicit. The documentary method aims at the systematic reconstruction of this implicit layer of knowledge and the ›modi operandi‹ underpinning social practice. The analysis follows a three step approach: The first step identifies the analyzed discourse’s content on an explicit level. The second step aims at the analysis of habitual knowledge and reconstructs the implicit framework of meaning within which a certain topic is processed (Bohnsack 2010, pp. 110f.). In order to achieve this goal, those passages within the data material characterized by a high metaphorical and interactive density are chosen for in-depth analysis, as they provide privileged access to the implicit framework of knowledge driving social practice (ibid., pp. 104f.). The third step strives to generate a typology through comparative analysis. During the analysis of the interviews with teachers, we focus on those passages that shed light on the (implicit) assumptions about potentials of ›Bildung‹ generated during the project and the images about students underpinning those assumptions. In our analysis of the students group discussions, we ask which experiences of difference arise among the students through the inter-action practice in the local student exchange. We furthermore reconstruct the framework of meaning in which the young people process and deal with these experiences and, finally, whether and in what form subjectivation processes are triggered here that release transformative educational potential.

As an overarching conclusion, it can be said that the exchange project reacts to a problem that is generated by social structure and the school system itself: Urban segregation as well as the se-lective structure of the German school system are structural determinants of educational inequal-ity. Given the persistence and a lack of systematic political addressing of these issues, schools are compelled to address structural problems at an organizational level. With regard to the analysis of teachers’ orientations, we could to this point identify three differ-ent types of pedagogical orientations reflecting specific images about students with regard to their milieu background. These images inform the assumed benefits of the project for specific student clienteles. Furthermore, teachers generally see great potential in the temporary suspen-sion of the regular school structure during the project. The analysis of the students’ group discussions suggest that the project fosters intense experi-ences of difference: The confrontation with peers from other neighborhoods, school types, mi-lieus, and class backgrounds initially evokes stereotypes about these peers, which are then re-flected upon and partially deconstructed during and after the mutual cultural activities. At the same time, an implicit potential for the perpetuation of these very stereotypes as well as for the implicit legitimization of given inequalities becomes evident. The presentation proposed for ECER 2025 will outline these results and then reflect on them on the backdrop of research findings on urban educational segregation within Germany and Eu-rope, highlighting the potentials of such exchange programs to address the effects and outcomes of segregation on inequality and stigma. Yet, a critical reflection on possible pitfalls of such projects will follow, for just as most pedagogical practices they carry the potential of reproduc-ing the very problems they aim to address.

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