p { margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; }p.western { font-size: 10pt; }p.cjk { font-size: 10pt; }a:link { }

Urban spaces in a globalized world society (Luhmann 1975, 1990, Clemens 2010) with its dynamic elements like world wide communication and goods flows, migration and intranational flexibility of employment are trancultural and transnational spaces today. Big cities – and especially world cities (Stichweh 2004, 2006) – are actual images of social evolution which demonstrate future adjustments, demands, expectations and developments. Such urban spaces are at the same time the context for new emotional relations to places, in which individuals live, maybe in difference to spaces defined by nation. They are therefore an excellent example for the analysis of the interrelation between ecological context, emotional embedding and potentials for identification (Clemens 2010a). Following the focus of the Berlin excellence cluster Languages of Emotions, especially the aspect of the emotional relation to the space in which the actors live will be explored.

In general, urban spaces are able to provide potentials of identifications for different actors who might do not identify with the larger national context. This potential is not recognised in an appropriate way until now, also in its consequences for educational processes. Especially in the German context in discussions about integration, the absence of such national identification is described regularly in terms of a deficit. Beside such deficit descriptions, the potential of cities like Berlin for the social and emotional embedding (following the definition of embedding by Harrison C. White, 2008) can be highlighted and analysed. It seems these urban spaces as constructs succeed were concepts of nationality are failing: For example, in a study, 84 % of the interviewed Muslims expressed their feeling, that they belong to part of the city (Bezirk Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg), and 76 % of the non-Muslim did (http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home).

Obviously cities like Berlin provide a positive bench mark for emotional embedding, what can be seen as a general precondition for integration or inclusion (Stichweh 2005) into a society and into educational institutions (Stichweh 2007). However, the potential of positive embedding for educational achievements is ignored until now more or less. Studies such as PISA have found that students with migration background have a high probability to fail in school and that their achievement is still behind German students. Integration is therefore an important issue for educational research. The paper assumes that in consequence a positive emotional and social embedding in the social context might will have a positive influence on school achievement or an positive attitude towards educational institutions as well. Especially the school as part of the social context in which the students live has to be analysed in terms of such embeddings. Taking an example from the district of Neukölln as a social hotspot, a mentoring project (Wobser 2010) that aims to improve the social embedding of students from social weak families and / or with migration background will be analysed to discuss the interrelation between embedding and inclusion in educational institutions.

The question raised above will be discussed in the context of the network theory in the following of Harrison C. White (2008).

Baecker, D.(2009): Systems, Network, and Culture. Soziale Systeme, 15, 2, p. 271-187. Clemens, I. (2010): Self-descriptions of the World Society in non-western contexts and the implications for the general theoretical approach. An Analysis of the Edicts of Ancient Indian Emperor Ashoka. Soziale Systeme, 16, 1, p. 103-120. Clemens, I. (2010a): The global icon of the Indian IT-Professional. Contact zones in the age of new media, globalisation and world society. Paragrana, forthcoming. Holzer, B. & Schmidt, J. F. K (2009): Theorie der Netzwerke oder Netzwerk-Theorie? Soziale Systeme 15, 2, p. 227-242. Jansen, D. (2003): Einführung in die Netzwerkanalyse, 2nd edition, Opladen, Leske & Budrich. Luhmann, N. (1975): Die Weltgesellschaft. 51-71 in Luhmann, N.: Soziologische Aufklärung 2. Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft. Opladen. Luhmann, N. (1990): The World Society as a Social System. 175-190 in Luhmann, N.: Essays on Self-Reference, New York. Stichweh, R. (2004): On the Genisis of World Society: Innovations and Mechanisms. Working papers (Institut für Weltgesellschaft, ISSN 1613-4869. Stichweh, R. (2005): Inklusion und Exklusion. Studien zur Gesellschaftstheorie – Bielefeld. Stichweh, R. (2006): Structure Formation in World Society. The Eigenstructures of World Society and the Regional Cultures of the World. Stichweh, R. (2007): Inklusion und Exklusion in der Weltgesellschaft – Am Beispiel der Schule und des Erziehungssystems. http://www.unilu.ch/files/stw-inklusion.exklusion.weltg-schule.pdf (28.02.2007) Trappmann, M., Hummell, H.J. & Sodeur, W. (2005): Strukturanalyse sozialer Netzwerke. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. White, Harrison C./Boormann, Scott/Breiger, Ronald L. (1976): Social structure from multiple networks: I. Blockmodells of roles and positions, in: AJS, Vol 81, S. 730-780. White, Harrison C. (2008): Identity and Control. How Social Formations Emerge. 2.,überarbeitete Ausgabe, Princeton: University Press. Wobser, Janna (2010): Mentorenprojekte als Methode der Schulsozialarbeit. Eine qualitative Evaluation des Mentorenprojektes an der Kepler-Schule in Berlin-Neukölln. Unpublished diploma thesis Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft, Fachhochschule Coburg, Fakultät Soziale Arbeit und Gesundheit.