Research

An overview of the research focus of the department

The “Diversity and Power Criticism in the Context of Educational Pathways” department focuses on the discrimination-critical professionalization of educational professionals, particularly in extracurricular and vocational education. Our focus is on the transitions from school to work or university, extracurricular education, adult education, and vocational training.

We are inspired by migration education, anti-racism, and postcolonial theories. We assume that educational conditions are always constitutively interwoven with power and domination relations and that educational institutions and the educational professionals working in them bear a (shared) responsibility to society as a whole. Our focus is particularly on those conditions that are determined by classist, (hetero)sexist, ableist, and racist orders.

The aim of our research projects is to gain insights that can provide actors in the respective institutions with critical and reflective ideas and impulses for action, enabling them to fulfill their responsibilities in a way that is more likely to reduce violent social conditions. In many cases, this requires an informed (re)orientation—a “setting in motion” of institutional structures, teaching and learning content, or even the question of what it means to work professionally as an educator in a migration society.