Pedagogical Professionalism in a Migration Society

About the project

Migration phenomena challenge, unsettle, and disturb the legitimacy and functionality of the natio-racial-culturally coded 'us' in nation states like Germany. As a result, the legitimacy and functionality of institutional routines such as linguistic practices or practices of collective memory are questioned. Thus migration as the movement of people across borders as well as a discourse that shapes new knowledge about belonging and citizenship troubles culturally dominant views and opinions about the legitimacy and functionality of individual privileges – like the privilege to not only expect but to claim that one's own language is also the language of the other. Against the backdrop of the understanding of migration as both bodily and discursive influential, it becomes clear that pedagogy has to deal with the conditions, forms, and consequences of movements of people across borders. In our approach of “Pedagogical Professionalism in a Migration Society”, pedagogy comes into being as an important field in the critical discourses on migration and discourses on legitimate and less legitimate forms of belonging. So in the context of the overall project we ask what happens when migration becomes an issue in educational fields and to what extent pedagogical protagonists and institutions weaken or strengthen natio-racial-culturally coded concepts of 'us' and 'them'. Thus education and pedagogy act both as a mirror and a playground for those symbolic practices that differentiate between a natio-racial-culturally coded 'us' and 'them'.

These perspectives are central to the project “Pedagogical Professionalism in a Migration Society” of the University of Bremen and the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, which encompasses three project phases.

This project is supervised by

Prof. Dr. Yasemin Karakaşoğlu (University of Bremen, Unit for Intercultural Education)

Prof. Dr. Paul Mecheril (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Institute for Pedagogy; Centre for Migration, Education, and Cultural Studies/CMC; now at Bielefeld University)

Project phase I (09/2016 - 10/2017)

Qualitative-interpretative research on teacher training

In phase I the project team analyzes exemplary administrative and pedagogic policy papers as well as curricula used in teacher training programs both on the federal and on the level of German Federal Lands (Bremen, Northrhine-Westfalia, Saxony and Lower Saxony). Read more about this research project.

Academic Staff Members

Saphira Shure (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg)

Dr. Anna Aleksandra Wojciechowicz (University of Bremen)

Funding

Mercator Foundation

Project phase II (10/2017 - 12/2018)

26th to 28th October, 2018 at the University of Bremen

Here you can find detailed information about the conference.

Academic Staff Members

Saphira Shure (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg)

Aysun Doğmuş (University of Bremen)

Lydia Heidrich (University of Bremen)

Funding

Mercator Foundation
German Research Foundation (DFG)
Wolfgang-Ritter-Stiftung
Hertie-Stiftung

Project phase III (11/2018 - 07/2020)

Following the international conference FISM, an edited volume on the conference's topics migration, identity, belonging, power relations, school, pedagogy and teacher education will be published in spring 2021. Further information can be found here.