Individualisation and Control. A qualitative Inquiry in Primary Schools

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Georg Breidenstein; Professorin Dr. Sandra Rademacher
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 190798664

The research project aims at analyzing individualized forms of teaching in elementary schools. Especially in different kinds of progressive educational settings pupils are given the opportunity to individually decide what they want to spend they time doing and are encouraged to work independently. These individualized classroom settings are often referred to as open education. The main interest of the project is to reconstruct the practical demands for teachers and pupils in these settings. On the basis of ethnographic observations and detailed descriptions of the actions of pupils and teachers the analysis focuses on the structural patterns of classroom actions and interactions. Special attention is paid to the didactical question concerning the opportunities for learning processes in open educational settings. Finally the project aims at empirically contributing to a general theory of teaching. In order to identify potential differences in pedagogical culture, the sample of the field work includes German schools with different pedagogical orientation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants