Knowledge of situational experiences: Genesis of subjective relevant knowledge about the cooperative partner in child protection work

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Rita Braches-Chyrek
• Subject Area: Educational Research on Socialization, Welfare and Professionalism
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 332683158

Collaboration, cooperation and networking are defined in political as well as academic discourses as essential for an efficent child protection work. Accordig to legal foundation generic social work services and kindergartens have to collaborate with each other to ensure child protection work too. Nevertheless the current state of research in the field of professionalization and cooperation reveals aspects which should receive attention in this context. On the one hand the empirical results of studies of cooperation demonstrate that the knowledge of the cooperative partner is crucial for successful collaborations. On the other hand knowledge is determined in the research area of professionalization in both disciplines, social work and early education, as one of the main factor of professionalism. Especially the use of different kinds of knowledge as well as the reflection of professionals in regard to their own knowledge and unknowing are matter of special importance. But empirical research about reciprocal knowledge between pedagogical professionals of generic social work services and kindergartens about each other during collaborations is not realized so far. Taking into account this academic void, the interests of the research project are on analyzing subjective relevant and available knowledge of the professionals. Furthermore the study want to reconstruct the genesis of these knowledge and its significance for the accomplishment of the collaboration.To realize the investigative goal of reconstructing the knowledge bases of professionals, the research design is based on Alfred Schutzs assumptions about the structure of the stocks of knowledge in his phenomenological-interpretive theory of the life-world. The methodical approach is achieved by the episodic interview of Uwe Flick and the data will be analyzed with thematic coding by Flick.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants