Education In Austria Research Articles

Language and Literacy Education in Austria: Teachers’ Perspectives

This study examines the critical role of language and literacy in educational contexts, emphasizing their significance in human development and social inclusion. Drawing on a diverse range of literature and research, this study explores the interconnectedness of language acquisition, literacy development, and educational practices. Highlighting language and literacy as fundamental human rights, this study underscores the importance of inclusive and equitable education. Through qualitative methods, including online questionnaires (n=18) and interviews (n=8) with teachers, this study investigates the implementation of language and literacy education in Austrian primary schools as well as the challenges faced by educators in this domain. The findings reveal diverse teaching methodologies employed by teachers, ranging from shared book reading to digital tools, while also identifying obstacles, such as multilingualism, professional training deficiencies, and student engagement issues. The study’s findings strongly support the need for targeted interventions to improve educational outcomes. Specifically, the challenges identified—particularly multilingualism and training gaps—underscore the necessity of ongoing professional development tailored to teachers’ specific needs. Enhancing teacher training programs with a focus on multilingual pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching can directly address these obstacles. Furthermore, the findings suggest that improving student engagement requires innovative and adaptable teaching methodologies, such as integrating digital literacy tools more effectively into the curriculum.

TEACHER EDUCATION IN CHALLENGING TIMES. A COMPARATIVE AND TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACH TO THE AUSTRIAN AND UKRAINIAN TEACHER EDUCATION REFORMS

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and reforms in teacher education in Ukraine, drawing comparisons with the Austrian experience, contextualizing the need for reforms in Ukraine's education system within the country's pursuit of European Union membership. Emphasizing the pivotal role of teacher education in driving these reforms, the article analyzes the challenges of teacher education in Ukraine such as inadequate teacher remuneration, outdated pedagogical methods used, and a lack of financial support. Thus, the authors state the urgency of modernizing the teacher education system. To summarize of teacher education in Austria, corresponding solutions are proposed, including individualized approaches and rigorous selection processes with the reference to Austria's experience with aptitude tests. Furthermore, the article outlines education reforms in Ukraine, including the passage of laws aimed at aligning higher education with European standards. It analyzes measures such as interdisciplinary programs, distance learning, and increased university autonomy, designed to enhance student autonomy and the quality of education. By comparing these efforts with Austria's initiatives, such as the implementation of the Bologna Process and attempts to make teacher education more attractive, the researchers offer insights into common challenges faced by education systems globally.

Layperson basic life support education in Austria: An overview

Early interventions of laypersons can improve the survival and neurological outcome in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. There are several organizations in Austria which train lay people in basic life support and raise awareness for sudden cardiac death. To obtain an overview of the various initiatives, aquestionnaire was sent to 26organizations, and 15 of the organizations (58%) replied. The geographical distribution of the organizations between rural and urban areas was illustrated in amap. Most of them are situated in auniversity city, resulting in accessibility disparities for individuals in urban and rural settings. Layperson resuscitation education in Austria is largely dependent on the individual commitments of volunteers. The time spent practicing chest compressions in resuscitation courses ranges from 25% to 90% of the total course time. Furthermore, reasons for alack of scientific endeavours could be identified, and solutions are suggested. Through better networking between organizations and initiatives, more laypersons could be trained in the future, which would lead to improved survival chances for persons suffering from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Austria. Appropriate support by political bodies and public authorities is and will remain akey element.

Community Health Nursing Education in Austria-The Need for Competences in Planning, Management and Collaboration: A Problem-Centered Qualitative Study.

(1) Background: The Austrian health care system is extremely fragmented. Primary care is mainly provided by self-employed GPs. Other health professionals are rarely integrated into primary care. But, according to the political plans of the Austrian government, a system of community nurses and community health nurses should be implemented and several pilot projects have already been started. (2) Objective: The present study explores the skills and competences needed in the planning, management and collaboration for the change in the system and gives recommendations for community health nurse education in Austria. (3) Methodology: Fifteen qualitative, problem-centered interviews were conducted with experts in the field of community health nursing and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. (4) Results: The skills and competences often and widely mentioned are interprofessional collaboration, cooperation with other actors, systems thinking, project and change management, and basic management skills, including strategic planning, communication, accounting and finance. Areas such as health planning and lobbying are also highlighted. The main competences are broken down into subcompetences, making it possible to create a detailed competence grid. Competences in planning, management and collaboration are particularly important in the initial stages of the first implementation of a community health nursing system. (5) Conclusions: Skills and competences in these areas occupy a central position. A multilayered breakdown of these competences is required in order to create a targeted requirements profile. Due to the small-scale fragmentation of the Austrian health care system, collaboration and coordination are more difficult and costly, but all the more important. The aforementioned skills and competences represent an essential expansion of nursing education in Austria.

Learning from Experience: Liturgical Formation as a Central Component of Religious Education in Schools

Religious education in schools was, for a long time, liturgically shaped until liturgical formation was no longer seen as a task of schools but of parish catechesis in many countries. Current approaches try to develop a liturgical didactic that is adapted to the school as a place of learning. Based on the confessional model of religious education in Austria, this paper shows the challenges and significance of liturgical formation in reference to Pope Francis’ letter Desiderio Desideravi. In combining perspectives of religious education and liturgical studies, the necessary conditions for liturgical formation to succeed are shown. A didactic of Catholic liturgy that builds on established didactics and strives for liturgical formation on the cutting edge is presented, adapted to the setting of schools and distinct from parish catechesis. One way of responding to the lack of experience is with the help of performative didactics to enable practical experiences that, framed in reflection, form the basis for engagement with the liturgy. Such a liturgical didactic aims at enabling competence in matters of worship, considering all people, if a renewed understanding of liturgy is taken seriously, according to which worship is the celebration of the whole assembly and therefore requires a corresponding participation of all.

The “Five Minute Preceptor Model”: Development and evaluation of a training course for preceptors in nursing practical education in Austria: A pilot study

Objective: The “Five Minute Preceptor Model” (5MP) is a teaching method which addresses the training needs of students within clinical placements. Investigation of its applicability for nursing education is equally missing as research on designing effective 5MP trainings for nurse preceptors. Aim of the pilot study was to develop and evaluate a 5 MP training and to assess its impact by measuring the utilization of the 5MP steps by the nurse preceptors.Methods: A quantitative design was used to evaluate the training directly after attendance, using descriptive statistics for data analyzes. The application of the 5MP steps was investigated before and six months after training using Wilcoxon test for statistical analyzes. A significance level of p < .05 was set. Comparative factor analysis was used to examine the 5MP model itself.Results: Participants (N = 92) overall rating of the trainings was high. The higher they rated the trainings the more they would applicate the 5MP in future preceptorship. Newsworthiness of the training was designated high but no difference was found in the application of the 5MP steps prior and after attendance of the training. Comparative factor analysis indicated that the 5MP steps were seen as more important after the training.Conclusions: The results suggest that the training is suitable for teaching nurse preceptors to use the 5MP. Although no significant differences were found in pre- and post-training usage, the comparative factor analysis shows increased knowledge through training attendance. Larger studies are needed to gain deeper insights into the 5MP model.

Adult Migrants’ Language Training in Austria: The Role of Central and Eastern European Teachers

Language has gained increasing importance in immigration policies in Western European states, with a new model of citizenship, the <em>ius linguarum</em> (Fejes, 2019; Fortier, 2022), at its core. Accordingly, command of the (national) languages of host states operates both as a resource and as an ideological framework, legitimating the reproduction of inequalities among various migrant and non‐migrant groups. In this article, we analyse the implications of such processes in the context of state‐subsidised language teaching for refugees and migrants in Austria. Specifically, the article aims to explore labour migration, namely that of Central and Eastern European (CEE, including EU and non‐EU citizen) professionals—mainly language teachers who enter the field of adult language teaching in Austria seeking a living and career prospects that they cannot find in the significantly underpaid educational sectors of CEE states. This article shows that the arrival of CEE professionals into these difficult and precarious jobs is enabled first by historical processes linking the CEE region to former political and economic power centres. Second, it is facilitated by legal, administrative, and symbolic processes that construct CEE citizens as second‐order teachers in the field of migrant education in Austria. Our article, based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews, highlights nuanced ways in which historically, economically, and politically embedded language geographies contribute to the reproduction of hierarchies of membership, inclusion, and exclusion in present‐day immigration societies.

The state of undergraduate palliative care education at Austrian medical schools – a mixed methods study

BackgroundThere is an increasing demand for universal, high-quality access to palliative care in Austria. To ensure this, the implementation of palliative care in the medical studies curriculum is essential. This is the first study to investigate the state of undergraduate palliative care education at Austrian medical schools.MethodsFor this mixed-methods study with concurrent embedded design, expert interviews and online surveys were conducted between March and August 2022. The interviews were subjected to a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke, while the questionnaires were analysed descriptively-statistically. For the final integration, the results of both methods for each topic are presented and discussed complementarily. Both the primary qualitative and supportive quantitative data were collected to combine the advantages of the in-depth nature of the qualitative data and the consistent structure of the quantitative data to provide a more precise representation of the state of teaching.ResultsTwenty-two persons participated in the study, of whom twenty-one participated in the interview and eight in the questionnaire. The participants were experts in palliative care teaching at Austrian medical schools. Currently, palliative care is taught at seven out of the eight universities. Large differences were found in the number of hours, organisation, teaching formats, and interprofessional education. At present, three universities have a chair for palliative care and at least five universities have access to a palliative care unit.ConclusionUndergraduate palliative care education in Austria is very heterogeneous and does not meet the minimum standards suggested by the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) curriculum recommendations. However, several universities are planning measures to expand palliative care teaching, such as the introduction of mandatory teaching or the establishment of new teaching formats. Better coordination and networking within and between universities would be beneficial for the expansion and quality of teaching.

A Comparative Study of Values-Based Fields of Adult Learning and Education in Austria, Scotland, and South Tyrol, Italy: Practitioners Resisting Neoliberal Tendencies Based on Their Ideas of Social Justice

This article presents the findings of a comparative study of values-based adult learning and education (ALE) fields; specifically, in Austria, critical-emancipatory adult basic education; Scotland, learner-centered, community-based adult learning; and South Tyrol, Italy, the Winterschule, a radical-critical popular education format. We studied the voices of experienced practitioners to understand their challenges and constraints and how they resisted changes that did not reflect their values. It highlights local practices to promote visibility, create dialogue, and strengthen the understanding and recognition of these fields in which practitioners are unequivocally committed to social justice. Our findings highlighted repertoires of resistance, affirmed pedagogy as a values-based endeavor, and elucidated practitioners’ commitments to holistic approaches that re-negotiate ideas of social justice for people and the planet. Our analysis shows that when ideas of social justice are shared amongst allies, practitioners can effectively maintain their values-based approaches and thus re-affirm and protect democratic ALE practice.

A comparative study of postgraduate theses in pedagogy and preschool education in Austria and Turkey.

In this study, postgraduate theses in the fields of pedagogy and preschool education in Austria and Turkey are compared in terms of factors such as similarity index, research designs and quality of academic writing. To achieve this goal, a commonly-used web-based plagiarism detection service was used to determine the similarity indexes of 258 theses prepared in the two countries (124 from Austria, 134 from Turkey) by checking them against existing sources such as articles, theses, and books; and a relational screening model was used to determine the degree of correlation among variables. In addition, the research topics, research designs, and data collection tools employed in each thesis were identified and content analysis was performed on selected theses with an eye to gaining a sense of the methodological approaches used in pedagogy in Austrian and Turkish universities and making comparisons between the two countries. Our results suggest that the mean similarity index between the postgraduate theses in Austria is 8.78 (Std. Dev. 4.91), while the mean similarity index between the postgraduate theses prepared in Turkey is 25.10 (Std. Dev. 9.85). Our analysis indeed indicates that 91% (n 113) of the theses prepared at Austrian universities and only 13% (n 17) of the theses prepared at Turkish universities did not exceed the acceptable similarity index of 15%. The fact that 87% of the theses written in Turkey are dramatically similar to the available resources shows that many of the studies carry potential risks in terms of originality and plagiarism.

The Motivation of Vocational Education – Educational Alternative in the Member States of the European Union

The structures of the education system respect the system in our country. Practically, in most cases, the four cycles are followed as forms of education: primary education, high school education, high school or professional education, and higher education (for adults). In many countries, vocational education attracts more and more young people, in Austria, Germany, and Portugal a fairly high percentage of 2/3 of the total number of students choose the path of vocational education. The permanent needs existing in the labor market lead very much to the area of ​​trade, compared to the theoretical one which is very difficult to prove in the labor market. Another reason why professional studies take the place of higher ones is also represented by the very high costs regarding the graduation of higher education in the universities of the member states of the European Union, such as Sweden, Poland, and Germany. In this article, we will analyze professional/vocational education in Austria, France, and Germany.

Contested integration: hegemony projects in the field of education in Austria

ABSTRACT The Austrian policy landscape with regard to the educational integration measures directly or indirectly targeting migrant children is characterized by inconsistency and the concurrence of integrative and segregative measures. We ask how these discrepancies can be interpreted without being reduced to mere inconsistencies and why, in the context of the ongoing normalization of the political right, integrative measures have not (yet) disappeared completely. Based on interviews with experts, we identify three distinct – integrative, multicultural, and segregative – hegemony projects pursued by different social forces through various discursive and institutional strategies. The integrative hegemony project seeks social redistribution through comprehensive, rights-based measures; the multicultural project seeks to promote recognition for cultural diversity; and the segregative hegemony project seeks to re-signify integration through mechanisms of assessment, discipline and control. Although our sample is limited in terms of representation, our research speaks to the ongoing societal contestation over the means and meaning of integration.

Военные науки и наука о войне в понимании российских и австрийских исследователей

The article is a review of the bilingual collective monograph “Military Sciences versus War Science in Austria and Russia (Militärwissenschaften versus Wissenschaft über Krieg in Österreich und Russland)”. The monograph under review is the result of a Russian-Austrian scientific seminar on problems of war and military science. Book consists of two sections. In the first section, the authors of the monograph consider a number of methodological and ideological problems of the war. They give reflections on the essence of military science, the importance of strategy in the implementation of the military-doctrinal provisions of the state. The conceptual understanding of the strategy is considered. Attention is paid to the essence of the concept of «modern war». Particular emphasis in the monograph is placed on the study of the scientific militaryhistorical heritage, the importance of economic, informational, spiritual aspects of the content of modern wars. The trends of «denationalization» of modern wars are shown. The second section of the collective monograph is devoted to applied aspects of modern warfare. In it, the co-authors of the monograph studied the issues of the use of military force in modern society, its use by politics. The problems of the methodology of war are raised, and in particular, the nature of war. Attention is paid to hybridity, consistency, complexity, asymmetry of war. For a better understanding of the essence of war, the concept of “image of war” is introduced into the monograph, characterizing its internal and external manifestations. Considered the idea of developing polemological research in Russia and in the world. Turning to the system of military education in Austria and Germany, the authors postulate the need to preserve the military component in education, which is the basis of the military profession. The publication of such a bilingual joint Russian-Austrian collective monograph should be positively regarded not only from a scientific point of view, but also as a factor in establishing scientific and business contacts in such difficult geopolitical changes in the world.

Diversity skills for future teachers: how transformative learning prepares pre-service teachers for diversity in Austrian schools

PurposeMezirow's theory of transformative learning aims to evoke change on a deeper level of learning. This qualitative study with 38 pre-service teachers enrolled in a Master's degree programme for teacher education in Austria used semi-structured interviews to explore how diversity skills can transform after diversity training applying Mezirow's theory of transformative learning. In these trainings, a disorienting dilemma was placed at the centre of the diversity training from which transformative learning took its start.Design/methodology/approachIn an increasingly diversified school system, diversity skills have become a pedagogical necessity for teachers in their future workplace. However, many teachers state not feeling adequately prepared for diversity within higher education and their attitudes towards diversity oftentimes remain unchanged despite diversity training.FindingsThe findings were deduced from structured content analysis. They show that the diversity trainings led to new cultural frames of reference for the study participants on a cognitive and social level, but to a smaller extent on an emotional level.Originality/valueThe study follows a different approach than “typical” diversity trainings through Mezirow's theory on transformative learning contributing to making a real change to preparing students for their workplaces in diversified Austrian schools.

Learning trajectories of classical musicians engaging in Musikvermittlung

ABSTRACT Practices of Musikvermittlung have become significantly more relevant since the last turn of the millennium against the background of a dwindling audience for classical concerts in the German speaking countries. For classically trained musicians, whether in permanent positions, as soloists or in portfolio careers, activities in the fields of community engagement and education work are increasingly becoming an important part of their professional activities. Even though higher music education in Austria, Germany and Switzerland has reacted to this development by founding new courses of study and offering further training, the learning trajectories of classical musicians engaging in Musikvermittlung are highly diverse. In this article I will pursue the question how musicians acquire their knowledge in order to participate in practices of Musikvermittlung and how identity and social membership are formed. My research is based on 22 interviews with twelve classical musicians that were conducted between June 2018 and December 2019 and analyzed with Adele Clarke's Situational Analysis. Through the lense of practice-informed learning theories I will show that significant learning processes take place outside of formal education and will conclude with some recommendations for music institutions and higher music education.

Initial teacher training for secondary schools – a new curriculum for the age of migration?

ABSTRACT In this article, competencies of teachers for an age of migration where students with refugee and migration background are part of many classrooms are tied to the question why a current reform in initial teacher education failed to adjust to an urgent need. The country under scrutiny for this case-study is Austria. The focus is on the curricula of secondary teacher education. It had to be developed along the new Bologna architecture—a top-down requirement—and bottom-up filled with content by the teacher educators of the institutions involved in the reform. First, I will give a short historical and present-day sketch of migration and schooling in Austria in the light of international data and the comparative context integration theory. Secondly, I will discuss relevant topics in initial teacher education and present data from the TALIS 2018 survey. Thirdly, I will describe the reform of the initial teacher education in Austria and discuss four hypotheses why it did not manage to respond to the needs of today’s socio-culturally, linguistically and religious highly diverse schools.

Negotiating the “Maze”: SEN and the Transition From Lower Secondary Education in Austria

Austrian students with special educational needs (SEN) face many obstacles in the transition from lower to upper secondary education. Using administrative data from national statistics, we analyse the trajectories of these students focusing on two questions: First, what is the impact of the former setting on further pathways for students from special schools compared with mainstream schooling? Second, can low‐threshold training or apprenticeship projects (the “transition system”) compensate for educational disadvantages in former school careers and serve as a “second chance” or do they reinforce exclusionary practices by perpetuating “special tracks”? Regarding the first question, our research findings confirm those from several studies conducted in other German‐speaking countries that show advantages for graduates from mainstream education compared to those from special schools, as they face a lower risk of institutional exclusion. In respect of the second question, at first glance, our findings differ from prior research results. Participating in the transition system is associated with a slight increase in participation in upper secondary education, some increase in employment, and an important reduction concerning inactivity. As revealed by a regression analysis controlling for socio‐demographic characteristics, participation in this system has a distinct integrative influence. We conclude by hypothesising that this is due to the structure of the Austrian transition system offering pathways back to mainstream educational systems and formally recognised educational qualifications.

Transforming Curricula in Higher Education: Description of Two Perspectives From the Global South and the Global North

The paper is part of the broader narrative of transforming curricula in universities in Zimbabwe and Austria. The landscape in higher education globally is inexorably shifting as a result of major global forces of change. For that reason, higher education cannot remain immune to these global challenges and changes. Rather, universities should be the agents of change. Higher education in Austria and Zimbabwe, in response to these global challenges and imperatives, has begun the process of transforming curricula to educate graduates for the future. The paper explores the strategies that universities in Zimbabwe and Austria have initiated to be able to support students to make meaningful contributions to the global learning and sustainability narrative. The two central questions that this paper seeks to answer are: Which additional innovations in curricula and new epistemologies should universities in Zimbabwe and Austria implement in order to educate graduates for a sustainable future? What can universities in the South and in the North learn from each other? In attempting to reflect on these questions, pertinent lessons will be drawn from initiatives in Austria and Zimbabwe to build capacity to achieve the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) agenda through various strategies.

Exploring the effects of the COVID-19 emergency remote education on students’ social and academic integration in higher education in Austria

ABSTRACT This article analyses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students’ social and academic integration, based on Tinto’s integration theory. A total of 640 university students in Austria completed an online survey pertaining to academic and social integration during the home-learning period. Results indicate that social integration and academic integration decreased significantly during the lockdown period in the beginning of 2020. The level of perceived support during home learning was positively associated with the levels of social and academic integration. Furthermore, while student age was a predictor for higher academic integration, it was not a predictor for social integration among peer students. Academic and social integration during COVID-19 was significantly linked with student satisfaction in various studies. This study has important implications for future home-learning periods, suggesting how institutions could prepare for longer disruptions of attendance and how they could leverage student integration.

I Want to Become a Teacher because…? Student-Teachers Change in Attitudes of Becoming Teachers in Austria and Kosovo

The motivation for career choice motivation of student-teachers is a well-studied topic with a representative theoretical basis in teacher education research that has a long-standing tradition in the international research landscape. However, in understanding the pressing questions of why young people choose to become teachers, only a few longitudinal and comparative studies have been carried out that focus on the development of motivation for choosing a teaching career. This longitudinal study reports on the effects of time within initial teacher education and how it influences student-teacher attitudes and motives about the teaching profession. This article is a product of a larger study that aims at addressing the existing literature gap by examining student-teacher change in attitudes of becoming teachers in Austria and Kosovo starting from initial teacher education, during early stages of their teaching career as novice teachers, and to more advanced stages of their teaching career. This is a panel study located within a longitudinal design. In this study, a questionnaire and student-teacher reflection texts were used as instruments. Data were collected in three phases during which 673 student-teachers participated in face-to-face administered questionnaire as follows: 341 (phase 1), 185 (phase 2), and 147 (phase 3), as well as 19 student-teacher reflections. Questionnaire data were analysed using the general linear model (GLM) with repeated measures test, whereas the reflection text data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings in this longitudinal study provide evidence that student-teacher attitudes and motives for becoming teachers can change over time during the initial teacher education in Austria and Kosovo, and they can be influenced by in-school experiences during teaching practice. The study concludes that motives for choosing a teaching career are primarily intrinsic, are not time-stable, and change over the course of studies. The study findings have clear implications for initial teacher education programs in addressing changes in student-teachers’ attitudes of becoming teachers. The insights gained from the findings of this study lead to recommendations that initial teacher education programs should strengthen teaching practice to better manage the preparation of students and teachers and their entry into the teaching profession.