German Context Research Articles

Matthew or compensatory effects? Factors that influence the math literacy of primary-school children in Germany.

This study focuses on individual differences in the math competencies of primary-school children in Germany. It considers whether or not there are Matthew or compensatory effects in math literacy and which factors and background characteristics of primary-school children can affect competence development. Despite the abundant research on this topic, the findings are often ambiguous, and studies in the German context are sparse. We used the Starting Cohort 2 of the German National Educational PanelStudy and a weighted multilevel mixed-effects panel regression for our analyses (N = 4,982). Our results revealed compensatory effects for low-achieving students in math literacy. There were also small gender differences, but lower achieving girls can close the gap with boys during primary school. With respect to the educational background of the parents, almost no longitudinal effects were observed. The results indicated that the joint primary-school period has a compensatory effect on lower performing students. However, higher achieving students retained their lead, implying that social inequalities persist to some extent.

The Origins of ‘Hedonism’: A German Context and an Antedating

The Origins of ‘Hedonism’: A German Context and an Antedating

BreathEase: rationale, design and recruitment of a randomised trial and embedded mixed-methods study of a multiprofessional breathlessness service in early palliative care.

BackgroundThe Munich Breathlessness Service has adapted novel support services to the German context, to reduce burden in patients and carers from breathlessness in advanced disease. It has been evaluated in a pragmatic fast-track randomised controlled trial (BreathEase; NCT02622412) with embedded qualitative interviews and postal survey. The aim of this article is to describe the intervention model and study design, analyse recruitment to the trial and compare sample characteristics with other studies in the field.MethodsAnalysis of recruitment pathways and enrolment, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of participants and carers.ResultsOut of 439 people screened, 253 (58%) were offered enrolment and 183 (42%) participated. n=97 (70%) carers participated. 186 (42%) people did not qualify for inclusion, mostly because breathlessness could not be attributed to an underlying disease. All participants were self-referring; 60% through media sources. Eligibility and willingness to participate were associated to social networks and illness-related activities as recruitment routes. Mean age of participants was 71 years (51% women), with COPD (63%), chronic heart failure (8%), interstitial lung disease (9%), pulmonary hypertension (6%) and cancer (7%) as underlying conditions. Postal survey response rate was 89%. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 patients and nine carers.ConclusionThe BreathEase study has a larger and more heterogeneous sample compared to other trials. The self-referral-based and prolonged recruitment drawing on media sources approximates real-world conditions of early palliative care. Integrating qualitative and quantitative components will allow a better understanding and interpretation of the results of the main effectiveness study.

School subjects' synergy and teacher knowledge: Do biology and chemistry teachers benefit equally from their second subject?

AbstractGerman preservice teachers always study two teaching subjects instead of only one. This offers an almost paradigmatic approach for the investigation of effects of specific subject combinations on professional competence. So far, few studies focused on potential beneficial effects or risks on preservice teachers' motivational orientations, beliefs, and professional knowledge. In our exploratory study, we chose a cross‐sectional quasi‐experimental design to compare preservice teachers studying a combination of biology and chemistry to those who study only one of these two subjects and any other, as it is expected that the differences between less similar subjects (such as chemistry and art) are greater than those between two science subjects. A total ofN = 570 preservice teachers with a minimum of one of their subjects being biology or chemistry were recruited in 12 universities in Germany. Nonparametric analyses using Westenberg–Mood's median test show that preservice teachers studying both biology and chemistry score significantly different on some central aspects of professional competence compared to those who study only one of the two subjects and any other. However, advantages regarding motivational orientations and professional knowledge can only be found for the domain of biology, whereas in the domain of chemistry it does not seem to matter which second subject is studied beside chemistry. Furthermore, students taking both sciences show a significantly lower educational motivation and corresponding self‐concept, suggesting that dual science students' teaching and learning beliefs are less education‐focused than those of students combining one science with a social or language subject. Our findings regarding synergy effects of the dual study of different natural sciences on aspects of professional knowledge can be relevant beyond the specific German context, that is, they can help to supplement or restructure a university curriculum.

Karl Vorlaender’s Kantian Synthesis of Marx and Kant

Abstract Karl Vorlaender made an excellent scholarly contribution to the detailed and accurate academic appreciation of Kant’s work. Over several decades from the early 1890s to the late 1920s he researched and presented Kant’s ideas in their German and European philosophical context in a manner which contributed to their accessibility and their reach into the culture and population at large. Vorlaender performed an important role in the transmission of Kant’s ideas and the ideas of the neo-Kantian school in general to a younger generation of scholars and the German public as a whole. Vorlaender is by far the most focussed upon social and political issues amongst the neo-Kantians. Others may have completed deeper individual investigations of the import of Kant’s work, particularly in epistemology and ethics, but none rise to Vorlaender’s level in their analysis and discussion of the political significance of Kant’s work. Much of this significance is attained by concentrating primarily upon Kant

Start afresh or return? The impact of the Reform Movement on northern German English language teaching

ABSTRACT The 19th century Reform Movement is often regarded as a ‘language teaching innovation’ or as a contribution to ‘a questioning and rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method’ (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 7). This view usually fails to explain why ‘direct’ methods focusing on functional aspects of language teaching had already been in use for centuries, while Grammar-Translation Methods are still widely popular. One explanation could be the distinction between the Reformers’ influence on the theoretical debate on the one hand and their impact on teaching practice on the other. In the late 1960s, Rülcker investigated the impact of Reform Methodology on French language teaching by analysing German school programmes (Schulprogramme). He stated that in spite of some traces of Reform Methods, French language teaching until the First World War was still mainly based on grammar and translation (Rülcker 1969: 35-37). In my paper, I take a similar view on English language education by looking at the Reform Movements’ impact on Realschule (middle school) curricula in northern Germany and focus on the question whether stronger traces of Reform Methodology can be found in this context. This seems plausible as learning English was generally underlined by more practical reasons than learning other languages, and Bremen schools in particular had been the first ones in the German context to introduce English as a first foreign language with a traditionally stronger functional focus (cf. Giesler 2018a). I focus my analysis on Bremen school programmes which – compared to modern curricula – not only show desired methodological designs, but can be understood as more closely documenting actual teaching practices, and I use these insights to question the originality of some of the Reformers’ ideas, the validity of some of their claims and, by extension, the strength of their impact on teaching practice.

Physico-Theology: Religion and Science in Europe, 1650-1750

Physico-Theology: Religion and Science in Europe, 1650-1750

Review: Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present

Review: <i>Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present</i>

Жертвоприношения коней в «княжеских» могилах поздней фазы Великого переселения народов на римско-германском Западе: восточные параллели

The article considers a few graves of the elite of the Great Migration Period, containing several burials of horses. In the German context, this is a “royal” burial in Tournai on the territory of modern Belgium, owned by King Childeric (died 481/482) and burials in a barrow in Žuráň, in South Moravia, probably belonging to the Lombard royal family. Their parallels in Eastern Europe are finds in the necropolis of Sirenevaya Buhta in the Eastern Crimea and Malai in the region of Eastern Azov Sea. Horse burials in Western and Central Europe can be associated with the influence of the Huns on aristocratic civilization, and reflect the high social status of the buried.

Policies for Innovative Entrepreneurship: Exploration and Exploitation at Work?

Different types of policy instruments are implemented to enhance innovative entrepreneurship. Despite the wide range of measures, the impact and synergistic effects of entrepreneurship policies remain an open question. These policies focus either on contexts encouraging people to invest in research and the development of new technologies (exploration policies) or on the commercialization and recombination of existing knowledge (exploitation policies). Set in the German context, this study investigates the cross-fertilization of exploration and exploitation policies. Our results suggest that although beneficial on their own, the combination of exploration and exploitation policies leads only to augmented levels of entrepreneurship, but not innovative entrepreneurship. These findings give impetus to more nuanced policy approaches that take a better account of the specific policy context.

Appropriation of adaptive literacy games into the German elementary school classroom

AbstractThe study presented here was aimed at understanding how teachers go about appropriating technology from the iRead EU Horizon 2020 Project into the classroom. iRead provides an adaptive personalised literacy game called Navigo that is deployed in tablets and intended for regular usage in the elementary school classroom. In our case, the game was provided for beginning readers of German. The goal of iRead was to develop these games and then understand how these can be deployed successfully into the classroom. The adaptation of technology by teachers has been a well‐studied phenomenon for decades in some countries. However, in Germany, elementary schools lag behind in digitalisation, making such studies more difficult, resulting in a knowledge gap this study seeks to fill. Appropriation of the Navigo game by the teachers was studied through a series of semi‐formal interviews with 21 teachers from 9 schools, scheduled at the beginning, middle and end of the project, resulting in a total of 55 interviews. Results show that teachers had similar experiences within the project, and faced common stumbling blocks, such as (a) technology, (b) digital literacy and (c) understanding the pedagogical use of adaptive learning games. While teachers generally accepted that interacting with tablets taught pupils the important skill of digital literacy, most teachers did not fully understand how pupils acquired language skills through Navigo. Those teachers who understood the academic benefit of the learning game appropriated Navigo fully by purposefully leveraging the adaptivity of the games to support pupils in a personalised manner. Using thematic analysis and automatic clustering of keyword occurrences in the interviews, we were able to identify four ‘personas’ on the continuum of teacher characteristics. Mapping teachers to these ‘personas’ determined the level of support required during the appropriation process. It was shown that the ‘personas’ are relatively stable and can be identified within the first weeks of appropriation to ensure a successful process as soon as possible. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Appropriation of technology models. Technology use in school for older pupils. Educational games outside of school. What this paper adds A view on technology usage in elementary schools particular to the German context with large amount of teacher interviews from diverse schools. Personas that can be identified early on in the process of appropriation based on simple interviews. Particular challenges of using adaptive technology in the classroom. Implications for practice and/or policy A simple model for picking appropriate teacher support in appropriation. Results show a clear need for improving technology support in the schools. Teacher training must include digital competence and openness to the idea of independent learning paths.

Dominium terrae? The Rise of the West during the Age of Discovery as a possible analytical paradigm in history teaching in Germany and Spain

This article provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the global-historical theory of the so-called Rise of the West during the Early Modern Age and the commonly named Age of Discovery. This theory is covered from the point of view of history education in order to question and provide a criticial examination of the framework. On the one hand, the controversial state of research of the topic is outlined, focusing on the main theoretical debates and some of the most noteworthy ideas under discussion. On the other hand, a discussion is also provided regarding some of the special requirements and essential conditions for an implementation of the idea of the Rise of the West in the curriculum. These notions are linked to both the traditional and current narratives that can be found in the German and Spanish national contexts. From this point of view, the politics of history of both nations are outlined, and, in addition, in order to provide some exemplifications, a selection of history textbooks from previous decades have been also examined in order to analyze the way some of the narratives and these themes are presented. A series of categories, including historical myths, and the Rise of the West as a special category, as well as its institutional dimensions are also discussed in order to showcase the potential of the theory and some of the shortcomings that were detected from the perspective of history education.

Coloniality in the German Higher Education System: Implications for Policy and Institutional Practice

This article focuses on the public German higher education sector as a site upon and through which coloniality is enacted. This status quo indicates exclusionary effects and merits interrogation. We briefly discuss the history of German colonialism to understand how coloniality pervades higher educational structures in the German context today. Two proposals addressing coloniality in German higher education are made: the development of structures centering diverse faculty and the support of ethnic and identity studies.

The refugee camp as urban housing

This paper is a call to examine refugee camps and urban housing as interlinked phenomena. By comparatively examining the spatial-material arrangements of three Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, it suggests that the ‘how’ question (or how to plan refugee camps) has invited the housing agenda to appear spatially. In the Jordanian case, this has led to the production of three distinctive models of camps-housing namely a ghetto, a gated community and a mass housing project. In the German context, it has led to the production of camps phased into permanent and hybrid models of housing. Finally, and by underlying that the camp is first and foremost a form of urban housing, it suggests that the concepts, themes and analytical tools developed in housing studies has the potential to unpack the complexity of the camp and how it interlinks with our cities and urban realities today.

Dignity, Autonomy, and Assisted Suicide: An Ecumenical Perspective on the German Context

Abstract A 2020 decision by Germany’s highest court dramatically shifted the national discussion on assisted suicide. The decision stressed the ‘right to a self-determined death’ which must ‘be respected by state and society as an act of personal autonomy and self-determination’. Moreover, it clarified the non-criminality of assistance for suicides by third parties. The reaction of the main churches in Germany to this decision reflects ecclesiological differences. Protestant positions on assisted suicide are defined by pluralism; the Roman Catholic official position remains tied to ontologically-referenced principles of natural law that prohibit assisted suicide as intrinsically evil. Thus, ecumenical efforts on bioethics are complicated by a context where many Protestant leaders prioritize autonomy and pluralism, whereas Roman Catholic leaders stress consensus and orthodoxy. Even official church guidelines on such matters are received differently in Protestant and Roman Catholic communities. For Protestant Christians, an opinion functions primarily as guideline; for Catholic Christians, there is a goal at least of reaching principles reflecting the objective order of God’s creation.

Fashioning an Imperial Metropolis at the 1896 Berliner Gewerbeausstellung

AbstractThe 1896 Berliner Gewerbeausstellung was a transformative moment for city and nation alike. The exhibition announced Berlin's pre-eminence as a scientific and industrial city and bolstered an emergent German national identity. Including displays of Egypt and Germany's formal colonies also revealed Germany's competence as a colonial power. By illustrating its skill in both aggressive conquest and subtle intervention, city and nation thought themselves capable of competing with European rivals at home and abroad. However, the two visions of colonialism, cloaked in the guise of mass entertainment, have rarely been brought into conversation with one another. This article seeks to discuss this colonial–Oriental dichotomy by focusing on tensions between education and entertainment in display techniques, particularities of racial difference in ethnographic display, the use of advertising, and the insertion of new technologies. Contributing to a deeper understanding of race, empire, and modernity in the German context, the Gewerbeausstellung offers a jumping off point for further comparison to other local, regional, and international exhibitions and an avenue to explore how notions of modernity factored into formal and informal imperial arrangements. Ultimately, it sheds light on how an exhibition helped to fashion a global, imperial city at the turn of the twentieth century.

Bordering and Debordering Spaces of Asylum in the City of Frankfurt: Municipal Refugee Accommodation and Neighbourhood‐Based Volunteering

AbstractThe segregation of refugees in collective accommodation centres represents an integral component of the European border regime and its complex interplay of inclusion and exclusion. The corresponding spatial, symbolic and discursive demarcations, however, are not simply implemented politically from above, but negotiated on the ground on a daily basis. One crucial group of actors in the German context are neighbourhood‐based volunteers. These groups frequently accompany accommodation centres with support structures. Based on contributions in the field of critical border studies and on the example of a municipal accommodation facility in Frankfurt, Germany, this paper demonstrates how volunteers, through their practices and engagement with refugees and others, on one hand, and dominant discourses, institutions and regulations on the other, participate in the production of locally specific spaces of asylum that are marked by simultaneous and contradictory processes of bordering and debordering.

Interruption(s)

Falk Richter is one of the central figures in the German theatre business. In the interview, Kristina Kocyba, a close connoisseur of his work, talks to him about the consequences of the interruption during the pandemic. In doing so, they consider the general German context as well as Richter's political approach to theatre. But it is also about the interruption as a characteristic of post-dramatic theatre and what a post-pandemic theatre could look like.

Conversations about Mother: Mnemonic Strategies for Narrating Survival in (Post-) War Germany

This article explores the strong correlations between mnemonic strategies and mnemonic triggers within family narratives. Families form narrative collectives with their own codes of narrative evocation. One sentence, even only one word, might open up a bundle of memories shared by all immediate kin. Such sharing can, however, be practised and interpreted differently by each family member; stories are also utilised strategically to bond with one family member and sideline another. Given the specific German context of this analysis, its stories and mnemonic devices demonstrate strategies of collective and individual dissociation and victimisation. They also lead us to better understand how very normal, average Germans might have tried to live a decent life with Christian and left-leaning political values, while having no techniques, post 1945, for articulating or reflecting on either trauma or National Socialism and their lasting impact on their nation. As with most other families, the war and post-war period was dominated by memories of struggle and collective grief. Survival narratives use emplotments that can be traced through generations of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Exploring such transgenerational conversations enables us to widen the perspective from transgenerational trauma towards a framework of compassion and narrative agency.

The heritage of classical sociology

This short contribution explores alternative conceptions of classical sociology and continuities and discontinuities in its history, with particular attention to the German and Austrian context and the sociological diaspora resulting from European fascism.