German Educational System Research Articles

Anti-Kurdish Racism in Germany: Decolonial Perspectives on the German Education System

Abstract Educational institutions are places of identity formation and reformation, contributing differently to existing identity politics. In the author's biographical narrative interviews with people who position themselves as Kurds, conducted as part of her PhD project, “Experiences of Racism among Kurds in Germany—Functions and Effects of (Not) Speaking About Anti-Kurdish Racism,” the author frequently encounters instances of devaluation of Kurdish identities due to racialization and everyday invisibilization. The professional demands on educational institutions, on the other hand, require them to give resonance and validity to the multitude of identities and diversity of experiences in society and to make these visible. A critical pedagogy of decolonization involves overcoming colonized perspectives and acquiring alternative forms of knowledge. The author adopts a decolonial perspective to acknowledge and problematize the mechanisms of invisibilization and identity erasure, and thus not only shifts the content of hegemonic orders of knowledge but also enables the recognition of different modes of articulation. This article asks, what characterizes anti-Kurdish racism, and how does it impact Kurdish individuals within the German educational system? Through interview excerpts, the author addresses how these questions can be structurally addressed through biographical clues in Germany.

Evaluating German PISA stratification designs: a simulation study

Stratification is an important design feature of many studies using complex sampling designs and it is often used in large-scale assessment (LSA) studies, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for two main reasons. First, stratification variables that achieve a high between and low within strata variance can improve the efficiency of a survey design. Second, stratification allows one to, explicitly or implicitly, control for sample sizes across subpopulations. It ensures that some parts of a population are in the sample in predetermined proportions. In this study, we determine through simulation which stratification scheme is best for PISA in Germany. For this, we consider the constraints imposed by the international sampling design, the available information about schools, and specific national characteristics of the German educational system. We examine seven different stratification designs selected based on scenarios used in past LSAs in Germany and theoretical considerations for future implementations. The chosen scenarios were compared with two reference scenarios: (1) an unstratified design and (2) a synthetic optimal stratification design. The simulation study reveals that the stratification design currently applied in PISA produces satisfactory results regarding sampling precision. The present stratification design is based on Germany's federal states and school types. However, this approach leads to small strata, which has been problematic for estimating sampling variance in previous cycles. Therefore, alternative stratification scenarios were considered and, in addition to overcoming the small-strata problem, also led to smaller standard errors for estimates of student mean performance in mathematics, science, and reading. As a result of this study, we recommend considering three different stratification designs for Germany in future cycles of PISA. These recommendations aim to: (1) improve the sampling efficiency while keeping the sample size constant, (2) follow a sound methodological approach, and (3) make conservative and cautious changes while maintaining a reflection of the structure of the German federal school system with different school types. These suggestions include a reinvented stratification of grouped German federal states and designs with school types as explicit stratifiers and federal states as implicit stratifiers.

Upward track mobility into academic upper secondary education: Effects of challenging parental expectations, immigrant origin, and older siblings on students' educational choices

This study examines the social-cultural challenges of upward track mobility from vocational to academic tracking at the transition to upper secondary education in Germany. Within the highly stratified German education system, these challenges include habitual alienation from the family and milieu of origin. Using a Bourdieusian framework and data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine the effect of these challenges on the choices for academic upper secondary education by addressing ambivalent parental expectations regarding social upward mobility and habitual loyalty to the family. The study explores how an immigrant origin and older siblings shape perceptions of these expectations and associated challenges, and thus influence the educational choices at the transition to upper secondary education.Linear probability models (N 2866) show that ambivalent parental expectations hinder the choice for academic upper secondary education. This effect was stronger for nonimmigrant students. Older siblings reduce this negative influence for both immigrant and non-immigrant students. We extend previous literature on educational choices of immigrant and non-immigrant youth by highlighting that ambivalent parental expectations may be a barrier to upward track mobility, moderated by older siblings.

Examination of Physical Education and Sports Courses in Educational Systems (Germany and Türkiye Example)

It is seen that education systems all over the world have basic sciences, arts and sports courses within each structure. The importance of sports classes is increasing day by day in today's world where sedentary lifestyle increases with the age of digitalization. Physical education and sports lessons are important in order to meet the exercise needs of children who have the ability but are not able to do professional sports. When we study the historical development of physical education and sports in Turkey, we can say that it is mostly influenced by the German education system and educators after the 1920s. German gymnasts worked as physical education and sports teachers in the Ministry of Education. In short, physical education and sports education and its curriculum in the Turkish education system have been influenced by the German education system for years. The aim of this study is to examine the physical education and sports courses in Turkish and German current education systems. As a result of the research, it is seen that although Turkish-German education systems are very different from each other, there is one or more weekly lessons per class in physical education and sports curricula. It is seen that the biggest difference is in primary education. The course carried out with the name of physical education and games in the primary schools in Turkey is carried out 5 hours a week in the grades 1-3 and 2 hours a week in the 4th grade. While the average class hour of 4 years is 17 in Turkey, this number is 11 hours in Germany.

Attempting a participatory action research (PAR) dissertation with refugee women during the COVID-19 pandemic or: How I learned to embrace messiness and failure

Conducting participatory action research (PAR) is an aspirational, dynamic, but notoriously unpredictable endeavour. In this article, I discuss challenges and lessons from my ongoing dissertation study, planned as a PAR approach to learning with refugee women in Germany about their conceptualisation of mental health in the post-resettlement context and their service and intervention needs and resources.It proved challenging to transfer central ideas around co-creation (e.g., through workshops and activities) – developed in the Anglo-Saxon/North American context – to an online context with German as a foreign language (for both the participants and me) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. I, therefore, adapted the methodological approach to incorporate collaboration tools such as Padlet (for online meetings) and Ketso (for in-person meetings) and provide short briefings about scientific evidence and concepts focused specifically on issues raised during the discussions (e.g., racism, structural discrimination in German educational and health systems). Furthermore, to ensure the representation of multiple experiences, I incorporated a document analysis component for advocacy and information documents developed by migrant-led organisations in Germany. Situational analysis is proposed as a collaborative interpretation tool that can reduce the risk of epistemic and epistemological violence.Along the research process and amid the groundswell of challenges, a focus on ethics (of care, epistemological, and relational) provided a strong anchor for securing a way forward. These experiences and lessons learned can provide valuable insight into operationalising co-creation, relational ethics, and justice in health research with marginalised populations, especially through an interdisciplinary lens (public health and social science).

High hopes but aiming low? Explaining why some families with high educational aspirations do not choose the academic track in German secondary education

Selecting a school track after primary schooling is an early and highly influential decision families have to make in the German educational system. Usually, families with high educational aspirations choose the academic track since it is the direct pathway to higher education eligibility, yet there are families selecting another track. Explaining this decision is highly relevant since it is known that other tracks can divert aspirations away from the initial high goals, resulting in overall lower educational achievements. The present study analyzes the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) dataset to investigate predictors of academic track selection (N > 1500). As dominance analyses show, the overall share of variance that all factors can explain is relatively low (ca. 13%), and only the teacher recommendation and the federal state of residence contribute meaningfully to this total share. Overall, it remains unclear what drives the decision, and other explanatory approaches should be investigated.

Have The European Union Guidelines been a Driving Force in the Inclusion of Children’s Rights into the German “Sachunterricht” Course Curriculum?

It is observed that efforts are made to benefit from the perspective of the Universal Convention on the Rights of the Child and to undertake the protection and promotion of children’s rights more effectively in countries that are members of the European Union/membership process with the European Union Agreement (Lisbon Treaty) which came into force in 2009. In this direction, the European Union Guidelines on the Promotion and Protection of Children’s Rights were published to guide the EU member countries and their countries in the process of membership in their work on children’s rights. So, the research purposed primarily to examine the status of children’s rights in the official Sachunterricht course curriculum used in the German education system in line with the EU Guidelines. In the research, a holistic multiple-state pattern was adopted from the qualitative research approach patterns. In the process of obtaining research data, the document review method was used. The official Sachunterricht course curriculum in sixteen states in the Federal Republic of Germany was examined in this scope. As a consequence of the research, it was concluded that the content included in the curriculum in most states is in line with the EU Guidelines. However, we saw just a few curricula have that there are statements of attainment and study examples regarding children’s right to protection and participation. At this point, studies can be put forward to make all education curricula more compatible with EU Guiding Principles. These studies should ensure that the teaching curricula that countries will use address children’s rights and related learning outcomes and teaching activities aimed at recognizing children’s rights, preventing discrimination against them, building a culture of universal peace, and preparing children for responsible lives in a free society.

Learning to Adapt? Leave and Arrival as Major Psycho-Social Challenges for Newly Arrived Adolescent Immigrants in Germany

The aim of this paper is to analyse and discuss how learning is experienced by young, newly arrived immigrants in Germany. In particular, it addresses the connection between their experiences and the expectations of the German education system, as well as the connection between different kinds of learning experiences (formal and informal) in the context of adolescence. Adolescence is understood as an intergenerationally shaped psycho-social space of developmental opportunities. It is always affected and formed by aspects of social inequality such as milieu, gender, and race. Research shows that when migration takes place during adolescence, young people must cope with a “doubled transformation requirement” (King and Schwab). This paper discusses whether adolescent immigrants face even more transformation requirements—again, interwoven with learning—than two. Based on cases taken from two qualitative-interview-study samples, I reconstruct how coping strategies in terms of psycho-social development can be associated with different kinds of learning. Finally, I emphasise the responsibility of formal education as a supportive framework and stabilising factor for child and adolescent immigrants after they reach Germany.

Sinkendes Leistungsniveau, hohe Chancenungleichheit – Stand und Handlungsoptionen für die deutsche Schulbildung

Abstract A well-functioning education system is characterised by a high level of student achievement and by providing equal opportunities to succeed irrespective of one’s socio-economic background. Using data from standardised achievement tests and on social mobility, we show that the German education system falls short in both dimensions. While achievement rose after the PISA shock in the early 2000s, it has been declining steadily over the past decade. Furthermore, attendance rates for high-track schools (Gymnasium) differ by as much as 60 percentage points across socio-economic groups, illustrating the lack of equal opportunities. We present policy recommendations aimed at addressing the identified shortcomings and improving the current situation.

Differences between Dual track System and Vocational Education: A Case Study of Germany and China

With the continuous development of the social productive forces and the rapid growth of the demand for various professional and technical personnel, China's vocational education has entered a new stage of continuous progress. The implementation of the ‘double reduction’ policy and the popularization of the quality education concept has opened up a broad space for China's vocational education. This trend has also aroused heated discussion among the public. In view of the current educational situation in China, Various experts have raised relevant questions: Is China's current educational environment conducive to the implementation of a vocational education system? And is there any defect in the current vocational education system? Based on these problems, after learning about the fact that China imitated the German education system, and the great success of German action to balance education, talent, and market. This paper aims to make a comparative analysis of dual-track education in Germany and the typical characteristics of vocational education in China. Therefore, this paper contributes to providing inspiration for the future development of vocational education in China and helping develop a vocational education system with Chinese characteristics.

Rethinking the Ph.D. dissertation in botany: Widening the circle.

Rethinking the Ph.D. dissertation in botany: Widening the circle.

A Servant of Two Masters: Bishop Aloisius Muench and the Debate over Catholic Schools in Postwar Bavaria

In 1946, President Harry Truman sought to reform the German education system and appointed Bishop Aloisius Muench as the Catholic Liaison to assist the U.S. occupational forces. Simultaneously, Muench was appointed as the Vatican's official visitor to Germany. Using these roles, Muench influenced denazification and educational policies in Bavaria. Drawing on unused primary sources from Muench's personal correspondence, OMGUS files, the papers of Lucius Clay, the Christian Social Union Archives, the personal papers of Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, and the files from the archives of the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, this article concludes that Muench played a key role in preserving Catholic schools in Bavaria. Muench's case proves that denazification policies were contested and formed by a coalition of secular and religious individuals.

The role of recent refugees' educational selectivity in their children's educational decisions in Germany.

This paper uses the example of newly arrived refugees to examine the role of recent migrants' educational selectivity in their children's educational decisions in Germany. Building on a theoretical model that understands participation in the educational system as the sum of investment decisions of rational individuals, we assume that positively selected parents are more ambitious about having their children admitted to higher-level secondary schools. The role of parental educational selectivity should be particularly pronounced in federal states in which school administrations allow for greater parental involvement. We use data from the first and second face-to-face interviews of the Refugees in the German Educational System (ReGES) project, with an analytical sample of 1,437 adolescents who came to Germany from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran between 2014 and 2017. To generate a household-level index of educational selectivity, we furthermore rely on various country-of-origin-specific data that we aggregate as reference educational distributions. We run linear probability regression models to analyze the role of parents' educational selectivity in adolescents' school placement. Our findings suggest that parental educational selectivity is beneficial beyond parents' absolute educational levels for adolescents' higher-level school placement. Among the five German federal states represented in our analytical sample, the role of parental selectivity is particularly pronounced in two federal states in which parents are provided with greater possibilities to become involved in their children's educational decisions.

Data from the Panel Study ‘Refugees in the German Educational System (ReGES)’

The study ‘Refugees in the German Educational System’ is a two-cohort panel addressing the integration of refugee children and adolescents into the German educational system. Data collection followed a multi-informant perspective as well as a multi-mode approach. It started at Wave 1 in January 2018 with a sample of 2,405 refugee children and 2,415 refugee adolescents. Participants were followed over seven survey waves for more than two years. ReGES data is stored at the Research Data Center of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories and is open for use for to scientific community without costs or any embargo.

Inclusion of Ukrainian children with special needs in Germany

Today, in the context of the war in Ukraine, more and more Ukrainian refugees are seeking refuge in European countries, and a significant number of Ukrainians are temporarily staying in Germany. As of April 2023, 205,000 children and young people from Ukraine are integrated into the German education system. A particular challenge is the inclusion of children with special educational needs in Germany and all over Europe. This article analyzes the current situation and main challenges related to the integration of Ukrainians in Germany. The purpose of the article is to explore the main difficulties associated with the inclusion of children with special needs in the German education system. For coping with this huge and complicated problem, we should develop some strategies for teachers and parents to make them understand the causes of the main difficulties; also we should give them instruments to improve current situation and minimize maladaptation in the future. The first step for all these purposes is to analyze the near future: explore the main challenges for Ukrainian refugees in the German education system and analyze the prospects for efficient inclusion of this group of students into German education institutions. In the course of the study, based on the results of a survey of parents of children with special needs, the main challenges for children with special needs and their parents when integrating into German society were recognized. They are conditions of chronic stress, language barrier, and difficulties with integration into peer groups. As for the school environment, the main problems are the lack of Ukrainian-speaking teachers and insufficient attention of the teaching staff to the processes of socialization, integration and behavioral characteristics of children. Strengthening special support for children in the educational environment is also desirable. The processes of comprehensive integration of Ukrainian refugees into both educational and social environments require further study, because most of the problems faced by children with disabilities and their parents in Germany are also characteristic of the wider refugee population from Ukraine in Europe. Keywords: Ukrainian refugees, inclusion, children with special needs, German education system.

Emotional competence: The missing piece in school curricula? A systematic analysis in the German education system

Emotional competencies are increasingly recognized in their importance for flourishing human development. Yet, there is a lack of research examining their structural integration within education systems. The present mixed methods study systematically assesses the implementation of emotional competence and its five facets (knowledge, recognition, expression, regulation, empathy) within 422 German school curricula. About 40% of curricula do not refer to the strengthening of emotional competence at all. On average, one reference was found on every thirteenth page. No trend could be identified for more recent documents to contain more references. Negative binomial regression revealed far above-average anchoring in ethics/philosophy, whereas fewest references were found in natural sciences, information technology, and economics. The analyses are supplemented by qualitative excerpts, highlighting common and good practice examples. In light of the broad empirical base demonstrating the importance of social-emotional learning, it is argued that its current anchorage within German school curricula is insufficient.

Promoting Commitment: The Influence of School Culture and Work-Related Emotional Variables on the Affective Commitment of Teachers at German All-Day Schools

A variety of reform and development efforts in the German educational system, especially the extension of the school day, going along with an increasing autonomy of individual schools and extending demands on teachers led to growing interest in business science concepts being applied in the field of school development research. A main emphasis lies in the commitment of teachers who are responsible for the implementation and the success of these reforms. The aim of this paper is to identify reasons that lead to a high level of commitment of the teaching staff with a focus on German all-day schools. The intended results will be obtained by a structural equation model based on the information provided by 649 primary all-day school teachers. In addition to the relationships with other actors in the school, which are summarised under the heading of school culture, variables relating to the personalities of the teachers can be identified as predictive.

Novel Work-Integrated Learning Model Based on the German Education System: UQTR’s Dual Approach for its Mechanical Engineering Program.

This paper presents the German-inspired education model called Dual, as pioneered by l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Drummondville Campus) for its mechanical engineering undergraduate degree. Focus is on the program structure itself and the ongoing research project which aims to determine and measure outcomes of this novel approach from the student, industry-supervisor and professor perspectives’, specifically pertaining to their respective experience, impact on academic performance, employability, and the development of work-related skill sets. The methodology is set forth in this paper and results from similar experiences across Europe are presented. Qualitative and quantitative data for this specific project are still being collected and analyzed. The proposed model for this research stems from studies on active, experiential and work-integrated Learning. Motivated by a desire to better prepare engineering students for the ever-changing realities of the profession and as a response to the shortage of qualified personnel faced by the industrial sector, the program combines parallel on- and off-site learning over a consecutive two-year period. This differs from the more commonly known co-op structure where students alternate between study terms and work terms. With the proposed dual model, students complete the program within 4 years earning 24 credits, of a total 120, through work-integrated learning directly at the workplace (off-site). Courses completed jointly at the school and in partnership with the company include a 9-credit capstone design project and two 3-credit complementary courses, where reflective journaling and mentorship are central to both. In addition, three 4-month internships are also completed. Since June 2021, the program is accredited by Engineers Canada.

Investigating the co-development of academic competencies and educational aspirations in German primary education

Academic achievement and educational decisions, which are strongly related to primary and secondary effects, are the two main drivers behind the emergence of social inequality in education. To understand this process in more detail, even before final decisions have to be made, the reciprocal influence of achievement and aspirations is of greatest interest. By not simply looking at an ultimate outcome but investigating its antecedents in a longitudinal fashion over the course of multiple years more insight is gained. Using German large-scale NEPS panel data, it is possible to demonstrate this co-development quantitatively. Cross-lagged panel models are utilized to show that the achievement in mathematics (measured by comprehensive achievement tests) and parental realistic aspirations influence each other positively in a statistically significant way over the course of primary education from grade one to four, even under the control of various potential confounding variables. Further analyses reveal that this process is socially stratified and works differently for lowly and highly educated families. Lower educated parents pay more attention to the performance of the child when adjusting their aspirations than tertiary educated parents, who always hold high aspirations. The results are of interest to understand in more detail how social inequality emerges at a very early point in the highly tracked German educational system.

Investigating the role of educational aspirations as central mediators of secondary school track choice in Germany

Educational aspirations are known to be one of the most relevant predictors of secondary school choice after finishing elementary school in the German educational system. Since aspirations themselves mostly derive from the social background of a family, the question arises whether aspirations can be understood as a mediating factor explaining how social origin determines choice of school. In addition to that, it would be of great interest to disentangle parental and filial aspirations to better understand which factor is more relevant for the decision. After proposing a unified theoretical model that accounts for both primary and secondary effects of social origin, the analyses attempt to quantify the share that is mediated through aspirations and hence test the model empirically. Using large scale panel data, I can demonstrate that aspirations explain a considerable share of the variance of the decision for choosing a school track in secondary education (ca. 24% points). The following analyses estimate that the indirect effect of social origin that is mediated through aspirations amounts to almost 80%, which means that the residual pathway must therefore be small in comparison. Detailed analyses reveal that especially parental realistic aspirations explain the major share of this effect (about 42%) and their aspirations will be decisive when conflicting with the aspirations of their children.