Between ‘enrichment’ and ‘endangerment’: ‘cultural diversity’ and the politics of belonging in the Berlin school choice discourse

Even though choice is not officially a feature in the German primary school system, some parents intervene in determining which school their child attends. Especially in urban contexts, the informal school market is growing. This demand is based on promises with respect to a certain quality of education as well as on issues that prevail in certain inner city schools. In looking at Berlin, as a global city, this article shows how contrary school choice practices gain traction in the face of ‘cultural differences’ that those practices produce discursively. Cultural semantics are activated with regard to the composition of the student body, when parents chose schools with a bilingual profile, but also when parents engage in the practice of ‘group enrolment’ into schools in inner city hotspots perceived as problematic. Our research shows how school choice practices may become acceptable despite being a public taboo, if parents argue by appeal to ‘cultural differences’.     

The outcomes of university education: Some empirical findings on aims and expectations in The Federal Republic of Germany

Aims and expectations of three groups, the population in general, university graduates, and legislators and university representatives, are described and compared. Social status advantages (allocation function) and extra professional qualities (socialization function) are the main outcomes taken into account. The data stem from representative surveys, surveys of university graduates and highly qualified non-graduates, and an analysis of documents. The quality expectations which the public has of university graduates and the norm that graduates bear a particular social responsibility form an interrelated pattern, which can be regarded as a social role. As compared to public opinion, graduates' own conception of their qualities and responsibilities displays characteristic additions, which point toward a cultural elite of critical intellectuals. On the other hand, graduates fail to identify with some of the educational aims put forward by the university and its legislators. Graduates' personal experiences at university match their generalized conception of the outcomes of higher education, since they report socialization effects and attribute especially the acquisition of cognitive skills and rational and critical habits to university rather than to other educational contexts.     

Einschätzungen der schulischen Motivation und des Arbeitsverhaltens durch Grundschullehrkräfte und deren Bedeutung für Verzerrungen in Leistungserwartungen

Several studies have shown that teachers’ achievement expectations for their students may be biased to some extent by students’ ethnic or social background as well as gender. The present study investigates whether these biases in teachers’ expectations of students’ performance in early language and mathematics are partly explained by differences in teachers’ perceptions of students’ motivation and learning behaviour. The analyses are based on data from a sample of N?=?901 first-grade students from N?=?66 classrooms with 69 teachers. The results support the hypothesis for biases associated with social background and gender. Ethnic bias, however, occurred independently of differences in perceived motivation and learning behaviour. We discuss the relevance of stereotypical assumptions for teaching as well as educational disparities.     

Schadenersatzanspruch Studierender gegen die Universit?t wegen unzureichenden Lehrveranstaltungsangebots? Anmerkungen und überlegungen zu OGH 1 Ob 142/07z

Mit dem Urteil zu 1 Ob 142/07z best?tigte der OGH die Entscheidungen der Vorinstanzen, wonach die Klage eines Studierenden gegen eine Universit?t auf Feststellung, dass die beklagte Partei der klagenden Partei für s?mtliche aus der Unterlassung des Anbots von Parallellehrveranstaltungen zukünftig entstehenden Sch?den hafte, wegen fehlender Passivlegitimation abgewiesen wurde. Das H?chstgericht stellte eindeutig klar, dass "Universit?ten in Vollziehung der Studienvorschriften im Rahmen der Hoheitsverwaltung t?tig werden", weshalb ein zivilrechtlicher Anspruch gegen die Universit?t aufgrund eines zu geringen Angebots von Lehrveranstaltungen nicht in Betracht kommt und bekr?ftigte, dass die Haftung der Universit?t oder ihrer Organe für hoheitliches Handeln in Vollziehung der Studienvorschriften auch nach dem UG 2002 ausgeschlossen ist.     

Evaluative Conditioning and the Development of Attitudes in Early Childhood

Many attitudes are acquired in early childhood. However, due to a lack of experimental research, little is known about the processes of how they are acquired. Two experiments were therefore conducted with 153 German kindergarten children aged 3–6 years that provide first evidence for childhood attitude formation in terms of evaluative conditioning. Specifically, it was found that children preferred novel stimuli previously paired with liked stimuli over novel stimuli previously paired with disliked stimuli. This effect occurred independently of age, generalized toward similar novel stimuli, and did not depend on children's recollection of how stimuli were paired. The findings are discussed in terms of the processes underlying childhood attitude formation, and implications for related research areas are highlighted.     

Make it relevant! How prior instructions foster the integration of teacher knowledge

Instructional Science - Preservice teachers face the challenge of integrating multiple types of knowledge, such as pedagogical–psychological knowledge and subject-specific pedagogical...     

Rheumatoide Arthritis

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Private Sector Consultants and Public Universities: the challenges of cross-sectoral knowledge transfers

Since the early 1990s, European higher education has been undergoing drastic changes with regard to the organisation and governance of academic work. The political emphasis on higher education autonomy and accountability went hand in hand with the introduction of market type steering devices and a new discourse regarding the universities' responsibilities to society. This article is about both carriers of diffusion processes that are crucial in disseminating private sector logics and the limits to such processes. By taking into account contradictory societal pressures towards isomorphism and differentiation; we will draw on neo-institutionalism and the sociological systems theory to provide a definition of privatisation in higher education. Especially, we are interested in detecting systematic limits to the privatisation of higher education. We therefore examine a relatively recent phenomenon in higher education governance: the increasing reliance of institutions on management consulting services. First findings show that the more market-centred a higher education system is, the more readily it accepts the economic rationale of the consulting business. Nevertheless, our study also stresses that management consultancy for higher education institutions is of limited scope. Systemic differences remain unbroken as the adherence to different value systems, communication patterns and resources limit the scope of external, private consulting activities in higher education.