Gibt es Erkenntnisfortschritte in der Allgemeinen Didaktik? Ein empirischer Beitrag zur disziplinären Entwicklung der Schulpädagogik

This article deals with the disciplinary development of school pedagogy using the example of the development of general didactics theories. Addressing the question of progress in scientific knowledge of general didactics, we examine whether school pedagogy has established typical forms of disciplinary communication. In order to answer this question, we present the findings from a research project on the representations of the concept of didactics in pedagogical reference books. New knowledge from didactical research is rarely reported and the predominance of a few approaches cannot be explained by the availability of more or substantial knowledge. The findings confirm recent research which demonstrates that school pedagogy exhibits structural characteristics of a scientific discipline but makes only limited use of those to maintain typical forms of disciplinary communication.     

New guiding principles in educational policy: the case of Germany

Pluralism, decentralization, deregulation, school autonomy, greater diversity and parent empowerment in education are among the new guiding principles in educational policy in numerous industrial countries. Whereas this paradigm shift reflects the advance of the market ideology into the education sector in other (particularly English‐speaking) countries, the driving force behind this movement in Germany is rather the political system's loss of legitimation and the conflict‐ridden state of educational policy. The first part of the article takes a retrospective view which links up to the analyses of Weiler. It shows that the former strategies for securing legitimation and regulating conflicts ‐ involving science in the educational reform process, legalization and judicialization ‐ have only been effective temporarily. Using the new Education Act of Hesse as example, the hypothesis is developed that the strategy of increasing parent empowerment and partially transferring regulatory powers and decision‐making competence to individual schools will also not bring about the expected effects since this will not solve the structural problems of the German school system. In the second part of the article this thesis is elaborated within the framework of a differentiated analysis of the consequences of the structural problems as manifested in individual school types on local educational markets.     

Curriculare Schwerpunkte Ud Entwicklungstrends Im Erziehungs- Und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Studium Für Den Lehrerber Uf In Der Bundesr Epublik Deutschland

The authors describe an empirical study on the curricular contents of university lectures offered to teacher students in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since students as a rule do not have to take compulsory courses it seems to be of great interest which courses are offered to them and how much these courses are related to their profession as teachers. The purpose of the study is to ascertain what knowledge and competency students intending to become secondary school teachers can acquire by attending the courses available to them. In order to fulfil this purpose a system for the classification of lectures has been developed and applied to all lectures and other university courses, from summer 1965 to summer 1972, in educational science, philosophy, psychology, political science and sociology, at the universities of Berlin (Free University and Technical University), Göttingen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Kiel, Köln and Tübingen. This period covers a range of 15 semesters (7 1/2 years), the maximum time for a teacher student. These universities are a sample of urban and country districts, and at the same time somewhat representative for the politically different governed “Länder” of the Federal Republic of Germany. A general result of the study is that the absolute number of university lectures increased rapidly during the observed time, with the exception of philosophy. The number of lectures on educational science often doubled, in the case of Berlin and Kiel it even tripled. Another important observation shows that the categories with the most entries differed from university to university. This was especially the case in philosophy, but this phenomenon occurred also quite clearly in the field of educational science. As far as trends could be observed, a slight tendency towards the decrease of the historical components of educational science has to be reported, but this tendency is not so significant as the others. Two main conclusions among others have to be drawn from the results of the study: First, the current university education for teacher students depends mainly on local and situational factors, e.g. it is the professor's decision on which topics he wants to lecture, second, the university education for teacher students can not be regarded to be adequate to the problems they have to face after leaving university. This means that the curricular norms and values of the university education will, at least in some cases, remain unsatisfactory for these students.     

Adolescents' motivation to select an academic science-related career: the role of school factors,individual interest,and science self-concept

Many researchers consider a lacking interest in science and the students' belief that science is too demanding as major reasons why young people do not strive for science-related careers. In this article, we first delineated a theoretical framework to investigate the importance of interest, self-concept, and school factors regarding students' career preferences. Then, we tested the expected effects on a sample of German 9th-grade students (N = 7,813). We focused on two school factors: the amount of (additional) science activities and the real-life applications in science classes. The multi-level analysis showed that school factors were highly relevant for the students' interest in science and science self-concept. In turn, interest in science and science self-concept affect the students' interest in science-related careers. We conclude that focusing on the link between individual and school characteristics is important for the understanding of students' interest in science-related careers.     

Betreuung und Bewertung wissenschaftlicher (Doktor-)Arbeiten

Das UnivG 2002 sieht keine ausdrücklichen Bestimmungen betreffend die Betreuung und Beurteilung wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten mehr vor, sondern stellt die Regelung dessen dem autonomen Satzungsgeber anheim. Bei der Gestaltung der betreffenden Satzungsinhalte spielen Aspekte der Gesetzeskonformit?t, Treffsicherheit und Sachgerechtigkeit eine wesentliche Rolle. Dies gilt vor allem für Dissertationen, die eine besondere Betreuungs- bzw Beurteilungsintensit?t aufweisen sowie vermehrten Zulauf aus dem FH-Bereich verzeichnen und jüngst zunehmend ins Zentrum hochschulpolitischer Reformerw?gungen gerückt sind. Vor diesem Hintergrund kommt auch der Frage nach der M?glichkeit und Zul?ssigkeit externer Dissertations-Betreuer besondere Bedeutung zu.     

Prevalence of socioemotional problems in deaf and hard of hearing children in Germany

The German version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used in a study to examine its usefulness in diagnosing socioemotional problems of deaf and hard of hearing children. The SDQ parent version was completed by 213 mothers and 213 fathers. The factor structure and reliability were tested, and the prevalence rate of socioemotional problems determined and compared to the German standardization sample. The statistical data were uniformly satisfactory; thus, the SDQ can serve as a valid yet economical screening procedure to identify endangered children at an early age, and to refer them to more exact diagnosis and subsequent advice and therapy. This is very important, as the prevalence of socioemotional problems in the sample of deaf and hard of hearing children was clearly greater for almost all scores, a result that is nearly identical with findings from many other recent studies.     

Buchbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Value orientations and motivational interference in school-leisure conflict: The case of Vietnam

The experience of motivational interference during studying and leisure in a school-leisure conflict and its relationship to pupils' value orientations were investigated in a self-report study of Vietnamese pupils (N = 346, mean age = 15 years). The results were compared with a combined sample consisting of pupils from nine other countries (N = 2155). From a cross-cultural perspective, the mean values of the variables show that Vietnamese pupils differ with regard to their values and motivational interference from pupils in other countries. Within the Vietnamese sample, modern value orientation was positively related to decision for a studying activity in a school-leisure conflict and to experience of motivational interference during a leisure activity and negatively related to interference during studying. For post-modern value orientation, the relationships were mostly reversed. Despite differences between sample means, the consistency in the relationships between the variables across the samples indicates that the pattern of relationships can be generalized.