Home
The international NRW Research School Education and Capabilities unites the excellence of two neighbouring universities, which are each highly distinguished in the relevant fields: The Bielefeld University and the Technische Universitaet Dortmund. The graduate school is jointly funded by the state Northrhine-Westfalia and the universities. The school offers an innovative study and research program as well as excellent learning conditions for the doctoral students in the interdisciplinary empirical field of educational processes and opportunities of social participation.
The study program of the research school begins in October 2008. 18 principal investigators coming from different fields conduct an integrated doctoral training. There will be up to 50 internationally excellent doctoral students; most of them can expect scholarships. A special attraction of the training program is the chance for graduate students to participate in a large-scale longitudinal study that reconstructs those central phenomena and problem areas that promote or impede an individual’s educational chances in societies. Studies in the research school combine quantitative and qualitative methods and the research perspectives of educational science, linguistics, language teaching psychology, rehabilitation science and sociology.
Profile and Academic Conception
Large scale studies such as TIMSS, PISA or PIRLS/IGLU and DESI have revealed considerable groups of students in several countries’ educational systems with severe social, economic and educational disadvantages. The ensuing debates have made it clear that a substantial reduction of socio-economic or ethnic disadvantages cannot be achieved by efforts on the part of schools alone. Therefore, the Research School (RS) is the first to initiate a large integrative investigation into all relevant processes that are involved in creating, supporting and using educationally relevant attitudes and competencies in formal (e.g. schools), non-formal (e.g. public and private educational and welfare support) and informal (e.g. families and peers) contexts. Consequently it focuses on the acquisition of social and linguistic skills (oral and written) as key competences for learning and participation in society. Research within the RS especially benefits from the Capability Approach (CA) as a conceptual framework. Complex and detailed doctoral work on processes, capabilities and theoretical and professional knowledge is triggered by this focus. Outstanding methodological resources will be provided by the chance to participate in a large scale longitudinal study given to the doctoral students. Furthermore the RS is clearly committed towards the measures of gender mainstreaming and diversity management in order to provide equal opportunities and a modern and innovative working environment for the doctoral students. As a consequence of the thematic and conceptual orientation and the methodological program, the RS’s training will provide a new theoretical and professional basis for socially balanced reform in education and teaching.
The Capability Approach as a Surmounting, Justice-Based Framework for Interdisciplinary Understanding of Education Processes
The CA was developed by the Nobel Prize winner for economics, Amartya Sen, and the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. It represents a theoretically well-grounded approach to capture agency and social well-being of individuals as well as to evaluate the provisions of educational institutions and arrangements. The CA goes beyond the question whether young persons receive good educational services or a sufficient amount of resources (in material, cognitive and personal terms). In addition, the CA takes account of pervasive inter-individual differences in people’s abilities to convert resources and services into valuable states, actions and affiliations. It refers to the realisation of valuable activities and states such as the mastering of linguistic and social competences that make up young people’s wellbeing. The notion of capabilities points to the scale and scope of the real, actual possibilities and positive power of young persons to choose and enjoy different worthwhile activities and to pursue different meaningful life paths he or she has reason to value. Capabilities are therefore not only instrumental but the essential in-use-values of education as they point to young person’s authentic opportunities to exercise control over their own future in their individual social and economic life.
An educational system which adequately provides fundamental capabilities constitutes not only a basis for social progress and productivity but also for educational justice with respect to a flourishing development of young persons particularly those who are considered as educationally disadvantaged. As the RS assesses educational processes and provisions in the space of capabilities, it applies a new auspicious approach which is more inclusive and considered scientifically more appropriate than previous concepts of educational research such as resources, utility outcomes or client satisfaction.
The CA constitutes a particularly suitable basis for an interdisciplinary research context, clearly extending earlier theoretical and empirical approaches in research on education, socialization, and learning. As an overarching framework it thus provides an analytical tool with which to conceptualise and evaluate causes of educational inequality. Although the relevance of the CA for issues of education and acquisition has been pointed out repeatedly, it has not been applied to these areas so far. Due to this innovative step the RS claims international leadership for the field of education and capability research, aiming to integrate social theory and empirical research within educational science.
Focus on Social and Linguistic Competences
In its research and training program the RS will give special attention to the acquisition of linguistic and social skills. They are key competences with respect to chances and obstacles of institutional and societal participation and therefore constitute the basis for the development of almost all capabilities. Thus, they prototypically represent the hinge between individual resources and institutional malfunctioning due to inefficient language use and linguistic and social capacities, which is addressed by CA. Thus, they provide a central field of empirical research.
In line with the state of the art in linguistics and research on language acquisition, the RS conceptualizes linguistic abilities in a broad sense: that is, as comprising oral and written performances, basic use of graphemic systems as well as text production/reception, and mastery of all structural levels of language including the discourse level in first and second as well as foreign languages. A newly founded study group Literacy between Languages and Cultures, financed by the VW-Foundation at the Technische Universität Dortmund, is part of the relevant research context for the doctoral studies on these topics.
In addition and relation to linguistic abilities the RS focuses on social competences. From a capabilities’ perspective they are a fundament for communicating and interacting with others in an appropriate and meaningful manner but also for the development of a young person’s agency, i.e. his or her actual ability to pursue and realize change with respect to his/her own life as well as with respect to his/her social environment in a way s/he has reason to value.
Social as well as linguistic competencies are not merely individual features. Rather they are both generated and mediated in social processes of socialization, education, and training processes. Social and linguistic competencies constitute the major element of life skills, as they refer to interactive relations and reflexive relationships with others. They build the basis to develop capabilities that enable us to participate in social contexts.
An Innovation in Empirical Training The Large-Scale Longitudinal Study
One of the most innovative aspects of the RS’s training programme is the large-scale longitudinal study (LS) covering appr. 30 schools in the Bielefeld-Dortmund Region, that will be performed and supervised by the Institute of School Development in Dortmund. The Institute’s outstanding expertise guarantees a unique basis for this new form of methodological training. By linking the educational programme to the LS and involving the doctoral students in an expert culture, it enables the sound acquisition of a broad array of quantitative and qualitative methods along with triangulation procedures.. The LS can also serve as a common point of reference for doctoral students’ research activities. The joint processing of datasets, the collection of additional data in the context of the study, the comparison of German data with data from international sites are only some of the benefits of the conduction of a LS for training purposes. The examined cohort will track pupils from the seventh grade at Hauptschule and Realschule up to the second year of vocational training (Berufsbildende Schule). Thus, the age range spans from 13 to 18 years.
Research has shown that more than 20% of 15-year-olds in Germany do not attain the competences at the end of their secondary education that will presumably allow them to complete a vocational training. Similar problems and marginalization processes also exist in several other countries. The orientation towards the CA enables an understanding of these problems, which comprises questions of educational and social justice and centers on individual as well as social conditions of children and youth in school and parental milieu. The LS’s regular data collection is restricted to two key qualifications that can be viewed as crucial for the acquisition of all other competencies: reading comprehension (additionally, writing and listening for EFL) and social competence. Of course, this main focus does not rule out the inclusion of other instruments relevant to the graduate students’ research.
The thematic focus on the transition from school to work serves as a rich field of connectivity for German as well as international students. It gives the possibility to study the specific situation in Germany as well as international comparisons between school processes, processes of transitions and different age domains. The situation of migrants and multilingualism will be of special interest for Germany as well as for international comparisons. Summing up, it has to be stressed that the students’ involvement in the processes of the LS basically serves the purpose of their broad methodological training. The link of their dissertations to the longitudinal data is an option, not an obligation.