Research Topics and Fields for Dissertations
The following list of possible fields for dissertations intends to suggest research topics which take up the School’s theoretical and empirical orientation. In addition to these topical fields there are central research questions such as gender, migration and multilingualism or mechanisms of educational participation which can be dealt with in the context of most of the suggested topics.
Research Topic 1: Theoretical foundations and methodological developments
Educational and social justice
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Intersectionality and the Capabilities Approach
Capabilities and uncertainty/insecurity
Youth and globalization
Well-being and human flourishing
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Well-being as Metric for Welfare and Education
Adolescents and the “Good life”
Agency as an object of education and welfare
Quantitative and qualitative methods of empirical educational science
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Research instruments and procedures for monitoring processes of schools, classes and students
Methodological requirements and effects of monitoring processes
Methodological foundations of educational and capability research
Examples of fields for dissertations:
The epistomological capacity of the Capability Approach as theory for educational science
Towards the relation between theoretical analysis, empirical research
and practical orientation in the implementation of the Capability
Approach in educational science
Operationalization of the Capability Approach: Theoretical considerations and methodological concepts
Research topic 2: Formal and non-formal educational structures and professionally supplied opportunity sets
Institutional arrangements and non-formal education
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Incapable Clients - Social Work appraisals of social competencies
Effects of homework supervision offers on motivational interference in learning
Transition from school into vocational practice with special emphasis
on the role of co-operating partners inside and outside of schools
Effectiveness, improvement and development of schools
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Developmental characteristics and settings of challenged schools
Learning of organisations and success of schools
Grade Retention as a Means of Selection
Development, application and evaluation of feedback methods and
communication instruments of findings of accomplished studies for
schools, parents, the administration of the school and the school
maintaining body
Development, application and accomplishment of studies regarding the
educational participation and educational inequality (for example
models of individual assistance, development of schools in networks)
Mundane experience and developmental processes
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Deprivation and exclusion – socio-spatial strategies of integration and capabilities
Promoting Literacy and Reading Skills for Boys
Development and application of intervention models and their effects on the development of competencies
Enhancing young persons abilities through professional practice
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Deviant behaviour in institutions of socialization and education – challenges for educational professions
Professional teacher-child interaction in preschools and schools with
respect to children’s language acquisition and competence
Improving students learning motivation by training teachers to apply the individual reference norm orientation
Support systems at the Oberstufenkolleg
Research Topic 3: Social and linguistic competencies and individual functionings: acquisition in cultural contexts
Social-cultural functionings and their familiale and societal embeddings
Examples of fields for dissertations:
The change of family and its consequences for the acquisition of social and cultural competencies
Young immigrant’s perspectives on their integration process into host society
Social competences and family life
The impact of parents and peers on the development of dysfunctional procrastination
Media-influenced behaviour and well-being
Development of media literacy
Development of young persons’ media competence in the context of formal, nonformal, and informal learning environments
Conditions that promote and impede media competence in the learning and
educational biographies of youths with a migrant Turkish background
Educational success and acquisition of competencies among adolescents:
The influence of social background and student body composition at
school
Social and educational support of self-regulating capacities
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Personal goals, goal conflicts, and well-being of adolescents
The formation of life goals of socially disadvantaged girls
Young Immigrant Children, Resilience and the Capabilities Approach
Parental support of children in the development of self-reflecting strategies of behaviour regulation
Promotion of reading motivation in the family
Students’ competencies in a longitudinal perspective: conditions of
extra-curricular activities, special learning programs at school and
parental support
Learning motivation and learning strategies of deprived adolescents and migrants
Self-agency and self-determination of young persons when choosing and attaining their academic and vocational careers
Contexts and processes of children’s and young persons’ acquisition of linguistic and communicative competencies
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Communicative competences in preschool children: acquisition and individual differences
Discourse / narrative acquisition in children with special needs
Discourse competences and acquisition in second language speaking children
Reading competence and discourse experience in the family
Intercultural competence as an aim for learning and teaching
Different Facets of Language Awareness and Their Role in L2 Learning -
with a special emphasis on learners and their learning processes in the
context of instruction
Language Assessment and The Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages as well as Focus on Language Competences - a new paradigm in
Second Language/Foreign Language learning and teaching
Schulbegleitende Sprachförderung in der Zweitsprache Deutsch: Erwerb bildungssprachlicher Kompetenzen
Educational assessments and fostering of linguistic abilities
Examples of fields for dissertations:
Linguistic
practices of adolescents in different interactive contexts in and
outside of school: The competence to contextualize as a relevant
capability
Linguistic mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in teaching
The role of oral and literacy competences in educational participation from the individual’s point of view
Consequences of transitions in the educational system
(elementary/primary schools) on the development of linguistic
competencies
Linguistic diagnostics of children with and without social risks basing on models of linguistic competencies