Research Projects of Doctoral Students and Postdoc

Using the example of the “Jugendstrafvollzug in freien Formen” (a technical term for a specialised institution for young prisoners in Germany that provides a certain degree of self-determination during the process of resocialisation), this proposed research project intends to focus on young prisoners as addressees of these educational and resocialization measures. The specialised institutional format is supposed enable the addressees to take on responsibility in regard to their own consequential measures and position themselves as actors during the process of their resocialisation based on their individual background and available resources. The research utilises a qualitative-reconstructive research design to investigate individual consequences for the addressees, while taking the educational-supportive framework of a youth prison into account. Therefore, this multidisciplinary study project touches upon educational science as well as theories related to legal sciences.

In Germany probation service as part of social work in the criminal justice system represents the most important alternative to the penal system. According to the law, the live circumstances of the convicted person play an important role in the suspension of sentence (section 56 of the German criminal code). Following the guidelines from the DBSH (a German professional association of social work), the relatives of the person on probation are also included in the practical probation period. This doctoral thesis focusses on the interface between probationary service work and the social network of its addressees and considers potential interactions. The research project aims to discover implications and consequences the probation service might have for its addressees and their social relations. For this purpose a qualitative network research using case comparison will be conducted.

In this dissertation project the perspective is taken that social action, which includes meaningful action related to other persons, is always marked by a bodily aspect. Therefore it is assumed that also social services work, which is oriented towards its addressees, is bodily steeped. Which consequences of social services work arise in the context of bodily representation, construction and possible transformation of social order is an empirically open question. Based on the work of socio-pedagogical fan projects, the qualitative research design aims to show how the social services work is embodied by the addressees and how the consequences affect the construction/transformation of the addressee’s social reality. Especially the bodily impulse and experience of the fans in the context of football and the accompanying work of the fan projects establish the opportunity to explore the embodied consequences of social services work in differentiated manner.

Since the late 1990s, the policy field of social urban development has received a lot of attention in Germany as a reaction to the increase in social inequality. In such political programs the fields of action of social services work and urban development are programmatically linked: Supported areas should not only be upgraded in terms of urban development and infrastructure, the aim should also be to improve social stability and life opportunities of the local population in these districts by promoting institutions such as neighborhood management, social space work and/or community work. The starting point for addressing is a specifically delimited space and thus the entire population of this space, regardless of the individual use or non-use of social services work. The qualitative research project focuses on spatially located social services work in areas where social urban development is programmatically targeted. The aim of the project is to examine consequences of spatially located addressing processes in social services work against a sociological background.  The consequences are explored from the perspective of the addressees.

An increasing health inequality is observed in Germany. With the entry into force of the Prevention Act (PrävG) at the beginning of 2016, the social situation and non-medical health promotion were strengthened. By promoting the self-determined health-oriented actions of the addressees, a contribution should be made to reducing socially-related inequality of health opportunities.

Although empirical studies show that economically disadvantaged population groups do not benefit from the universally oriented health promotion, there are few empirical clues about the considerations of the addressees, their motives and decisions regarding the use or non-use of the offers. What the appeal through the field of social-related health promotion means for the addressees and which consequences they make relevant for their (healthy) life or not, has not yet been empirically investigated so far. It should be the subject of the research work.

The main purpose of residential child care (Heimerziehung) is to ensure the wellbeing of children and adolescents as well as to promote their development, education and participation. In addition, child and youth welfare services shall improve upbringing conditions in birth families. In impact studies on residential child care, which focus on the biographical development of young people, co-operation with (birth) parents is recognised as an important impact factor. Careleaver research and discourses on ombuds offices in child and youth welfare offer an increasing insight into young people’s perspectives on residential child care (and other forms of upbringing support). How (birth) parents experience residential child care is empirically underrepresented in youth welfare research. The research project focuses on this perspective and examines the consequences of residential child care for parents as addressees of this social services work.

According to german child and youth welfare statistics, the number of procedures initiated by schools to assess a risk to the well-being of a child (§ 8a SGB VIII, German Child and Youth Welfare Code) has risen significantly in recent years. If there is a need for support from the point of view of the youth welfare department, welfare services are often installed. Which mechanisms are relevant that pupils become addressees of child and youth welfare services, is an empirically open question. By using a dispositive analysis this habilitation project will focus how the ‘dispositive of the addressee of youth welfare services (co-)initiated by schools’ is constituted in its powerful connections. In this way, primary and secondary consequences that arise within this complex process for the addressed pupils and other dimensions of the dispositive, e.g. school, youth welfare department or the social welfare service, can be taken into account.

Educational landscapes combine formal and non-formal educational settings (e.g. schools and juvenile facilities) into a comprehensive concept of education that encompasses both formal and informal educational processes. A special feature is the cooperation of different educational institutions within a pedagogically designed spatial area, e.g. in the form of a campus. How young people are produced as users of educational landscapes in campus form has not yet been empirically researched in detail. Therefore, subjectivation processes by and through users are the focus of this doctoral thesis. Accordingly, (self-)subjectivation of young people and (external) subjectivation of users by pedagogical experts will be investigated in order to illustrate the consequences of this process.

Social services as publicly provided ‘pedagogical welfare interventions’ are always an expression of ideas about successfully living together. In this context, social services in democratic welfare states are confronted with the demand to enable and guarantee participation of their addressees. The project investigates how the many and varied opportunities for participation and freedom of action provided by the law and implied by professional standards are perceived by the children and young people in the various residential childcare services. With the help of a qualitative-quantitative mixed-methods design, the participation experiences of the addressees will be examined in the context of organizational structures of out-of-home care in England and Germany in order to consider the consequences of the ‘participation imperative’ for the structure and practice of residential childcare at a bi-national level.

In recent years, it has become apparant in the area of residential child care that practices of sanctioning are increasingly standardised and systematised. In this context, the so-called stage model represents a substantial pedagogical concept which is applied in juvenile detention centres and closed residential child care facilities as well as in non-closed intensive pedagogical institutions. This concept is also critically discussed in the academic discourse. Its programmatic aim is to convey clear structures and behavioural rules while motivating the addressees to change deviant behaviour on their own responsibility. So far, the consequences of the application of stage models in residential child care have been empirically underrepresented from the perspective of the addressees and will be investigated with the help of qualitative interviews.

Open child and youth work pursues the programmatic goal of aligning itself with the interests of its target group and addressing all visitors equally. This implies that all young people have a right to participate in the structural co-determination and content of the programmes. Based on the assumption that differentiations are constitutive for social situations, mechanisms of social differentiation processes in the participatory design of open child and youth work are examined. The mechanisms can be explored with an ethnographic approach to be able to highlight everyday practices within youth work in the context of participation and the differences that become relevant with regard to the children and young people. This perspective makes it possible to reconstruct to what extent consequences arise for the addressees of youth work within the framework of the observed practices.