Doctoral Student

Jana Sämann, M.A.

Hölderlin-Campus
H-B 6411

Qualification Project

‘Neutrality’ as a non-professional interpellation to youth work and its consequences for the professional and self-image of professionals and young addressees

‘Neutrality’ as an appeal to youth work from outside the profession and its consequences for the professional and self-image of professionals and young addressees. In recent years, there has been an increase in political interventions into the field of youth work, particularly in the context of extracurricular political education.

 In doing so, a supposed requirement of ‘neutrality’ requirement is constructed and/or its violation is problematized. Of central interest to the research project is the consequences of these interpellations for ‘neutrality’ as perceived by youth work professionals and addressees of youth work and how they position themselves in relation to these invocations. In an empirical double perspective, first the power effects of the discourse of supposed neutrality in political education work will be worked out. Subsequently, the (professional) self-relations and subjectivities of the invoked professionals and young addressees are reconstructed.

Curriculum Vitae

since April 2023
Research assistant in the DFG Research Training Group 2493 “Consequences of Social Assistance” at University of Siegen

since October 2021
Research assistant in the project “Learning from and with each other. Cooperations between extracurricular youth education and social pedagogy to invigorate political education” at the Department of Didactics of Social Sciences at University of Siegen

since April 2019
Lecturer at Bremen University of Applied Sciences on the Social Work B.A. course with courses on “Youth Work”, “History and Theories of Social Work”, “Participation in various Fields of Social Work” and “Conspiracy Theories in the Context of Social Work”

January 2015 – September 2021
Youth education officer at a youth association in Bremen, with a focus on extracurricular political youth education, cultural youth work and pedagogical management of programs in the youth center

October 2016 – September 2020
M.A. in Educational Sciences with a focus on diversity-conscious education at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

October 2014 – March 2015
Study of Practice Research in Social Work and Pedagogy M.A. at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin

January 2010 – February 2020
Honorary employee in various contexts of extracurricular political youth education work

April 2013 – March 2014
Recognition year to obtain state recognition as a social worker, member of the training staff council

October 2008 – September 2013
Studied Social Work B.A. with a focus on Informal Education at Bremen University of Applied Sciences

Memberships

German Society for Social Work (DGSA)

Forum for Critical Political Education

Scientific network for child and youth work