Cooperation and International News
The members of the IZfB work very closely with universities and research institutions not only in Germany but also internationally on various (collaborative) projects, some of which have been mentioned above.
“Interdisciplinarity in qualitative education research” (2016) and “Participation in qualitative education research” (2017) were the topics of two four-day winter schools sponsored by the BMBF under its Empirical Education Research funding line. Each was attended by 40 doctoral and post-doctoral candidates from the Federal Republic of Germany and the international community. Seventeen professors and scientific members of staff from the Faculty of Educational Sciences, almost all of them members of the IZfB, were involved in organising both events, in 2017 under the management of Jun.- Prof. Martina Richter and in 2016 of Prof. Anja Tervooren. Besides talks in the national and international context and peer workshops in which the empirical material was interpreted, six established research methodologies – image reconstruction methods, the documentary method, ethnography, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and the habitus hermeneutic – were discussed with regard to their methodological and research-methodical approaches.
As a way of strengthening the connections between the work of the IZfB members and with external scholars and researchers, a research colloquium is held during the semester at which external speakers present current research findings. In 2016 and 2017, the members of different faculties invited around 30 guests to take part. At PhD level an interdisciplinary doctoral colloquium supports and encourages exchange and networking between candidates with other faculties from an early stage of their academic career. The IZfB also offers support to its members with invitations to visiting scientists for longer-term stays. In 2016 and 2017, guests were the renowned experts in methodologies and research approaches. Prof. William Boone (Miami University, USA) and in science education Prof. David Treagust (Curtin University in Perth, Australia). Dr. Wes Maciejewski from San José State University, California, presented his research in mathematics education as part of a lecture series. With the support of the IZfB, Prof. Bryony Hoskins, an expert in comparative social sciences, was invited as a guest of the Educational Research and Schooling research group. In October 2017 Prof. Alan H. Schoenfeld extended his visit as keynote speaker at the Conference on Mathematical Views, which was supported by the IZfB, to a longer stay as visiting scholar. The IZfB also invited Prof. Judith Lederman, Director of Teacher Education in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at Illinois Institute of Technology, to visit the science education departments at the UDE, where she held the keynote talk at the colloquium in honour of Prof. Elke Sumfleth.
Because the transfer of research results into society is such a necessary part of education research in particular, in October 2016 the IZfB joined the UDE’s Centre for Teacher Education (ZLB) and the Quality and Support Agency – State Institute for Schools (QUAL-LiS) in organising the Sinus conference “Learn – Understand – Apply: Skill Acquisition in the STEM Subjects”, in which some 500 teachers of STEM subjects from North Rhine-Westphalia took part.
A large number of methodology workshops in qualitative and quantitative educational research have been offered in recent years to support PhD candidates in the various faculties with their training. The majority of workshops were delivered by external instructors, in some cases in cooperation with experts from the UDE.