Science of Education in the Bologna ProcessStrategies and orientation frameworks in the reform of academic programmes

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Cathleen Grunert
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 246493422

This project mainly focuses on the question what kind of changes result from the Bologna Process. In particular: what are the consequences of this reform for Educational Science in the shape of their institutional organization and in which way it changed the appearance of this discipline. The objects of research are the education-scientific academic programmes at German universities considered as a key element in recruiting discipline-related academics and therefore the disciplinary self-reproduction. As a first step, a survey of ongoing study programmes of Educational Science has to be implemented. In addition, a comparison with sociological study programmes should be carried out to show whether the changes resulting from the academic reform are general or specific for Educational Science. A second step is to analyze the contextual conditions at the universities which accompanied the introduction of the new programmes. The aim of this step is to examine whether different endowment with institutionalized scientific capital (such as staffing, external funding or the status of the discipline at university) generates different ways to deal with the requirements of the reform process. These two first steps are intended to give an account of the current spectrum of Educational Science study programmes according to the specifics of different university settings and should result in a corresponding typology. The third and last step is based on qualitative research methods and focuses the reconstruction of the processes of implementation and their internal and external conditions. The changing processes and their underlying strategies and leading orientations should be reconstructed from a stakeholder perspective on different (typical) university settings. The very aim of the project is to reconstruct the internal and external factors that constitute the current situation of the institutional organization in Educational Science in the shape of their academic courses., On the one hand, it thus makes a significant contribution for the long-term monitoring of the discipline. And on the other hand, it highlights the dynamics embedded in the academic reform that might be responsible for a shift in the disciplinary power relations. Not least these can document themselves in the academic courses which are key elements of disciplinary self reproduction.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants