Department

The Institute of Educational Science is divided into five departments: General Pedagogy, Empirical Learning World Research and Higher Education Didactics, Adult and Continuing Education, Social Pedagogy, and Migration – Diversity – Education. In research and teaching, we deal with educational and developmental processes over the entire lifespan against the background of societal transition.Our focus is on the life and learning worlds of children, youth, and adults in different life phases, which are analysed based upon the perspectives of educational science and practical pedagogy. With the various task areas and institutional constellations that define the field of education in mind, we also develop diverse science-based, educational offers.

The goal of the institute is to advance the discipline of Educational Science and to support the professional development in the various areas of education and pedagogical practice. To this end, we engage in self-reflective forms of deliberation in order to adapt and to design our research in line with the demands of modern, democratic forms of university management, international standards and innovative aspirations. Basic research and applied research are tightly integrated in one another. Depending upon the topics, various methods from the humanities and social sciences are applied in individual and third-party funded research. With a diversified multiple dissemination strategy, using various publications, presentations, and other media formats, we take on an active role in the scientific community.

In the research-led teaching, more than 1,600 students at various educational levels are currently completing a theoretically based, competence and scientifically oriented educational programme. The institute offers, in addition to the modularised bachelor’s programme in Educational Science, a Master’s programme in Social Pedagogy with a specialisation module in Social Pedagogy or Early Childhood Education and the Master’s programme Adult and Continuing Education. The Doctoral programmes are coordinated through the organisational framework of the Doctoral School of Educational Sciences. The doctoral programme itself follows the curriculum for the interdisciplinary doctoral programme and the curriculum for the humanities Doctoral degree programme at the URBI Faculty.