Educational transformation: Learning for democracy and sustainability

and what that has to do with baking cakes

2024-08-08 Improving schools together and making them fit for the future – that is the main goal of the Wissenschaftsraum (science space) “Future Trends in Education. Transforming schools through democracy education and education for sustainable development (Future.Ed)”.

©unsplash/Katja Anokhina
Future Trends in Education (Future.Ed) // Copyright: unsplash/Katja Anokhina

Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Simone Abels and Prof. Dr. Marcus Pietsch at Leuphana and in cooperation with the Universities of Oldenburg and Osnabrück, Future.Ed will conduct empirical and evidence-based research into how this goal can be achieved. Marcus Pietsch, Professor for Educational Science, explains: “We go into schools and look at certain processes that explain possible changes. For example, we want to find out what schools do so that students learn to commit to democracy and actively shape it. Based on our expertise, the expertise of people in the schools and on the data collected, we capture what works, i.e. we generate evidence. We can then put this back into practice and thus achieve a societal impact.” The studies focus on how democratic principles and sustainable action are learnt and how these skills (civic literacy and sustainability literacy) can take effect in society. Because the future trends democracy and sustainability and the associated digitalisation are the major topics that will ultimately be relevant for societies in the coming years, according to Pietsch.

Cooperation with 40 secondary schools from the regional school supervisory districts of Lüneburg and Osnabrück is planned. Different types of schools from different regions should take part, including schools in rural areas that otherwise receive little academic support. The participating schools receive the results of the measurements, including feedback, e.g. on what is going well and advice on what can be done better and how. Participation is voluntary and interested schools are welcome to apply. There will be a public event with all the relevant information, but schools can also get in touch now.

There is already a lot of experience and tools for collecting and measuring data to record students’ competences. Support is obtained, for example, from the Lower Saxony State Institute for School Quality Development (NLQ), the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) or the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS). This expertise helps to explore the diverse areas that are crucial for a successful educational transformation. Prof. Pietsch comments: “There is a nice image of a colleague from the USA who once said that school development is like the interaction of ingredients in a cake. One part alone cannot work: you have to look at the work with parents, the attitude of the colleagues, how they work together and so on. In the end, you get the whole cake and that’s what we try to do: Baking cakes.”

The “Wissenschaftsräume” funding programme of the state of Lower Saxony and the VolkswagenStiftung supports cooperation between universities in Lower Saxony and non-university research institutions. Future.Ed builds on the educational science expertise of the three participating universities and contributes to strengthening empirical educational research in Lower Saxony. To improve school education, its effects on the competence areas civic literacy and sustainability literacy are being comprehensively researched for the first time in German-speaking countries.

Contact

  • Prof. Dr. Simone Abels
  • Prof. Dr. Marcus Pietsch