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Research

The research profile at the Department of Psychosocial Intervention and Communication Studies is characterised by different foci that form a field of strengths.

• Breaking lines and interfaces: The research focuses on the breaking lines and interfaces at which pedagogical and education processes occur. This includes the interfaces between the individual and society, public and private pedagogy, individual and collective trauma, gender and generational tensions, adult and children’s perspectives.
• Relationality: One focal point is the significance of relationality for pedagogical and educational processes. These are hardly imaginable without a frame of reference that, depending on the theoretical perspective, falls under the concepts of communication, interaction, sociality, relation, bonding or intersubjectivity. These include amongst others dealing with the significance of relational experiences between and within generations in general, with the relation of consciously manifested experience and behaviour and subconscious motivations and imaginations, the mutuality of family and public pedagogy, the tension of positive and negative relational experiences, as well as pedagogical and educational relations of the individual in organisations.
• Processes of transformation: Relational processes require transformational processes of various kinds; these form a further focal point of research. These include amongst others examining development, socialisation and subjectivisation in and through the family, institutions and society, the influence of trauma and conflict, transformation in the context of training and further education and professionalisation processes in pedagogical institutions.
• Field of the psyche: Relational exchange processes are carried out by subjects that mutually influence and change each other. This trans- and inter-disciplinary focal point in the field of the psyche is reflected in the handling of psychotraumatology, interpersonal communication, personality, subconscious processes, mentalisation and mental representations of pedagogical and educational experiences by parental figures.
• Theory-practice relations: A further focal point refers to theory-practice relations. This includes both fundamental scientific investigations into fields of action and institutions of pedagogical and educational sciences as well as studies that aim to promote development, socialisation, pedagogical and educational processes through practical approaches. 

Educational sciences methodology: This research is marked by consistent reflection on the methodologies of educational science. The use of and reflection about research designs and research methods is intended to enable an understanding of the research objects that is both broad and deep, and to allow answering complex research questions. The wide range of approaches followed includes image analyses, metaphor analyses, ethnographic approaches, scene analysis, discourse and dispositive analyses, standardised observations, test procedures and surveys.