Research in the Team Social/Special Needs Education

With the field of action of the transition from school to work and the special target group of disadvantaged young people, we are referring to a biographical passage in which educational biographies and social inequalities have long been pronounced. Socially disadvantaged young people, young migrants and young people with special educational needs have long been trapped in roles in this phase of life that often block their access to a respectable educational and working society. From an institutional point of view, this means that not only the classic learning venues of vocational education and training such as schools and companies as well as extra-company and inter-company training facilities are of interest. Our work refers equally to the general school system, rehabilitation facilities, support centres for the disabled, the entire field of youth social work and also open youth work and all forms of voluntary or informal work. Our research and teaching perspective aims to make visible the social structures in which these status differences occur and to design pedagogical procedures that straighten these hierarchies and point beyond them. Social pedagogy in vocational education and training is thus a socio-political science of possibilities which also makes the experience of failure and precariousness the starting point for vocational learning and the perspective of professional life. This is accompanied by a subject-related understanding of inclusion that aims at the participatory recognition of biographical experiences and coping strategies.