Transition-Inclusive: The Children's Perspective

 

• Project Title: Transition-Inclusive: The Children's Perspective
• (Current) Research Focus: Reconstructions of children’s perspectives on the transition to inclusive schools
• Project team: Prof. Dr. Julie A. Panagiotopoulou (project lead), Dr. Timo Neubert (research associate), Ahsen Büşra Güneştepe & Shalina Malik-Bozkurt (student ethnographers as part of their theses)
• Research Method: Digital and participatory ethnographic observations

 

Project description:

What institutional logics can be identified in the transition to inclusive schools, and how do children themselves interpret and cope with, in particular, “mismatches between family and school contexts” (Panagiotopoulou & Winter 2019, p. 62)? To explore this overarching research question within the ethnographically grounded teaching and research project “Transition-inklusiv,” teacher education and doctoral students from the UzK accompanied the daily transitions of first-year students entering an inclusive school. Initially—due to the COVID-19 pandemic—this was carried out through ethnographic observations conducted digitally via weekly Zoom meetings between the ethnographer and the children, who were in their respective family environments.

In the coming semesters, (digital) home visits with preschool children will be conducted on the one hand, and participant observation in the introductory phase of an inclusive elementary school on the other. As part of the pedagogical professionalization of the participating ethnographers, both approaches are designed, on the one hand, to address the participating children as co-researchers and involve them in the research process (see Krinninger 2018) and, on the other hand, to reflect on the resulting and already existing power relations, including intergenerational ones. In this regard as well, selected observation logs will be critically analyzed in various courses and research workshops together with the participants as well as with other teacher education and doctoral students, and are also intended to serve as the basis for student theses (see, e.g., Güneştepe 2022).

The ethnographic data will be analyzed according to grounded theory methodology (following Charmaz 2014) based on the following sub-questions:

• How do children perceive the transition to an inclusive school? To what extent do they see themselves as active participants in this process?

• What challenges do the children themselves raise? What coping strategies do they report, and what conditions/people involved, etc., do they view as conducive to their transition?

• What scope for action is granted to them in family and school contexts by the respective actors within these educational institutions, and/or how is this scope negotiated jointly?

• How are participating teacher education and doctoral students addressed by the children during the “research process,” and what role—from the children’s perspective—do they play in the individual transition?

• How are intergenerational power dynamics addressed methodologically in the field, and how are they reflected upon (including afterward)? Or to put it another way: What influence do the children have on the shaping of the research process?

 

References

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2. Aufl.). SAGE.

Güneştepe, A. B. (2022). Partizipative Forschung mit Kindern beim Übergang in eine inklusive Grundschule. Unveröffentlichte Bachelorarbeit, Universität zu Köln.

Krinninger, D. (2018). Ko_Autor_innen. Zur kooperativen Erzeugung von ‚Daten‘. Fallarchiv Kindheitspädagogische Forschung, 1(1), 3–18.

Panagiotopoulou, J. A., & Winter, J. (2019). Ungleichheiten im Bildungssystem: Übergänge als Bildungsbarrieren? In M. Dziak-Mahler, A. Krämer, R. Lehberger, R., & T. Matthiesen (Hrsg.), Weichen stellen - Chancen eröffnen. Studierende begleiten Viertklässler im Übergang zur weiterführenden Schule (S. 55–72). Waxmann.

 

Project-related publications