The Institute of Pedagogy is a research unit with a multi-perspective research profile. The researchers working here are from different academic traditions and represent a range of different educational methods and approaches. Alongside empirical educational research, which is part of the broader research profile in education science, researchers at the Institute of Pedagogy take a historical and systematic approach to educational issues using research methods that are quantitative and qualitative, and critical and hermeneutic in the context of critical social science. This methodological diversity and the interplay between the different approaches are the disciplinary core of contemporary education science. Thanks to the broad disciplinary background of the institutes researchers – general pedagogy, general didactics, school pedagogy, primary and secondary education, social pedagogy, adult education, mobility education and intercultural education – it is in a position to offer a wide variety of research opportunities. This not only nurtures interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary understanding of the complexities shaping educational processes, but is also beneficial to student training in the various academic programmes in education.
In 2008, research focused on mobility in aging populations, support for educational attainment of young people from a migrant background, gender roles in an intercultural context, diversity and education, quality of education in preschools, Reggio pedagogy, Herbartian pedagogy, analysis and critique of contemporary educational planning, media culture and education, social history and the history of ideas in relation to vocational education, and social area orientation / community development. These fields of research will be developed and intensified over the coming years.