The potential in the field of teacher training research at the University of Oldenburg lies above all in the networking of the diverse regional and supra-regional research activities, as well as in the interdisciplinary cooperation between didactics, educational sciences and subject-specific sciences, which is strengthened by various thematic working groups. The new Research Training Group "Teacher Education 2040: Dimensions of the Professionalisation of Teachers from an Interdisciplinary Perspective - Challenges, Models, Methods" established at the DiZ Research Academy aims to achieve precisely this integration of different research perspectives.

The cooperative approach of the Research Training Group promises to set new accents, to use the existing potential for teacher education research in Oldenburg and to implement it in research projects in order to establish or further expand innovative research perspectives in professionalisation research, e.g. on language sensitivity in educational processes, on non-formal, extracurricular and lifelong learning and teaching, on the facets of heterogeneity or on the digitalisation of teaching-learning processes. The central location for bundling this potential is the Research Academy of the Centre for Teacher Education - Didactic Centre, which provides structural and organisational support for the interdisciplinary research projects in the focus area, especially in the preparation of joint proposals for funding from third-party donors such as the BMBF, the DFG, the EU or foundations.

The professional activities of teachers will continue to be characterised by a whole series of key social transformation processes in the future: The dynamics of migration will - probably more clearly than ever before - also contribute to linguistic and cultural diversity in local classrooms and teachers' rooms. These and other dimensions of heterogeneity (such as socio-economic status or religious affiliation) and the associated moments of inclusion and exclusion require (future) teachers to be particularly sensitised to their everyday practice. In addition, the design of teaching/learning processes in the future will be increasingly influenced by digital transformation approaches, which are promising for some and unmanageable and worrying for others. In addition, a new or different form of professionalisation of teachers must be considered in view of the overall social goal of sustainable development. Last but not least, the growing number of lateral entrants and non-specialist teachers who need to utilise and develop this scope for development must also be taken into account. All of these developments, according to the starting point of the programme, lead to the need to reflect on and further develop methodological and didactic models and concepts, both in the context of school educational processes in the classroom and at extracurricular learning venues as well as in the design of initial and further education for teachers.

In preparation for a reflective approach to these developments, the Research Training Group aims to identify and work on possible fields of research in teacher training from an interdisciplinary perspective and through cooperation between subject didactics, educational sciences and specialised sciences, which can also contribute to the cross-phase and biography-oriented professionalisation of teachers at different levels in the future. So how can innovative and relevant concepts, strategies and practices of professionalisation be identified and developed that, despite the unpredictability of future developments, prepare us to deal with the challenges of the future in a pedagogically, didactically and methodologically appropriate way?

In order to find answers to the question mentioned in the description, the Research Training Group pursues three goals:

1. researching changes in educational processes in and out of school as well as in university teacher education practice under changing social conditions
2. investigating the actual or potential effects of these changes on the arrangement of different (school/extracurricular/university) teaching and learning contexts - focussing on theoretical-conceptual, empirical and research-methodological questions
3. the development and evaluation of didactic models, methods and interventions that - with the aim of developing a critical-reflective professionalism - examine and scrutinise the interrelationships of teaching/learning processes as well as explanatory and decision-making models both in the context of teacher training and in the school context.

These concerns are being addressed in nine doctoral projects that approach different dimensions of the professionalisation of teachers from the perspective of various disciplines. The theoretical-conceptual, empirical and methodological findings of the work are regularly introduced into an interdisciplinary dialogue involving both the participating early career researchers and the supervising university lecturers. In order to be able to take a sufficiently differentiated look at the various facets of professionalisation - its prerequisites, its forms and modes as well as its effects - in this dialogue, the doctoral projects are accompanied by teams consisting of researchers from at least two different fields (subject didactics, educational science, subject science).