The team "Pedagogy and didactics of emotional and social development with special consideration of inclusive educational processes" pursues the following mission statement with regard to the target group(s), the self-image, the understanding of terms and inclusion as well as the mission in teaching and research.

Preamble

The team identifies with a needs-, resource- and solution-orientated pedagogy in the sense of a humanistic view of humanity that aims for the participation of all.

A central aspect focusses on the triad of perception - understanding - action: Only the professional perception of behaviour or behavioural disorders creates the prerequisite for enabling pedagogical understanding. This is the basis for professional action: All human behaviour is a subjective problem-solving process.

Solutions for difficult educational processes form the core of the subject of pedagogy for behavioural disorders. The subject therefore focuses on the multi-stage prevention of impairments in social-emotional development in childhood and adolescence.

Target group/s

The research and work of the team focuses on children and young people with emotional and social impairments who are supported within the school and extracurricular organisational forms of a tiered system of special educational support. The professional spectrum addressed ranges from inclusive to intensive educational settings and thus attempts to take into account the specificity and heterogeneity of the target group's emotional and social impairments. The primary objective is the educational, academic and social participation of children and young people with emotional and social impairments.

Professional self-image

From the perspective of the team, the following aspects of the professional self-image should be emphasised.

• The genesis of emotional and social impairment is understood as a complex process of interactions between biopsychosocial risk factors and social attribution processes, which takes into account different scientific explanatory models.
• In the context of an interactionist understanding, emotional and social impairments form a problem in the person-environment relationship.
• Behaviours are seen as individual coping strategies that are subject to time- and culture-specific norms and are perceived as adaptive or maladaptive.
• The approach to recognising and promoting social-emotional skills is based on a resource-oriented perspective.
• In school and out-of-school support, a high level of expertise is required, which can be based on a graduated system of professional support that is flexibly geared towards practical needs.
• Against this background, many adolescents require complex support arrangements, whereby co-operation and networking between professional actors is of particular importance.

Understanding of the term

The team pursues a multi-perspective approach that takes into account the school and extracurricular dimensions.

The KMK's educational policy term "specialisation in emotional and social development" is understood as a common communication formula within a multi-professional field of work and action in the specialisation area of emotional and social development. Inclusive educational processes play a central role here.

The multi-perspectivity of the terminology shows the complexity of the behaviour, life and risk situations of the target group as well as the plurality of the fields of action. Against this background, we see the following connotations in the established terms:

• The term "behavioural disorder" functions as a phenomenological contraction term and has the task of summarising clearly distinguishable patterns of behaviour.
• The term "behavioural abnormalities" refers to a norm-oriented perspective that focuses on the maladaptive nature of a displayed behaviour.
• The term "emotional and behavioural disorders" offers an emotion-accentuated perspective.
• The term "impairment" implies the life and risk situations of children and young people as well as their opportunities for participation.

Understanding inclusion

The team understands (school) inclusion to mean access to the best possible education, taking into account the individual needs and requirements of children and young people. Particularly with regard to children and young people with a focus on ESD/impairments in emotional and social development, a system of graduated assistance beyond the two extremes of separation vs. integration/inclusion, in which special educational expertise is anchored as the basis, is expedient. Close co-operation between all those involved is necessary in order to be able to design the organisational forms in the sense of universal, selective and indicated prevention under difficult social conditions ("school inclusion in a non-inclusive society").

Inclusive school development must be viewed from the perspective of the needs of pupils with impaired emotional and social development. Against this background, it is the task of special education to support mainstream schools in the development of support competences and to strengthen their social integration power and support potential within a resource-oriented approach in the school education system. Within this framework, important goals must be defined: on the one hand, strengthening pupils' coping skills in dealing with risky life situations and, on the other hand, creating support conditions at school that enable healthy development with few disruptions.

Mission

The team's mission in school and extracurricular training is not only to provide students with in-depth specialist knowledge and to develop and expand their skills, but also to enable them to transfer theory to practice in subsequent training phases and fields of activity. The focus here is on imparting comprehensive specialist knowledge of special educational activities in the various practical fields of school and extracurricular organisational forms of the tiered system of special educational support and aims to acquire professional field-related skills at an early stage and to develop a professionalisation profile with an individual focus based on profound methodological, personal and social skills.

The degree programme at the interface of science and practice allows students to be prepared in such a way that they are qualified to independently plan, implement and critically reflect on educational processes such as diagnostics, support and counselling on the basis of a professional attitude and with a multi-perspective approach. A humanistic approach to values is particularly important in the field of special needs education. Against this background, it is a central concern to initiate the development of a professional attitude in the course of training.

Teaching & research

Goals & building blocks of a successful training programme

The primary goal for our view of successful training is to impart specialised expertise in special needs education to our students in order to train them to become theory-reflective special needs teachers with a broad range of skills.

This is based on various pillars:

• Promotion and formation of a basic (special educational) attitude and a critical-constructive perspective
• Relevant competences in the field of action of the ESE specialisation
• Theory-based thinking and linking theoretical and empirical approaches
• Application references in relation to the practical field of ESE

Research

The multidimensionality and multi-perspectivity of the target group and fields of action require a broad empirical research profile. This includes basic research in the sense of an approach based on the individual or an institution, school development research, especially in an inclusive setting, as well as evidence-based research relating to diagnostics, prevention and intervention. Theoretically and empirically based research methods are used to tackle pressing problems in the subject area and develop solutions to enable participation and prevent dropout.