Teaching the Holocaust in the USA: A German perspective

This paper is based on a doctoral dissertation that examined various aspects of Holocaust education in two societies: the United States and Germany. This cross-national, ethnographic study attempted to shed light on the way in which the history of the Holocaust is taught in Germany. The observations made in this study are based on a longitudinal study of a 3 rd grade classroom in a New Jersey school. Rather than concentrating on the results of the dissertation, this paper discusses issues related to cross-national studies such as: analyzing US Holocaust Education as a German researcher (an outsider), communication between a German researcher and a US Teacher, and the relevance of the American Experience for German elementary school pedagogy. Der Beitrag basiert auf einer Dissertation, die die Frage diskutiert, ob und wie der Holocaust ein Thema für Grundschulkinder sein kann. Es handelt sich um eine interkulturelle ethnographische Studie mit dem Schwerpunkt USA und Deutschland. Intendiert wird nicht ein Vergleich, sondern durch die Untersuchung einer anderen kulturelle Perspektive soll die Diskussion in Deutschland differenziert werden. Im Mittelpunkt steht eine mehrja‐hrige Fallstudie des Unterrichts einer Lehrerin im 3. Schuljahr in New Jersey. Der Beitrag referiert weniger die inhaltlichen Ergebnisse, sondern konzentriert sich vielmehr auf die Problematik einer interkulturellen Studie: Auf die Analyse der amerikanischen Holocaust Education aus deutscher Perspektive, auf die Kommunikation zwischen einer deutschen Forscherin und einer amerikanischen Lehrerin und auf die Relevanz der amerikanischen Erfahrungen für die deutsche Grundschulpa‐dagogik.     

Der Beitrag der Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung zur Modernisierung der Universität

The paper reflects on the contribution of women’s and gender studies to modernizing the university. By giving an overview of the socio-political and institutional conditions of the contemporary reform processes in higher education and the university system in Europe, the author shows that universities nowadays are influenced by tensions between economization and democratization: In this tension they are forced to change their organization and their scientific “products”, namely research and teaching. Based on these explications, the author analyses the potentials of women’s and gender studies to modernize science and the humanities, teaching, learning and the organization of the university.     

Coining societies: an inter-functional comparative analysis of the Euro

The present analysis of the Euro looks for the marks that function systems make on what we commonly take for the European money. Clearly distinguishing between coins and currency, the Euro coins and banknotes are not taken for economic tokens per se but for storage devices that contain both economic and noneconomic information. A systemic analysis of the function system references on these storage devices shows that the economy has left fewer marks on the Euro than politics, art, and the mass media systems have. We, hence, argue that “the Euro” “is” not just money with a political second mission but rather can be understood as an indicator of the relative relevance that specific function systems do or do not have for the European societies and the European society.     

Homonationalism

This article tracks Jasbir Puar's term “homonationalism” as its meaning has transformed in her scholarly work as well that of Maya Mikdashi. I argue that homonationalism has evolved from its original formulation as, in part, a critique of politics, into, in its current guise, a diagnostic of international political relations. Although this transition offers insight into the international scene, I argue that homonationalism also loses its distinctiveness as a political formation in its own right as well as its critical capacity in the process. In particular, I argue that homonationalism becomes incapable of critically evaluating activist strategies, practices and discourses of political resistance.     

The intra-European transferability of graduates’ skills gained in the U.K.

ABSTRACT

Mobility has been seen as the hallmark of the European Higher Education Area with student and graduate mobility being promoted and facilitated through the Bologna process. This paper follows the experiences of 12 U.K.-educated mobile graduates of British and other European Union (EU) nationality and analyses both their skills gained by studying at a U.K. higher education institution and the obstacles they experienced to transfer their U.K. qualification to a different country. We demonstrate that graduates not only developed – as part of their course and within the opportunities that the U.K. higher education environment offers – but also used various skills ranging from subject-specific to language and generic skills in their current activities. While a U.K. degree is reputable and well known in other European countries, there seem to be limitations in relation to its transferability and recognition for studying and working beyond the U.K., which contribute to unequal treatment in the local labour market between domestic- and foreign-educated graduates. More than a decade after the inception of the Bologna process and the introduction of tools to facilitate mobility, structural barriers still exist which prevent the smooth recognition of skills and qualifications of mobile students and graduates within the EU. This has implications for further study and employment outcomes for mobile graduates but also for mobility decisions before and after higher education.     

School-based prevention of bullying and relational aggression in adolescence: the fairplayer.manual

The fairplayer.manual is a school-based program to prevent bullying. The program consists of fifteen to seventeen consecutive ninety-minute lessons using cognitive-behavioral methods, methods targeting group norms and group dynamics, and discussions on moral dilemmas. Following a two-day training session, teachers, together with skilled fairplayer.teamers, implement fairplayer.manual in the classroom during regular school lessons. This chapter offers a summary of the program's conception and underlying prevention theory and summarizes the results from two evaluation studies. Standardized questionnaires showed a positive impact of the intervention program on several outcome variables.