Wo lernen Kinder mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf besser? Ein Vergleich schulischer Kompetenzen zwischen Regel- und Förderschulen in der Primarstufe

Promoted by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there is a trend towards the inclusive education of students with special educational needs (SEN) in regular classrooms. The present study addresses the question if achievement differences emerge between SEN students who attend a regular primary school and those who attend a school for special education. Based on data from the IQB-Ländervergleich Primarstufe 2011, a national assessment in German primary schools, the achievement of SEN students in regular schools (n?=?658) was compared to the achievement of students in special schools (n?=?413). Propensity score matching was applied to control for differences in achievement related characteristics between the two groups. After matching, SEN students in inclusive educational settings showed significantly higher test scores in German reading and listening comprehension as well as in mathematics than comparable SEN students in special schools. The effects were more pronounced for students with a special need of learning support than for students with speech and language-related special education support. Possible explanations for the higher achievement of SEN students in regular schools and for differential effects with regard to type of SEN are discussed.     

Gestaltung der Führungskultur bei der Daimler Group Services Berlin GmbH durch Design Thinking

Based on creating an employee-oriented leadership culture, this report on practices illustrates how the Design Thinking (DT) approach can be used in the context of organization development. Supported by an accompanying process support, four self-directed teams, consisting of employees of Daimler Group Services Berlin GmbH (DGSB), developed concepts to enhance employee satisfaction. In the case report, we describe the challenges faced by the DGSB and the objectives set by management in terms of process execution. Based on these specifications, a ten-week DT concept was developed that included three on-site workshops. The report presents the content, goals, and results of the process, followed by suggestions how our DT concept might be further improved. Finally, based on our observations, we discuss why critical team interactions in a DT process can prevent a team from coming up with good ideas. Based on these considerations, we derive research questions whose investigation can help to further increase the success of organization development.     

Das „flexible Tandemsetting“ bei Gruppendynamik-Trainings

The new “Flexible Tandem Setting” combines both elements of the classic group dynamic design and tandem design and allows to gather valuable experiences in group building process in the context of organizational learning and to reflect them. This new setting and three practical case studies are described and the specific new learning fields in team learning and organizational learning for these settings are focused. In the end new operational areas of application and their benefits are sketched.     

Religion als religiös-ethnische Gemeinschaft. Das Beispiel der Parsi Zoroastrier in Indien

This paper analyzes a form of religion characterized by a combination of religious and ethnic boundary-making. It discusses the typical properties of this form of religion and asks about its persistence under modern conditions. As an example, the community of the Parsi Zoroastrians in Mumbai is studied, an ethno-religious community that played a major role in the modernization of India and is also overproportionally confronted with the consequences of modernity. Despite the conflicts and challenges the traditional religious and ethnic boundaries of the community in question were facing in the recent past, it did not dissolve or change, but “centripetal” tendencies prevailed and the communal tradition was affirmed. The analysis of these developments allows understanding of the coupling of religion and ethnicity: The membership to such a religious community is primordialized and therefore beyond the reach of individual decisions. Further, because the boundaries are drawn by ethnic practice and not formal organization, institutions implementing collectively binding decisions are missing. This impossibility to cross or change the communal boundaries by individual or collective decision results in a form of community that is by and large impervious to changes occurring in the society surrounding it. The traditional ethnic and ritual practice remains the only legitimate communal point of reference and renders it stable even under conditions of modernity.     

Virtuelle Arbeitsstrukturen durch Vertrauen,Zeitkompetenz und Prozessfeedback fördern

The article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation (GIO) deals with challenges of virtual structures of cooperation and of the team. It focuses especially on effects of personal characteristics, individual competence and team competence on team work and team performance in particular. Apparently, trust emerges in a different way in virtual working structures than in face-to-face teams. The discussion of the term ?trust‘ leads to a broader understanding of the development of trust and its importance, which helps to classify it in a process. Time competence is classified as particularly relevant to the emergence of trust, as teamwork becomes more flexible and team members take higher responsibilities than in face-to-face-teams. Control and responsibility move towards the members of the team, which in turn corresponds with a necessity for trust. Consequently, process feedback and transformational leadership can be identified as recommendable instruments for the enhancement of time competence and trust, which can lead to better team play. When taking a closer look at the role of leaders and team members in virtual environments, it becomes clear that reciprocity cannot be taken for granted in virtual teams. Differences in team structure as well as differing priorities in team goals throughout the team are similarly important as the frequency of contacts, the availability and reliability, or trustworthiness, of the individual team members.     

Das TIMP-Inventar – Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erfassung von Kern-Faktoren salutogener Führung

Occupational health management and science increasingly focus on the issue of health-promoting leadership. Meanwhile a lot of leadership behaviors have been identified that affect the health of employees. To measure them requires high costs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify core-factors of salutogenic leadership and to operationalize them for an efficient diagnosis. As an integrative work-related indicator of employees’ health sense of work coherence (Work-SoC) was chosen. In a deductive and inductive process the TIMP-inventory has been developed that enables the economic assessment of three leadership dimensions: Trust, Incident Management and Pressure. These factors explain with less items more variance of the Work-SoC construct than established general and health-related leadership scales of transformational leadership, consideration, social support, demanding leadership as well as positive and negative health behavior. That is why the TIMP-factors can be recognized as core-factors of health-promoting leadership.     

Gesundheitsförderliches Führungsverhalten bei un- und angelernten, kulturell diversen Belegschaften

One of the most important factors affecting inequitable health opportunities is the work activity. The respective supervisor exerts influence on the subordinates’ health and well-being. This study investigates health-promoting leadership behavior among low-skilled, culturally diverse workforces through interviews with employees and managers of the lowest hierarchical level (N?=?53). Information and approachability as well as appreciative feedback and showing interest of the supervisor are identified as relevant target group specific leadership behavior. Health-promoting effects of work design, learning opportunities as well as strain the supervisors themselves suffer from were also examined.     

Bildungserfolg von Kindern in Abhängigkeit von der Stellung in der Geschwisterreihe

Based on grades in school and on parental educational aspirations the article investigates the influence of siblings’ birth order on educational opportunities and educational success of elementary school pupils. It is examined whether this influence varies by social strata, i.e., whether it is moderated by the socio-economic status of parental households. Theoretical background are the resource dilution model which focuses on siblings’ rivalry for scarce family resources, the confluence model which refers to the intellectual environment within families, and the family niche model which postulates effects of siblings on personality traits of children. Furthermore, status maintenance motives of parents are used to explain birth order effects. Empirical analyses are based on a study of 1369 pupils—4th graders of elementary schools—in the city of Wiesbaden, Germany. It can be shown that the birth order has negative effects on the chosen educational indicators (grades in school, parental educational aspirations). In accordance with prior research, grades of children get worse with their position in the birth order, other things being equal. The birth order also affects educational aspirations which parents hold for their children. In this context, the crucial result of the article is: When older siblings already guarantee the social status of the family in an intergenerational perspective, parents with high SES reduce their educational aspirations for younger siblings (elimination of the status maintenance motive). In families with low SES, however, parental educational aspirations for younger siblings increase, when older siblings successfully have reached higher educational credentials (social learning from role models).     

Welche familienpolitischen Maßnahmen fördern die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation von Müttern?

This article investigates the effects of family policies (child care, parental leave, financial transfers) on labour market participation of mothers in 21 European countries. In contrast to previous studies, the correlation of child care provision with national culture and the cultural influence on maternal employment decisions are also estimated. The microeconomic theory of labour supply provides the theoretical framework of the analysis. With the use of hierarchical logistic regression models the hypotheses are tested on the data of the European Social Survey (2004/2005) and contextual variables of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As a central result the level of child care provision for children below the age of three is found to be the single variable with regards to increasing labour market participation, particularly for mothers of young children. This political measure is strongly correlated to national culture.     

Das polnische Familienrecht im Reformprozeß der staatlichen Ordnung

In view of the political reform in Poland, the ratification of international conventions and Poland’s intention of joining the European Union, a revision of both civil law and family law, which has been codified separately hitherto, is required. The author analyses the proposals made by the commission for the codification of the civil law and presents further possibilities for a solution.As far as the family law reform is concerned, optional civil marriage has been introduced. The same law lays down that a marriage is void in the case of an error regarding the partner and the event that the marriage was concluded under threat. Whereas the principle of irretrievable marriage breakdown remains unchanged, the introduction of divorce on request of one partner without judicial control has been refused. Furthermore, the legal separation is to be introduced.According to the author, the main emphasis of the reformatory efforts is being placed on the matrimonial property law. He reports on the commission’s proposal on the introduction of the community of surplus as a new matrimonial property regime, the introduction of a matrimonial property register and the extension of the spouses’ rights to settle their marital property rights by contract.With regard to the parent and child law the author analyses the impications of new assisted reproduction technologies for the right to challenge paternity and questions of maintenance.Finally the author refers to the status of the child in the new constitution and points out the necessity of hearing the children in the course of divorce proceedings.     

Förderung freiwilligen Arbeitsengagements in Organisatione

Two leading questions about the issue on application of research on prosocial organizational behavior are: Who will profit from it? By what measures could it be promoted? The question of benefit is discussed by considering the interests of employers and employees, while the topic of promotion of prosocial organizational behavior is illustrated by considering research with regard to influences of mood at work and the meaning of intrinsic motivation for work performance.     

Förderung sozialer Ressourcen — eine gemeindepsychologische Perspektive

The subject of ?resources‘ has become a much discussed topic, even a buzzword, in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy in recent years. A problem-oriented approach is called for with equal perspectives which emphasize the positive sides of a person in terms of strengths and empowerment. Community psychology expands on this view of counselling and therapeutic work by focussing on context-related resources and how they balance with the individual potential of a person. Special attention has been placed on social resources which have been formed through the social network. In recent years, there have been a number of tested methods supporting networking. They indicate a suitable, resource-oriented approach complementing clinical psychological counselling.     

Faktoren der Veränderung des Selbst bei computervermittelter Kommunikation

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) influences the users’ self. Different expectations are currently made towards how the self may arise in an ‘a-social’ setting during the use of modern “Information” and communication technologies. Some of these discourses even observe a new potential for self-constructions. The conceptual frame of the paper is delivered by the combination of different social scientific approaches coming from Social Psychology, Sociology and Communications Studies. Based upon a series of experiments the paper investigates how the social self develops in CMC. Overall the self is moderated by the characteristics of the channel, by psycho-social and finally by socialisation variables. The influence of the channel is marked by immediate effects of certain cues. The psycho-social variable is the individual versus joint usage of CMC. The sociological dimension is the familiarity with CMC. Finally a model is discussed that introduces the prototypical character of CMC for the development of the self in further forms of mediated interpersonal communication.     

Die Eliminationsmethode – Förderung kreativer Ideen durch die Elimination bekannter Lösungen

This pilot study presents the first implementation and evaluation of a new technique to raise creative performances by eliminating common ideas and conventional solutions in a first step and subsequently generate new ideas. This technique is termed “elimination method”. The experiment of this study was conducted with individually working subjects, not involving group interaction. 30 subjects worked on a creativity task with the elimination method, 30 subjects worked on the same creativity task with brainstorming technique instructions. They produced 1919 ideas which could be summarized to 268 different cognitive elements as the baseline of the research. The theoretical focus of this study is to highlight the role of common knowledge in group discussion and the corresponding intra-individual processes and cognitive processes. Overall results of data examination were in line with expectations and support future testing of the proposed elimination method in a group context. This study was able to show that the instructions for the elimination method induced effects as intended, producing mainly common ideas in the first step and mainly new ideas in the second step, overall resembling the output of the brainstorming condition. The second step of the elimination method outperformed the brainstorming condition in producing idea output with a higher creative density and one-tailed differences were significant (p? =? 0.028). Furthermore, interactions between method and creativity measures were explored. Findings were connected to corresponding research where appropriate and implications for future research were remarked upon.