The manuscript „Trust in educational settings – what it is and why it matters“ (Bormann, Niedlich, Würbel) has been accepted for publication in European Education. The paper will introduce the special issue on „Trust in educational settings. European perspectives“ in which invited papers by colleagues from Finland, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany will reflect trust in formal and non-formal educational settings. Additionally, the paper „Trust in educational settings: Insights and emerging research questions“ (Bormann, Niedlich, Würbel) has been accepted. The article combines recent theoretical tendencies and current empirical findings of interdisciplinary trust research and systematically points out approaches of forward-looking trust research in education which is oriented to the international state-of-the-art.

The paper „Social Exclusion, Subjective  Academic Success, Well-Being, and the Meaning of Trust“ (Barbara Thies, Elke Heise, Inka Bormann) has been published in the Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie (2021), 53 (1-2), 42–57. The full text is accessible here.

Abstract: This article uses a person-environment fit perspective to investigate whether and how educational background and general trust are related to fit (or not) with university life as well as to criteria of subjective academic success and well-being. To analyze how students perceive fit with their university, we measured their perception of exclusion and their affective commitment. The sample includes N = 424 students from two German universities, about half of whom have at least one parent with tertiary education. The results show that especially general trust is related to the subjective criteria of academic success, and that this relationship is mediated by the perception of exclusion, on the one hand, and by the affective commitment, on the other hand. A comparison of the two mediators shows that the perception of exclusion is particularly potent in terms of predicting satisfaction with coping with study demands and general well-being. We discuss the results in terms of their significance to the future diversity management at universities for overcoming social inequality and increasing social inclusion.

Dr. Mandy Singer-Brodowski hat zum 1. Oktober 2021 eine Gastprofessur im Rahmen des internationalen Verbundprojekts UNA Europa der Freien Universität angetreten. Neben Lehre im BA Erziehungswissenschaft und dem Studienbereich Allgemeine Berufsvorbereitung Nachhaltigkeit wird sie nachhaltigkeitsbezogene Forschungsaktivitäten der FU stärken.
Die Gastprofessur ist am Arbeitsbereich Allgemeine Erziehungswissenschaft angesiedelt.

Wir gratulieren Prof. Dr. Mandy Singer-Brodowski sehr herzlich und freuen uns auf die Zusammenarbeit! 

Am 15. September 2021 hat im Rahmen der diesjährigen AEPF/KBBB-Tagung mit dem Titel „Grenzen sprengen – Forschung verbinden. Interdisziplinäre empirische Forschung jenseits klassischer Handlungsfelder“ eine Podiumsdiskussion mit Prof. Dr. Oliver Böhm-Kasper (Vortrag), Prof. Dr. N. Johannes Naumann und Prof. Dr. Inka Bormann zur Frage „Mixed Methods. Modeerscheinung oder notwendige Weiterentwicklung empirischer Forschungsmethoden?“ stattgefunden.

Der Beitrag „Einstellungen pädagogischer Fachkräfte zu anregenden Interaktionen in Kindertagesstätten – Fortbildungsbedarfe entdecken mit Cognitive-affective maps“ von Jasmin Luthardt, Inka Bormann und Frauke Hildebrandt wurde in der Fachzeitschrift Frühe Bildung (in Heft 3/2021) veröffentlicht. In dem Aufsatz wird vorgestellt, welche Einstellungen Teams pädagogischer Fachkräfte aus unterschiedlichen Einrichtungen zu kognitiv-anregenden Interaktionen haben und wie sie ihre eigenen Interaktionen mit den Kindern bewerten. Auf dieser Basis wird diskutiert, wie cognitive-affective maps für die gezielte, teamspezifische Konzipierung und Durchführung von Fortbildungen eingesetzt werden können. Der Volltext ist hier zugänglich.

The paper „Quantifying emotionally grounded discursive knowledge with cognitive-affective maps“ (Jasmin Luthardt, Jonathan H. Morgan, Inka Bormann and Tobias Schröder) is published in Quality & Quantity (Open Access).

Abstract: Belief systems matter for all kinds of human social interaction. People have individual cognitions and feelings concerning processes in their environment, which is why they may evaluate them differently. Belief systems can be visualized with cognitive-affective maps (CAMs; as reported by Thagard (in: McGregor (ed) EMPATHICA: A computer support system with visual representations for cognitive-affective mapping, AAAI Press, CA, 2010)). However, it is unclear whether CAMs can be constructed in an intersubjective way by different researchers attempting to map the beliefs of a third party based on qualitative text data. To scrutinize this question, we combined qualitative strategies and quantitative methods of text and network analysis in a case study examining belief networks about participation. Our data set consists of 10 sets of two empirical CAMs: the first CAM was created based on participants’ freely associating concepts related to participation in education (N = 10), the second one was created based on given text data which the participants represented as a CAM following a standardized instruction manual (N = 10). Both CAM-types were compared along three dimensions of similarity (network similarity, concept association similarity, affective similarity). On all dimensions of similarity, there was substantially higher intersubjective agreement in the text-based CAMs than in the free CAMs, supporting the viability of cognitive affective mapping as an intersubjective research method for studying the emotional coherence of belief systems and discursive knowledge. In addition, this study highlights the potential for identifying group-level differences based on how participants associate concepts.

The paper „COVID-19 and its effects: On the risk of social inequality through digitalization and the loss of trust in three European education systems“ (Bormann, Inka; Brøgger, Katja, Pol, Milan; Lazarova, Bohumira) is now published in the European Educational Research Journal’s special issue „Education in Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic“.

Abstract: This paper develops informed assumptions on the potential loss of trust as an unintended side-effect of the measures in education to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Well-founded concerns according to which the pandemic-induced closure of educational facilities and the shift to digitalized distance education are contributing to increased social inequality in education serve as a starting point for the argumentation. The paper contends that together with the temporary changes in the style of educational governance, in the medium term an exacerbated social inequality in education can cause a potential trust problem for the central actors imposing the measures. To support this line of reasoning, the exploratory study describes the context conditions which are relevant for the implementation and participation in digitalized distance education (measures, access and competent use of digital devices in education, level of trust) and combines them with the findings of a qualitative analysis of relevant documents from three European countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany). A neo-institutional view is applied to exploring the implications of the changes in education governance and their potential side-effects on trust.

 

 

Zur Reflexion über die Covid19-Pandemie fand am 18. und 19. Juni 2021 an der Universität Augsburg die online-Tagung „Gesellschaften in der Krise“ statt. Prof. Dr. Inka Bormann nahm mit einem Beitrag zum Thema „Die Krise als Chance?“ teil.

The opinion paper „Sustainability Governance at Higher Education Institutions: Equipped to transform?“ (Bauer/Rieckmann/Niedlich/Bormann) is published in Frontiers in Sustainability: Sustainable Organizations and accessible here (OA).

In November 2020, the general assembly of the German UNESCO commission elected Prof. Dr. Inka Bormann as one of its individual members (ad personam) for another period of three years.
Moreover, she is a member of the Expert Committee ‚Science‘.