The field of school education has been a firmly established sub-discipline of pedagogy since the 1960s. The core aspects of school education are school development and theoretical, empirical and practical teacher training. Central fields of research include general didactics, the Lehrplantheorie, school quality as well as theory of school. One of the Chair’s main aims is to support schools in the advancement of an ideal learning culture through the development of academic concepts for school environments and classes.

The rationalization and differentiation of our living conditions as processes of drastic modernization does not stop at school gates. Nowadays, our schools are confronted with a number of cultural, social and structural challenges and adaptation problems. The usual sense of security in our world is gradually lost. More and more often, the fast-changing individual learning environments of the adolescents evoke burdens and special medical conditions calling for programs designed for special learning support. Learning difficulties, ADHD, psychosomatic and developmental disorders but also problematic social behavioral patterns such as bullying exist at all types of schools. At the same time, both individual schools and the school system as a whole are obliged to demonstrate international competitiveness since the transition from an input- to an output-oriented system: comprehensive evaluation, national educational standards and competence-based curricula are instruments to boost competition in education. In addition, the question has arisen as to which conditions must be fulfilled in order to achieve implementation of a teaching practice which offers a rich variety of methodology and aims at realizing a “Pedagogy of Diversity” (original title: “Pädagogik der Vielfalt”, Prengel). With this context in mind and also taking into account the “spatial turn” in education science, it becomes clear that the spatial design of classrooms and schools as living environment deserves particular attention. A change in thinking with regard to the spatial design of the teaching practice is also necessary in view of the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (effective in the Federal Republic of Germany since 2009) and the demand for an inclusive school system.

The new concept of school demands an unusually high educational and specialist professionalism of every individual teacher and the entire teaching staff which shall function as a driving force for educational development processes.

The Chair of School Education at the KU has the designated aim of helping those in the teaching profession live up to this requirement. Its work is dedicated to improving the educational reality at each individual school – which is why its professional and research focus as well as service offers concentrate on the development of individual schools. The holder of the Chair and all employees have committed themselves to an understanding of education which is based on the holistic development of each of the young person’s personalities.