Diversity

Involved projects:

• Gender-related socialization in the context of physical activity in early childhood
• Learning experiences during the transition from early education to school
• Language support for children with a migration background at preschool level

Children are unique individuals. They show gender-specific differences, have different social, familiar, and cultural backgrounds, different cognitive premises, different tempers, different interests, and so forth. Nevertheless, children have many common characteristics: Generally, they have the same rights, the same basic needs, they have to meet the same learning and developmental challenges, they start school at a particular age, and so forth. In pedagogical contexts, the right to be equal and the right to be unique form an infusible antinomy: Everyone is equal - everyone is unique.

We would like to contribute to a deeper understanding of the dimensions and circumstances that determine if it is necessary and reasonable to treat students as equals or to treat them as individuals. Furthermore, we would like to discuss in what connection it might be reasonable to minimize varieties and in what connection it might be reasonable to accept or encourage them. Our projects focus different aspects of diversity among children which are frequently discussed in public. The projects engage in language improvement programs in day-care centers, learning and developmental processes in the interconnection of family, day-care center, and school, courses of development in integrative day-care institutions, and gender-related socialization in the context of physical activity. We would like to describe the actual conditions as well as the development and improvement of beneficial circumstances under which children grow up during the first years.