„How do you live? – Discovering the narrative of others“

Prof. Dr. Constance Engelfried
Department of Applied Social Sciences

The aim of the international practice research project is to gain knowledge about the effects of Social Work in intercultural and intersectional contexts. For this purpose, a scientific evaluation of the youth media project „How do you live? – Discovering the narrative of others“ (developed by Stefanie Landgraf and Johannes Gulde/Terra Media Corp.) will be carried out. By an intensive cooperation between research teams from the German-Jordanian University Amman and the University of Applied Sciences Munich research, development and teaching shall be networked internationally. Further central objectives include the support of young scientists, the organizational and specialist integration of the cross-sectoral topics migration, origin, gender and ethnicity into the bachelor and master programs in Social Work and the scientific development of didactic materials for research, teaching and practice of Social Work.

The practice research project consists of two mutually interwoven parts – a practice part and an accompanying research. The encounter of young people from Bavaria, Saxony and Jordan, which takes place in the practice part, is the basis for gaining scientific knowledge of the accompanying research and is designed and accompanied by pedagogic workshops, which will be documented on film. The accompanying research is an external and formative evaluation which will merge into a summative evaluation and edits the research question “To what extent are attitudes and values of young people changing through the youth media project?" For this purpose, various qualitative research methods will be applied – including an analysis of films, interviews with experts and participatory observations.

The didactic material which will be developed within the practice research project is planned to be integrated into the university teaching at the universities in Amman and Munich. It serves to increase the quality of the settings in the lectures and seminars and contributes to the further development of teaching, research and science. In addition, the didactic material shall serve multipliers in fields such as youth work as well as students of pedagogy and social pedagogy as a digital booklet and as a guideline for a pedagogical approach in educational work. The involvement of various nationally and internationally important civil society actors moreover enables the establishment of sustainable relationships and the cooperative development of novel concepts that are sustainably implemented and expanded in the scientific community, in the practice of Social Work and in research. Furthermore an international exchange facilitates the international further development of study formats such as the continuing education "Social Work in immigration society", which was co-initiated by the head of the research project Prof. Dr. Constance Engelfried.

Running duration:
01.10.2017 - 30.06.2019, extended until 30.09.2019

Funded by:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Project Executing Organisation:
DLR

Project Partner:
German-Jordanian University Amman