Suchergebnisse

"Vor dem Hintergrund einer Reihe ernst zu nehmender rechtsextremistischer und antisemitischer Übergriffe in Deutschland während des Jahres 2000 entwickelten wir ein neues heuristisches Drei-Komponenten-Modell zur Beschreibung von Antisemitismus: Ein Aspekt a. beruht auf traditionellen antisemitischen Vorurteilen, ein weiterer b. auf der Kommunikationslatenz des Antisemitismus und c. auf der Zurückweisung oder der Akzeptanz von Verantwortung gegenüber den Juden. Mittels eines standardisierten Fragebogens wurde das Modell in unterschiedlichen Feldstudien (N=2130 Jugendliche in Deutschland) getestet. Die 3-dimensionale Struktur des Antisemitismus (manifester AS, latenter AS und 'keine Verantwortung gegenüber den Juden') wurde in Pfadanalysen gezeigt und die Daten entsprachen dem theoretischen Modell. Neue Aspekte antisemitischer Einstellungen spiegeln die öffentliche Vermeidung antisemitischer Statements und eine Ablehnung früherer Diskussionen über deutsche Schuld, Verhalten und Verantwortung gegenüber den Juden wider. Diese neuen Aspekte antisemitischer Einstellungen sind ebenfalls mit einer generellen Feindseligkeit gegenüber Fremden verbunden. Weiterhin ist es möglich, zwischen Gruppen von Individuen mit unterschiedlichen antisemitischen Einstellungen zu differenzieren. Die neuen Aspekte antisemitischer Einstellungen haben auch mit derzeitigen Debatten über deutschen Nationalstolz innerhalb deutscher Subpopulationen und mit der 'Schlussstrichdebatte' zu tun. Der 'neue' Antisemitismus in Deutschland besteht möglicherweise innerhalb deutscher Subpopulationen als soziales Konstrukt, um ihre eigenen Vorstellungen von 'deutschen' Problemen zu unterdrücken." (Autorenreferat). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1998 bis 2000.;;;"Against the background of a series of serious right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic incidences in Germany in the year 2000, we constructed a new heuristic model with three components of anti-Semitism to describe new aspects of anti-Semitism: a. one is based upon traditional anti-Semitic prejudices, b. the communicative latency of anti-Semitism and c. the refusal or the acceptance of responsibility for the Jewish people. The model was tested in some field studies (N=2130 adolescents in Germany) using a standardized questionnaire. Path analyses show a 3-dimensional structure of anti-Semitism (manifest AS, latent AS and 'no responsibility toward Jews') and the data fit the theoretical model. New aspects of anti-Semitic attitudes reflect the public avoidance of anti-Semitic statements and a refusal to further discuss German fault, behavior and responsibility for the Jewish people. These new aspects of anti-Semitic attitudes are also linked to a general hostility toward foreigners. It is possible to differentiate between groups of individuals with various anti-Semitic attitudes. The new aspects of anti-Semitic attitudes are concerned with present debates about German national pride among German subpopulations and about the end of 'getting over history'. The 'new' anti-Semitism in Germany may be considered as a social construction of German subpopulations designed to repress their own conceptions of 'German' problems." (author's abstract).

"Whether an engineer, a doctor, a politician or a mother, everyone practices evaluation every day of their life. One evaluates whether the rice has finished cooking, whether the proposed law will address the problem at hand, which diagnostic tests to do in response to the patient's symptoms and whether the bridge design is adequate for extreme weather conditions. Each of these evaluative acts has a purpose in mind, requires information, and assesses that information against the context and against standards (explicitly and implicitly), in order to catalyze an action. Although everyone has this inherent familiarity with evaluation, in a professional setting it often becomes rife with misunderstandings, complexities and challenges. Therefore, it is useful to start with first principles - what is evaluation? Definitions abound within the professional evaluation field, with many of the major evaluation theorists having developed their own variations (Patton 2008; Rossi et al. 1999). Almost all of these have at their core a set of common characteristics: the systematic nature of the process, competent data collection methodology, and assessment or valuing of the findings. Overlaying these characteristics with peacebuilding, one can define evaluation for our purposes as the use of social science data collection methods (including participatory processes) to investigate the quality and value of programming that addresses the core driving factors and actors of violent conflict or supports the driving factors and actors of peace (Church 2008). In this definition, 'quality' refers to the caliber of the implementation; including the conflict analysis from which a peacebuilding strategy is derived, the planning as well as the implementation process (a blend of logistics, tactics and peacebuilding technique). 'Value', on the other hand, inquires into the changes associated with the intervention and their significance to the target population in terms of stopping violence or building peace. Both quality and value are essential components of program evaluation. This chapter explores the state of the art of evaluation in peacebuilding. After reviewing recent developments (section 2) and current practice (section 3), it proposes that peacebuilding evaluations are generally not delivering accountability and learning in the manner in which they should for two primary reasons. First, the average evaluation is not grounded in the basics of good evaluation practice. Significantly more attention is given to responding to peacebuilding's perceived `distinctiveness' and the challenges this distinctiveness raises than to ensuring that the basics are covered (see section 4). The second reason is that the core drivers of evaluation - accountability and learning - are rarely held at the heart of the process (see section 5). Section 6 gives some recommendations for improving evaluation in the peacebuilding field, followed by a short conclusion. Methodological challenges, of which there are many, are not covered in this chapter. While the field needs to address these challenges in a thoughtful manner, the issues of quality and the motivations behind evaluation are at the foundation of evaluation practice. No improvements in methodology will fundamentally change the contribution of evaluations if these issues are not adequately addressed." (excerpt)

This article is part of the publication of contributions delivered at the 24th annual conference of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE), held at the University of Leipzig, 30.08.-05.09.1999. "A change of perspective has taken place in teacher education: It is no longer seen as the problem-solving agent of education but rather as just another source of educational problems. In this article, the author tries to trace the roots of such a negative image. The most obvious approach is a historical one. An enormous number of attempts have been made to reform teacher education. The most important and positive among these attempts has been the academic orientation of teacher education. Yet, seen from the educationalists' perspective, there have appeared a number of traps and false conclusions, possibly due to a misinterpretation of what the role of science in education should be. The reorientation of teacher education, i. e. the turn from purely didactical and practice-oriented courses at educational colleges to mainly academically oriented courses at universities, have brought up new problems that urgently need to be solved. The author discovers major problems in the fact that the great variety of research interests have to be brought in order to make them accessible to students. Didactics which are said to be the most important of all professional disciplines for teachers need to be applied to the structure of the educational discipline as a whole. An agreement on a fundamental canon of topics, methods and knowledge is necessary. This demand is, however, not meant to minimize the range of areas of study; instead, it should rather be considered to broaden specific fields of interest in order to avoid one sided academic points of view. The still unsolved problem of theory and practice is another point to be discussed. The author's question here is: "Where should educational knowledge be grounded - in the discipline or in the profession?" As it is not possible to make a clear distinction between theory and practice but rather to distinguish between the production and the application of knowledge, a curriculum is needed where those two aspects can be put together interactively. This seems to be a solution to many unsolved problems, as it would lead to a more specified target of academic teacher education. In Germany, the academic foundations for the teaching profession are laid in the initial phase of training at university. One should be careful not to ascribe tasks to academic studies that can realistically only be part of the probational second phase of teacher education. Yet, as education needs to be perceived as an action-oriented system of reflection, a significantly stronger combination of practical school experience and theoretical reflection is needed. Ideally, there would be greater stress on the combination of observation and analysis of school work which could be a means to reflect on professional practice. Also, the didactical aspects of teacher training, which are constantly being claimed as being of major importance to teachers, need to be rethought on the level of university teaching. This is a demand going with professionality on the side of academic teachers but it is also meant as a kind of compensation for the lack of practice-related teaching. Seminars and lectures would then be turned into didactical workshops. Another field of possible improvement is seen in an intensified form of investigative learning where school research is seen as a task for both students and teachers. For matters of quality ensurance university teachers need to be willing to co-operate and start to develop ideals and criteria which can later be evaluated. But as the great day of general consent on the national level can not be expected and as new regulations only will not bring real change, innovation can alone be expected by people bearing responsibility at the basis of different universities. The financial crisis of public households should not focus an saddening thoughts an economic efficiency that keep real innovation in the minds of idealists without being ever put to practice." (DIPF/Orig.).