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Institute of Educational Science
The Institute of Educational Science, now in its 75th year, is deeply rooted in a tradition of critical and future-oriented educational science. In the 1950s, Elisabeth Blochmann – the first Professor of Education at the University of Marburg – devoted herself to overcoming the long-standing inequalities between the genders in education and science. The Institute then went on to gain an international profile in its early days when Leonhard Froese joined the faculty.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Institute became known world wide owing to the concepts and approaches of the great educational thinker Wolfgang Klafki. His call to make the 'key problems of the modern world' (also known as "epochaltypische Schlüsselprobleme") the starting point for research and teaching, together with his desire to advance democracy and social justice, helped to shape the development of the diploma degree course in education and strengthened the critical and sociological orientation of educational science at Marburg.
The reforms that followed the Bologna Process in the 2000s ushered in a third phase at the Institute, leading to greater emphasis being placed on the core areas of study in social and rehabilitation pedagogy, adult education and extracurricular education for adolescents, and also made issues of organisation, transformation and social innovation broader. Concerns about diversity, inclusion and social justice still play a central role in educational science at Marburg to this day. Today, some of the more popular fields of research include the potential for cultural education and aesthetic practices in the enabling of professional, organisational and social change. Following in the tradition of having a critical and sociological perspective, the Institute continues to evaluate the key problems of the modern world.
As a research-intensive institute, not only are we active in teaching and continuing education, not only are we well-connected regionally and internationally and engaged in researching the sustainability of our society, but we are also committed to the present and future professionalisation of our students.