Pluricultural Spaces in Education – Comparing Germany and Israel

Israeli society also leaves its mark on their respective education systems, just as these themselves provide impulses for how people should coexist with one another. “Pluricultural Spaces in Education – Comparing Germany and Israel” is a four-semester project which follows this idea in practical research terms: a total of 40 students at the Karlsruhe University of Education and the Oranim Academic College of Education in Kiryat Tivon work together as a group and in bi-national teams to develop the basic elements for a school of the future in which social diversity becomes a sounding board for both teaching and learning in equal measure. 

It is the current social developments of both countries and their respective significance for educational institutions and public life that form the starting point for the teaching and research plan for these four semesters, which combine theory and practice. What do migration and pluriculturalism mean in the context of teacher training and how can educational institutions react to a social, political and cultural reality that is in constant flux?

The practical research part keys directly into this: the students use field research methods to investigate each of their immediate institutional surroundings and enter into an intensive exchange on the ground in Germany and Israel regarding the experiences they made in the other country. This doesn’t just involve their meeting in the “real” word, but also in virtual space, with the participants making use of the whole palette of digital communication opportunities over the entire duration of the project: video conferences, Skype and a shared e-learning platform including blogs and a chat function.

This learning process spans several semesters and is intended to sensitize these future teachers for the importance of intercultural skills and a considered treatment of social diversity within teaching both in the context of education and beyond. The findings of the empirical investigations will form part of a presentation of the project’s work on the Internet, so that a broad (specialist) public can benefit from the insights obtained.

“Pluricultural Spaces in Education – Comparing Germany and Israel” is a project by the Karlsruhe University of Education in collaboration with the Oranim Academic College of Education in Kiryat Tivon. It takes place from February 1, 2014 to January 31, 2016 and brings together 20 trainee teachers from each of the universities to acquire theoretical knowledge and to carry out practical research. The research findings will be published on the Internet at the end of the project.