University of Mannheim: University supports schools in socially challenging situations
Education researcher Prof. Dr. Karina Karst and her team from the University of Mannheim will in future accompany, advise and support 50 schools in southern Germany. For this, the University of Mannheim receives around two million euros from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the national project “School makes you strong – SchuMaS”. In addition to the University of Mannheim, twelve other institutions from all over Germany are involved in this new research network.
“School makes you strong” is the name of a joint federal-state initiative that aims to support schools in socially challenging situations. The starting shot for the project was fired at the end of 2019. The federal and state governments have agreed to invest 125 million euros in better educational opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged schoolchildren – including the scientific support of the project. An important component of the initiative should be the transfer of scientific concepts and strategies for school and teaching development to schools as well as networking between schools.
The BMBF has now approved a joint scientific project made up of 13 institutions that takes on the implementation of “School makes you strong”. The team around Mannheim professor Karina Karst is part of the network. The educational researcher was awarded the contract to set up one of four regional SchuMaS centers in Mannheim. This is to act as a turntable for the entire south and in future will look after around 50 schools from the south of Germany. She has around two million euros available for the next five years.
The task of the Mannheim researchers is to advise and support schoolchildren as well as teachers and school administrators. Teaching development measures are intended to support children in reading, writing and arithmetic, for example. The focus is on German and mathematics. What is special about the project is the co-constructive cooperation between schools and science: “It is an innovative approach in which we first look at the respective needs of the schools and further develop concepts and strategies based on them. Nothing should be simply slipped on, ”says Karst