In its theoretically and empirically oriented work, the Divsion of General Educational Science focuses on various aspects.

• Prerequisites, forms and consequences of trust in and towards educational institutions
• Knowledge-based forms of control in the educational system and their side effects
• Forms and conditions of the emergence, dissemination and implementation of innovative concepts in the education system - especially with regard to education for sustainable development.

Depending on the research question, a broad spectrum of methods of data collection and evaluation is used in our mostly interdisciplinary research. We work with different variants of computer-assisted content analysis, methods of reconstructive social research, especially the sociological discourse analysis or the documentary method, but also with univariate and multivariate descriptive and statistical methods of data analysis.

In our teaching we are represented in the BA Educational Science, the MA Educational Science and the Master of Teacher Education. We are interested in introducing students to basic concepts, theories and methods of scientific thinking and research in educational science. To this end, we deal with current topics from the field of education and upbringing, e.g. questions of trust, social inequality, educational partnerships or forms of new governance in the educational system.