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Education and employment are important elements of successful integration for immigrants in a host country. In Germany, young immigrants and members of the second immigrant generation have only limited access to higher education pathways and academic careers. Their trajectories are shaped mainly by the vocational training system, if they obtain any qualifications at all. Social risks for young people with immigrant backgrounds, and women in particular, such as being unemployed or having unstable careers, have frequently been pointed out by researchers, but little has been said about more qualified pathways available through privileged apprenticeships or academic qualifications. This article explores the social risks in trajectories of female immigrants following middle‐range or higher educational pathways in Germany. The cases discussed focus on young women who arrived in Germany during childhood or adolescence. The paper will first discuss the institutional settings of the German education system, focusing on their impact on pupils with immigrant backgrounds and how they overlap with existing gender inequalities in the recipient country. Discussion of the particular methodological approach will follow, before presentation of the findings of the case studies on female immigrants' transitions from education to work. The concluding discussion considers potential means to support participation in education and work for young women with immigrant backgrounds.

This study examines the educational aspirations of immigrant students, who are descendants of eight different immigrant communities in Germany. First, the article shows that compared to native German students, the educational aspirations of students with migration origin vary substantially. Challenging previous narratives of immigrant optimism and information deficit, the article suggests that the students of Turkish origin develop a conscious appraisal of obtaining an academic high-school qualification (AHSQ), even if they realize they will not be able to receive one by the end of the high-school. The study also shows that the duration of their stay in Germany plays a significant role in attenuating the high educational aspirations of most immigrant communities. However, Turkish students constitute an exception to this finding as they maintain high idealistic aspirations from first- to third-generation. The return migrant students from the former Soviet Union are the only group who report high educational aspirations, when asked about both their idealistic and realistic aspirations. Finally, the findings indicate that the position of the particular immigrant groups within the German social status hierarchy is a strong determinant of the educational aspirations of immigrant students and their parents.

Refugee students’¹ education is disrupted by multiple spatial and temporal transitions – no matter where they come from, where they go, and what cause their forced migration. The first major disruption occurs with their flight from origin countries due to security or other reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic led to another dramatic disruption with a heightened risk of weakening hard-earned progress. This chapter examines an example of post-migration education opportunities for urban refugee students across two monolingual contexts at two critical junctures from their arrival in the destination countries to the COVID-19 outbreak. It discusses the readiness and responsiveness of Turkish and German education systems by examining the instances and consequences of disruption in refugee students’ education in İstanbul and Hamburg. A multiple case study design with critical policy analysis (CPA) was used. In addition to the available national statistics, empirical data drew on semi-structured in-depth interviews with refugee students and teachers. The background section maps out the trajectory of refugee education with a synthesis of the formal educational policies in Turkey and Germany toward the inclusion of refugee students into public schools. The findings first elaborate on the readiness of the Turkish and German contexts and a scoping review of the literature on the major issues in both settings. The second part explores the responsiveness of both education systems to refugee children’s education during the COVID-19 pandemic in both cases, namely, in İstanbul and Hamburg.

The text examines a phenomenon that is particularly evident in the implementation of inclusive reforms in the German education system. With reference to Helmut Fend's New Theory of School, it describes what happens when inclusion is implemented in a school system that seems to be poorly prepared for it. These theoretical considerations related to school can also serve to critically examine the implementation of ‘inclusive diagnostics’ in the context of current inclusive reforms in education.

The German evidence-based model of educational governance is bureaucratically regulated, but teachers and schools are autonomous in their way of implementing requirements in schools. Accountability is ensured by regularly monitoring educational outcomes with reference to national educational standards, e.g. in the form of mandatory comparative performance tests. In this context, it is worth determining the process stages of research engagement with which the available data or evidence is associated and which purposes they can serve in teacher education and practice. Building on that, an overview is provided of the state of (mainly German) research on teachers' and school leaders' research engagement and influencing factors. This research field has flourished in the wake of the Empirical Shift in German education. By now the understanding has emerged that ultimately the depth of inferential processes is vital for sustainable development and this in turn is influenced by data, context and user characteristics. On the individual level, in particular, positive affective-motivational dispositions and research literacy are deemed important, whereas the feeling of being controlled has detrimental effects. On the school level, school culture and leadership are of impact, whereas a certain continuity of measures on the governance level proves meaningful for the engagement with data and evidence in educational practice. With regard to the German experience, it is concluded that more (funded) dialogue opportunities between different actors and professional groups in education are needed and that initial and further training should strive even more to impart a meta-reflective stance or enquiry habit of mind.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction between schools and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Israeli and German education systems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved: school principals, the NGOs’ leadership, and regulatory authorities in each country.

The study documents the process by which the interactions between schools and NGOs emerge, the motivations of each of the involved stakeholders, how stakeholders perceive the interaction and the power relations between the involved stakeholders. The study was conducted using the qualitative “grounded theory” methodology, which the authors applied to develop a concept that is anchored in data collected through the research and systematically analyzed.

Using case studies, the authors examine how the relationships between the formal education system and the external entity are formed, reveal the motivations and strategies of the stakeholders involved in the interaction, and investigate the partnerships’ development process in the two different educational systems studied. Findings from the study leading to the conclusion that school-NGO interaction is based on entrepreneurial activities on the part of the school principals and the NGOs, which is gradually becoming institutionalized.

Through this study, the authors have developed a new empirical based theory on the interaction between schools and NGOs as entrepreneurial activity.

The purpose of this contribution is to draw on several recent contributions from the Journal of Educational Administration to reflect on the relationship between school supervision and educational leadership.

The German context of school supervision was first laid out. A comparative analysis of all contributions was then performed against the backdrop of the German context.

One finding from the analysis of the relationship between school supervision and educational leadership from a German perspective is the need to have structures of (mandatory) further training and development in place at the level of school principalship and school supervision. These structures represent building blocks for capacity building and for shifting cultures over time. Without reliable vehicles of professional development for all concerned parties, both school supervisory authorities and principals risk staying stuck in old professional identities that no longer match their current missions or emergent national aspirations.

This paper sheds a light on the complex relationship between school supervision, school leadership and school performance. The findings from the papers analyzed for this paper point to issues which scholars have been pondering about for decades now: Can supervision and support be successfully implemented within one agency? How can a supervisory authority change its professional identity? What combination of supervision, support and space creates conditions favorable to successful educational leadership and school improvement?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) (UN, 2006) obliges its signatory states to establish inclusive school systems. Germany ratified the document in 2008. This international steering impulse triggered a real “inclusion shock” (Heinrich, 2015, p. 235) when it came into force, because hardly any other country in Europe has worse conditions for implementing the convention than Germany. The school structure with up to nine special schools was called upon to fundamentally changes or adaptations by the CRPD. Since 2008, it has been observed that the various federal states in Germany react very differently to this impulse according to their own development. From an empirical point of view, this raises the question of the concrete “steering” of these inclusion-oriented transformations. The chapter examines the question of how the actors in the school system of the federal state Schleswig-Holstein reacted to this challenge between 2008 and 2014. The focus of the research interest is above all on the collective coordination of action by state and non-state actors in the multi-level system, the intentions of regulatory impulses and the effects of steering efforts in the process of implementing the CRPD. With regard to the implementation of Art. 24 of the CRPD, the “Governance-perspective“ makes it possible to conceive state activities and hierarchical forms of coordination as an integrative component of political regulatory processes, so that the complex mechanisms of influence, the intention to change, steering decisions and steering effects can be examined from an overarching perspective.

The chapter examines the attendance, cost, structure and nature of demand for supplementary education in Germany.

This chapter reviews a variety of secondary sources.

Between 20 and 30 percent of German students use “Nachhilfe” (supplementary education). This chapter argues that a complex combination of perceptions of poor school quality and parents’ fears push German students and their parents into the supplementary education sector. It also finds that Nachhilfe providers have very effectively altered the nature of their services in light of these demands.

This chapter articulates the underlying “push” and “pull” factors that shape the nature and popularity of supplementary education in Germany.

In this chapter, we highlight the much-lauded Igba-Boi apprenticeship scheme that underpins the Igbo Traditional Business School. We explore the operational modalities of the scheme and its philosophical roots in the Igbo ontology. Acknowledging the effect of colonialism on the current trajectory of African ways of being, we compare the Igba-Boi scheme to the prototypical German apprenticeship system to highlight areas of potential improvement around levels of education, gender inclusivity and trade specificity. Based on this comparative evaluation, we recommend changes to the Igba-Boi model that will strengthen its utility for the educational needs of the formal and informal sectors of the Nigerian, and by extension, African economy.