WG Childhood,Youth and Family

Spokeswomen of the working group

The working group Childhood, Youth and Family, headed by Prof. Dr. Simone Kreher (Fulda University of Applied Sciences, FB PG) and Prof. Dr. Theresia Höynck (University of Kassel, FB 01), works thematically on three central lines of work, which are pursued both in the form of regular small-format workshops and in the context of research projects. The main focus is on child protection and child welfare as problems of empirical legal research as well as child-cultural practices and appropriation of social spaces in Kassel and Fulda. As a third research interest, the images of childhood and youth in law, media, social sciences and social work practice are in the focus of the working group members. Thus, research on the activities of juvenile judges and juvenile prosecutors is an important focus of discussion and work of the working group. Concepts of childhood that dominate in diverse social and professional fields are to be researched in greater depth in the future.

Promotion of young talent

All workshops and working group meetings are always attended by interested representatives from the field and students from various disciplines. In addition to research and knowledge transfer, the promotion of young researchers is therefore also an important field of work of the working group. Thus, the research fields of the WG Childhood, Youth and Family also offer the possibility of doctoral studies. Particularly noteworthy is the dissertation of Eva Marr (2014-2017), which is emerging from the working group within the framework of a cooperative doctoral program under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Friederike Heinzel and Prof. Dr. Simone Kreher on disadvantaged children and children with multiple health problems (title: "On the ideas of a "good life" among adolescents - individual opportunities for realization, institutional contexts of action, socio-political discourses").

Publication archive

Event archive

Speaker University of Kassel

Prof. Dr. Theresia Höynck
Professor, Section: Law of Childhood and Adolescence,
Faculty of Human Sciences

hoeynck[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

Speaker Fulda University of Applied Sciences

N.N.

Skillfully staged - "shadow image" from the neighborhood survey in Ziehers Süd in Fulda, October 2013.

Research activities

Project KINDheitenERLEBEN

One of the main activities of the working group is the regional comparative childhood study "KINDheitenERLEBEN" in Kassel and Fulda, which was already conceived in 2013 under the direction of Prof. Dr. Simone Kreher and Prof. Dr. Friederike Heinzel (University of Kassel, FB 01) and with the participation of several research assistants and numerous students.

In three project phases, child-cultural practices of appropriating social and virtual spaces, friendship and network relationships in socially unequal residential quarters, and ideas of a "good life" have since been researched. In addition to participatory neighborhood inspections, innovative forms of individual interviews with children aged five to twelve were tested and school class interviews were realized, so that a total of more than 180 children from Fulda and Kassel participated in the project. Even though the goal of placing a major third-party funding application has not yet been achieved, the project has been working very successfully in various personnel constellations to date. In 2015 and 2017 alone, a total of ten bachelor's and master's theses were written at the University of Kassel and Fulda University of Applied Sciences. In addition, the results of the project were presented both at the 4th and 5th Fulda Fieldwork Days and in March 2016 at the research forum "District and Social Space Walks with Children as Participatory Research Approaches" of the DGFE Congress "Spaces for Education" organized by the project leaders. In November 2016, an event was also held at the University of Kassel to present and discuss key findings, which was aimed in particular at municipal policy makers in both cities.

Currently, the project group is working on further publications, including an overview article on the central project findings and contributions on the development of methods in childhood research.