Compound subjects such as social studies were introduced, in part, to provide more holistic opportunities to engage with complex social developments. Successfully realising such aspirations, however, has revealed a number of fundamental challenges, such as the relationship within the school framework of compound subjects with the individual science subjects on one hand and with teaching methodology on the other, or the codification of these subjects in curricula and the associated development of curriculum-bound teaching materials, or the qualification of (prospective) teachers in teacher training structures.
Aims
The project ‘COMPOUNDS – the challenge of compound subjects: didactics, curricula, educational media, teacher training. A European Network’ is a joint project involving the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Siegen University, The Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, which aims to create such a network. This network will address the above-mentioned challenges through interdisciplinary and intersectional cooperation and research; the network will then be gradually expanded to address further aspects related to educational media with the aim of establishing and furthering relevant and methodically advanced educational media research across Europe.
COMPOUNDS is divided into four working packages that address the following aspects of compound social science subjects: (1) professionalism and subject identity, (2) teaching and learning in the compound subject, (3) educational media, and (4) educational media publishers and compound subjects. This design will enable the European network to develop a common terminology, methodology and research programme.
Methodology
The COMPOUNDS project addresses historical questions about the development of compound subjects, subject-specific and didactic questions related to the concepts behind them, questions related to administrative and policy aspects of their implementation in the curricula, questions related to how the compound subjects are depicted in educational media as well as questions examining the professionalisation and training of teachers of compund subjects especially in terms of competence and theory.
Results
The initial findings from the analysis of the current state of research and from qualitative interviews with experts and representatives from publishing houses demonstrate the necessity for a joint study of compound subjects, in order to professionalise teacher training, the production and evaluation of educational media and subsequently the teaching process in European classrooms. The definition of professionalism and expertise in the (newly introduced) composite subjects will play a central role.
Over the coming years, the COMPOUNDS project team will organise international network-building workshops on the above research questions, in which the current state of research will be examined from the perspective of the respective working packages and where case analyses will be carried out; the project will also initiate proposals aimed at creating a European PhD programme on compound subjects. The project team will work with education scientists and other experts and researchers from the field of publishing studies, as well as with representatives with experience of publishing and educational practice who will bring their expertise to the project.
