Contemporary challenges in German schools – The potential of the implementation of inclusive pedagogical approaches

Abstract

Although large-scale studies like PISA (OECD, 2019) and PIRLS (Hußmann et al., 2017) proved already in the beginning of the 2000s that students with a disadvantaged socio-economic background suffer from educational inequality in Germany, this situation has not changed significantly over the years: As it is evidenced by empirical educational research, those students still run a high risk to suffer from educational inequality compared to their fellow students without a disadvantaged socio-economic background (Pfeifer, 2017). But there is also a risk to experience educational inequality for students with immigrant/refugee background, as those two aspects are highly correlated, which is a challenge for schools in view of the refugees that came from 2015 on to Germany (Bogotch, Faubert, Pfeifer, Wieckert, Kervin, Pappas, 2020; Pfeifer, 2014).This contribution will provide a data-based insight into this development in Germany. Moreover, based on the example of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia an overview will be given of the structure of the German school system, which is characterized by external streaming. Finally, it will be discussed if the implementation of inclusive pedagogical approaches in schools can contribute to reduce educational inequality in German schools (Radhoff Wieckert, 2017; Wieckert, 2013) by summarizing findings of the review of research as well as findings from a qualitative study.