Research

Project management and joint projects

Scientific cooperation

Development and transfer projects

Project management and joint projects

Realization of the Istanbul Convention in Education Institutions of Schleswig-Holstein (since 2020), joint project with Prof. Dr. Christiane Micus Loos (CAU Kiel), Esther van Lück (CAU Kiel) and Eddi Steinfeldt-Mehrtens (CAU Kiel)

Concepts of relationships and sexuality in youth culture scenes (since 2017)

Binding power of voluntary fire brigades in Schleswig-Holstein (2017-2019), (on behalf of the fire brigade association Schleswig-Holstein/BMI), more information

JuBri: Performativity of gender production in relation to other lines of difference based on material objects, part project of the BMBF-research association: Techniques of Bricolage – Interdisciplinary perspectives on youth culture practices of dealing with daily cultural objects (JuBri) (2014-2016). Partners involved: University of Duisburg-Essen (Prof. Dr. Nicolle Pfaff, group manager), Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences (Prof. Dr. Günter Mey); Technical University Dortmund (Prof. Dr. Ronald Hitzler/Dr. Arne Niederbacher); Archiv der Jugendkulturen Berlin e.V.
(Dr. Almut Sülzle)

Contradictory positions – productive conflicts: Post/Queer/Radical left, feminist resistance. Published under the title “Geschlecht und Widerstand. post..| queer..| linksradikal.” Dissertation project at the universities of Duisburg and Bielefeld, (2002-2007)

Scientific cooperation

Advancing Administrative Data Collection on Intimate Partner Violence and Gender-related killings of Women, National expert for Germany, GOPA Luxemburg for the European Institute for Gender Equality (2019/2020)

Re-formation of gender relations in technical societies, Scientific cooperation under the management of Prof. Dr. Gabriele Winker at the Hamburg University of Technology, AG Work – Gender – Technology (2006 - 2008)

Critical Research on Men in Europe (CROME), Scientific cooperation in the EU-research project under the management of Prof. Dr. Ursula Müller, University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology (2001)

Development and transfer projects

MeQS - More study quality through synergies. Teaching development in cooperation with universities and universities of applied sciences, joint project of the UAS Kiel, the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences and the University of Flensburg. Group management (2011-2015)

Gender- and diversity sensibility in studies and teaching (PROFIV) (2012-2014)
(Professor’s programme of the federal and regional states)

zebra - Zentrum für Betroffene rechter Angriffe e.V., Co-foundation and board member of the independent counselling centre in Schleswig-Holstein, promoted by the federal programme „Demokratie leben!“ of the BMFSFJ and the interior ministry of Schleswig-Holstein (since 2014)

G(a)ardening! – Subject formation - Empowerment - Participation
An intercultural Urban Gardening Project with youths from Kiel-Gaarden. Project management (2013-2016)

Gender-Portal for the Hamburg Gender- and Queer Studies. Participative cross-university development of a web application for the Hamburg Gender and Queer Studies. Scientific cooperation under the management of Prof. Dr. Gabriele Winker, Hamburg University of Technology, AG Work – Gender – Technology (2004-2006)

Feminist Institute Hamburg, Co-foundation and member, together with Dr. Tanja Carstensen, Prof. Dr. Kathrin Schrader and Prof. Dr. Gabriele Winker (2007-2018)

Allerland e.V., Co-foundation of the association to implement community-oriented projects in the context of the “edible town”, in 2016 only holder of the project G(a)ardening! (2015)

Girls’ internet café, Development and management of a new work area in the Mädchentreff Bielefeld e.V. (2001-2004)

MAJA e.V. Association to support and further develop feminist girls work and reflected boys work, Co-foundation (1999-2002) in Bielefeld

Realisation of the Istanbul Convention in Educational Institutions of Schleswig-Holstein

Realisation of the Istanbul Convention in Educational Institutions of Schleswig-Holstein (since 2020), joint project with Prof. Dr. Christiane Micus Loos (CAU Kiel), Esther van Lück (CAU Kiel), in advisory capacity: Eddi Steinfeldt-Mehrtens (CAU Kiel)

Duration: 08/2020 – 12/2023

Until now there has been no data on the state of development and the implementation of concepts on the protection of gender-based violence in the education sector based on the Istanbul Convention in Schleswig-Holstein.

Our central research question is: Which structural measures and what competencies of professionals are suited to especially protect girls, women, trans*, inter* and nonbinary people from gender-based violence in the context of educational institutions in Schleswig-Holstein?

The goals of the project:

  • process the actual state of prevention and measures in educational institutions in Schleswig-Holstein
  • analysis of the existing prevention and measures of educational institutions in Schleswig-Holstein
  • development of action recommendations for ducational institutions in Schleswig-Holstein

 

For developing action recommendations, we include

  • which concepts already exist, how are those concepts constructed and if they have already been evaluated
  • what kind of sensibility exists in educational institutions, concerning the topic of gender-based violence
  • what forms of prevention are considered useful in educational institutions
  • which structural changes must happen in educational institutions and 
  • which training measures for professionals must be implemented in educational institutions to increase protection from gender-based violence.

 

Our gender-theoretical premises are:

  1. All people that experience mental, physical and structural violence, discrimination and disadvantage due to structural gender relations are affected by gender-related violence. This includes violent and degrading actions on the micro-level. Girls and women are disproportionately affected
  2. The group of persons affected by gender-based violence is heterogeneous. On the one hand, we need to consider gender diversity in general, because also queer, trans* and intersexual persons are affected by gender-based violence. On the other hand, the subjects are always at the intersection of various differentiating categories. This is why we will have a look at overlapping difference categories of corresponding inequities (intersectional research perspective)
  3. Gender-based violence expresses itself against the background of efficacious harmful discourses, social structures and representations which are also restaged in educational institutions
  4. Gender-based violence is an expression of structural power and inequality relations
  5. Measures of prevention must be anchored structurally in educational institutions to protect those affected from arbitrary reactions.

 

Following grounded theory, we develop an object-related theory to prevent gender-based violence in educational institutions of Schleswig-Holstein. Based on a theoretical sampling which we have developed together with experts of the UAG 35 (UAG Education and Research on behalf of the LPR and the interior ministry) and continue to expand during our research process, we collect qualitative and quantitative data from different educational institutions (universities, schools, nurseries, child and youth welfare, other independent organisations who provide prevention work, ministry of education).

Concepts of Relationships and Sexuality in Youth Culture Scenes

One responsibility of youth work is to support education processes in adolescence that promote the personal development and social responsibility and community skills of the upcoming generation. The research project is tied to this task and focuses on the topic of sexuality, which is very central for the life phase of adolescents. We investigate the following general question:

(How) do the sexuality concepts of young people correspond to the central concepts and standards of youth culture scenes?

One question is whether youth cultures characterised by the discrimination and exclusion of others in the form of racism, heterosexism and homophobia shape sexuality concepts that are problematic for the diversity of open and plural societies. On the other hand, we will show how youths develop their own and productive access routes to sexuality that include an emancipatory potential and can be understood as a collective border crossing of social standards according to emancipatory education. Subsequently, we will work out how generally worded sexual educational projects should be tailored specifically for members of specific youth cultures. Youth culture scenes are especially interesting because they are seen as seismographs of societal development within youth research. Through such specific access to concrete milieus it is additionally possible to illustrate the increasing pluralisation of society within the upcoming generation.

JuBri: Performativity of Gender

©

Analysis of performativity of gender production in relation to other difference lines based on material objects

Part project in cooperation: Techniques of Bricolage – Interdisciplinary perspectives on youth culture practices of dealing with daily cultural objects (JuBri)

Promoted by the BMBF. Duration 01.04.14 - 31.03.2017

Project partners:

Prof. Dr. Ronald Hitzler and AOR Ronald Niederbacher (TU Dortmund University): TP Production of belonging
Prof. Dr. Prof. Dr. Günter Mey (Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences): TP Production of youth(fulness)
Prof. Dr. Nicolle Pfaff (University of Duisburg-Essen) (Project coordination): TP Production of the political
Dr. Almut Sülzle (Archiv der Jugendkulturen e.V. Berlin): TP Techniques of Bricolage

Short description:

The project examines the performative production of gender identity through methods of bricolage, based on youth culture self-representations in material objects from the area punk/hardcore. The focus of this examination is the question of how the gender identity of youth cultures is connected to other categories of difference (origin, body, nationality, class etc.).

The part study, designed as a case study, is attached to the present studies from the area of queer feminist youth cultures and now focuses on the techniques of bricolage in punk/hardcore. With flyers, fanzines and additional interviews, we will reconstruct whether and how intersectional interactions between identity categories, social structures and symbolic discourses in the investigated youth culture are negotiated and materialised. The study assumes that youth cultures are explicit places for crossing gender boundaries. It examins how the crossing also invites youths to question sexuality as a two-gender, heterosexual standard and be confronted with other categories of difference. The study reconstructs these strategies to show the variety of meanings of the category gender which are of importance in the recent discourse on the youth culture of punk/hardcore. On the other hand, the general variety of production modes is made visible.

Furthermore, we will investigate whether playing with symbols also includes social structures and therefore exceeds the strategies of expanding identity scopes for action and includes other dimensions of politics.

The following questions are research guiding for this study:

· What strategies of border crossing are used in relation to the category of gender?

· To which categories of difference is the category gender connected?

· On which levels are productions taking place and what kind of interactions are resulting from that?

· Are strategies used as political strategies to cross scopes of action, to exceed rooms for discourse and/ or as interventions and possibly for scandalisation of social structures?

Project management: Prof. Dr. Melanie Groß
Project worker: Christiane Wehr, christiane.wehr(at)fh-kiel.de

Further information about the research project and the research association

G(a)arden(ing)!

[Translate to English:] Logo G(a)arden(ing)!©
©

Subject formation - Empowerment - Participation
An intercultural urban gardening project with youths from Kiel-Gaarden

 

Duration: 01.10.2013 - 31.08.2016 (January-August 2016, the project G(a)arden(ing)! is located at the organisation Allerland e.V.)

The project G(a)ardening! is installing an intercultural urban kitchen garden in the Kiel district Gaarden and providing social-educational assistance. To do so, a dormant area of the city is converted into a kitchen garden by youths from the direct neighbourhood in various steps through constructional and gardening activities and is subsequently cultivated. If possible, we will use recyclable waste products like old boards, discarded windows and other material to shape the area. During the construction of greenhouses, drying cabinets etc. and for questions concerning the cultivation, harvesting and conservation of food they are guided by experienced persons, if required. The yields of the garden are harvested collectively by the active youths.

Role models for the garden are projects like the princess garden in Berlin and the intercultural gardens, funded by anstiftung & ertomis and the projects of urban intercultural gardens in Austria (see Anger/Fiebrig/Schnyder 2012). The first intercultural garden was developed in 1995 in Göttingen – now there are at least 120 intercultural gardens in Germany.

The city of Kiel has provided us with an undeveloped site area in Kiel-Gaarden as a leased garden.

 

Project aims:

To support integration, empowerment and the participation of young migrants, we especially need such projects to enable joint encounters and experiences with local youths. With the project, we use strategies of subject formation and empowerment to support young people in a way that they can use the actions of civic engagement to experience participation and diversity, (further) develop competencies and experience mutual integration. 

To do so, we need a socio-spatial anchored participative project, which can be clearly distinguished from the structure of educational measures and educational institutions but also from open youth work.

 

Employees:
Serdar Külahlioglu (Project worker UAS Kiel)
Ümit Öztürk (Employee AWO) (until 2015)

Honorary staff:
Timm Ußleber
Rabea Schmidt
Kim Döhnke
PIT Ußleber
Rumyana Mitkova Alekova

Project management: Prof. Dr. Melanie Groß

Project partners:

Arbeiterwohlfahrt Kreisverband Kiel e.V.
Preetzer Straße 35
24143 Kiel

Landeshauptstadt Kiel
Nico Sönnichsen
Referent für Lokale Ökonomie und Quartiersentwicklung
Rathaus
24103 Kiel

Gender and Diversity Sensibility in Studies and Teaching

The project “Gender and Diversity Sensibility in Studies and Teaching” has the goal to implement the vision “Living Diversity” at the UAS Kiel and to develop concrete proposals to create studies and teaching without discrimination. After completing a gender and diversity-oriented inventory, we will identify needs for action, network activities and develop differential sensitive measures and offers for students and lecturers. Additionally, we will work on perspectives how women can be acquired for study degrees in which they are underrepresented.

Duration: 10/2012 - 04/2014

Employees:

Dr. Sandra Smykalla

Dipl.-Soz. Barbara Reschka

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Melanie Groß

More information is available here

MeQS – More study quality through synergies – Teaching development in cooperation of the university of applied sciences and the university

Duration: 01.07.2012 - 31.12.2016

 

Promoted by the Ministry of Education and Research

The project “More study quality through synergies – teaching development in cooperation of the university of applied sciences and the university (MeQS)” is a joint project of the universities of applied sciences Kiel and Flensburg and the University of Flensburg. Its goal is to improve teaching and the qualification of lecturers as well as the study quality and study course development. The target orientation of the UAS Kiel is the strengthening of competency orientation in study degrees under special consideration of a heterogeneous student body. 

The project in Kiel includes measures on the following topics:

  • university didactic offers for lecturers and master’s students
  • lectures on time management and scientific writing for students
  • study course and module development
  • learning and teaching projects
  • workload analyses on the basis of time budget surveys
  • transfer of credit quote monitoring for cooperating universities

 

More information about the project

Project management until December of 2016

Prof. Dr. Melanie Groß
Fachbereich Soziale Arbeit und Gesundheit
Sokratesplatz 2
24149 Kiel
email: melanie.gross(at)fh-kiel.de
tel.: 0431/210-3046

 

Project coordination Kiel

Dr. Christiane Metzger
Sokratesplatz 2
24149 Kiel
email: christiane.metzger(at)fh-kiel.de
tel.: 0431/210-1231
fax: 0431/210-61231