Knowledge exchange in teaching

Following the corona-induced break, we are now organizing the annual seminar Methods of Empirical Social Research with a variety of civic partners in Hamburg for the Summer Semester 2022. This means that sociology and political science students can pursue their own social research with direct help from members of Hamburg’s civil society. The findings serve the interests of these partners, whether they are seeking information about improving quality, developing strategy, or analyzing the impact of their work. The cooperative and practical orientation of the Methods foundation course gives students an opportunity right at the beginning of their studies to play an active role in knowledge exchange between the University and society at large, giving students a chance to have an impact right from their second semester of studies.

Cooperation partners and lines of inquiry 2022:

The Freiwilligenagentur Nord serves people with disabilities and wants to find out why there are reservations about working with disabled people in the volunteer sector and how these can be addressed.

The Aktivoli Landesnetzwerk Hamburg e.V. is looking at which barriers disabled people in organizations face. They are also looking at how youth, above all, can be reached and motivated to do volunteer work.

As part of the “360°—Fonds für Kultur der neuen Stadtgesellschaft” funding program, students and diversity representatives from Thalia Theater Hamburg will look at how cultural diversity can be fostered both on stage and backstage. Specifically, they will look at ways to dismantle structural exclusion and barriers in theaters.

As a nonprofit organization, the Lighthouse project focuses on the challenges of social and ecological sustainability. Participants investigate how to foster intergenerational dialog on the topic of sustainability and how generations differ.

A paid research internship with the Deutsches Klima-Konsortium (DKK) is scheduled to begin on 11 April.

The DKK is an association of leading research organizations in the field of climate research and climate impact research. Since 2008, the association has been autonomous and independent from the individual scientific institutions. It works at the junction of science and policy and teaches the public about scientific findings. The research institutions consolidate their expertise and develop common positions and (research) strategies.

The research internship focuses on an exploratory survey of DKK member organizations. Specifically, the survey will ask to what extent DKK member organizations, as scientific institutions, pursue their own climate research goals, for example, climate neutrality. Furthermore, it should provide an overview of socially relevant research topics and enable an update on the number of employees and the distribution of subject areas. The survey will involve a standardized questionnaire that includes qualitative elements. The research report will also provide interpretations and conclusions based on the results.

Bachelor’s student Artur Bleischwitz will be doing the internship, supervised by Prof. Dr. Anita Engels, sociology professor with a focus on globalization, the environment, and society at Universität Hamburg. ROSI will provide administrative support for the cooperation. The project is scheduled to end mid-August 2022.

In January 2022, the Research Office began a cooperation with the BürgerStiftung Hamburg’s Yoldaş project and the bachelor’s student Hendrik Bodewig.

Yoldaş (Turkish for “companion”) is a project by the BürgerStiftung Hamburg that brings together volunteer mentors and children from Turkish-speaking families. The mentors regularly meet with their mentees to enjoy leisure activities. The project thus contributes to equal opportunity efforts and intercultural dialog. Mentors and mentees often develop lasting friendships.

The cooperation between Yoldaş and Hendrik Bodewig, who is studying for a bachelor’s degree, arose as part of his bachelor’s thesis. The jointly developed topic of the bachelor’s thesis in political science examines the impact of sociodemographic features on the motivation of Yoldaş project mentors, to help resolve some questions that remain open for the mentoring project.

The cooperation ends when the bachelor’s thesis is completed, presumably at the end of April 2022.