In recent decades, the German-speaking discourse on school and school quality has changed decisively. While until the 1980s school development planning was still primarily carried out by school supervision, from the 1990s onwards the focus shifted to individual schools as the motor of school development, and from the 2000s onwards to evidence-based forms of school management. In this context, the research area focuses on the question of how school development processes are “conducted”.

Framework conditions for school development

Of central importance for the work in the research area is the recognition that school development is influenced by contingency factors that are found both in the local context of the school and in its internal organisation. The projects of the research area therefore approach the analysis of school development from different perspectives, in which on the one hand schools with particular challenges are in the focus, but on the other hand also schools that have been awarded for their special work.

School development in the multilevel system

Since the management and organisation of school development is not only carried out by individual persons, the concept of educational governance serves as an analytical perspective and theoretical framework, enabling the interlinking of the organizational, institutional and individual dimensions of school development to be jointly understood and forms of action coordination of all actors involved in school development to be analysed.

Professional development in the context of school development

With the changed management and the new tasks for schools, new demands are also being placed on the professionalization of school actors. A further focus of the research area is therefore the professional development of those actors who are decisively involved in school development. This mainly involves actors with leadership roles – both in schools and in support systems.