Research activities

The research activities of the working group focus on theoretical and empirical questions of social work. These are implemented both in basic research formats and in more application-oriented research. Discursive conference formats and workshops as well as transfer activities also play a particularly important role. The latter are understood in the sense of “civic and professional engagement” and are realized, for example, in the form of participatory research formats (citizen science).

Current projects

Research project
Promoting participation in the context of poverty reduction
Municipal social and cultural passes in North Rhine-Westphalia

This research project examines the extent to which social and cultural passes in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) contribute to the social and cultural participation of people affected by poverty and the obstacles and exclusions associated with their use. The aim is to examine the logic and implementation of the measures as well as existing barriers and exclusion mechanisms, including with regard to different user groups, and to classify them from the perspective of socio-pedagogical poverty research.

Duration: 08/2025-12/2025 – Funding: Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Affairs (NRW) – Type: Research project 

BMBF joint project
Network Spaces of Cultural Education (NETKUBI)
Cultural practices, forms of appropriation and expression of young people between local and digital spaces

The research project focuses on the question of how young people create spaces and arrangements of cultural education through their interconnected digital and local cultural practices, forms of expression and modes of appropriation. The focus is on spatial, informally organized constitution processes of cultural education in adolescence and forms of cultural appropriation practices in which local-spatial and digital practices always merge.

Duration: 2024-2026 - Funding: BMBF - Type: Collaborative research project

#IAmAffectedByPoverty / #IchBinArmutsbetroffen
Thematizing one's own poverty in the public sphere

The project analyzes the articulations of people affected by poverty under the hashtag “#IchBinArmutsbetroffen” on Twitter (now: X). From the perspective of socio-educational (poverty) research, these public statements appear to be particularly remarkable, not least because they are written by people affected by poverty themselves and can be read as political articulations from a precarious (speaking) position. The project examines the (im)possibilities of political participation under the conditions of marginalization.

Duration: since 2022 - Funding: Own funds - Type: Exploration project

Everyday experiences of poverty. Narration as political speech

The research activities follow on from the project on the articulations of people affected by poverty in the digital space (#IamAffectedByPoverty). Here, actors in the debate are invited to share their everyday experiences of poverty as well as their experiences with their public articulations and the associated media attention. These activities are implemented in the form of participatory and co-creative formats.

Duration: since 2024 - Funding: Own funds - Type: Participatory research activities

Completed projects

Conference: Poverty research in social work

Social work as a profession has always been confronted with the fact that some of its addressees are affected by poverty and social exclusion. Against this background, empirical research projects have repeatedly been carried out in the field of social work, but without these being identified as socio-pedagogical poverty research. The aim of the conference was to systematically record this research practice and to stimulate a determined debate on the question of what the specific disciplinary contribution of social work is in the context of interdisciplinary poverty research. 

Duration: 2024 - Funding: Kurt and Käthe Klinger Foundation & University of Hamburg- Type: Conference

New economy of compassion - In the shadow of the welfare state

The publication project is based on the observation that we are confronted with the development and expansion of a “new compassion economy”. By this we mean the donation-based system of poverty alleviation that has established itself in the form of a secondary commodity cycle in the context of food distributions, soup kitchens, clothing stores, social department stores and similar institutions. With regard to this diagnosis, the volume presents an analysis that discusses the phenomenon fundamentally from different disciplinary perspectives and as a (partial) phenomenon of an ongoing social transformation dynamic.

Duration: 2022-2023 - Funding: University of Wuppertal & University of Hamburg - Type: Publication project

Play with(out) Grounds.
How do young people experience and use public and private spaces?

The interdisciplinary cooperation project examines how young people use and perceive public space in British cities. “Play With(out) Grounds” is both an applied research project and a sculptural intervention as part of the British Pavilion at the 2021 Architecture Biennale in Venice. Within the research project, interviews were conducted with young people from London and a small town in the north of England. The central question was which public and private spaces they use and how they perceive them.

For the presentation, a team of London architects (vPPR-Architects) designed a geodesic sculpture that could not only be appropriated by visitors at the Biennale through different forms, but also served to present the young people's stories.

Duration: 2020-2021- Funding: British Council (UK) - Type: Collaborative project (research & intervention)

Food aid in Europe in times of the Covid-19 crisis

Food aid is becoming increasingly important throughout Europe to help people in need. The COVID-19 crisis has intensified this development. The crisis affects the society as a whole as well as individuals: Way beyond the public health crisis, many people are also affected economically and socially. Furthermore, the ways in which support of people in need is provided faces new challenges. Food aid organisations/ food distribution points are at the forefront of this development.
This survey wants to make the situation visible. It aims to gather information on food aid in different European countries. The questions relate, on the one hand, to the period before the COVID-19 crisis and, on the other hand, to changes due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Together with: Johanna Greiss (Antwerp University, Belgium) and international collaborators in Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. Publication: : Food aid in Europe in times of the COVID-19 crisis: An international survey project. CSB Working Paper. [Link]

Duration: 2021-2022 – Type: Collaborative project