Diversity-sensitive behavior in daycare centers and open all-day primary schools - insights taken from an applied research project

• In Event: Diversity-Sensitive Practice and Intercultural Sensitivity Development in Daycare and All-Day Primary Schools: Critical Insights from Transnational Research

Proposal

Educational statistics (German educational report 2024) clearly show that the age cohort of 0 to 10-year-olds in Germany is becoming increasingly diverse. In practice, this means that practitioners encounter children from a wide variety of backgrounds and very different parenting ideas and styles (Betz et al. 2019).
My applied research project, which was launched in February 2024, addresses this challenge for the field of activity of a regional social welfare organization in Germany (Diakonie RWL).
Diakonie RWL has already addressed various aspects of diversity in different contexts, e.g., regarding the participation of refugees (Diakonie RWL 2017), sexual and gender diversity in youth welfare (Diakonie RWL 2020) and prejudice-conscious education and upbringing in an individual daycare center (Diakonie RWL 2022). However, according to the management of two Diakonie RWL business areas focusing on day care centers and (among other social work fields) schools, there has been no systematic investigation of the significance of diversity and ways of dealing with diversity in everyday educational practice. The project aims to close this gap by creating space for reflection on everyday educational practices. The focus is on practitioners in daycare centers and open all-day primary schools that are member organizations of Diakonie RWL. These two types of institutions have potential when it comes to dealing with diversity, as their everyday work is not about selection based on performance and creating homogeneity. Instead, in mixed-age groups, the educational requirements and living environments of the children are the starting point for educational activities from the outset (Lengyel & Braband 2022, p. 25). This is particularly true for daycare centers, because here diversity has been an issue for years and is considered as diversity or cultural sensitivity. Accordingly, diversity can be viewed as one aspect of implementing the concept of inclusion (German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth 2019, p. 3, see also author, forthcoming).
To contribute to dealing with diversity in everyday (early) childhood education and care my project focuses on a transfer contribution that will address (potential) challenges towards diversity in an open, reflexive and constructive manner. How this transfer contribution is to be designed has not been determined in advance, i.e., it will only become clear during the transfer phase itself, whether, for example, a concept, guideline, or training program is appropriate. Theoretically, the project approaches diversity in a largely neutral manner, but with a normative-reflexive component that also makes the project compatible with approaches to prejudice-conscious education and anti-bias (Walgenbach 2021, p. 46, see also author, forthcoming).
Based on applied social and evaluative practical research (von Kardorff 2010), I will put this into practice in four consecutive work phases. In work phase I, which essentially follows a qualitative ethnographic research approach (Breidenstein et al. 2020), I used theoretical (Glaser & Strauss 1967) and convenience sampling (Golzar et al. 2022) based on socio-spatial contrastive and research-pragmatic criteria, to contact two Diakonie RWL membership organizations which each have a department for daycare centers and open all-day primary schools. I conducted non-directive group discussions based on an open guideline (Lamnek 2005) with 5 or 6 practitioners from the respective areas of work to gather perspectives on diversity and diversity-sensitive behavior. For this purpose, I used a definition of diversity awareness from a set of cards (Mengis & Drücker 2019) as a basic stimulus. Following the group discussions I conducted participant observations, including ethnographic interviews, i.e., ad hoc conversations in two daycare centers and 5 open all-day primary schools. These observations focused on everyday routines as well as applicable rules on the one hand, and on specific topics or activities in everyday life that were mentioned to me in preliminary meetings as being particularly relevant to diversity or that I noticed myself during the observations on the other hand, in order to learn about practical ways of dealing with diversity even under difficult working conditions, e.g. a high school social index. In work phase II, based on a model of a transformation space for early education (Blatter & Schelle 2023), I would like to discuss (mis-)matches of daily work experience and selected case vignettes (Rosenberger 2016) from work phase I with the practitioners participating in my applied research project in round-table discussions, which may be based on World Café formats (Brown & Isaacs 2007) developing a transfer product tied to their wishes and needs. This transfer product shall be tested and evaluated in the practitioners’ everyday work in work phase III. The methodological form of the evaluation is currently still open, but for pragmatic reasons, I will probably develop an online (short) questionnaire containing standardized, partially standardized, and non-standardized questions (Reinders 2011, p. 53 & 60). The results of this evaluation shall be made available for use in other areas of social work in work phase IV through multiplier training courses (see also author, forthcoming).
In the context of two workshops at two research and practice conferences, it became apparent – albeit provisionally – that the perspectives and practices of the practitioners participating in my project (work phase I) are compatible with the results of a European study on professional competencies relating to diversity and inclusion in early childhood education and care (Van Laere et al. 2011, p. 4). For example, it became clear that for some of the practitioners participating in the project, a strong awareness of diversity and a high level of reflection on their own work are central. A conscientious approach to diversity, both regarding children and adults, seems to have already found its way into their everyday work. However, it also became clear that everyday stress and administrative tasks can potentially stand in the way of this (see also author, forthcoming).
In my formal paper presentation at CIES 2026 I would like to present the outline of the applied research project and discuss first results from work phases I and II to give insights into an ongoing applied research project and to create a thematically focused exchange platform on diversity and diversity-sensitive behavior in (early) childhood education and care.

Author

• Sylvia Nienhaus