Margherita Zander

Margherita Zander (* 3. February 1948 in Lana at Meran as Margherita Mairhofer ) is a political scientist . From 1997 to 2012 she taught at the Münster University of Applied Sciences as a professor of political and social policy. Her research focuses on child poverty in Germany and resilience .

Career

Zander spent her childhood in South Tyrol . After graduating from high school in July 1967 at the Merano Teacher Training College and teaching at the Naturns Middle School for one year, she first studied for a semester in Innsbruck before continuing her studies in political science, German and Italian at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . After the master's examination in January 1975, the doctoral studies followed first in Amsterdam, then in Kassel. There she received her PhD in social sciences in 1981 with a dissertation on the subject of self-image, politics and the role of the Italian unified union in the reconstruction phase at Horst Lademacher .

After freelance work in the Bonn editorial team of the Roman daily newspaper Il Messaggero , the Social Report of Inter Nationes and the Ernst Klett Verlag in the Italian-German part of the Pons dictionary, she became a social policy advisor for the Greens in January 1985 - although she was still politically independent (until 1990) for Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen in the German Bundestag, where he worked on the concept of needs-based basic security (“Freedom from Poverty” 1988, with Michael Opielka ). In April 1992, she moved to the Hessian Ministry for Youth, Family and Health in Wiesbaden as head of department for fundamental socio-political issues and was responsible for the preparation of the Hessian family report.

In 1994 she was appointed professor for the field of social policy at the Jena University of Applied Sciences , where she and her colleague Karl-August Chassé began her empirical research on child poverty. Since autumn 1997 she has continued her teaching and research activities as a professor at the Münster University of Applied Sciences (until 2012).

Research and practical projects

Her empirical research, practical support and publication activities are always to be seen in parallel and focus on the topic of child poverty and poverty prevention, and in recent years increasingly on promoting resilience.

Your introductory handbook “Child Poverty” provides an overview of the state of child poverty research and poverty prevention in Germany as well as cross-border perspectives (e.g. Great Britain, Finland, Italy, Poland). How the problem of child poverty, which is also increasing in Germany, could be at least partially countered with the idea of ​​promoting resilience, she discussed on a theoretical basis first in her book “Poor child - strong child? The chance of resilience ”to then present this concept in a practical way with the publication of the“ Resilience Promotion Handbook ”in its entirety.

As in her numerous other contributions and lectures on the topic, she emphasizes the primary responsibility of politics and society for combating poverty, as individual practical projects can only partially counteract it. As long as the state and society do not eliminate the cause of the problem, secondary prevention - which also includes promoting resilience - is inevitably the method of choice. Zander, who strongly assumes the child's perspective in her approach, would also like to place the decision on how successful the resilience promotion ultimately turns out to be in the child's power of definition. In her work for the securitization of children's rights, she understands freedom from poverty as a fundamental human right. In her extensive lecture activities, she therefore also seeks contact with social practice and politics. In 2004, together with Gerda Holz and Uta Meier, she called for research results to be reflected in practical action in a position paper on child-related poverty prevention.

Her research activities began with a three-year research project on child poverty in Jena and in the Saale-Holzland district (1997–2000). Another three-year follow-up project built on this, with which child poverty - again in primary school age - was examined in Münster and in West Münsterland (2000–2002). This study, financed by the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Science, was carried out in the research association “Poverty and Childhood - Dual Poverty Research” in cooperation with Christoph Butterwegge (University of Cologne) and Karin Holm (University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf). The results of this project and the research network were published in 2003 in the book “Armut und Kindheit”. The two studies in Thuringia and North Rhine-Westphalia focus on poverty as a family situation and analyze different coping strategies in children. At the same time, Zander took on the scientific support for the child poverty report published by the city of Münster at the end of 2002. The city of Münster was thus one of the first municipalities to ever produce a child poverty report.

In terms of time and subject matter, this was followed by several years of scientific support (2003–2006) of two “model projects to combat the effects of child poverty” in Saarbrücken, this time in collaboration with the local Institute for Social Research, Practical Advice and Organizational Development (iSPO). The two projects pursued in different districts of Saarbrücken (Malstatt and Altsaarbrücken) with different priorities and with different age groups the aim of absorbing child-related consequences of poverty in the district. Practice-relevant recommendations, as they emerge from such studies, were included in the working aid for Protestant day-care centers "Recognize child poverty - act effectively", which was launched on the initiative of the Federal Association of Diakonia and the Federal Association of Protestant Day Care Centers for Children (BETA) in cooperation with poverty researchers and Praktikerinnen emerged and was decisively shaped by her (2006/07).

In 2008 she was commissioned by the German Children and Youth Foundation (DKJS) to scientifically support and evaluate the “light points”, 22 practical projects for disadvantaged children and adolescents distributed across the country . The idea of ​​promoting resilience found its way into this project for the first time, as it was previously described in her book “Armes Kind - starkes Kind. The Chance of Resilience ”had developed theoretically with reference to child poverty. The idea of ​​promoting resilience is also linked to a funding project for Roma refugee children, which the Rom eV in Cologne is offering under the name “Amaro Kher”. This is an afternoon care, with which the resilience of Roma children of school age is to be strengthened, and which is sponsored by Aktion Mensch (duration 2009–2012). Here, too, your scientific support serves the goal of implementing the concept of promoting resilience in a practical manner. The scientific supervision of this project is also a consequence of Zander's continuous preoccupation with migrant children as a target group particularly affected by poverty.

Publications (selection)

• Being old is different. Criticism and Perspectives of Elderly Policy , Essen 1987
• Michael Opielka , Margherita Zander: Freedom from Poverty , Essen 1988
• The gender ratio in times of social upheaval , Bielefeld 1997
• Christoph Butterwegge , Karin Holm, Margherita Zander u. a .: poverty and childhood. A regional, national and international comparison , Opladen 2003 and 2nd edition Wiesbaden 2004
• Karl-August Chassé, Margherita Zander, Konstanze Rasch: My family is poor. How children of primary school age experience and cope with poverty , Opladen 2003 and 4th edition Wiesbaden 2010
• Child poverty. Introductory manual for research and social practice , Wiesbaden 2005 and 2nd edition 2010
• Margherita Zander, Luise Hartwig, Irma Jansen: Gender is a minor matter? On the topicality of a gender perspective in social work , Wiesbaden 2006
• Poor child - strong child? Die Chance der Resilienz , Wiesbaden 2008 and 3rd edition 2010
• Resilience Promotion Handbook , Wiesbaden 2011 (edited by Martin Roemer)
• Loud against poverty - quiet for resilience , Weinheim and Basel 2015

Web links

• Literature by and about Margherita Zander in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage
• Profile at Münster University of Applied Sciences