Ralf Koerrenz

Ralf Koerrenz (born March 15, 1963 in Cologne ) is a German pedagogue, theologian and science manager. He teaches as a professor of historical pedagogy and global education at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena .

life and career

After graduating from high school in Mettmann in 1982, Koerrenz first studied Protestant theology , later also educational science , German studies and philosophy at the University of Bonn (at times also at the Wuppertal Church University ). After the state examination in 1989, he received his doctorate in educational science in 1991 at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn under Philipp Eggers with a thesis on "Landerziehungsheime in the Weimar Republic". 1993 followed at the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn the doctorate in Evangelical theology with Henning Schröer with a thesis on ecumenical learning . This work was awarded the Kurt Hellmich Prize by the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Regensburg (1994) and the Caspar Olevian Prize by the Caspar Olevian Society / Trier (1995).

In 1996 Koerrenz completed his habilitation under the mentorship of Klaus Prange at the University of Tübingen in general pedagogy with a basic theoretical study of the "level theory of education".

After working as a research assistant and university lecturer in Tübingen (1992 to 1997), he took over a professorship for historical education at the University of Jena in 1997, which was converted into a chair for historical education and educational research in 2004.

Science management

Koerrenz works in various functions in the field of science management. Since 1999 he has been a member of the ethics committee at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Jena. He was director of the Institute for Educational Science at the University of Jena (2002–2004), vice dean / dean of studies (2005–2007), and dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Jena (2007–2010). From 2007 to 2013 he was a member of the Academic Senate of the University of Jena. Since 2016 he has been director of the Institute for Education and Culture at the University of Jena

In 2008 he founded the internationally oriented Institute for Education and Culture (IBK) together with educator Michael Winkler . In its research, the institute takes up the tradition of a hermeneutical-cultural-scientific educational theory and tries to combine this with the challenges of the present (globalization, postcolonialism). In teaching, the institute carries the interdisciplinary master’s degree in Education - Culture - Anthropology (BKA), in which the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences as well as departments of the Theological and Philosophical Faculties are involved.

One focus of his management work is the establishment of structured doctoral programs. Since 2007 he has been involved in the development of the transdisciplinary Jena Graduate Academy, of which he is deputy director. This graduate academy is an umbrella organization for all structured doctoral programs at the University of Jena and at the same time the contact point for all individual doctoral candidates. From 2008 to 2011 Koerrenz set up and headed the PhD school Laboratory Enlightenment (DSLA) in the research center of the same name (FZLA). From 2011 to 2014 he headed the State Graduate College of Protestant Educational Traditions in Central Germany . In 2013 the Kolleg Global Education (KGB), which is closely linked to the Institute for Education and Culture , was founded, which he has headed ever since.

He is the publisher and co-editor of several scientific series. He is co-editor of the religious education journal for pedagogy and theology (ZPT) and the yearbook for biblical theology (JBTh). The culture and education series he oversees has been published by Ferdinand Schöningh since 2013 . He publishes the series Sources on Protestant Educational History (QPBG) together with his students Annika Blichmann and Alexandra Schotte in the Evangelische Verlagsanstalt (EVA) in Leipzig. Garamond-Verlag Jena publishes the series Pedagogical Reform (PRe), Pedagogical Reform in Sources (PReQ) and Pedagogical Studies and Reviews (PSK) published by Koerrenz .

At the chair for historical pedagogy and global education he heads the research center "pedagogical reform"

research

theology

Koerrenz is characterized by the approach of a practical theological hermeneutics of his teacher Henning Schröer, to whose group of students he belongs together with Harald Schroeter-Wittke , Günter Ruddat, Gotthard Fermor and others. Hermeneutics is understood as the form of enlightened world perception aimed at individual freedom. Hermeneutics is thus far more of a world view than a method in the narrower sense. On the one hand, his position is shaped by a theological criticism of religion inspired by the first commandment ( the first commandment as an educational axiom ). The thesis is that the Christian faith today is essentially realized in an attitude of “pragmatic atheism”. According to this, “education” is a “Protestant model” in which the criticism of all inner-worldly authorities is combined with claims to absoluteness with individual responsibility for one's own life course.

In addition to the theological criticism of religion, Koerrenz is also interested in a practical theological interpretation of biblical traditional motifs. For example, he interprets the work of the Holy Spirit following Martin Buber in terms of communication theory and didactics as overcoming a “difference” between people.

pedagogy

The common theme of his educational and theological works is a critique of authority that is skeptical of religion. His pedagogical research focuses on the one hand on basic theoretical work on the understanding of upbringing and education in the tradition of hermeneutic or humanities pedagogy . On the other hand, he has been dealing with theory and positions in reform pedagogy for 25 years .

Koerrenz believes that models of education that are still effective today are based on antiquity . He identifies educational concepts that are based on ideological criticism and the Enlightenment among the sophists in ancient Athens and in certain currents of the Hebrew tradition ( The Hebrew Paradigm of Education ). The connection between education and upbringing is found not only on the level of goals, but above all on the field of forms of upbringing. In connection with the conception of operational pedagogy (Klaus Prange), he is interested in who is directly or indirectly responsible for the control of learning processes. This leads him to the analysis of education in and through structures, which he has reconstructed exemplarily using the connection between school and gospel .

This interest in pedagogically effective structures can also be found in the writings on school models of reform pedagogy. The main focus of work lies in dealing with the school model: Jena plan and the rural education centers ( Hermann Lietz , Bernhard Hell). Koerrenz sees the signature reform pedagogy not only as a meaningful epoch designation, but also as a reference to the basic structure of pedagogy in general. In his theory of reform pedagogy (2014), Koerrenz differentiates between five approaches. First of all, how the difference between "reform" and "non-reform" is used to structure pedagogy internally. Second, the external references are about how pedagogy can be linked to cultural change via the reform motif. These two systematic approaches are to be distinguished from three historical determinations of reform pedagogy . Thirdly , reform pedagogy could be understood as a response to the surge in modernization in the wake of the Enlightenment. In the fourth approach, reform pedagogy turns out to be a classic reaction to industrialized modernity in the first third of the 20th century. Finally, reform pedagogy is to be understood as a challenge to a present that confronts people in globalized modernity with the problem of uniformed individuality.

His research is always linked to pedagogical practice. Koerrenz comes from the Protestant youth work ( temporary home ), in which he was active for many years at youth camps with an integrative concept. He is closely associated with the Foundation for German Landerziehungsheime , for which he and Barbara Windorf founded a flexible Lietz Academy in 2002 as a further training facility for teachers working in the homes.

Fonts

Monographs

Reform pedagogy. An Introduction , 2014, ISBN 978-3-5067-7536-8
Pedagogy. An Introduction to Keywords (with Michael Winkler ), 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3866-7
School model: Jena plan. Fundamentals of an educational reform program , 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77228-2
Hermann Lietz. Introduction with central texts , 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77204-6
Reform pedagogy. Studies on the philosophy of education , 2004
Otto Friedrich Bollnow. An educational portrait (UTB), 2004
School and Gospel. Studies in structural religious education , 2003
The Foundation of Social Education in Ancient Israel , 2001
Ecumenical learning , 1994
Temporary home. On the function of Protestant youth work , 1993
Judaism as a learning community. The conception of an educational religion by Leo Baeck , 1992
Rural education homes in the Weimar Republic , 1992, ISBN 3-631-44639-X
Hermann Lietz. Crossing the border between theology and education. A biography , 1989, ISBN 3-631-42355-1

Editorships

Global education on the move. The year of education at the Hermann-Lietz-Schule Schloss Bieberstein , 2015
Educational reform in the horizon of globalization (together with Annika Blichmann), 2014
Poverty and poor relief. Protestant Perspectives (together with Benjamin Bunk), 2014
Education as a Protestant Model , 2013
Criticism of education. The sense of pedagogy (together with Jens Brachmann and Rotraud Coriand), 2013
Church - Education - Freedom. Open work as a model of a mature church , (together with Anne Stiebritz), 2013
Educational Reform Laboratory: Jena as a Center for Educational Innovations , 2009, ISBN 9783770548811
Manual School Pastoral Care , (together with Michael Wermke), 2008
Jena plan in the international school reform network , 2007
Groundbreaking works on adult education , (together with Elisabeth Meilhammer and Käthe Schneider), 2007
Martin Buber. Education, Image of Man and Hebrew Humanism , (together with Martha Friedenthal-Haase), 2004
Jena-Plan - beyond school education , (together with Will Lütgert) 2001, ISBN 9783407252456
The religion of the reform pedagogues , (together with Norbert Collmar), 1994
Preach with songs. Theory and Practice of the Song Sermon (together with Jochen Remy), 1993.
Practical theological hermeneutics. Approaches - suggestions - tasks , (together with Dietrich Zilleßen , Stefan Alkier and Harald Schroeter-Wittke), 1991

items

The first commandment as an educational axiom . In: Pädagogische Rundschau 46 (1992), pp. 83-107
Hermeneutics of Learning. The anthropological reference to reality in the biblical tradition . In: Yearbook for Biblical Theology 12. Biblical Hermeneutics. Neukirchen 1998, pp. 221-242
The Hebrew Paradigm of Education . In: Zeitschrift für Pädagogik und Theologie 50 (1998), pp. 331–342
Education through education. About the educational paradigms of European culture . In: Manuel Fröhlich u. a .: Education and culture. Illustrations. Jena 2010, pp. 19–51
Latent denomination. Christian search for orientation in the laboratory of the present . In: Olaf Breidbach u. a. (Ed.): Laboratory Enlightenment. Munich 2010, pp. 87–112
The difference - perspectives of a communicative-advocational pneumatology . In: Holy Spirit. Yearbook for Biblical Theology 24. Neukirchen 2011, pp. 369–397
Pragmatic atheism. Freedom as the leitmotif of Protestant education . In: Journal for Education and Theology 65 (2013)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Koerrenz, Ralf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German educationalist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	March 15, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cologne