Wolfgang Karcher

Wolfgang Karcher (born April 20, 1940 in Verden ; † October 4, 1999 in Kleinmachnow ) was a German lawyer and educationalist and until 1999 professor at the Technical University of Berlin .

Life

Wolfgang Karcher first completed a law degree and worked in the field of university research. In 1971 he did his doctorate on students at private universities in the USA. In the mid-1970s, he was appointed to a chair for legal issues in education at the TU Berlin. There he soon dealt with questions of international educational research related to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. For example, a number of studies on aspects of the education system in Indonesia have emerged.

At the TU Berlin, a university with a traditionally high proportion of international students, he made particular efforts to integrate students from so-called developing countries. He brought German and foreign students together in various seminars on intercultural issues. This then developed into the “Third World Office”, which he was instrumental in founding alongside several international graduates, young scientists and colleagues. The job, which was later renamed “Job Global Learning and International Cooperation”, was for a long time a place of international cooperation at TU Berlin, from which research initiatives were then started. From here, Wolfgang Karcher initiated extensive research, conference and publication activities on the question of how poorer sections of the population in the “informal sector” in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America can be supported through vocational training. He also researched alternatives to traditional schooling, particularly in Indonesia. Finally, he initiated and participated in studies on the situation of international students in Germany, their integration and their reintegration. In these areas, he also sponsored a number of doctoral theses by German and international young scientists. The book series “Critical and Self-Critical Research Contributions to the Third World”, which was founded on his initiative, exists under the name “Children - Youth - Living Worlds. Transnational and Intercultural Studies ”to this day and is dedicated to him.

Since 1989, Karcher has also been involved in the TU Berlin for students with professional experience without a high school diploma (Section 11 BerlHG). Together with his colleague Hellmuth Walter , he developed a study model for the integration of professionally experienced educational science students into the university.

In the mid-eighties, Wolfgang Karcher was for a number of years chairman of the "Commission for Educational Research with the Third World" in the German Society for Educational Science. In the mid-1990s, Karcher developed a job-sharing model at the TU Berlin and shared his workplace with a young scientist for several years. As a volunteer, he was committed to affordable student housing and worked in this context since 1976 on the board of Martinswerk Berlin eV, which he chaired until the mid-1990s. He was also an active member of the World University Service (WUS).

Publications

• Karcher, Wolfgang: The Society for Pesantren and community development P3M . Jakarta 1988.
• Ax, Hans-Jürgen; Karcher, Wolfgang; Schleich, Bernd (Hrsg.): Training or employment crisis in the third world? Controversies about new approaches in vocational training , Frankfurt / M. 1987.
• Karcher, Wolfgang; Etienne, Anthony. Studying in the field of tension between two cultures. Indonesian students at German universities. An inventory . Bad Honnef 1991.
• Ghawami; Kambiz; Luswazi, Peggy; Karcher, Wolfgang; Kriger, Robert; Zimmer, Jürgen (Ed.): Education in transition — and education planning for a post-apartheid-society in South Africa; report of the Berlin conference 19th – 24th November 1991 , organizer: Union of Education and Science (GEW), Institute for Intercultural Education of the Free University of Berlin, World University Service (WUS). Wiesbaden 1992. Content online at scans.hebis.de (PDF; 40 kB)
• Karcher, Wolfgang: 50 Years of Education Policy in Indonesia . In: WESSEL, I. (Ed.): Indonesia at the end of the 20th century. Analyzes on 50 years of independent development. Germans in Indonesia . Hamburg 1996, pp. 55-63.
• Karcher, Wolfgang u. a. (Ed.): Between economy and social work. Learning in the informal sector in the "third world" , Frankfurt am Main 1997.
• Karcher, Wolfgang; Overwien, Bernd: Importance of key competences in the urban informal sector and conditions for their acquisition . In: Overwien, Bernd; Lohrenscheit, Claudia; Specht, Gunnar: Working and learning in marginality. Pedagogical approaches in the field of tension between acquiring skills and ensuring survival in the informal sector . Frankfurt / Main, 1999. [1]
• Overwien, Bernd: Wolfgang Karcher and educational research with the “Third World” - an introduction . In: Overwien 2000, pp. 17-30. [2] at uni-kassel.de (PDF; 73 kB)
• Karcher, Wolfgang: Study preparation and reintegration . In: Overwien 2000, pp. 522-533.
• Overwien, Bernd: Learning and experience - international references to the debate about studying without a high school diploma with professional experience - examples from Berlin . In: Overwien 2000, pp. 538-550. [3] at uni-kassel.de (PDF; 80 kB)
• Overwien, Bernd (Ed.): Learning and acting in a global context. Contributions to the theory and practice of international educational science. In memory of Wolfgang Karcher, Frankfurt / Main 2000. Contents, "Contents" .

Web links

• Wolfgang Karcher and educational research with the Third World [4]
• Book series dedicated to Wolfgang Karcher “Children - Youth - Living Worlds. Transnational and Intercultural Studies "
• Job sharing model with young researchers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Overwien, Bernd: Wolfgang Karcher and educational research with the “Third World” - an introduction.
2. ↑ Children - Youth - Living Worlds. Transnational and intercultural studies
3. ↑ Overwien, Bernd: Learning and experience - international references to the debate about studying without a high school diploma with professional experience - examples from Berlin.
4. ↑ Wolfgang Karcher and the Martinswerk