Research School Education and Capabilities

The international Research School Education and Capabilities (EduCap) offers a three-year doctoral program. The language of instruction is English. Each student is supervised by two professors, at least one of them from the staff of the Research School. The program covers all fields relevant to empirical educational research. The focus lies on the analysis of developmental options and opportunities for children, adolescents and young adults. Special attention is given to the issue of social and language related competencies.

EduCap investigates how educational processes within formally organized, non-formal and informal contexts of growing up influence the development of fundamental human capabilities. EduCap pursues the option for the further development of an educational research informed by a perspective on social justice which is particularly inspired by the Capability Approach (CA) in the tradition of Amartya Sen and Martha C. Nussbaum. It uses the CA as an overarching framework that allows for conceptualizing and evaluating causes of educational inequality and opportunities for just educational chances. Therefore EduCap promotes an innovative and comprehensive notion of educational research which empirically relates the materially, culturally and politically structured space of societal opportunities to the individual competences for action and personal goals of young persons.