Zum Verhältnis von Studienreform und Geschichtswissenschaft (Thesen)

Thesenartig werden einige Bemerkungen zur Studienreform in den Geschichtswissenschaften formuliert. Die Einheit des Fachs Geschichte muss im BA-Studium geleistet und gesichert werden. Dies schließt eine Verständigung darüber ein, welche methodischen Einsichten, thematischen Wissensbestände und einzuübende Praktiken als grundlegend anzusehen sind. Gegenläufige Tendenzen dürfte es dagegen im MA-Studium geben. Deswegen sind Überregulierungen zu vermeiden; möglichst früh sollten Studierende an der (Re-)Produktion von Wissen teilhaben. Die inhaltliche Bandbreite muss gewahrt bleiben, ein europäisches Kerncurriculum ist nicht sinnvoll. Dringend nötig ist es, die Lehre gegenüber der Forschung aufzuwerten, wozu auch Studiengebühren einen Beitrag leisten können.

Problem Solving Policing: Views of Citizens and Citizens Expectations in Germany

For the last two decades American police experts developed new police philosophies in order to tackle more successful the increasing crime problems. Community Policing tries to improve the cooperation between the population and the police and to increase the trust in the police. A crucial factor is a meaningful cooperation between the police and the citizens. Problem Oriented Policing aims at structural changes in the organisation and the procedures of the police in public. The police have to investigate the hidden problems and conflicts of an individual offence and to create proactive and long term concepts for the social area of conflicts beyond the specific case. It is doubtful whether these philosophies can be implemented in Germany since the legality principle prohibits meaningful, trustworthy relationships between citizens and police officers. However, if one examines the results of surveys on citizens views and expectations towards the police one finds that the majority of the German citizens favour the postulates of community and problem oriented policing. They expect through these measures an improvement of their life situation in the community and the feelings of safety. If one takes these results seriously one has to question if the legality principle is still appropriate. It seems to hamper new, more promising policing styles which seem to improve life of it's citizens and reflect what the citizens want and expect from their police force.

The Active Subjects of Welfare Reform: a Street-Level Comparison of Employment Services in Australia and Denmark

This paper explores the similarities and differences between Denmark and Australia in adopting welfare reform activation measures in the field of employment services. In Australia and Denmark the discourse of welfare reform centres the 'activation' of citizens through 'mutual obligation' type requirements. Through various forms of case management, unemployed individuals are encouraged to act upon themselves in creating the right set of ethical dispositions congruent with 'active citizenship'. At the same time any resistance to heightened conditionality on the part of the unemployed person is dealt with through a range of coercive and disciplinary techniques. A comparative case study between these two countries allows us to consider how similar ideas, discourse and principles are shaping policy implementation in countries that have very different welfare state trajectories and institutional arrangements for the delivery of social welfare generally and employment services specifically. And in research terms, a comparison between a Nordic welfare state and an Anglo-Saxon welfare state provides an opportunity to critically examine the utility of 'welfare regime' type analyses and the neo-liberal convergence thesis in comparative welfare research. On the basis of empirical analysis, the article concludes that a single focus on abstract typologies or political ideologies is not very helpful in getting the measure of welfare reform (or any other major policy development for that matter). At the 'street-level' of policy practice there is considerably more ambiguity, incoherence and contradiction than is suggested by linear accounts of welfare reform.

Bodenmodelle zur Untersuchung des Schwingungsverhaltens bei Schmalgangstaplern

Die Praxis zeigt, dass die aktuell gültigen Normen und Richtlinien für die Anforderungen an Böden in Schmalganglagern nicht dazu geeignet sind, die Laufruhe eines darauf betriebenen Schmalgangstaplers sicherzustellen. Durch eine Untersuchung der Fahrdynamik dieser Geräte mit Hilfe der Mehrkörpersimulation kann ein Zusammenhang zwischen den Bodenunebenheiten und dem Schwingungsverhalten des Staplers dargestellt werden. Hierfür sind alle wesentlichen, die Schwingungen beeinflussenden Baugruppen abzubilden, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf die geeignete Abbildung des Bodens gelegt wird. Mit periodischen und regellosen Unebenheiten werden zwei Gruppen von Unebenheiten unterschieden. Die systematische Behandlung der regellosen Unebenheiten ist nur unter Anwendung statistischer Methoden möglich. Man wählt den Weg über die Spektraldichtefunktionen und kann somit die Einflussgrößen auf die Bodengüte auf einen einzigen Parameter reduzieren. Zugleich eröffnet die Verwendung der Spektraldichtefunktionen die Anwendbarkeit eines Algorithmus zur Generierung von realitätsnahen Unebenheitsverläufen für die Simulation.

Rechnergestütztes Hilfsmittel zur Planung automatisierter Verladesysteme: Automatische Be- und Entladung

In vielen Bereichen der Industrie und des Handels mit hohem Güterumschlag werden moderne und hochautomatisierte förder- und lagertechnische Geräte eingesetzt. Am Punkt der Übergabe an den außerbetrieblichen Transport hört aber in vielen Fällen die Automatisierung auf. Die Verladung von Stückgütern bei Lkw geschieht trotz geeigneter automatisierter Umschlagsysteme überwiegend manuell mit Gabelhubwagen oder Staplern. Der Lehrstuhl für Fördertechnik Materialfluss Logistik (fml) entwickelte ein rechnergestütztes Hilfsmittel, um die Möglichkeiten der hierin verborgenen Rationalisierungspotenziale aufzuzeigen, aber auch Risiken und Gefahren einer Automatisierung des Umschlagbereichs abzuschätzen. Dieses Werkzeug wurde nun im harten planungsbegleitenden Einsatz in mehreren Pilotprojekten getestet.

Analysts' Forecast Accuracy in Germany: The Effect of Different Accounting Principles and Changes of Accounting Principles

This paper assesses the influence of an adoption of IAS/IFRS or US GAAP on the financial analysts’ forecast accuracy in a homogenous institutional framework. Our findings suggest that the forecast accuracy is higher for estimates based on IFRS or US GAAP data than for forecasts based on German GAAP data.Moreover, in the year of switching from German GAAP to US GAAP the forecast accuracy is lower than in other years. The paper contributes to prior research by providing evidence about the usefulness of international accounting data and about the adoption effects of a change to such accounting principles.

Efforts and Models of Education for Parents: the Danish Approach

The report examines the relationship between day care institutions, schools and so called “parents unfamiliar to education” as well as the relationship between the institutions. With in Danish public and professional discourse concepts like parents unfamiliar to education are usually referring to environments, parents or families with either no or just very restricted experience of education except for the basic school (folkeskole). The “grand old man” of Danish educational research, Prof. Em. Erik Jørgen Hansen, defines the concept as follows: Parents who are distant from or not familiar with education, are parents without tradition of education and by that fact they are not able to contribute constructively in order to back up their own children during their education. Many teachers and pedagogues are not used to that term; they rather prefer concepts like “socially exposed” or “socially disadvantaged” parents or social classes or strata. The report does not only focus on parents who are not capable to support the school achievements of their children, since a low level of education is usually connected with social disadvantage. Such parents are often not capable of understanding and meeting the demands from side of the school when sending their children to school. They lack the competencies or the necessary competence of action. For the moment being much attention is done from side of the Ministries of Education and Social Affairs (recently renamed Ministry of Welfare) in order to create equal possibilities for all children. Many kinds of expertise (directions, counsels, researchers, etc.) have been more than eager to promote recommendations aiming at achieving the ambitious goal: 2015 95% of all young people should complement a full education (classes 10.-12.). Research results are pointing out the importance of increased participation of parents. In other word the agenda is set for ‘parents’ education’. It seems necessary to underline that Danish welfare policy has been changing rather radical. The classic model was an understanding of welfare as social assurance and/or as social distribution – based on social solidarity. The modern model looks like welfare as social service and/or social investment. This means that citizens are changing role – from user and/or citizen to consumer and/or investor. The Danish state is in correspondence with decisions taken by the government investing in a national future shaped by global competition. The new models of welfare – “service” and “investment” – imply severe changes in hitherto known concepts of family life, relationship between parents and children etc. As an example the investment model points at a new implementation of the relationship between social rights and the rights of freedom. The service model has demonstrated that weakness that the access to qualified services in the field of health or education is becoming more and more dependent of the private purchasing power. The weakness of the investment model is that it represents a sort of “The Winner takes it all” – since a political majority is enabled to make agendas in societal fields former protected by the tripartite power and the rights of freedom of the citizens. The outcome of the Danish development seems to be an establishment of a political governed public service industry which on one side are capable of competing on market conditions and on the other are able being governed by contracts. This represents a new form of close linking of politics, economy and professional work. Attempts of controlling education, pedagogy and thereby the population are not a recent invention. In European history we could easily point at several such experiments. The real news is the linking between political priorities and exercise of public activities by economic incentives. By defining visible goals for the public servants, by introducing measurement of achievements and effects, and by implementing a new wage policy depending on achievements and/or effects a new system of accountability is manufactured. The consequences are already perceptible. The government decides to do some special interventions concerning parents, children or youngsters, the public servants on municipality level are instructed to carry out their services by following a manual, and the parents are no longer protected by privacy. Protection of privacy and minority is no longer a valuable argumentation to prevent further interventions in people’s life (health, food, school, etc.). The citizens are becoming objects of investment, also implying that people are investing in their own health, education, and family. This means that investments in changes of life style and development of competences go hand in hand. The below mentioned programmes are conditioned by this shift.

Zur sozialen Logik der Kunstindustrie

Der Beitrag versteht sich als erste Etappe zu einer integrativen soziologischen Kritik des globalkulturellen Systems ›Gegenwartskunst‹. Vorgeschlagen wird ein Zugang, der die ökonomischen und politischen Funktionalisierungen des Kunstsystems in Hinblick auf soziale, politische und ästhetische Problemfelder wie auch Potentiale kritisch untersucht. Im ersten Teil wird der Begriff der ›Kunstindustrie‹ als Erkenntnis leitende Matrize eingeführt und in seinen verschiedenen historischen sowie aktuellen Verwendungsweisen diskutiert. Der zweite Teil des Beitrags widmet sich der Analyse eines exemplarischen Phänomens der ›Kunstindustrie‹: dem ökonometrischen System des Artist Rankings. An den seit den späten 1990er Jahren im Umfeld der Informationsindustrie entwickelten Rankingsystemen lassen sich einige wichtige Auswirkungen der neuen Funktionalisierungsformen des Kunstsystems ablesen.

Zur sozialen Logik der Kunstindustrie

Der Beitrag versteht sich als erste Etappe zu einer integrativen soziologischen Kritik des globalkulturellen Systems ›Gegenwartskunst‹. Vorgeschlagen wird ein Zugang, der die ökonomischen und politischen Funktionalisierungen des Kunstsystems in Hinblick auf soziale, politische und ästhetische Problemfelder wie auch Potentiale kritisch untersucht. Im ersten Teil wird der Begriff der ›Kunstindustrie‹ als Erkenntnis leitende Matrize eingeführt und in seinen verschiedenen historischen sowie aktuellen Verwendungsweisen diskutiert. Der zweite Teil des Beitrags widmet sich der Analyse eines exemplarischen Phänomens der ›Kunstindustrie‹: dem ökonometrischen System des Artist Rankings. An den seit den späten 1990er Jahren im Umfeld der Informationsindustrie entwickelten Rankingsystemen lassen sich einige wichtige Auswirkungen der neuen Funktionalisierungsformen des Kunstsystems ablesen.