Working areas
Foto: Alexander Schuppich
The following research areas are located at the Centre for Teacher Education at Porzellangasse 4:
Education
Teaching and learning in a school context is a central research area in education. The Centre for Teacher Education pays special attention to school education and research on and development of teacher education and professionalisation. This research area covers teaching in the field of general educational fundamentals and teaching practice in teacher education for secondary school teachers (of general education).
Inclusive education
The focus of development of the research area of inclusive education is on participative research, the promotion of the rights to communication (e.g. by means of sign language, plain language, augmentative and alternative communication), especially in school contexts, as well as on socially relevant challenges in the field of migration and education. Teaching in this area focuses on inclusive schooling and diversity in the specialisation in inclusive education (focus on impairments), as well as the general educational fundamentals.
Didactics of civic and citizenship education
The key research area of didactics of civic and citizenship education focuses on didactics of democracy, research on civic awareness, global citizenship education, inclusive political education and human rights education. The researchers working in this field teach courses of the teaching subject History, Social and Political Studies, as well as interdisciplinary courses for the general educational fundamentals of the teacher education programme.
The Language Teaching and Learning Research
The research area of language teaching and language learning examines the teaching, learning and use of languages from an interdisciplinary perspective (in particular, from the perspective of applied linguistics, cognitive science, subject didactics and language policy). The researchers working in this field teach in the degree programme in Linguistics, in the language degree programmes (English and American Studies, Romance Studies), and in the general educational fundamentals of the teacher education programmes.
Austrian Educational Competence Centres – AECCs
The Austrian Competence Centres for Didactics (Austrian Educational Competence Centres - AECC) for the teaching subjects of biology, chemistry and physics are part of the Centre for Teacher Education as well. The University of Vienna and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research established these Centres in a joint initiative. Together they form the platform for didactics of the natural sciences (AECCs).
The AECCs have Austria-wide tasks that focus on research, teaching and further education in teacher education. The results achieved should contribute to teaching, teacher education and school development, as well as to the advancement of the academic community. In addition, they aim at providing expertise for steering activities in educational administration and educational policies. In addition to the three AECCs established at the University of Vienna, there are also other competence centres at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.
Research areas in the field of subject didactics
In recent years, the field of subject didactics has been institutionally anchored at the University of Vienna, and it has been strengthened as an academic discipline. In the "four-pillar model" of teacher education, subject didactics fulfil an integrating function between professional, educational and practical perspectives.