Laborschule Research Unit

... from whom I have learnt so much

This book is about an autistic student and the experiences during his everyday school life. Using a story format, the book describes how the group of children as well as the adults had to learn how to live with the boy, including having to learn how to “survive” sometimes. They are touching stories, beautiful and empowering alongside challenging and desperate ones.  

This is followed by an indirect depiction of the boy: the boy´s psychologists add their professional perspective on autism in general, its different manifestations and the specific process of diagnosing the boy. In addition to this, his teachers, his specialist teaching assistant, his mother, and finally the boy himself voice their own views, thus painting an authentic, multi-perspective picture. Finally, the book summarises the conditions under which inclusion may succeed at schools.

• Ulrich Bosse 2020. 200 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-2401-9
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Since its founding in 1974, Laborschule Bielefeld defines itself as a “school for everyone”: no child and no adolescent should be excluded from school. To this day, the idea of appreciating the students´ diversity as a chance for offering a wide range of learning opportunities for everyone is a pillar of Laborschule´s philosophy.

This volume traces the culture of inclusion from different perspectives and with regard to different questions and issues: ranging from subject-based teaching, the role of special needs teachers to questions of school organisation.  Some of the persons involved – pupils, parents, teachers and social workers – contribute statements of their own. In this way, this volume paints a picture of 45 years of experience of lived inclusion in everyday life.

• Christine Biermann / Sabine Geist / Harry Kullmann / Annette Textor (ed.) 2019. 289 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-2341-8
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For more than fifteen years, the development of all-day schools has been a major concern of the German education system, which traditionally was characterised by school days lasting roughly from 8 am to 1 pm. Laborschule Bielefeld has forty years of expertise when it comes to all-day schooling. Nevertheless, the school is affected by this general trend. 

Over several years, the pre-school level at Laborschule underwent a process of becoming a full-day school with a mandatory afternoon programme, as opposed to a formerly optional afternoon programme. The children´s and adults´ social groups have now coalesced in terms of topics, pedagogy, and staff.

This book documents the different phases of the development process with all its challenges and successes. Therefore, it is able to offer suggestions for how to successfully link both halves of the day with each other, thus developing a genuine all-day model.

• Ulrich Bosse / Martin Banik / Nicole Freke / Daniela Kampmeier / Ulrike Quartier / Katriina Sahlberg / Jutta Walter 2017. 220 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-2135-3
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Two teacher researchers discuss and critically reflect on four decades of gender-aware pedagogy at Laborschule. To this end, they trace different developments, highlight how foci have shifted, and finally illustrate the debates and communication processes among Laborschule colleagues.

• Christine Biermann / Marlene Schütte (Ed.) 2014. 149 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-1995-4
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With children at primary level

At the heart of this book is the experience-based learning process of children discovering and studying nature. It includes pedagogical reflections as well as practical advice and corner stones for a child-centred learning process that is addressing the topic of nature. This concept has been put to the test at Laborschule Bielefeld […]. 

• Biermann, Christine / Bosse, Ulrich (Ed.) 2013. 168 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-1908-4
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The nature workshop of Laborschule Bielefeld

At the nature workshop of Laborschule Bielefeld, children at primary level have been offered the opportunity to freely spent many hours a week in nature for several years now. They are accompanied by a pedagogue focusing on wildlife, whose task is to support them in their personal development based on the “Coyote Mentoring” programme.

• Quartier, Ulrike / Kampmeier, Marcus / Bardi, Cornelia 2013. 216 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-1909-1
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What does the school of the future in Germany look like? Laborschule Bielefeld as the state-run experimental school of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Research Unit present a possible answer.

Children´s diversity is regarded as a source of wealth instead of a problem. With the support of the whole school community, Laborschule explores new ways of living and learning together at school. […]

• Thurn, Susanne / Tillmann, Klaus-Jürgen (Ed.) 2. edition, 2011. 296 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-3-7815-1827-8
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The series „Impuls Laborschule” has been published by Julius Klinkhardt Verlag since 2007 and intermittently documents the latest findings of Laborschule´s school research and development projects focusing on school and teaching. Individual volumes can be purchased in bookstores.

• Publisher website

The series “workshop journals“ has been self-published by Laborschule since 1995 and mainly comprises discussion papers, reports and preliminary results from school research and development projects at Laborschule. Individual volumes of this series are available at the secretary´s office of Laborschule Research Unit.

• PDF about the series

The series “IMPULS“ (Information, materials, projects, teaching units from Laborschule Bielefeld) was self-published by Laborschule  from 1979 to 2006. In total, it comprises 42 individual volumes dealing with theory and practice at school. The series was discontinued in 2006 after volume 42 and was subsequently replaced by a new publication series at Julius Klinkhardt Verlag. Starting with volume 1, this new series titled “Impuls Laborschule” is being published since 2007. Individual volumes of the “old” IMPULS series are available at the secretary´s office of the Laborschule Research Unit unless they are out of print.

• PDF about the series

The “Schriftenreihe der Schulprojekte Laborschule/Oberstufenkolleg“ was published from 1971 to 1978 by Klett-Verlag and overall comprises 23 volumes on the theory and practice of both school projects, among which there are four special publications and 19 volumes containing the so-called “Framework Curricula”. All volumes are out of print, thus only being available as second-hand books.

• PDFs about the series