Summary:

The text by Bonnet and Hericks first of all shows the controversial picture of the teaching profession and its tasks. The aim of research on the profession is to resolve this controversy. This is achieved by determining the competencies required by teachers to act professionally and to make a career. To this end, the special and typical aspects of the teaching profession are considered, whereby three aspects are generated in the text. On the one hand, a teacher always has a clearly defined core area of his or her actions, the teaching. Professional action in this core area must therefore be considered separately. The second aspect is the inescapability of one's own person, which means that a teacher is always involved in his or her professional activities with his or her entire personality, while at the same time acting on behalf of the school as an institution. The third aspect mentioned is the fact that teachers always have to deal with situations of crisis and upheaval of people and can sometimes trigger them. Profession research attempts to clarify the controversial problems of the teaching profession that are presented here, whereby three different research approaches have been found to be effective. The competence-oriented approach of pedagogical profession research aims to generate structural and developmental models of the action competences required for the teaching profession. The structural-theoretical approach of profession research pays particular attention to the problems that teachers face when trying to solve these problems. The role of the teacher has to take on a "prophylactic-therapeutic function" in addition to imparting knowledge. These profound structures of pedagogical action are ordered in the structural-theoretical approach. The third approach is the professional biographical approach of professional research. Here, the focus is on individual professionalization processes of teachers in the course of their development. This enables a longitudinal perspective on the developmental processes of professionalization. The three approaches are partly contradictory but they complement and confirm each other. In addition to the three approaches, ideas have developed about what constitutes successful professionalization and different models have been developed for this purpose. As a guiding principle, a vision of the "reflective practitioner" has been developed, a reflected professional who deals flexibly with complex requirements and harmonizes his or her actions with his or her own resources. The constant change and the constantly increasing demands in the professional field of the teacher lead to the high relevance of reflexivity, flexibility and resource awareness. Teachers must adapt to new problems, develop their own teaching and take responsibility for the development of the school and their own professionalization. Examples of new problems and how to deal with them are explained in the booklet. For example, how to deal with heterogeneity under conditions of inclusion. In the last part of the text, Bonnet and Hericks summarize the contributions written in the introductory booklet and divide them into three main areas. The first three contributions have (prospective) discuss professionalization and professionalism from their very beginning, i.e. the teachers in the early stages of their professional biography. The following three papers deal with the influence of structure-changing measures in schools and teaching. The contributions make clear how the structure of the institution or the organization of the school and individual action are mutually dependent. The two essays that conclude the thematic section deal with teachers with a special profile. In conclusion, it can be said that any changes in structures call existing routines into question and create occasions for reflection. These changes have a professionalizing effect if the pressure to act is reduced, favorable individual conditions exist and counseling structures exist. On the other hand, such situations have a deprofessionalizing effect if the pressure to act remains in the form of external constraints, unfavorable individual conditions lead to non-acceptance of the challenge in a kind of "refusal mode", and the actors have no access to counseling. Thus, the authors suggest that reflective teacher education needs not only concepts but also supporting structures and reliable guidance.

Language: German