Directory of Learning and Research in Germany

Abstract

Impact assessment studies the effects on society of proposed projects, programs or policies. It is perhaps best known in the forms of technology assessment and environmental impact assessment. Here the institutionalization of impact assessment, the principal features of impact assessment and its performance are discussed, keynoting interdisciplinarity as a critical factor. Substantial progress in performance has occurred over the past decade, especially in environmental and social analyses, pointing to some critical issues for the decade ahead. Within studies, integration across disciplinary components, between contributions from professionals and parties-at-interest, and between producers and users must be improved. Across studies, practitioners of impact assessment need to intercommunicate to advance the state of their art.     

Research-Based Learning: Teaching Development Through Fieldschools

The challenge of bringing research-based learning to undergraduate development studies and anthropology students has led to convening a fieldschool in Indonesia. The fieldschool has been vital in introducing students to fieldwork methodology and in developing a deeper understanding of the relation of research data to development theory. In addition, students who participate in the fieldschool discover a whole new aspect to learning where an emotional and intellectual response to the field situation is required and they are challenged to consider the ethical issues raised in the course of their research.     

Reforming Local Government Policymaking and Management Through Organizational Learning and Experimentation

This article presents two ongoing programs of local government reform in Norway, the Free Commune Program and the Pilot Commune Program. These programs are fairly typical of thinking on local government development in the Nordic countries at the moment. On the one hand, the welfare states are seen as being in danger of becoming overloaded. On the other hand, local government is seen as being in need of developing a capacity to respond better to local communities; consequently, national regulations have to become less standardized in order to allow for greater local adaptability and more variation. The emergent municipal organizational models reflect a more community-oriented approach to local government and a deemphasis on local governments as distributive channels for central ministries. A New Nordic Welfare Model is emerging with more emphasis on local initiatives.     

High Medieval Monasteries as Communities of Practice: Approaching Monastic Learning Through Letters

The theme of learning in high medieval monasteries can be approached by analysing such contexts as “communities of practice” on the basis of preserved monastic letters and letter‐collections. The letters' propagandistic function makes it extremely interesting to analyse the ways in which they represent learning in order to serve different purposes: to attract people to a monastery, to offer advice to members of monastic communities, and even to intervene in the debate that opposed monastic to secular and scholastic modes of study. Moreover, epistolary sources offer insights into the complex dynamics of social interactions within the monastery, in particular the plurality of learning agents and the reciprocal nature of learning exchanges. Therefore, this approach can offer a valuable contribution to the study of learning as a shared and dialectical process, which takes place through social interaction within a heterogeneous community. In addition, it helps to understand the way in which learning is linked to the shaping of identities, both individual and communal, because it affects and transforms the reciprocal social roles of the members of a monastic community.     

德国罗腾堡 浪漫的欧洲千年古城

正罗腾堡是陶伯河上的一颗明珠,这里也是德国"浪漫之路"和"古堡之路"的交汇点。罗腾堡深居山林、躲避了绵延的战火,至今还保留着一千年前建城时的古朴风貌,拥有整个欧洲最特别的风情。世界罕见的"廊桥城墙"从古老的文化城市维尔茨堡开始,经过中世纪古城丁克尔斯北尔,内德林根,延伸至路德维希二世的新天鹅堡所往地非森,一路看过无数古镇。听说下一站罗腾堡(Rothenburg)又是古镇,神色便有些不屑,然而眼前蓦然出现一座城池!称它做城池,因为你绝对无法用古镇、城堡这样的字眼来形容第一     

Commemoration in Germany: Rediscovering history

In Germany a common narrative of the First World War could never be established. In the post-1918 period, explanations of Germany's defeat were highly contested between the political factions of the Weimar Republic. The subsequent Nazi tyranny, the Second World War and the Holocaust came – and continue – to overshadow any other event in German history. During the Cold War, the First World War was largely a forgotten conflict. In recent years, the federal government has remained hesitant about embracing the centenary, but countless exhibitions, seminars, books and other media productions have brought this aspect of history back to public attention from late 2013, and with it has come a renewed public debate on war guilt.

在德国是不会有共同的一战叙事的。1918年以后,对德国战败的解释成为魏玛共和国不同的政治派别的战场。接下来的纳粹独裁、二战以及大屠杀,则让德国历史上的任何其他事件黯然失色。在冷战期间,一战差不多被遗忘了。近些年联邦政府一直对庆祝百年的事犹犹豫豫。不过2013年底以来,无数的展览、研讨会、图书以及其他媒体产品使得这段历史成为公众关注的对象,关于战争的罪孽问题又起纷争。     

Changing Regional Inequalities in United Germany

An American geographer and specialist on Germany analyzes temporal patterns of regional socioeconomic inequalities within Germany since unification. The results, based on analysis of changing distributional characteristics of GDP per capita, infant mortality, and unemployment, indicate a lack of progress in reducing regional inequalities within the country. Although the inequalities are not particularly severe by EU standards, promises made at the time of unification and the German constitution's requirement that regional equality be achieved are among pressures confronting German politicians and regional policy makers in achieving equality across the country. The author notes a number of domestic and international conditions that complicate and impede regional equality. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, O52, R11, R12. 2 figures, 6 tables, 70 references.     

Review Article: Migration in Germany

MATHIAS BEER, MARTIN KINTZINGER, and MARITA KRAUSS, eds. Migration und Integration: Aufnahme und Eingliederung im historischen Wandel. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997. Pp. 167. DM 64.00; ANDREAS GESTRICH and MARITA KRAUSS, eds. Migration und Grenze. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. Pp. 166. DM 68.00; STEVE HOCHSTADT. Mobility and Modernity: Migration in Germany, 1820–1989. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Pp. xx, 331. $52.50 (US); JAMES H.JACKSON, JR. Migration and Urbanization in the Ruhr Valley, 1821-1914. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1997. Pp. xix, 452. $85.00 (US); KLAUS J. BADE and MYRON WEINER, eds. Migration Past, Migration Future: Germany and the United States. Providence: Berghahn, 1997. Pp. xvii, 158. $29.95 (US); RAINER MÜNZ and MYRON WEINER, eds. Migrants, Refugees, and Foreign Policy: US and German Policies toward Countries of Origin. Providence: Berghahn, 1997. Pp. xvi, 368. $59.95 (US); KAY HAILBRONNER, DAVID A. MARTIN, and HIROSHI MOTOMURA, eds. Immigration Admissions: The Search for Workable Policies in Germany and the United States. Providence: Berghahn, 1997. Pp. xii, 284. $49.95 (US); ALBRECHT WEBER, ed. Einwanderungsland Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der Europäiscken Union: Gestaltungsauftrag und Regelungsmöglichkeiten. Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag Rasch, 1997. Pp. 381. DM 56.00. Reviewed by Dirk Hoerder