GraL 2025: Year in Review
We at the GraL team wish you a year full of hope and enriching encounters in 2026!
“Same procedure as every year”?
We would like to take this opportunity to continue our tradition of reviewing the year in the research project and pause for a moment to look back on key moments from 2025.
It was with great pleasure that we welcomed Dr Katharina Schitow as the new project coordinator for the GraL team in 2025. In addition, Irina Grünheid enriched our team as an academic co-worker for just over half a year. Having settled straight into the team, we immediately set to work on the third year of the project, which was characterised by many enriching encounters with valued colleagues and the development of the analyses within GraL.
On 12 March 2025, together with some of our ‘Critical Friends’ from the Advisory Board, Dr Lilia D. Monzó (USA) and Prof. Dr Alisha Heinemann (DE), we had the opportunity to discuss interim findings from the sub-study on the interview analyses. Under the title ‘Racism as the (extra)ordinary’, we examined racism as an (extra)ordinary phenomenon amongst teachers. In light of our analyses, and with regard to the three phases of teacher training, we have identified different ways of dealing with racism, which express racism as an extraordinary or exceptional phenomenon on the one hand, and as a commonplace phenomenon on the other. For example, in the mode of ‘de-ordinarisation’, there is a shift in the way racism-related topics and events are addressed, treating them as a ‘phenomenon of the Other’ that has nothing to do with the ‘self’. In the ‘normalisation’ mode, by contrast, the normality of racism becomes significant, expressed through the denial (or trivialisation) of experiences of racism reported by (prospective) teachers or pupils. These illustrative insights into our analyses suggest that a professional engagement with the ubiquity and normality of racism – as a commonplace yet no less violent form of differentiation – is systematically prevented (also) within teacher training institutions.
A week later, on 19 March, two PhD students from the project attended the symposium ‘Theory, Methodology and Empiricism in Educational Science Migration Research’, organised by the Commission on Education and Learning in a Migration Society (KEBiM). There, Roya Saadati Fashtomi presented her methodological considerations in relation to her doctoral project for discussion under the title The Role of Narrative in Professional Biographical Interviews. Material-theoretical reflections on the phenomenon of self-narrativisation presented her methodological considerations relating to her doctoral project for discussion. Jaël In ‘t Veld, under the title Educational Science and its Nation-State Reproduction: A Critique of Methodological Nationalism in (German) Educational Science Language, Theory and Methodology, to present her methodological reflections within the framework of her doctoral project for discussion. Furthermore, this event provided further opportunities to engage in dialogue with other early-career researchers.
On 17 April, we in the GraL team were joined by other ‘Critical Friends’ from the Advisory Board: Prof. Jeff Bale (CAN); Prof. David Gillborn (UK), Prof. Emeritus Vini Lander (UK), to discuss some interim findings from the sub-study on document analysis. Under the title ‘Tensions of translation processes in the research project’ at the Advisory Board Meeting, we sought to engage in an interpretative and analytical examination of the phenomenon of so-called ‘non-German languages’ and their significance in the context of the structural conditions of teacher training from a critical perspective on racism. Through this discussion centred on the topic of language education, we were able to talk with our international and transcontinental Advisory Board about methodological aspects of translation practices, which, in addition to the translation from one language into another, also dealt with translations of interpretation into analyses and the presentation of results.
In May, during a three-day international working lab organised by GraL, we had the opportunity to engage, together with Prof. Jeff Bale (CAN) to engage in the interpretation and analysis of a number of selected interviews as part of research workshops. Following this, we continued our discussions on the analyses with considerations regarding their presentation in the form of a discussion paper. Furthermore, we critically examined the topic of reflection on research ethics (in the context of Germany and Canada) and engaged with the international dimensions of teacher education through a lecture by Prof. Bale on ‘Critical Perspectives on Teacher Education and the Palestine Exception’.
The last four months of the year, in particular, were characterised by intensive work on our first discussion paper. Through peer-led writing workshops and various presentations of the underlying ideas – both in terms of content and concept – we were able to further develop the analyses and the position paper together with our colleagues and discuss ideas. Working together on the analysis and the paper marks a significant milestone in the project, displaying that the data collection phase is slowly drawing to a close and raising questions about which aspects of the findings we now wish to focus on in particular and bring to the fore. It was great to see which key aspects we were able to distil from the many interpretation and writing workshops. Our examination of fear as an affect and its physicality engaged us deeply on a theoretical level. The entire process of distilling our findings into a position paper – designed to appeal equally to educators, (prospective) teachers, researchers and those working in education policy – was both challenging and enriching. In the context of various presentation formats, we were able to discuss the process of condensing and translating these academic findings for an interested public audience with other colleagues, for example as part of the Bielefeld School of Education (BiSED) in Bielefeld, or at the closing conference of the ‘ORAS – Organisation, Racism, School’ research project at the EHB in Berlin. In spring 2026, the policy paper Teacher Education as a Place of Fear? Racism Professionalised will be published.
To continue with the theme of translating academic findings for a wider public audience: In September, together with our sister research group ‘Continuities and Reconfigurations of Institutional Racism in Schools’ (KoNIR), we recorded the pilot episode of our joint podcast ‘Teacher Training and Schools in the Context of Racism’. This was followed in December by further recordings of two podcast episodes on the topics 1) ‘The “normality of racism” and the (in)accessibility of schools and teacher training to racism critical research’ and 2) ‘Racism & Fear’ in schools and teacher training. Recording will continue in 2026, and the podcast will go on air with its first episodes in early summer 2026. We will keep you informed of all further developments.
We were able to explore in depth the question of how racism critical research reflection can be implemented during the Late Summer School in December, as part of a workshop organised by Vanessa Ohm and Jaël In ’t Veld entitled ‘Research on Racism under Conditions of Racism: An Approach to Questions of Research Ethics and Research Reflection’. At GraL, we are constantly grappling with the question of how power and dominance structures permeate our own research, and which aspects of research ethics need to be taken into account in relation to our engagement with the research field and our interview partners, as well as with regard to ourselves as researchers. This also led to a discussion on how the protection of researchers in the field of racism research can become a greater focus of consideration. In particular, we examined collective practices of reflection as a structural component of research processes.
With a sense of gratitude for the collaboration and the shared, continuous growth and learning within the team, as well as the exchange with colleagues and partners, we let 2025 linger in our archive of memories. We turn to the year 2026 with renewed vigour, ready to tackle all the tasks and areas of responsibility that lie ahead.