Call for Papers

As part of the Pre-Call, we invited proposals for topics for Working Forums at the 40th Annual Conference on Inclusion Research – topics that, from the submitters‘ perspective, are of central importance for the generation(s) of inclusion and their transmission. We would like to thank everyone warmly for the numerous responses.

The Pre-Call has resulted in 13 Working Forums:

1. Does Inclusion Create Language? Perspectives on Democratic Language Practice

Initiator & Moderation:
Laura Röbenack Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Co-Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 1 (PDF)

2. Institutional Injustice, Sign Language Deprivation and Its Lifelong Health Consequences – Impulses for Inclusion Research

Initiators:
Katharina Pape
Prof. Dr. Sabine Fries, Landshut University of Applied Sciences

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 2 (PDF)

3. Shifting from Adjusting to Flourishing – A Neuroaffirmative Approach in Education and Research

Initiators:
Dr. Isabella Sasso, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Melika Ahmetovic, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Dr. Fernanda Esqueda Villegas, University of Luxembourg
Rakshita Shekhar, Independent Researcher

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 3 (PDF)

4. Relationship Assistance as Access to Social Participation – Friendship, Belonging and Self-Chosen Relationships

Initiator: Stefan Armoneit

Moderation: Herbert Fraydl

Read Abstract 4 (PDF)

5. Assisted Self-Direction – Joint Decision-Making Processes in the Everyday Lives of People with Cognitive Disabilities

Initiators:
Helga Neira Zugasty
Severin Neira Zugasty
Simon Couvreuer
Niklas Kern

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 5 (PDF)

6. Interpretations of Violence and Their Handling from a Difference-Sensitive Perspective

Initiators:
Angelia Bengel, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Marlene Doktor, University of Leipzig
Anne Piezunka, TU Dresden
Lea Schäfer, Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Education

Moderation: Anne Piezunka & Marlene Doktor

Read Abstract 6 (PDF)

7. Who Are the Subjects of Inclusion? Racialization, Dis/Ability and Graded Belonging Beyond the Category of “Migration Background”

Initiator: Christine Bayer-Borrero, PH Salzburg

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 7 (PDF)

8. Inclusive Education in Teacher Education

Initiator: Carla Jana Svaton, University of Freiburg

Moderation: Martin Viehauser, University of Freiburg

Read Abstract 8 (PDF)

9. New Qualities of Inclusive Learning and Teaching: The Models of Understanding-Oriented Learning-Teaching Environments (VLL) and the Related Communication Workshops (VWS)

Initiators:
Ina Henning, PH Schwäbisch Gmünd
Thomas Rihm, PH Heidelberg

Moderation: Sven Sauter, PH Ludwigsburg

Confirmed as discussants:

Birgit Hüpping, PH Ludwigsburg
Damaris Knapp, PH Schwäbisch Gmünd
Monika Miller, PH Ludwigsburg
Vera Moser, University of Frankfurt am Main
Ada Sasse, HU Berlin
Lea Schäfer, PH Schwäbisch Gmünd

Read Abstract 9 (PDF)

10. Inclusive Pedagogy and Didactics in Technical-Design Subjects

Initiators:
Timo Finkbeiner, KPH Vienna/Lower Austria
Annett Steinmann, University of Leipzig

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 10 (PDF)

11. Inclusive Media Work – People with Disabilities in Journalism, Radio, Presenting and Film

Initiators:
Alexander Breyer (Radio PARADIES)
Antonia Bögner (NA (JA) GENAU)
Ernst Tradinik (MENSCHEN & MEDIEN)
Lukas Adler (Radio PARADIES)
Marcell Vala (NA (JA) GENAU)

Moderation: from the team

Read Abstract 11 (PDF)

12. Generation Inclusion at the University – Cooperation on the Shared Object in Study, Teaching, Research and University Development

Initiators:
Cornelia Müller Bösch, HfH Zurich
Cathrin Reisenauer, PH Tirol
Irina Bühler, FHNW
Sophie Bleuel, HfH Zurich
Bettina Dimai, PH Tirol
Cornelia Maccabiani, Institut Unterstrass at PHZH
Andrea Raggl, PH Tirol
Karin Terfloth, AWZIB, Heidelberg

Moderation: from the team

Read Abstract 12 (PDF)

13. Participation in Inclusion Research

Initiator: Bernadette Gruber (Projects IDEAL4.0 & INLAB)

Moderation: sought

Read Abstract 13 (PDF)

With this call, we would like to bring these thematic clusters back into dialogue: you are invited to actively participate in one or more of the Working Forums listed above – as a discussant/contributor, as a moderator, or as a participant without a declared role. The forums take place simultaneously on three different days, each lasting 1 to 1½ hours, and thus extend across the entire conference.

In addition, it is now possible to submit your own poster or individual contributions.

Final Call for Submission of Poster or Individual Contributions

The guiding question Generation Inclusion? points to a twofold tension: on the one hand, inclusion stands for the recognition of equality and difference as inseparable foundational principles of democratic educational processes (Dewey, 2011; Prengel, 2019; Hinz, 2023). On the other hand, the concept of generation points to a tension between continuity and change, and thus to a foundational – if not the – pedagogical relationship (Mollenhauer, 2008): the question of whether different actors in the development of integration and inclusion form a shared context of experience and knowledge, and what, if anything, should be passed on and preserved from it. Or whether, rather, disparate, historically shaped generations with their own patterns of interpretation and visions of the future stand side by side – that is, whether the situatedness (Fleck, 2023) of the actors is what first brings the subject matter into being. The working conference is therefore interested in how the generations of inclusion constitute themselves, what bodies of knowledge they produce, and what means of addressing tasks or visions of the future for an inclusive democratic society emerge from this.

In doing so, the conference builds on central theoretical traditions of inclusion research. Inclusion is understood as a permanent engagement with dialectical relationships (e.g., Wocken, 2021) – for example, the relationship between equality and difference. People have an equal right to equality in the sense of equal dignity, equal rights and equal opportunities for participation, as well as a right to recognition of their individual and social difference. Education in and for inclusive democratic societies is thus faced with the challenge of neither playing equality and difference off against one another nor dissolving one in favor of the other, but rather placing both in a productive and social relationship (Dewey, 2011). The question of belonging, recognition and participation thus proves to be not only a pedagogical question but also a social, cultural and historical one. There is an extensive and differentiated body of critical inclusion research on this (Feuser, 2017; Jantzen, 2007; Ellger-Rüttgart, 2024).

Against this background, sociological generational research opens up an additional perspective on the development and future of inclusion. Generations are understood not primarily as biologically or demographically defined age groups, but as historically emerged communities of experience (Mannheim, 1964), shaped by shared participation in social, political and cultural transformation processes. On this basis, generations develop specific patterns of interpretation, orientations for action and visions of the future – they are situated. The question of a Generation Inclusion therefore directs attention to the different generational contexts that have been shaped by the developments of integration and inclusion, by the emancipation and disability rights movements, particularly decisively by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as by educational and social policy transformation processes of recent decades (see e.g. Müller 2018–2023). An important approach to the historical classification of these developments is offered by the reconstruction of integration and inclusion research (e.g., Moser, 2017). It shows that German integration research has, since the 1980s, not only produced fundamental empirical findings on the joint learning of children with and without disabilities, but has also been substantially involved in the theoretical redefinition of disability, education and participation. In this process, research questions shifted from enabling joint upbringing and education increasingly toward analyses of participation, recognition, barriers and institutional transformation processes. The history of integration and inclusion research can therefore itself be read as a historical process of different styles of thought and situatednesses – an observation that can also be applied to the present conference itself: its own, now 40-year history is likewise an expression of changing generations and their perspectives and interests, which should be reflected upon as part of this anniversary.

In addition, Disability Studies have significantly shaped the inclusion debate (Dederich, 2015) by analyzing disability not primarily as an individual characteristic, but as the result of societal orders, norms and barriers. This shifts the focus from the adaptation of individual persons to existing conditions toward a critical examination of those societal conditions that enable belonging or produce exclusion. Disability Studies thus once again open up a power-critical perspective on the question of which voices were heard in the different phases of the integration and inclusion movement, what bodies of knowledge emerged, and which forms of exclusion continue to have an effect today. In particular, the perspectives of self-advocates and experts by experience form an independent body of knowledge and experience that cannot be dissolved within the conventional scientific framework of interpretation, but rather independently challenges and expands it. This also raises the question of the relationship between scientific and experience-based knowledge production: while participatory research includes those affected as co-researchers in scientifically initiated processes, emancipatory research (Oliver, 1992) goes a step further and understands those affected as initiators and persons responsible for their own research agendas, to which scientific expertise is subordinated. Both approaches raise the question of whose knowledge counts as legitimate in inclusion research – and, in keeping with the conference theme, the question also arises as to how this understanding has shifted across generations, or will (have to) shift in the future.

These questions must also be considered in relation to intersectional perspectives (Walgenbach, 2017): experiences of exclusion and belonging are produced not only through disability, but in interrelation with other lines of difference such as racialization, gender, socioeconomic status or neurodivergence – something that integration theory already reflected on in the 1990s (Prengel 2019; Preuss-Lausitz 1993). Here, too, the question of generations arises: how is disability negotiated in current inclusion research with regard to other dimensions of inequality, and how are these related to one another?

Finally, the question of generations of inclusion cannot be separated from the current social and political situation. Increasing social polarization, a Europe-wide shift to the right, as well as wars and crises are once again calling democratic and inclusive education into question, in a changed form (Giroux, 2022; West, 2005). Against this background, we want to discuss not only what Inclusive Pedagogy was and is, but also what it must be and become in light of these intensified conditions – and what role the different generations of inclusion research, self-advocacy and pedagogical practice each have to play in this.

The task of the working conference – in brief: We want to explore the question of whether a “Generation Inclusion” can be described that has been shaped by shared practice and experience with the integration and inclusion movements of recent decades, or whether, rather, different generations of inclusion exist, each with their own bodies of knowledge, lines of conflict, visions and ideas for the future. This simultaneously brings to the fore the question of how conceptions of the core concepts of inclusion research and their accepted methods have changed across different generations, and led to programmatic changes. And finally: how can this transformation process be reasonably shaped by the actors themselves, and what does this mean in view of the standards of scientific rigor, human rights, participation/inclusivity and transformation demanded by the field?

Beyond the Working Forums already confirmed, it is possible to submit your own poster or individual contributions. For thematic orientation, these contributions ideally connect to one or more of the following guiding questions of the conference:

• How do continuity and change relate to one another when different generations of inclusion research and the inclusion movement look back on shared roots but look to the future with their own patterns of interpretation? How is a generation’s own situatedness expressed in light of enduring questions of inclusion?
• How have the subjects of inclusion – self-advocates, professionals from practice and research, policymakers – understood themselves over recent decades, and how do they understand themselves today?
• What was, is, and could Inclusive Pedagogy be, given the changed global situation and intensified societal conditions, and how is its field of subject matter now constituted?
• What historical lines of development in inclusion research can be traced, critically questioned or continued on the occasion of the conference’s 40th anniversary?
• What experiences, orders of knowledge and guiding conceptions connect or distinguish those who shaped the integration movements of the 1970s and 1980s from those whose self-understanding has been influenced by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Disability Studies, diversity discourses and current participation debates?

Contributions that draw on the framework theme but set an independent focus running across it are also explicitly welcome. The decisive criterion for acceptance is the relevance of the contribution to the field of inclusion research and practice.

We ask that you submit a title and abstract (max. 2,000 characters) by 15 September 2026 via this form for submition of poster or individual contributions

Participation in the Working Forums

Independent of a submission, it is possible to register for one of the Working Forums listed, and, as an alternative, for a second one. The following forms of participation are available:

Discussant/Contributor – active participation in a Working Forum, contributing one’s own expertise, perspectives and experiences,

Moderator – accompanying and structuring the working process within a forum,

Participation without a declared role – participation in the open program items of the conference as well as in Working Forums without taking on an active task.

All forms of participation are equally welcome and stand on equal footing. The roles of discussant/contributor and moderator in the Working Forums count as active roles and can be documented accordingly to one’s respective institution. Registration takes place centrally via the link below by 30 September 2026, and is independent of any submission of one’s own poster or individual contribution, or of participation in the Working Forums.

Form for submition of poster or individual contributions