Ethnography of "social realities of pedagogy"

What contribution does ethnographic research make to reconstructing the social reality of education? The article explores how Nohl's hermeneutic construct of "Erziehungswirklichkeit", a historically evolved pedagogical concept of how the reality of education should be, can be transferred to a reconstruction of the social reality of education without being normative. In Germany, ethnographic research in educational sciences differentiates between pedagogical ethnographic research, which is identified with the aims and institutions of education, and ethnographic research in educational sciences. The latter is geared toward an analytical description of how the social reality of education is constructed. The article discusses what types of theory of object and which methodological solutions are developed in ethnographic research projects to reconstruct the construction of the reality of education in a non-normative manner. The article will ultimately show that the Kade/Seitters concept of viewing educational reality as a loose coupling of learning, teaching and knowledge, provides a reference for understanding different educational fields and recognizing how generational order influences the construction of educational reality.