Founding Statement

The ASEER’s Foundation

Even years after the financial, economic and European debt crisis, the modernization of economic sciences has progressed slowly. The agenda focuses especially on the reform of the economic-scientific education and the economic education’s renewal. The recently founded Association for SocioEconomic Education and Research (ASEER) focuses on these challenges and, for this purpose, connects agents from different socioeconomic disciplines. Over 50 experts from economic sciences, sociology, technical methodology and business education discussed the ASEER’s scientific and political agenda at the “Akademie für Politische Bildung”at the Starnberger Lake. The ASEER’s first annual conference took place there from March 16-18, 2017.

Within the framework of the conference at the “Akademie für Politische Bildung” in Tutzing, voice was given to the demands for a paradigmatic pluralization of the scientific research and teaching at schools and universities. Prof. Sascha Spoun, president of the Leuphana University, and Prof. em. Michael Hartmann, nationally recognized elite researcher, as well as Prof. Jack Reardon (USA) and many other speakers presented theoretical approaches and concepts that integrate the economic questions in regard to their social, political, economic, cultural and historical context. They criticized that many schools’ and universities’ scientific curricula neglect these approaches and, therefore, cause great misunderstandings. Although many institutions offer multi-disciplinary and pluralistic research in economic fields, these actions are unfortunately oftentimes diffused and uncoordinated, thereby resulting in almost no remarkable impact.

The ASEER’s foundation now offers a focal point for the scientific discourse. The professional society aims to distribute, deepen and institutionalize multi- and interdisciplinary as well as pluralistic and problem-oriented approaches among schools and universities. Particularly, the foundation aims to initiate, coordinate and present the national and international research of and discourse about socioeconomic education and teaching. The ASEER sees itself as a comprehensive university network of researches who work within the fields of socioeconomics and socioeconomic education. The ASEER is expected to systematically combine thoughts about education and training of socioeconomic and other socioscientific, didactical and university-didactical subjects as well as university education and policy in the economic field.To do so, perspectives and results of the central disciplines of economics, sociology, ethics and political science should be put in relation to each other and discussed with regard to didactical issues. This does not only enable a network to support meaningful learning and studying, but also offers the development of (more) diverse approaches for the understanding and handling of real economic-embossed social problems and life situations.

The following persons support the foundation of the ASEER:

Prof. Dr. Thomas Beschorner | Professorship for Economic Ethics and Director of the Institut for Economic Ethics at the University St. Gallen | University St. Gallen Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Bieling | Professorship for Political Economy and Didactics of Economics | Eberhard Karls University Tübingen
Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner | Professorship for Didactics of Social Studies | Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M.
Prof. em. Dr. Gerd E. Famulla | Professorship for Economic Sciences and their Didactics | University Flensburg
Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischer | Professorship for Career and Educational Pedagogy as well as Didactics of Economics | Leuphana University Lüneburg
Prof. Dr. Daniel Fischer | Assistant Professor for Sustainability Science | Institute for Environmental & Sustainability Communication (INFU) | Leuphana University Lüneburg
Prof. Dr. Christian Fridrich | Professorship for Geography and Economics | University College of Teacher Education Vienna
Dr. Christoph Gran | Network Pluralistic Economics (“Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik”)
Prof. Dr. Silja Graupe | Professorship for Economic Sciences and Philosophy | Cusanus College Bernkastel-Kues
Prof. Dr Udo Hagedorn | Professorship for Career Pedagogy – Empirical Learning and Teaching Research in the Context of Vocational Organization and Quality’s Development | Leibniz University Hannover
Prof. Dr. Reinhold Hedtke | Professorship for Didactics of Social Studies and Economic Sociology | University Bielefeld
Prof. Dr. Arne Heise | Professorship for Financial Economics and Public Governance | University Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Hiß | Professorship for Sociology with the Focus on Markets, Organizations and Governance | Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Prof. Dr. Martin Höpner | Research Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Systems und apl. Professorship at Faculty for Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne
Prof. Dr. Gustav Horn | Scientific Director at the Institute for Macroeconomics and Economic Research (“Institut für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung”) within the Hans Böckler Endowment and apl. Professorship at the University Duisburg-Essen
Prof. Dr. Dirk Lange | Professorship for Didactics of Political Education | Leibniz University Hannover
Prof. Dr. Sighard Neckel | Professorship for Society’s Analyses and Social Change | University Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Werner Nienhüser | Professorship for Business Administration, especially Work, Staff and Organization | University Duisburg-Essen
Prof. Dr. Andreas Nölke | Professorship for Political Science, especially International Relations and International Political Economic Science | Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Oehler | Professorship for Finance | Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg
Prof. Dr. Walter O. Ötsch | Professorship for Economic Science and Cultural History | Cusanus College Bernkastel-Kues
Prof. Dr. Stephan Panther | Professorship for Economic Science and Interdisciplinary Institutional Research | Cusanus College Bernkastel-Kues
Prof. Dr. Dr. Helge Peukert | apl. Professorship for Finance and Financial Sociology | University Erfurt
Prof. Dr. Jack Reardon | Professorship for Economics, Marketing, and Strategy | Hamline University
Prof. em. Dr. Sibylle Reinhardt | Professorship for Didactics of Social Studies | Martin-Luther-University Halle
Prof. Dr. Ulf Schrader | Professorship for Work Apprenticeship/Economics and Sustainable Consumption | Technical University Berlin
Prof. Dr. Georg Tafner | Professorship for Business and Economic Education | Humboldt-University of Berlin
Prof. Dr. Matthias Thiemann | Professorship for Sociology with the Focus on Financial Markets, Banks and Money | Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M.
Prof. Dr. Till van Treeck | Professor for Socioeconomics | University Duisburg-Essen
Prof. Dr. Birgit Weber | Professorship for Social Studies with the Focus on Economic Education | University of Cologne
Prof. Dr. Tatjana Zimenkova | Professorship for Diversity and Differences in Professional Didactics and Schools as well as Lesson’s Research | Technical University Dortmund
Prof. Dr. Bettina Zurstrassen | Professorship for Didactics of Social Studies | University Bielefeld

To the board of management belong the following persons (October 2016): Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner (speaker of the board) | Prof. Dr. Silja Graupe (deputy speaker of the board) | Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischer (bursar) | Dr. Christoph Gran | Prof. Dr. Udo Hagedorn | Prof. Dr. Reinhold Hedtke | Prof. Dr. Georg Tafner | Prof. Dr. Till van Treeck | Prof. Dr. Bettina Zurstrassen

Frankfurt a. M., October 6, 2016