Prof. Dr. Sabine Bollig

Since January 2019 I fill in the Professor of Social Pedagogy at the University of Trier leading the deparment of Social Pedagogy II in the Educational Science program here. My main focus in research and teaching are welfare- and practice-analytical approaches to childhood, youth and family as well as research on organisations and institutions in the fields of child and youth care.

Following vocational training as a special needs caregiver, as well as several years of occupation in the field of special needs and community psychiatry, I completed the Educational Science program at the University of Trier in 2005 to become a graduated pedagogue. Of the years which followed, several were spent working as a research associate at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main (in the Department of Childhood Research), as well as at the Université du Luxembourg (Department of Social Work), where I carried out/co-led various third-party funded projects in the area of educational childhood research, and taught in the programs of education, educational science and social pedagogy. With my ethnographically oriented dissertation, “Childhood Development as an Observation Project”, I received a doctorate from the University of Bielefeld in 2013. In January 2019, I accepted the appointment as Professor of Social Education with a focus on Educational Institutional Research at the University of Trier.

Alongside my research and publications, I apply my interdisciplinary knowledge in the field of social- and educational childhood- and institutional research as a member of various societies (DGfE, DGS, EECERA, etc.), and as a consultant for a wide range of international periodicals (Childhood, Children’s Geographies, Diskurs, ZSE, Journal for Family Research, etc.) and research sponsors (BMBF, SNF, etc.). I have been active on the board of the section, “Sociology of Childhood”, of the German Sociological Association (DGS) since 2013, and as section spokesperson since 2016. The German online journal, “Falki – Fallarchiv kindheitspädagogische Forschung“ (Case Archives for Childhood Education Research), of which I am a co-founder, has been issued since 2018.


Areas of Research:

- Childhood, youth, parenthood and family in welfare- and socio-pedagogical contexts

- Childhood studies

- Early childhood education and care

- Qualitative research, ethnography and practice theory

- Materiality of the “social” (space, objects and bodies)


Recent publications:

Bollig, S. & Behnke, S. (2024). Border Temporalities of Early Childhood: Diverse Education and Care Arrangements of Cross-Border Commuting Parents Borders in Globalization Review 6 (1). Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 94-108. https://doi.org/10.18357/bigr61202421673

Bollig, S. & Groß, L. (2024). Practicing the Family. The Doing and Making of Family in, With and Through Social Work and Education, Bielefeld: transcript.

Betz, T. & Bollig, S. (2023). Bildungs- und Erziehungspartnerschaften in der frühkindlichen Bildung: Doing Collaboration als Konzept zur Erforschung der Praxis eines Programms. In R. Schelle, Blatter Kristine, S. Michl & B. Kalicki (Hrsg.), Qualitätsentwicklung in der Frühen Bildung: Akteure - Organisationen - Systeme (S. 200–227). Beltz Juventa.

Betz, T. & Bollig, S. (2023). Kinder in Kita und Gesellschaft: 105 Reflexionskarten für die frühpädagogische Praxis. Beltz Juventa. 

Betz, T. & Bollig, S. (2023). Ungleichheiten in der frühen Bildungskindheit: Kindertageseinrichtungen als Hoffnungsträger!? Kanner am Fokus, 01, 5–9.

Betz, Tanja & Bollig, Sabine. (2023). Wie Kinder mit Fachkräften und Eltern gemeinsam "Zusammenarbeit machen". KiTa aktuell (BW), 32(9), 4-6

Bollig, S. & Sichma, A. (2023). „Weißt du, das ist Arbeit der Familie“ – Aushandlungen von Optimierungsansprüchen als boundary work zwischen Kindertageseinrichtungen und Familie. In S. M. Weber, C. Fahrenwald & A. Schröer (Hrsg.), Organisation und Pädagogik. Organisationen optimieren? Jahrbuch Organisationspädagogik (Bd. 31, S. 67–81). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36008-5_4 

(full list of publications here)


Recent lectures/Scientific activities

May 2024/Konferenz-Beitrag: Border communities - Heterogeneous relations of ECEC with cross-border commuting parents, Conference "Children and their Communities" Helsinki/Finland

April 2024: CfP for Special Issue: Space, place, and inequalities in early childhood education and care. Journal Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. CIEC

April 2024/Fachvortrag auf Einladung: Ungleichheitssensibilität in der Zusammenarbeit mit Familien entwickeln, Forum frühkindliche Bildung Badem-Württemberg, Online

March 2024/Konferenz-Beitrag: Landschaften, Netze, Ketten und Orte. Politiken und Praxen der präventiven Bekämpfung von Bildungsungleichheiten in früher Kindheit in raumtheoretischer Perspektive, 29. DGfE-Kongress, Halle/Deutschland.

January 2024/Konferenz-Beitrag: Territorial Inclusivity. A Comparison of Pioneering Practices of ECEC Mitigating Educational Inequalities in Hungary and Germany (with B. Lörincz), Final Public Conference of the PIONEERED-Project, Luxemburg.

(full list of lectures here)