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. (2025). Wohlfahrtsproduktion als heuristischer Zugang zum Eigensinn der Kindertagespflege im Feld der Frühen Bildung, Betreuung und Erziehung. In Flämig, K. & Schoyerer, G. (Hrsg.), Kindertagespflege aus theoretischer Perspektive Diskurse, Deutungen und Entwicklungen (S. 93-110). Deutsches Jugendinstitut.

Jobst, S., Skrobanked, J., Vazquez Cupeiro, S., Hadjar, A., Bollig, S. & Alieva, A. (2025). Practice Research and Pioneering Approaches for Tackling Educational Inequalities: Experiences from the European Project PIONEERED. in Bíró, Z. H., Çela, E., Krasztev, P., Sipos, F., & Xhemi, E. (Hrsg.), Equity in Education: A Handbook for Participative Approaches in Research and Development to Address School Inequalities. (S. 62-85).

Bollig, S. & Groß, L. (2025). Practicing the Family: The Doing and Making of Family In, With and Through Social Work and Education. transcript Verlag.

Bauder, T., Bollig, S., Eßer, F., Hünersdorf, B., Imeri, S., Leser, C. & Machold, C. (2024). What’s New? Ethnographische Forschung im Kontext neuer Forschungs(daten)infrastrukturen: Ethik, Datenmanagement und Nachnutzung. in J. Budde, G. Rißler, M. Meier-Sternberg & A. Wischmann (Hrsg.) What’s New? Neue Perspektiven in ethnographischer Erziehungswissenschaft (S. 35-60) Budrich Verlag

(full list of publications here)

Recent lectures/Scientific activities

October 2025/Konferenz-Beitrag: Inequalities and cross-border care ecologies: The case of early childhood education and care in the greater region SaarLorLux, European inequalities across borders: dividing and integrating processes, Menaggio/Italy.

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

(full list of lectures here)