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Walker, Barbro

Prof. Dr. Barbro Walker, educationalist

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Photo: Angelika Müller

Barbro Walker, born in 1968, is professor of childhood education at the University of Applied Education in Berlin. She studied educational science, primary school education and psychology in Frankfurt am Main and Darmstadt. In 2003 she received her PhD. She worked as a research assistant at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, as a teacher and mentor for trainee teachers, and as a consultant for neuroscience and learning at the State Education Authority in Darmstadt and the Hessian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs.

As of 2014 she was part of the academic staff at the Institute for Child and Youth Education at the University of Koblenz-Landau, where she also completed her habilitation. Since 2017 she has held a chair at the University of Applied Education in Berlin.

Barbro Walker is a member of the German Educational Research Association, the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband, in short DHV) and the scientific council of the GWUP (Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften, the leading skeptic organiziation in Germany). In 2020 she was elected to the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation.

 
Main areas of research:

Her research areas include the neuroscientific and pedagogical-anthropological foundations of learning processes in childhood (0-10 years), the development and significance of self-regulatory skills in pre-school age as well as learning and behavioural difficulties in pre-school and primary school age (problems of medicalization through diagnostic categories and constructs). In addition, she is engaged in the psychology of learning and development in childhood (especially the development of social cognition), researches the quality of teaching in primary school and critically examines learning and neuromyths in pedagogy, including questionable learning therapies for children ("brain gym" etc.).

 
Publications (selection):

  • Edu-Kinestetik – ein pädagogischer Heilsweg? Eine kritische Analyse. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2004
  • Aufklärung über pseudowissenschaftliche pädagogische Praktiken bundesweit mangelhaft. In: Skeptiker. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken, no. 3, 2007, p. 136.
  • Vielbegabte Scanner-Persönlichkeiten? Mythen und Fakten zum Thema Hochbegabung. In: Skeptiker. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken, März 2014, p. 139f.
  • Die esoterische Verführung. Fragwürdige Therapien bei Verhaltensproblemen. In: Hessische Lehrerzeitung, November 2014, p. 22f.
  • Selbstregulative Kompetenzen. In: SchulVerwaltung. Zeitschrift für Schulentwicklung und Schulmanagement. Ausgabe Bayern. Heft 05/ 2016, 39. Jg. Wolters Kluver Verlag 2016, p. 151–153.
  • Frühe Förderung ist entscheidend für die Entwicklung von Selbstkontrolle. In: Portal Frühe Bildung. Das Portal für Kita und Grundschule. www.fruehe-bildung.online/kita/konzepte/fruehe-foerderung-ist-entscheidend-fuer-die-entwicklung-von-selbstkontrolle (07.12.2018)