Research
Research Units
The Faculty is organised into four Research Units, all of which pursue the analysis and development of socio-cultural systems. Study objectives relate to developments in society and their impact in terms of demographic and migratory patterns, sociological upheaval, changes in economic and ethical paradigms, historical, cultural and linguistic development, spatial development and urbanisation needs, cross-border consequences, educational challenges in terms of youth training and qualifications, and the need for continuing education to adapt a workforce that is confronted with an increasingly complex labour market.
Research into learning processes is now entirely interdisciplinary in nature, involving educational science, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, sociology, information science and many other disciplines.
The research activities of the EMACS Research Unit are placed in this context. The main objective will be to contribute to the production of new scientific output in the field of cognitive science, and to apply the knowledge and results thus obtained (or which already exist) to the field of education and training, notably through the development of new evaluation and learning tools.
The LCMI Research Unit aims to foster socio-cultural research into learning and development processes. It seeks to develop basic and applied research on learning and development in multilingual and multicultural contexts.
Using interactionist, socio-cultural and historico-cultural paradigms, the researchers analyse the dialectics that enhance the transformation of social practices and actors’ ways of behaving and thinking. This enquiry focuses on the dimension of “meaning”, notably the dynamic process through which it is constructed, negotiated and defended in everyday activities. Language, as well as semiotic and cultural tools, which are considered as resources, play an essential role in these mediation processes.
The LCMI Unit draws its expertise from the fields of educational science, applied linguistics and language acquisition, communication analysis, psychology and applied studies in order to facilitate management of data for the monitoring of learning processes and cross-cultural development.
INSIDE is an interdisciplinary Research Unit involving researchers in psychology, sociology, educational science and social and pedagogical work who are committed to analysing the individual and social development that occurs as a result of social change. Its research priorities include:
- children’s early development and socialisationcontexts and structures related to the development of young people
- ageing populations and intergenerational relations
- social inclusion and exclusion – evaluation of social cohesion
- anger and aggression in institutional and social contexts
- stress and psychosocial health
- migration and immigration
The IPSE Research Unit conducts research on society from the perspective of developments in time and space. It concerns the disciplines of history, geography, literature, art, philosophy, language science, political science, sociology and gender studies.
The Research Unit is organised into eight research laboratories and two main strands of research:
- Luxembourg Studies, which promotes better awareness about the country’s cultural, social, political and economic outlook by studying intercultural issues, multilingualism, the construction of new identities, social cohesion and justice, migratory flows, and changes in values and attitudes;
- European Governance, which uses a comparative and European approach to examine issues relating to social cohesion and identity, decision-making and legitimisation processes and Europe’s role in the world.
Since September 2007, all of the Research Unit’s disciplines have been involved in the IDENT research project on socio-cultural identities and identity-related policies in Luxembourg (2007-2010).
