Faculty 4: University Award for the Best Master Thesis 2021

Recognition or lack of recognition is an important contextual factor to support the professional biographical learning biography. This thesis investigates the question: "How do nursing assistants with many years of professional experience experience recognition or lack of recognition in relation to their professional biographical development?"

The aim is to derive from the data obtained the influence of recognition or lack of recognition on the professional biographical development of nursing assistants as well as professional pedagogical consequences.

In this study, expert interviews with biographical narrative questions were conducted according to the methodological framework of grounded theory. The research design followed the qualitative approach. Honneth's theory of recognition as well as the theories and explanations of biographical and lifelong learning were used as sensitizing concepts for evaluation and processing. For the minimum and maximum comparison of the anchor cases, the positioning in a mental field was chosen.

In the literature search, the review of relevant works on the topic of recognition and appreciation in nursing as well as works on biographical and lifelong learning took place. In the field exploration, the focus was on the characteristics of nursing assistance in the state of Saxony in the period before and after 1990.

The results of this work indicated a relationship between the contextual factor of recognition and developmental professional learning. Lack of recognition may lead to leaving the professional field of nursing assistance or to an impediment of learning in professional socialization. As vocational-pedagogical consequences the creation of learning-promoting basic conditions in nursing facilities, obligatory further training for all in the care active coworkers of an enterprise and the sensitization of decision makers for the meaning of acknowledgment on the learning readiness were derived.

Conclusion: Due to their weak professional position, nursing assistants have little possibility to influence the design of framework conditions. The influence of leaders should be used to create conditions that are conducive to learning. The targeted professional biographical support of nursing assistants can be experienced as appreciation and recognition.