Far-Right Influences and Counterstrategies – The Fields of Social Work and Gender Equality (RESAG)

Social work and gender equality each promote democracy and human rights in their own unique ways. At the same time, these fields represent societal arenas of particular relevance for the far right in their attempts to achieve “cultural hegemony.” Against this backdrop, the project investigates far-right influences in the fields of social work education and practice (TP01a at the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg) as well as Gender Studies and gender equality work (at the municipal and university levels) (TP01b at the OTH Regensburg). The aim is to identify the specific far-right attitudes and actions that actors in these fields face and to explore the available options for positioning, societal support, and resistance.

The research project builds methodologically and substantively on two studies conducted in the German federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (2019) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (2022), which thoroughly documented and analyzed the extent and forms of far-right influence on social work practice in those federal states. The research design used in these studies will be adapted to Bavaria and expanded to include the field of gender equality and the associated qualification phases in higher education. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis phases will be conducted. The findings of these studies will also be of interest beyond Bavaria, as the expansion of the research focus addresses issues that have been under-researched at the national level.