Catholic University of Applied Sciences Berlin

The various programmes of study at the KHSB are designed to qualify students for their future careers in Human Services. This entails a combination of teaching, applied research methods and reflected practice. This balanced combination of theoretical, methodical and practical content is aimed at bringing together academic knowledge and practical skills while strengthening students’ personal abilities. The programmes produce highly qualified specialists who are motivated to work in social professions with a sense of individual responsibility.

The primary goal of education at the KHSB is to train students to become professionals in the Human Services who are capable of both analysing their practical work according to scientific and professional standards and reflecting upon their actions, thus enabling them to best meet the needs of the people they will serve in professional contexts.

The modular structure of the programmes offered at the KHSB takes into account the future needs of professional practice by creating clear profiles in the different fields of practice and through the integration of all programmes. The self-contained modules enables the students to gain focused qualifications in their respective career fields.

Social work can be regarded as a key player within civil society, ensuring that political decisions are made to benefit the lives of those most in need. The reflection skills that students acquire within the programmes of study motivate them to engage personally in society and to take part in debates on questions of morals and ethics. Ethical reflection skills include, for example, the ability to recognise and implement ethical principles within professional contexts, such as solidarity or advocacy for those members of society who are marginalised. Students learn how to develop solutions which are sound and just. . The courses and seminars on anthropology and the ethics of social work and inclusive education form a fixed part of the curricululm. Ethics are seen as a central discipline relevant to all the different study programmes, taking into consideration the respective contexts. The ethics courses promote professional action that is based on principles of human dignity and human rights as well as on the ability to recognise and critique different types of ethics and philosophies.

In keeping with its profile, one of the key concerns of the KHSB is to initiate and encourage constructive dialogue between different world-views and to make use of this dialogue in the day-to-day demands of social work. The internationalisation of the contents and structures of the different programmes is therefore not just important for the current Bologna process. A trans-national and open attitude to the world as a whole as well as openness towards cultural groups of different religions form a fixed part of the egalitarian tenet of Catholicism and thus also one of the aims of the KHSB, which also applies beyond European borders. At the KHSB, seminars and lectures about intercultural and international subjects form a fixed part of the curriculum. This includes the opportunity to specialise in “Intercultural Social Work”, different language modules aimed at specific professional disciplines and the large number of internships carried out abroad.

In addition to internationality, both the curriculum and day-to-day life at the university are based around approaching diversity in a constructively critical way: diversity of lifestyles, diversity of religious lifestyles and world views, diversity of different cultural standpoints within society. An awareness of the fact that different perceptions of heterogeneity and foreignness can be put down to both historical and social developments and thus represent contingent constructions and social constructs, form the centre of this practical approach to diversity.