What Fosters Educational Participation in Diverse Urban Neighbourhoods

What Conditions Foster Educational Participation in Diverse Urban Neighbourhoods?

This question formed the starting point of our collaborative project “Inside Marxloh”, which, as its name suggests, was situated in the Duisburg district of Marxloh. In public discourse, Marxloh is often reduced to stigmatizing labels such as “problem district” or “no-go area.” To address this question, we designed the place-based, empowering educational intervention “Girls’ Club Inside Marxloh” in cooperation with a local comprehensive school.

Together with female students in grades eight and nine with complex migration backgrounds, we developed an alternative neighbourhood tour based on the girls’ own perspectives and experiences and presented it to the public. The project was highly successful: participants moved from initial hesitation and avoidance to active engagement, and from insecurity to pride in their shared achievements.

What explains this success? To identify the factors contributing to these positive outcomes, the project was accompanied by scientific research.

The empirical findings first revealed that the media’s stigmatization of Marxloh also appeared to affect the girls themselves. They were highly aware of the negative external images of their neighbourhood, particularly those conveyed through the media. In some cases, they had even internalised these stereotypes as part of their own self-image. However, closer examination showed that reproducing these dominant stereotypes was primarily a protective strategy that allowed them to withdraw from public attention. Through sustained interaction with the girls during the project, it became clear that they actually perceived their neighbourhood in nuanced and emotionally meaningful ways, thereby challenging the dominant external narratives.

These findings demonstrate the close relationship between external perceptions and self-perceptions. Only by taking the perspectives of those directly affected seriously and making them visible can stigmatization be challenged and individuals’ sense of identity strengthened. This insight became the foundation of the educational work within the Girls’ Club—and once again, with remarkable success. In both project cycles, the girls showed substantial personal development, which was also measured according to scientific standards through the construct of self-efficacy.

Three key findings emerged:

The positive developments observed among the girls and the identified success factors can largely be attributed to the specific design of the project. The initiative brought together three fields that rarely collaborate in practice: academic research, formal schooling, and community-based social work.

This transdisciplinary collaboration was successful because all partners shared a common understanding: the girls—their perspectives and lived experiences—were always at the centre of the project. “Inside Marxloh” demonstrates that these young women, who often remain structurally underrepresented, do not represent a deficit. On the contrary, they represent an untapped potential for urban society and democracy.

The following two examples illustrate how this collaboration worked in practice.

(1) Making the Girls’ Perspectives Visible

At the beginning of each project cycle, the girls expressed their own perspectives on Marxloh—not simply through discussion or writing, but through participatory methods such as Photovoice and mental maps, which enabled alternative forms of expression. These activities served as the basis for planning the neighbourhood tour. This approach reduced performance pressure and made it clear from the outset that the girls’ perspectives and experiences—not merely factual knowledge—were the starting point of the learning process.

(2) A Protected Space for Practice

Once the neighbourhood tour had been completed, it was not immediately presented to the general public. Instead, in both project cycles, it was first tested in a protected environment with students from the University of Münster. This intermediate step proved to be crucial in transforming uncertainty into confidence and routine. The constructive feedback and opportunity to practise in this supportive setting strengthened the girls’ motivation and trust in their own abilities before presenting the tour to the wider public, which had initially seemed intimidating.

In summary, the project demonstrates convincingly that educational participation in diverse urban neighbourhoods cannot be achieved through a single intervention alone. Rather, it emerges from the interplay of respectful recognition, protected learning spaces, opportunities to develop self-efficacy, and reliable partnerships.