Klaus Hurrelmann (born January 10, 1944) is a professor of public health and education at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.
Klaus Hurrelmann was born in Gdynia and studied sociology, psychology and education in Berkeley (USA), Freiburg and Münster.
He defines socialisation as the individual's personality development resulting from productively processing internal and external reality.
He identifies the central developmental tasks in infancy and early childhood as gaining a basic emotional trust, developing communication skills and attachment behavior, developing the ability to express oneself verbally, identifying with one's own gender, and building up basic sensory and motor skills.
In later childhood from the age of six onward, these tasks are joined by developing female or male role behavior; learning basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and forming competencies in dealing with the media and leisure time.
This impacts on the mastering of developmental tasks: In the areas of education and qualification the demands are rising; the separation from parents and the development of own attachments are being postponed, and the acquisition of competencies as a consumer, user of media, economic citizen, as well as participation in politics and society are more and more considered as tasks that have to be managed on one's own responsibility.
[11][12][13][14] According to Hurrelmann, social background and gender are the main determinants for the successful completion of the developmental tasks to be mastered during this phase of life.
This reveals how the need to deal permanently with unpredictable futures and uncertain life perspectives is leading to a mentality of tentatively probing and pragmatically testing alternatives in the young generation born between 1985 and 2000.
Alongside the Collaborative Research Centre “Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence,” these particularly include the Shell Youth Studies.
Klaus Hurrelmann designed the new generation of Shell Youth Studies that have been carried out since 2002 together with the Infratest-Kantar social research institute.
[15] Recently, these have been joined by studies on vocational training and career choices in youth and on future pensions and finances of adolescents and young adults.
Klaus Hurrelmann's work in educational research focuses on how the starting conditions in families along with the way schools are organized determine academic success and failure.
[16][17][18] Klaus Hurrelmann's studies show how the design of the school system in Germany and the teaching process also contribute to the poor performance of children from families with low socioeconomic status.
The early tracking of students into the three-tier system of Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium following elementary school systematically disadvantages children who receive little encouragement to learn in their families.
An important element of such approaches is to integrate the promotion of exercise, good nutrition, and relaxation techniques in school curricula to help children and adolescents to master their age-specific developmental tasks.
Klaus Hurrelmann also calls for parents and professional childcare and teaching personnel to cooperate intensively in negotiating their different childrearing concepts.