News
Family in teaching and research
7 Apr 2025
Inspiring stories and outstanding research: everything to do with family at LMU
On the current situation of families
New group to research family life in Bavaria
The new Bavarian research association “Family Life in Bavaria – Empirical Insights into Transformations, Resources and Negotiations (ForFamily)” started work in January 2024. Its co-spokespersons are Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at LMU, and Rita Braches-Chyrek, Professor of Social Pedagogy at the University of Bamberg.
The group has a four-year term and has received funding totaling 3.6 million euros from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts.
“More visible and more recognized” - Professor Villa Braslavsky on new family concepts
2:24 Min | 22 Apr 2025
New online platform helps families in conflict
“How parents split up makes a huge difference”: An interview with psychologist and educationalist Sabine Walper about parents in conflict and the online platform STARK (“Strong”), which helps families in conflict or separation.
A research consortium led by LMU Professor Sabine Walper has launched an online platform to help families who experience couple conflict or parental break-up. In this interview, Walper explains, among other things, what a break-up means for children and what parents should look out for.
“The bourgeois nuclear family - an invention of the 19th century”
3:05 Min | 22 Apr 2025
What we instill
Self-confidence, the ability to form and sustain relationships, resilience, a sense of fairness, the courage to stand up for oneself and others – Which values do we want to instill in our children for their journey through life? And how can we do so successfully? How can we support their social and moral development?
Jeanine Grütter, Professor of Social Development and Social Change at LMU since 2024, has two messages for parents. The first message is that parents are – and remain – important models for their children in their emotional, moral, and social development. When children enter school, their peers (children the same age in their class or sports club) have an increasing influence on how they play and interact with others.
Jeanine Grütter, Professor of Social Development and Social Change at LMU
© Florian GenerotzkyFamilies and digitalization
Media research with its finger on the pulse
“Fake news, algorithms, online hate: exploring issues at the bleeding edge of our culture is a distinguishing feature of our discipline, for sure,” observes Professor Ruth Wendt, who since 2022 has been Professor of Communication Science with a special focus on Digital Literacy in Algorithmic Spaces at LMU. “These are highly topical phenomena, which students are personally familiar with and take up in their bachelor’s and master’s dissertations.”
Ruth Wendt studied educational science, psychology, and communication science at LMU. “This threefold division of subjects in the Magister degree back then – and the interdisciplinary interplay between them – would go on to color my subsequent research career.” In 2014, she obtained a doctorate in communication science at the University of Münster with a thesis on Online perpetrators: an analysis of individual and structural explanatory factors for cyberbullying in school contexts.
Families and education
A playful way to overcome learning disorders
“Our common goal is for this project to build a platform on which teachers, educational therapists, school psychologists and parents alike have online access – on their tablets and smartphones – to well-researched, up-to-date scientific information alongside tests and training materials,” research leader Gerd Schulte-Körne from the Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie (Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy) said back in 2017, when the LONDI project went off the blocks. “These resources should give them fast, evidence-based support for children with learning disorders.” The pilot phase will soon be completed. And while exact figures about participants and findings are not yet available, “We have enjoyed a tremendous reach and have encountered keen interest in every one of Germany’s states,” Schulte-Körne asserts.
Improving educational opportunities with learning apps
LMU psychologist Frank Niklas has investigated how even preschool children can train their mathematical and written language skills.
Frank Niklas is Professor for Educational Psychology and Family Studies at LMU. As part of the ERC project “Learning4Kids”, the LMU researcher and his team looked at how useful learning apps are in preparing children for school. To do so, he and his team first developed some suitable games. After four years of research, it is time to take stock.
Frank Niklas, Professor of Educational Psychology and Family Research, with his team
© Benjamin Asher / LMUFamilies and trauma
LMU is part of the study "Coping with Corona" of life in the pandemic
Researchers are accompanying people through their coronavirus routine to understand how they are coping with the crisis. More volunteers are needed.
The study Coping with Corona (CoCo) has set itself the goal of investigating how individuals are coping with the pandemic. The pivotal questions are: How are coronavirus-driven changes affecting people’s life and mental health? How and why do they deal differently with the same circumstances? And which strategies work best? The researchers hope that this exercise will reveal answers about how people can cope mentally with future crises.
The many faces of depression
Why are so many young people developing mental illnesses? And what can be done about it? An interview with Ellen Greimel, a child and adolescent psychotherapist at LMU.
The incidence of mental illness among children and young people has risen sharply in recent years and is up by 27 percent since 2019. This was the finding of a recent Versorgungsatlas (Healthcare Atlas) report by the Central Institute of the German Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. The very pronounced 74 percent increase in eating disorders among girls is especially striking. Private lecturer Dr. Ellen Greimel heads the Working Group on Depression Among Children and Adolescents at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics of the Hospital of the LMU Munich. In the interview reproduced below, she explains what is behind this development.