The Diversity of School Social Work in Germany: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Children in Germany are confronted with an increasing societal inequality and disorientation that makes it difficult for them to cope with life. School social work in Germany is an intensive form of cooperation between the institutionally divided systems of child and youth welfare and education. The aim of this article is threefold: to present (1) relevant aspects of both systems, (2) the diversity of terms being used to describe this specific form of cooperation and (3) an exemplary selection of concepts of school social work. Therefore, a systematic review of the literature was done, taking publications between 2000 and 2016 into account. The findings show that there is a high diversity of terms being used to describe this form of cooperation as well as different concepts which have some similarities and differences. Therefore, school social work in Germany must be characterized as diverse, incoherent and in need of further clarification.


Introduction
The financial, social and cultural capital of a family are significant for a child's general chances of success and lead to different preconditions for minors (BMFSFJ, 2013, p. 40). This includes the education experiences of the parents, access to the labor market, action alternatives in parental situations and strategies to solve conflicts within a family. Current studies (Bertelsmann, 2014;Shell, 2015) provide evidence that the academic success of a child also depends strongly on the social class in which they are born. This means, for example, that ninth graders from an upper income family have a competence advantage of two years compared to children from lower income family. Additionally, those who leave school without a certificate have a lower chance of finding a place to train and of entering regular employment (Bertelsmann, 2014, p. 17). School social work as a provision of child and youth welfare, takes place directly at school and tries to contribute to the reduction and prevention of social disadvantages and individual challenges by supporting minors in their individual and social development (Section 1 subsec. 3 SGB VIII). Germany has many different forms of cooperation between child and youth welfare and education; one of these is school social work, which has its own variety of terminologies and concepts. Thus, this type and (6) provided an abstract. Many of the results could be eliminated in a first step based on the title and in a second step based on whether the abstract was available. Using GESIS Sowiport, 2036 results could be identified for the keyword 'Schulsozialarbeit' (school social work) and 11 results for 'Schulsozialpädagogik' (school social pedagogy) as potentially relevant, including duplicates. Searching for 'Schulsozialarbeit' (school social work) AND 'rechtliche Grundlagen' (legal bases) OR 'SGB VIII' (Social Code Book VIII) identified a total of 7 results, 6 of which were excluded, as they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Reference lists of the selected publications were then examined; legislative texts and reports by the Federal Government were also used to gain knowledge. Searching for 'Schulsozialarbeit' (school social work) AND 'Konzept' (concept), identified 26 results, 23 of which were excluded. Here, reference lists were also examined and used as a supplement.

Child and youth welfare
In Germany, child and youth welfare and public accountability for child rearing are conducted at different federal levels, namely, federal, federal states, municipalities and municipality associations (BMFSFJ, 2013, p. 375). At the federal level, a nationwide structure is formed and national legislation is executed with regard to fundamental issues and the central content of the services of child and youth welfare. At the federal state level, federal state-specific structures and laws with different priorities complement the national structure and legislation. At the municipality level, the providers of public child and youth welfare execute the tasks of child and youth welfare, including the planning responsibilities. Galm & Derr (2011, p. 17) note that the 'guiding principles, structure and responsibilities of the German child and youth welfare system are regulated in the "Social  Kunkel, 2016;Münder, 2013;Rademacker, 2011) or the Sections 11 and 13 (for example Olk, Bathke, and Hartnuß, 2002;Speck, 2014). In addition to these two main directions, other Sections are also considered relevant to this topic. While Pötter (2014) regards school social work as a service deriving from Sections 11, 13, 14, 16 and 81 of the SGB VIII, Meinunger (2016) traces school social work back to Section 13 and notes that Sections 1,8,9,11,13,16 and 81 are also often associated with this issue. Kunkel (2016) refers to the protection mandate of school social work in cases of child endangerment pursuant to Section 8a of the SGB VIII. Therefore, the abovementioned Sections will be explained below.
Section 1 of the SGB VIII regulates the right of young people to education, parental responsibility and youth welfare. In accordance with Section 1, subsec. 1 of the SGB VIII, every young person has the right to be supported in his development and educated to a responsible and social personality. Pursuant to Section 1, subsec. 2 of the SGB VIII and Art. 6 of the German Constitution, the care and upbringing of children is the natural right of parents and a duty primarily incumbent upon them. Additionally, the state shall watch over the parents in the performance of this duty. Finally, Section 1, subsec. 3 of the SGB VIII clarifies the scope of child and youth welfare, ranging from prevention-orientated duties that aim to improve existing life conditions to interventions in cases of social problems (Münder, 2013, p. 77). Accordingly, youth welfare is obliged (1) to promote young people in their individual and social development and to contribute to the prevention and reduction of disadvantages, (2) to counsel and support parents and other guardians in the upbringing of their children, (3) to protect children and young people from harm to their welfare, and (4) to establish and maintain positive living conditions for young people and their families as well as a childrenand family-friendly environment. When applied to school social work, this means that professionals become actively involved in school development processes to establish equal opportunities for all children and intervene rapidly in serious situations (Rademacker, 2011, p. 19).
In addition to Section 1, Section 8 of the SGB VIII is also associated with school social work. It states that children should be actively involved in all decisions that affect their well-being to a degree that reflects their level of development. They are also entitled to contact the youth welfare department regarding educational and developmental issues without having to notify their parents and especially in crisis situations. Specifically, this means that children should be involved in all decisions that affect them, such as the planning of social-or adventure-based activities. Section 8a of the SGB VIII deserves particular attention with regard to the protection of children, as it refers to the protection mandate of youth welfare departments in cases of child endangerment. Section 8a, subsec. 4 of the SGB VIII describes the protection mandate required of all institutions and professionals. This mandate provides services under the law, including school social workers. Thus, school social workers are obliged to perform a risk assessment if they have credible information indicating a risk to the welfare of a child. Here, school social workers have to involve a specialist and the parents unless the protection of the child is not called into question. Finally, they have to inform the youth welfare department if the parents refuse to accept the necessary support. In accordance with Section 9 of the SGB VIII, youth welfare services must consider the basic orientation of the parents' education, the growing need of children to act independently and the different life situations of girls and boys.
Sections 11 and 13 of the SGB VIII are considered particularly relevant for school social work. Section 11, subsec. 1 of the SGB VIII states that young people should be offered the required youth work services that promote their development and enable selfdetermination, societal responsibility and social engagement. These roles should also be codetermined by the children and reflect their interests. Focus should be placed on work-, school-, and family-related youth work, among others (Section 11 subsec. 3 sentence 3 SGB VIII). School social work that refers to Section 11 of the SGB VIII provides services for all children of a school; school social work that follows Section 13 of the SGB VIII provides children and young people in need greater support in order to compensate for social disadvantages and to overcome individual impairments. According to Münder (2013, p. 204), children are disadvantaged if their age-appropriate societal integration has not had at least average success. Social disadvantages usually go hand in hand with inadequate socialization within the family, at school, during vocational training, in workplace or in another environment (Münder, 2013 overindebtedness, but also learning, performance and developmental impairments, weaknesses and disorders (Münder, 2013). Finally, young people who are socially disadvantaged or individually impaired should be offered social-educational assistance by the child and youth welfare system to promote their educational and vocational training and their integration into the labor market and society (Section 13 subsec. 1 SGB VIII).
In accordance with Section 14 of the SGB VIII, young people should be provided with offers from educational child and youth protection. Section 14, subsec. 2 of the SGB VIII states that young people should be enabled to protect themselves from dangerous influences and develop conflict-and decision-making abilities as well as responsibility for themselves and others. Additionally, parents and other guardians should be enabled to protect children and young people from dangerous influences. Section 16 of the SGB VIII states that parents and other guardians shall be offered services that enable them to perform their parental responsibilities and solve conflict situations without violence. Finally, Section 81 of the SGB VIII regulates the cooperation between child and youth welfare and institutions that affect minors and their parents, including schools.

Education system
Due to the cultural sovereignty of the federal states of Germany with regard to culture, science and education, the federal states are responsible for the concrete formation and implementation of education policies (Lohmar & Eckhardt, 2014, p. 16 Gymnasium and ten years for those who attend another general education school. Full-time compulsory schooling is followed by part-time compulsory schooling for those who do not attend a vocational school at the upper secondary level or a full-time general education school (Lohmar & Eckhardt, 2014, p. 26).
According to Just (2016b, p. 72f.), the term 'school social work' is directly mentioned in the school laws of Rheinland-Palatinate, Saarland and Saxony. 'Youth welfare' is mentioned in every federal state except Baden-Württemberg, and 'youth welfare department' is mentioned in every federal state except Niedersachsen, Sachsen and Schleswig-Holstein.
Thus far, the cooperation between child and youth welfare and school has mostly been limited to cases in the field of child endangerment, school truancy and other special cases (Just, 2016b).

Child and youth welfare and educationsimilarities and differences
Maykus ( Rademacker (2011, p. 22) notes different factors that must be seen as challenging preconditions for the cooperation between both systems. While child and youth welfare is linked to the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that private organizations are given priority over public ones to run child and youth welfare services, education is dominated by public organizations (Rademacker, 2011). Differences can also be noticed in other areas. While legislation on child and youth welfare is a task of the Federation and communities are responsible for establishing a youth welfare department to plan, operate and finance child and youth welfare, education policy is formed, implemented and financed by the federal states.

Various terms
Spies & Pötter (2011) identify 11 different terms for school social work. Additionally, Speck (2006Speck ( , 2014 notes different terms with regard to federal state-wide funding programs and specialist literature. He notes the continuing lack of a common term and content-related understanding of school social work (Speck, 2014, p. 35).
The literature review reveals an inconsistent use of terms that describe this specific form of cooperation between child and youth welfare and education. While the majority of publications use the term school social work (for example Foltin, 2015;Seibold, 2015;Speck, 2014), various others exist. A general distinction is made between school social work as a cooperative field between child and youth welfare, which is a subsystem of social work, and  Palatzky, 2008;Rademacker, 2009;v. Reischach, 2006v. Reischach, , 2007, between social work and school (for example Braches-Chyrek, Lenz, & Kammermeier, 2012;Fischer, Genenger-Stricker, & Schmidt-Koddenberg, 2016) and between social pedagogy and school (Mührel, 2009;Holtappels, 2008). Appendix 1 outlines the original and translated headings of publications between 2000 and 2016, clarifying this highly diverse terminology. The review also shows that some authors use not only one term, but multiple terms to describe this form of cooperation. Therefore, an author could use one term in the title and another term in the article or book (for example Just, 2016a).

Concepts of school social work
The following chapter represents an exemplary selection of concepts that exist in the field of school social work. Three results were considered along with other sources, which can be found in the references. The findings do not reveal a coherent picture of school social work, instead offer a very diverse and controversial image. Meinunger (2015) raises fundamental questions concerning the affiliation of school social work, its legal foundation, and its provision and further development. Regarding the affiliation, she asks whether school social work is the task of child and youth welfare or schools and, in that vein, whether school social work should be provided through child and youth welfare or school. She believes that both topics are controversial. She also asks whether school social work is legally based on the SGB VIII. According to Meinunger, when the new SGB VIII was passed, the legislature intended school social work to be part of youth social work. She concludes that many Sections of the SGB VIII are currently associated with school social work, and she regrets the lack of a clear school social work Section. Finally, Meinunger asks whether the further development of school social work could be supported and made possible by legislative changes. Reischach (2006) outlines different concepts and the initial positions of school social work, thus illustrating commonalities and differences. The 1980s primarily focused on providing school social work with a uniform term that encompassed its diversity. By the beginning of the 21 st century, further differentiation started to be noticed.
According to Reischach (2006), school social work is currently well established and recognized as important. Despite conceptual differences, all approaches share the idea that school social work must be an independent service of child and youth welfare and must not be subsumed under school goals.
An exemplary selection of concepts based on the author's systematic literature review will be presented in the following section. Additionally, details concerning the authors, legal foundations, concepts and target groups can be found in Appendix 2.
Rademacker (2002), Münder (2013), Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ, 2013) and Kunkel (2016) share the idea that school social work is school-related youth social work pursuant to Section 13 of the SGB VIII and therefore an independent service of child and youth welfare. Kunkel (2016) and Rademacker (2002) further define school-related youth social work as social work in schools, which means that no difference exists between social work and school social work except the location of the working place. These scholars all consider socially disadvantaged and individually impaired children and minors to be the target group, and they particularly focus on children who are tired of school and whose success at school is at risk. They also focus on the transition of children from school to vocational training and regular employment. Rademacker (2002) places particular emphasis the importance of education and qualifications for social inclusion, which constitutes a shift towards greater social inequality. Rademacker (2002) and Münder (2013) demand an advocacy approach, combining work with the client and political work.
Kunkel (2016) is also the only person who focuses explicitly on the protection mandate of school social workers in the case of child endangerment. These scholars all argue that school social work as a service of child and youth welfare must be employed by child and youth welfare organizations and distinguished from school providers. Finally, the BMFSFJ (2013) assumes that school social work has a specific role in the relationship between school, parents and social work and is therefore able to sensitize school for the needs of the pupils and their parents. Speck (2014) and Olk, Hartnuß, & Birger (2000) define school social work as an autonomous service of child and youth welfare. In contrast to BMFSFJ (2013), Münder (2013), Kunkel (2016) and Rademacker (2002), they assume that school social work is pursuant to Sections 11 and 13 of the SGB VIII and that its tasks are therefore not limited to socially disadvantaged and individually impaired children. Speck (2014) and Olk, Hartnuß & Birger (2002) agree that school social work should neither be limited to leisure-pedagogical nor to problem-related interventions, thus disagreeing with Rademacker (2002) who criticizes leisure-time activities in the frame of school social work. Speck (2014) defines school social work as a task that tries to promote young people's individual, social, school and working development and that contributes to avoiding or reducing education inequalities. Olk, Hartnuß & Birger (2000) consider school social work to be a subsystem within the school system and state that it is therefore able to encourage school developmental processes and to function as a bridge between the school system and child and youth welfare. They agree with Seithe (1998) who stated that school social work is situation-and intervention-related; lifeworld-and present-related; conducive and encouraging; orientated towards the children's needs; process-, product-, and holistic-orientated and voluntary.

Conclusion
This article started by focusing on minors who are socially disadvantaged, individually impaired and have life difficulties with which they must cope. School social work that follows a lifeworld-orientated approach tries to empower minors to help themselves and to change dysfunctional structures that hinder these young people from emancipation. The systematic review of the literature revealed the current lack of either a coherent terminology to describe this form of cooperation between school and child and youth welfare, or a single concept. The basic orientation of the terms currently used to describe this specific form of cooperation can be assigned to three categories: Child and youth welfare and school, social work and school and social pedagogy and school. A greater number of publications apparently assigns school social work to the category of social work and school (1517 results) than to the category of social pedagogy and school (663 results). This finding is supported by a significant difference between the number of publications for school social work (2036 results) and school social pedagogy (11 results) and the fact that the term school social pedagogy has not been used as a publication heading since 2008. These findings allow conclusions to be drawn concerning the fundamental nature of school social work. While most authors use the term school social work, many others exist; additionally, some authors do not use one term consistently, instead using multiple terms, adding to the complexity of the issue. Regarding the exemplary selection of concepts of school social work, two main directions are clearly paramount. They differ in their legal bases, target groups and measures. The results presented also reveal that the topic of child endangerment is hardly mentioned in the published literature despite the legal bounds of school social workers. All in all, school social work in Germany can be described as a very diverse working field that requires further clarification.
In order to promote the professionalization of school social work and to enable international communication, a uniform terminology is indispensable. The systematic review of the literature revealed 31 terms which are associated with school social work. Thereby, these terms stand for partly similar or different concepts behind. Therefore, it is proposed to come to an agreement on the term of school social work, standing for social work in schools and a service provided by child and youth welfare. To prevent school social workers from being misused to perform services which are not explicitly part of their profession, a clear legal basis in the SGB VIII is required. Thus, tasks and target groups can be clarified which should be, with regard to Kunkel (2016), children and young people who are social disadvantaged and/or have individual challenges. Besides supporting these children and young people to reach their full academic potential, a specific focus should be laid on the protection mandate of school social workers in cases of child endangerment. Despite the potential of school social workers to prevent, early detect and intervene in cases of child abuse and neglect, only little attention has been paid to this topic before. Beneath legal changes in the SGB VIII, school social work should be anchored in the school laws of the federal states to set explicit rules for the obligation to cooperate. As Just (2016, p. 72f.) pointed out, the term 'school social work' is only mentioned in the school laws of Rheinland-Palatinate, Saarland and Saxony. To sum it up, school social work in Germany is nowadays a well-recognized service in schools; nevertheless, there is still work to be done to further professionalize it.