Students can choose between two specialisations in Module 5: Emergence and Institutionalisation or Problems of Institutions. The BA Education 7 module offers a choice of four profile areas: General educational science, historical and cultural educational research, adult education/continuing education with a focus on counselling in education, career and employment as well as selected topics from educational psychology. Cross-module perspectives include education and learning in the context of difference, social inequality, power and gender.

There are eight available research profiles central to the MA Education (EWI): Educational theory + research, historical + cultural educational research, comparative + international educational science, empirical educational, university + science research, empirical school + teaching research, adult/continuing education research, reflective business education + vocational training research, educational women's + gender research. In the MA in Adult Education/Lifelong Learning (EB/LL), preparation for teaching, planning and managerial roles is central, as is the teaching and research area of the "Continuing Education Programme Archive Berlin/Brandenburg".

The Erasmus Office advises on Erasmus contracts and scholarships with numerous partner universities all over Europe. Currently, the institute has over 40 contracts with universities in 16 countries. On average, around 21 students successfully complete an Erasmus stay abroad each academic year, while around 15 students from abroad successfully complete a stay at the Institute of Educational Science (IfE) each academic year.

The institute has three educational archives: Archiv für Reformpädagogik (progressive education archive), Weiterbildungsprogramm-Archiv (continuing education programme archive) Berlin/Brandenburg, Egon-Schütz-Archiv (Ego Schütz archive), which are (also) available for student use. Access to subject-specific databases is available through the university library. The university has state-of-the-art technical equipment (equipment for hybrid teaching, learning platforms, digital repositories, data protection-compliant AI tools, etc.)

Educational and learning processes, institutions and practices (in their current form, in their historical genesis and in their international references) are central research topics. Theoretical and empirical questions of educational research are addressed in a methodologically innovative and socially visible manner. Numerous projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and other third-party donors are based here. Central topics include the fundamentals of educational science, education and teaching in schools, education throughout life/lifelong learning and transitions, diversity, digitalisation, etc.

The institute has a professorship in Educational Science with a focus on gender and diversity. The institute cooperates with the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF) as part of a research professorship in Historical Educational Research and a further professorship in Digital Humanities.