Gerhard Klucher/Thomas Koinzer
An introduction
Gerhart Kluchert
School Culture(s) in Historical Perspective. An introduction
Marcelo Caruso
Unrestraint As a Strategy of Guidance. Transformations of the teaching culture in Munich at the transition to the 20th century
Setting up limits, classification, the sedative effect of a well-ordered everyday life, and – caused by this – discipline, self-control and the restraint of a child´s powers are among the essential characteristics of Western teaching cultures. In the course of the emergence of a “classical modernism”, however, another possibility concerning the organization of interactions in the classroom was strengthened, namely that of the partial unrestraining of these powers as a basis for a differentiated teaching culture. From this point of view, a child´s spontaneity is no longer conceived as a problem, but rather as an independent ressource for the conception of different forms of the organization of teaching. Towards the end of the 19th century, a strong trend developed within Munich´s local policy regarding schools providing basic elementary and secondary education which favored unrestraint as a strategy of guidance in everyday school life. The advocates of this policy accompanied this strategy with specifically conceived measures and proved its growing influence in schools. The fundamental principles, the local effectiveness and the historical classification of “unrestraint” as a strategy form the subject of this contribution.
Rüdiger Loeffelmeier
The Renewal of School Culture – Program and practice in the Weimar Republic
The school policy of the Weimar Republic is not least characterized by the effort to change the dominant school culture. Its aim was the transition from heteronomy to self-determination, which was also considered the prerequisite for the building of a democratic state. In order to achieve this objective, students were given extended rights of participation and teaching methods were reformed in accordance with the concept of self-action; furthermore, the reorganization of the school-leaving exam took into account a more differentiated inclusion of the students´ individuality. The realization of these measures, however, met with great difficulties, as can be shown by the example of different Prussian secondary schools, and some of the results were quite unexpected. This was due to “authoritarian” attitudes among teachers and students, on the one hand, but also to deficits in the preparation and implementation of these reforms, on the other.
Thomas Koinzer
Democratic School Culture. Dichotomic perception and its functionalization in the German discourse on school reform of the 1960s
In view of the perceived deficit in democracy within society and especially among the younger generation, the implementation of a “democratic school culture” constituted a central request of West German attempts at a school reform during the 1960s. International comparisons of school systems and the positive reference to the school organization, the possibilities of participation, and the teaching-learning-climate at schools in foreign countries played an important role in this. Taking study trips by German educational experts to the United States as an example, the author reveals the mechanisms and risks inherent in such comparisons and processes of reception: namely, the proneness to dichotomic constructions and to a discursive functionalization of “the foreign countries” as well as the ambivalence of the judgement, which becomes apparent in the actual encounter
Hans-Werner Fuchs
New Control – New School Culture?
Since the early 1990s, schools find themselves increasingly confronted with a variety of changes which could be subsumed under the catchy heading “Transition from Input- to Output-Control”. The effects of these changes, which have in an abbreviated form been labeled as “New Control”, concern school and instruction in many ways. Affected is, not least, that dimension which might be subsumed under the construct “school culture”. Following an analytic classification of the term school culture (2.) and an outline of essential elements of New Control (3.), the article illustrates in how far the changes in the control processes affect school culture and which consequences could result from this (4.).
Carola Groppe
Commentary: School Culture Between Social Structure and School System. On the underestimation of the problems inherent in an individualized school cultur
Dietmar Langer
Teaching Freedom of Will. Why we cannot do without reprimand in teaching freedom of will
Education is considered from the perspective of adequate reprimands and appropriate reproaches. If free will is not interpreted as causeless cause in the sense of an initial trigger, but rather, as the neuronal and cultural skill to be open to different reasons and to be able to unimpededly come to a decision, then it is possible to achieve freedom of will and learn to act for a reason through reprimand – thus the author´s thesis. Insofar reprimand helps form freedom of will and is thus indispensable because, before one is able to accept plausible reasons, one has to be able to act for a reason and to decide unimpededly.
Jürgen Wiechmann
The Communal School. A new term on the educational landscape
In recent years, the term communal school has increasingly been used to describe an inclusive school type which has by now also been grounded in educational law. However, the specific characteristics of this school type have remained rather vague; often the term is also used as an alternative name for the comprehensive school (Gesamtschule). The present article examines the different conceptions and identifies more or less uniform core elements of the term. These core elements suggest that, with the introduction of the term communal school, a paradigmatic change is announced through which the group-oriented perspective of school pedagogics gives way to an orientation by individual ways of learning and educational careers.
Heinke Röbken
Careers of Young Scientists in Educational Science
The promotion of young scientists at universities is one of the central issues of the reform of educational policy. According to details of the latest data report, even now, a shortage of future junior members of staff manifests itself in educational science. Against this background, the study presents recent empirical data on personnel structure and on the course of the career of professors at faculties of educational science. On the basis of a search on the Internet regarding age- and career-related attributes, the article describes paths of qualification, constellations of cohorts, and the exchange of personnel between the individual faculties of educational science. Furthermore, the data is evaluated on the basis of a network theory, in order to analyze the academic mobility of educational scientists. The study is an addition to existing macro-analyses on the structure and development of educational science on the basis of organization-related data and thus provides reliable findings on the situation of educational science at the universities for all members of the discipline.
Book Reviews
Habilitations and Dissertations in Pedagogics in 2008
New Books