Why is there no comprehensive education in Germany? A historical explanation

Abstract

Abstract This article investigates why there is no comprehensive education in Germany in contrast to most other European countries where comprehensive education in various forms was introduced, especially after the Second World War. The article will proceed by assessing established assumptions of this German peculiarity and put forward a new comparative theory of why Germany maintained a selective, tripartite system. Keywords: comprehensivecomparativehistoricalsecondary education Notes 1 F. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890–1933 (Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1969/1990); F. Ringer, Education and Society in Modern Europe (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1979). W. Mitter, 'Continuity and Change: A Basic Question for German Education' (originally published in 1986), in Education in Germany: Tradition and Reform in Historical Context, ed. D. Phillips (London and New York: Routledge, 1995). 2 H. Ertl and D. Phillips, 'The Enduring Nature of the Tripartite System of Secondary Schooling in Germany: Some Explanations', British Journal of Educational Studies 48, no. 4 (2000): 391–412. 3 H.J. Hahn, Education and Society in Germany (Oxford: Berg, 1998); Ertl and Phillips, 'The Enduring Nature of the Tripartite System'. 4 Hahn, Education and Society in Germany. 5 For example, A.J. Heidenheimer, 'The Politics of Educational Reform: Explaining Different Outcomes of School Comprehensivization Attempts in Sweden and West Germany', Comparative Education Review 18, no. 3 (1974): 388–410; D. Phillips, 'Lessons from Germany? The Case of German Secondary Schools', in Education in Germany: Tradition and Reform in Historical Context, ed. D. Phillips (London and New York: Routledge, 1987/1995); Mitter, 'Continuity and Change'. 6 T. Skocpol and M. Somers, 'The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry', Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 22, no. 2 (1980): 174–97; Ragin, C., The Comparative Method: Moving beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987); J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer, eds, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 7 A. Leschinsky and K.U. Mayer, eds, The Comprehensive School Experiment Revisited: Evidence from Western Europe (Berlin: Peter Lang, 1999). 8 S. Robinsohn and J.C. Kuhlman, 'Two Decades of Non‐reform in West German Education', in Education in Germany: Tradition and Reform in Historical Context, ed. D. Phillips (London and New York: Routledge, 1967/1995); Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins; Ringer, Education and Society in Modern Europe; Ertl and Phillips, 'The Enduring Nature of the Tripartite System'. 9 Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins; Hahn, Education and Society in Germany. 10 Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins, 80. 11 Ibid, 71. 12 Hahn, Education and Society in Germany, 93. 13 A. Mayer, Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (London: Croom Helm, 1981). 14 Ertl and Phillips, 'The Enduring Nature of the Tripartite System'. 15 Ibid, 399. 16 C. Benn and C. Chitty, Thirty Years On: Is Comprehensive Education Alive and Well or Struggling to Survive? (London: David Fulton, 1996), 7. 17 J. Erk, 'Federal Germany and Its Non‐Federal Society: Emergence of an All‐German Educational Policy in a System of Exclusive Provincial Jurisdiction', Canadian Journal of Political Science 36, no. 2 (2003): 295–317. 18 Hahn, Education and Society in Germany, 117. 19 Ertl and Phillips, 'The Enduring Nature of the Tripartite System', 404–5. 20 Erk, 'Federal Germany and Its Non‐Federal Society'. 21 Ibid, 299–313. 22 K. Hesse, Der unitarische Bundesstaat (Karlsruhe: C.F. Müller, 1962). 23 Erk, 'Federal Germany and Its Non‐Federal Society', 304. 24 S. Wiborg, Education and Social Integration: The Development of Comprehensive Education in Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 25 G.M. Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); C.A. Gould, The Origins of Liberal Dominance: State, Church, and Party in Nineteenth Century Europe (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1999); D. Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). 26 Gould, The Origins of Liberal Dominance, 22. 27 Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany, 19. 28 Ibid. 29 T.S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815–1871 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), 156–72; H.J. Puhle, 'Lords and Peasants in the Kaiserreich', in Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany. Recent Studies in Agricultural History, ed. R. Moeller (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986). 30 Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy, 87. 31 D. Blackbourn, 'The German Bourgeoisie: An Introduction.' In D. Blackbourn. and J. Evans, eds., The German Bourgeoisie. Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Early Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 1991), 160. 32 Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy. 33 Ibid, 90. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid, 108. 36 J.C. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983). 37 V. Skovgaard‐Petersen, 'Den politiske drøftelse af forbindelsen mellem almueskolen og den lærde skole' [The Political Debate on the Link between the Elementary School and the Secondary School], in Årbog for dansk skolehistorie [Yearbook of Danish History of Education] (Copenhagen: The Society of History of Education, 1967); V. Skovgaard‐Petersen, Dannelse og demokrati [Education and Democracy] (Copenhagen: Gyldendals pædagogiske bibliotek, 1976); G. Richardson, Svensk utbildningshistoria. Skola och samhälle förr och nu [Swedish History of Education. School and Society then and now] (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1999); I. 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