Development of participation in education in the Federal Republic of Germany

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The history of participation in education in the Federal Republic of Germany went through various phases.
In the post-war period , the majority of children from the lower classes were practically excluded from studying. The “Düsseldorf Agreement” of 1955 did not change this very much either, which primarily served the uniform design of the West German education system and provided only minor improvements for the situation of students with low social origins. With the establishment of the “ educational catastrophe ” and the “Hamburg Agreement” in the mid-1960s, the course was set to make the school system more permeable. At the beginning and middle of the 1970s there were extensive changes in the school system under the motto " Education for All ", which led to clear shifts in favor of the until then educationally disadvantaged students. Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a relative decline in the lower social classes in the education system.

Participation in education up to the discussion of the "educational catastrophe"

The educational system of the Imperial Era , the Weimar Republic and National Socialism promoted a heterogeneous educational policy, whereby the students are sorted into school types according to their supposed performance. At the Reichsschulkonferenz in 1920 , the positions of the left-wing parties could not prevail after overcoming the tripartite school system and assigning kindergartens to schools (that is, mandatory for all children and with an educational mandate) instead of youth welfare. Professor Binder, as a proponent of maintaining the grammar schools, expressed himself as follows: "The longer the mentally strongest and most demanding are taught together with everyone else, including the mediocre and the practical, not scientifically gifted, the more they will succumb to mental indecency and laxity"

After the liberation from the National Socialist regime, the Allies set up a commission to investigate the extent to which the German education system contributed to the fact that National Socialism was able to develop in Germany. The Zook-Commission came to the conclusion that the very early division of the tripartite school system promoted a class thinking that produced a subject mentality . The commission therefore recommended (Directive 54 of the Allied Control Authority) the establishment of a socially fair school system "with equal educational opportunities for all" :

  • Free educational offers and support for those in need
  • the replacement of the old school type by a single school. This should consist of a six-year elementary school and subsequent sections, but not of different types of school
  • all teacher training should take place in a university or university-level educational institute.
Social origin of the students in comparison to the social stratification of the total population in 1955/56
Social classes Total population Student body
Upper middle class 4.6% 47.2%
Lower middle class 38.6% 47.4%
Upper lower class 13.3% 5.0%
Lower underlayer 38.6% 0.4%
Unclassifiable 4.9% -
(R. Dahrendorf: Working-class children at German universities, 1965, p. 9)

In the western sectors , this recommendation was followed up only very sporadically and finally in 1955 the ministers of education in the young Federal Republic agreed to keep the old school system. As a rule, working-class children continued to say that they went to elementary school and then took up a job as a worker at the age of 14. While in 1955/56 the lower class made up 38.6 percent of the population in the Federal Republic of Germany, only 0.5 percent of the student body could be assigned to this class. An ethnological study by Stanford University in California came to the conclusion that classes for working-class children in Baden-Württemberg in the early 1960s consisted of practicing normative sayings. Discretion and tact on the part of teachers towards working class children only existed in exceptional cases. The evaluation also showed that pupils in elementary schools were regularly slapped in the face: for sloppy housework, arguments, contradictions, dirty clothes, unintentional damage to school supplies, bad table manners or slow eating. In 1964 Georg Picht introduced the term educational catastrophe in a magazine , which caused a stir and ushered in the educational reform . In the mid-1960s, Ralf Dahrendorf drew attention to this educational disadvantage in his study of working-class children at German universities .

The epistemological basis of the reforms that began was above all sociolinguistics , in particular Basil Bernstein's research on language barriers and - in Germany - Ulrich Oevermanns . In addition, arguments were made on the basis of the layer model and role theory .

With the recession from 1974 onwards, the need of the economy for an “educated lower class” receded due to the incipient mass unemployment and, given the “empty coffers” in the municipal, regional and federal administrations, reform projects were ended.

Reform of the lower school system from the mid-1960s

In the 1960s, teachers in elementary and elementary schools began to become more professional. With the Hamburg Agreement of 1964, the upper level of the elementary school was transformed into a secondary school. Instead of the classic all-round elementary school teachers, the students were taught by specialist teachers from now on . In addition, English was introduced as a compulsory subject. The eight-year elementary school was split up into the four-year elementary school and the five-year secondary school .

Number of pupils in elementary school upper level and secondary school
school year 1952/53 1962/63 1969/70 1995/96
Number of students in percent 79.3% 68; 4% approx. 50 % 28.7%
( Herbert Gudjons : Basic pedagogical knowledge. 8th edition. Bad Heilbrunn 2003)

The number of primary and secondary school students has changed dramatically since the 1950s. Whereas in the early 1950s 4/5 of the students were still attending elementary school, in the mid-1990s it was not even a third. However, the regional differences are considerable. In 1995, 40.2% of the pupils in Bavaria were secondary school pupils, while in Berlin this was only the case for 8.2%. In addition to different school concepts, an urban-rural problem is also expressed here.

In some countries, such as Baden-Wuerttemberg for example, there is an option to deselect English in the last grade of the secondary school (there the 9th grade).

Reform of the grammar schools

With the Düsseldorf Agreement in 1955, English instead of Greek and Latin became compulsory at high schools. This led to a social opening.

In 1962, school fees were also abolished at grammar schools . With the Reformed college and that goes along with construction of high schools and vocational high schools was created for students who did not change from the fifth grade to high school, a further opening of the high school. The large number of possible course choices in the Reformed Upper School also enabled more individual consideration of the personal educational biography, in particular more prior knowledge in the natural sciences, learning a second foreign language starting with grade 11 and taking subjects that only start in grade 11, e.g. . B. Education or Psychology. This represented a significant simplification for those entering the upper level.

At the beginning of the 1970s, comprehensive schools were also introduced in some SPD-governed federal states . The comprehensive schools differed between co-op comprehensive schools and integrated comprehensive schools . At a referendum in 1978 in North Rhine-Westphalia, the co-op model of the comprehensive school failed.

In addition, in some countries, the two-year orientation levels were offered from the 5th grade . However, these were partially reversed from the 1990s (for example in Lower Saxony in 2004). The BAföG funding introduced in the 1970s for high school students was largely withdrawn in 1981 - still under Helmut Schmidt .

Reform of universities

Until 1970 there were also tuition fees , which also deterred working-class children from the university. It was not until the educational reforms of the 1970s that the number of working-class children at universities rose from 6% in 1963 to a high of 18% in 1982. In 1977 the so-called opening decision for universities was agreed. In 1971 in Hessen and 1972 in North Rhine-Westphalia comprehensive colleges were set up, which represented a combination of universities and technical colleges . The motivation for this was to overcome different entry requirements (Abitur and advanced technical college entrance qualification). Originally, all universities in North Rhine-Westphalia were to be replaced by comprehensive universities. However, this was abandoned as early as the 1970s. In 2003, the comprehensive universities in NRW were transferred to universities or technical colleges.

Teacher training : In Baden-Württemberg, elementary, secondary and secondary school teachers are trained at universities of teacher education; in the other federal states, university teacher training takes place exclusively at universities and equivalent universities. Nonetheless, teachers who do not teach in upper secondary level are assigned to the higher service .

Financing issues

BAföG : According to the Federal Training Assistance Act, students and schoolchildren in the upper classes received BAföG from the beginning of the 1970s. The upper level BAföG has been almost completely abolished since 1981. Under Education Minister Jürgen Möllemann , the BAföG, which is now almost exclusively available to students, was converted into a full loan. Far-reaching restrictions on BAföG were made in 1995 by the Minister for the Future, Jürgen Rüttgers . These restrictions meant that the standard funding period in some subjects was shorter than the standard period of study. In 1998 BAföG was only a (partial) source of funding for 13 percent of students. Only interest-bearing loans were then offered to finance the degree. In combination with the long-term study fees, the BAföG debts, which were capped at € 10,000 , could become a considerable financial burden.

System criticism

The tripartite school system has been internationally criticized since the first PISA studies in 2003 (criticism came from UNICEF, UNESCO, the PISA coordinator, the OECD president, the EU commission and the EU education minister and the human rights observer for education from the United Nations). Nevertheless, according to the Federal Statistical Office, the number of pupils who received their school education in the three-tier school system increased by 18% between 2000 and 2007.

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Sigrid von den Steinen: Introduction to the Pedagogy of Early Childhood Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-koblenz.de
  2. ^ Binder, in: Reich Ministry of the Interior 1920, p. 88, quoted in: Peter Heyer, Renate Valtin (Ed.): The six-year elementary school in Berlin. Verlag Grundschulverband - Arbeitskreis Grundschule, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-930024-27-6 , p. 14.
  3. ^ Peter Lundgreen : Social history of the German school at a glance. Part II: 1918-1980. Kleine Vandenhoeck series, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 3-525-33454-0 , p. 24f.
  4. ^ Georg Picht: The German educational catastrophe. Analysis and documentation. Freiburg i.Br. 1964.
  5. ^ Ralf Dahrendorf: Working children at German universities. Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 1965, ISBN 3-16-517471-7 .
  6. ^ Siegfried Jäger: Critical Discourse Analysis. An introduction. Dissertation . Duisburg 2001, ISBN 3-927388-40-8 , p. 28ff.
  7. ^ Siegfried Jäger: Critical Discourse Analysis. An introduction. Duisburg 2001, ISBN 3-927388-40-8 , p. 32f.
  8. ↑ The merger of the Federal Ministry of Education and Science and the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology was often referred to as the “Ministry of the Future” at the time
  9. ↑ Destatis: The trend towards a tripartite school system continues. Press release October 2007 Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.destatis.de

literature

  • Ralf Dahrendorf: Working-class children at German universities. Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 1965, ISBN 3-16-517471-7 .
  • Herbert Gudjons : Basic pedagogical knowledge. 8th edition. Julius Klinkhardt Publishing House, Bad Heilbrunn 2003.
  • Peter Heyer, Renate Valtin (Ed.): The six-year elementary school in Berlin. Verlag Grundschulverband - Arbeitskreis Grundschule, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-930024-27-6 .
  • Peter Lundgreen: An overview of the social history of the German school. Part II: 1918-1980. Small Vandenhoeck series, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 3-525-33454-0 .
  • Georg Picht: The German educational catastrophe. Analysis and documentation. 2nd Edition. Freiburg i.Br. 1964, Munich 1965.