Wolf Wagner (social scientist)

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Wolf Wagner, June 2009 in Erfurt

Wolf Wagner (born June 9, 1944 in Tübingen ) is a German social scientist specializing in political science , retired university professor and author of a number of publications on topics such as the German university system, the relationship between East and West Germans, the democratic political system and poverty, Culture and globalization. His most successful book Uni-Angst und Uni-Bluff. How to study and not lose yourself was first published in 1977 and last updated again in 2007 under the title: Uni-Angst und Uni-Bluff - heute .

Life

Wolf Wagner was born in Tübingen in 1944 and studied English , philosophy and political science in Tübingen, Bonn and Berlin from 1963 to 1970 . At the beginning of his studies still a member of the Christian Democratic Union , from 1967 he turned to the left student movement .

From 1970 Wagner worked as a research assistant at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science of the Free University of Berlin , where he in 1976 his doctorate Dr. rer. pole. on impoverishment theory . From 1976 to 1982 Wagner was a university assistant at the same institute , while doing his habilitation cumulatively. In 1982 he published an expanded version of his habilitation lecture The Useful Poverty at the then left-wing alternative Rotbuchverlag . After completing his work at the Free University of Berlin, Wagner undertook several research trips through Latin America and Asia until 1985. After returning to Germany, he worked as a freelance Rolfing therapist in Tübingen and Berlin until 1992 , during which time he passed his alternative practitioner examination.

In 1992 he was appointed professor for social sciences and political systems at the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences. For the period from 1993 to 1995 he was elected for the first time, for the period from 1997 to 1999 the second time and for the legislature from 1999 to 2001 for the third time. This was followed by the election to the office of rector of the university, which he held until 2005. After retiring from the rector's office at the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences, Wagner and his wife, the psychologist Renate Müller, went on a 14-month research trip around the world in 2005. He then worked for three years as a professor of social sciences and political systems and retired in the 2009/10 winter semester.

He lives with his wife in Berlin.

Positions

Since the beginning of his scientific work, Wagner has criticized the academic habitus as a “university bluff” - the unnecessary complication of facts and the self-importance of scientists. According to him, this behavior, which is not dissimilar to the bluff in poker , forms an essential part of the “secret curriculum” in the German university system for creating an academic habitus . As a possible cause of the university bluff, Wagner describes the “university fear” as the “fear of the clever face” of others, which can sometimes lead to severe mental disorders. According to Wagner, the self-importance and complication make it more difficult for new students to access the subject matter, which in particular prevents students from non-academic backgrounds from accessing and remaining in the German higher education system. Wagner writes that the “university bluff” is less pronounced at technical colleges than at universities, but he sees clear efforts in the former to imitate the latter.

According to Wagner, it is primarily these reputation efforts that make the German higher education system inefficient. Because of the "fatal self-referentiality", the constant refusal to take part in vocational training and the strong tendency to pedantry, the German university system is losing valuable innovative strength, which is endangering economic growth in Germany. Wagner calls for an innovation-promoting, error-friendly culture at the university based on the example of innovatively working corporations like Google , with space for your own projects and professionally guided learning from experience , instead of “injecting” an infinite amount of material into the students.

With regard to German reunification and its consequences, Wagner argues that the persistent difficulties between East and West Germans stem from everyday cultural differences that would have led to a culture shock . The differences can only partly be explained by socialism . What is more important is that during the years of division the West has become more American and medium-sized, while the East has remained German and has become more proletarian.

Wagner takes the position that poverty is an indispensable and systematic part of market societies. Poverty is the lower end of the range of income and wealth and therefore cannot be abolished for logical reasons. The threat of poverty is on the one hand an essential motivator in a market society, as is the prospect of advancement on the other. Social policy and social work can alleviate the individual fate of the poor, but cannot undo the function of poverty as a deterrent for the not yet poor.

Regarding the everyday cultural consequences of globalization , Wagner, together with Renate Müller, takes the position that globalization with the international exchange of goods is probably the only way to enforce human rights due to the efforts of the population in globalized countries . The protection of indigenous cultures, on the other hand, has the opposite effect, because they usually consolidate the power of the old, well-established men at the expense of women and children and all those who think differently.

Publications

  • A life full of errors. Autobiography of a prototypical West German. dgvt- Verlag, Tübingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-87159-225-6 .
  • University fear and university bluff. Like studying and not getting lost. Rotbuch-Verlag Berlin. Original version from 1977. First revision in 1992, numerous translations into Danish, Dutch and Japanese. 2007 second completely revised, updated new version under the title: Uni-Angst und Uni-Bluff - today , ISBN 978-3-86789-019-9 .
  • Crime scene university: the failure of German universities and their rescue. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-608-94614-7 .
  • Fear and curiosity in your luggage: a somewhat different research trip around the southern world. Books on demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-5321-0 .
  • How politics works. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-423-34163-9 .
  • Family culture. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 978-3-434-46185-2 .
  • Culture shock Germany. Rotbuch, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-88022-376-9 .
  • Fear of poverty. An introduction to social policy. Rotbuch, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-88022-043-3 .
  • Impoverishment theory. The helpless criticism of capitalism. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-436-02203-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The climber. Portrait. From radical left to advocate of neoliberal university policy: Why Wolf Wagner, author of the bestseller "Uni-Angst und Uni-Bluff", is no longer a good advisor. By Michael Zander
  2. ↑ a b Müller, Renate / Wagner, Wolf: Fear and curiosity in the luggage: A somewhat different research trip around the southern world. Books on demand, Norderstedt 2009.
  3. ^ Wagner, Wolf: Uni-Angst and Uni-Bluff today. Like studying and not getting lost. Rotbuch, Berlin 2007.
  4. ↑ spiegel.de Interview: "Bluff without bluffing yourself" . Spiegel online, December 28, 2006
  5. ^ Wagner, Wolf: Uni-Angst and Uni-Bluff today. Like studying and not getting lost. Rotbuch, Berlin 2007, p. 81.
  6. ^ Wagner, Wolf: Tatort University: On the failure of German universities and their rescue. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2010.
  7. ^ Wagner, Wolf: Kulturschock Deutschland. The second look. Hamburg: Rotbuch, Hamburg 1999 (first edition 1996).
  8. ^ Wagner, W., Berth, H. & Brähler, E .: "Do gender affiliation and East-West origin affect prejudices? Results of a text assessment study." psychosozial , 33/2010, pp. 131–140.
  9. ↑ Wagner, Wolf: fear of poverty. An introduction to social policy. Rotbuch, Hamburg 1991.
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, wolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social scientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Tübingen