Schooling in Crisis: Rise and Fall of a German-American Success Story

Societies recurrently declare themselves to be in crisis. As crises proceed an educationalization, a delegation of social problems to schools, has been observable since the implementation of public mass schooling in German-speaking countries and the US. However, schools are not able to solve the problems, leading to crisis narratives of schools not delivering. The study identifies a social function of these recurrent crisis narratives in attempts to (re)integrate societies and (re)establish legitimacy of the system. It is firstly, an act to help societies discursively to address their problems and, secondly, to regain a legitimate social order. But what would happen, if this piece were removed, as an increasing number of parents opt out of the public-school system, thus fragmenting it?

Bernhard Hemetsberger is currently PostDoc fellow at the chair of Foundations of Education at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, Germany. He earned his degrees at the University of Vienna, Austria in the fields of Historical and Comparative Research on Education and Schooling. His research interests focus on the educationalization of social problems in a transatlantic perspective, public trust in schooling, and the history of grading and examination practices.