In this article, we provide a comparative analysis of public education in Germany and the US, focusing on historical and contemporary challenges to education, "Bildung," and citizenry in the modern nation state. In particular, we examine relations among nation building processes and education, transnational discourses, mutual influences,…

Establishing and implementing rules that would teach pupils to become citizens became a crucial technique for turning those spots on the map of Europe whose sovereignty had shifted after the First World War into lived social spaces. This article uses Arnold Van Gennep's notion that a shift in social status possesses a spatiality and temporality of…

This classic essay by Eduard Spranger (1882-1963) is here published for the first time in English, in a translation by Stephanie Wilde. In this contribution Spranger discusses and advocates the need for a vocational school that addresses the civic and individual needs of students as well as the vocational requirements of the nation. He emphasises…

This article introduces the topic of the special issue, 'Public education at the crossroads', by pointing to some of the debates and controversies surrounding the topic of public education and by framing the theme, while explaining the context and some components of the educational systems of the countries under examination -- namely the USA and…

In light of a global higher education expansion, the paper analyses the historic-structural conditions of this development for the German state(s) after World War II. Building on Talcott Parsons citizenship patterns, the analysis centres on two core institutions of the German higher education system: the state-organized system of entitlement…

This article combines the perspective of transnational transfer with contributions from social theory and historical sociology -- specifically the Luhmannian concept of social 'inclusion'. In doing so, this article reconstructs a historical case regarding the conflicting implementation of universal conscription and compulsory schooling in Chile in…

Service Learning, a pedagogy combining formal learning with community service, has recently developed into Intercultural Service Learning (ISL). Intercultural Citizenship Education (ICE) combines foreign-language education and education for (intercultural) citizenship. They have different origins and applications but recent work in ISL is linked…

This article introduces a collection of papers comprising the special issue, "Competing interests: Parents, Schools and Nation States." Drawing on the seven papers in the collection, and situating them in recent developments in the sociological field, the article discusses globally shifting relations between families, schools and the…

Based on small case-study illustrations from a variety of European countries, this study aims to explore methodological aspects of the study of curriculum history by expanding its traditional research scope. In so doing, it is argued that sociolinguistic issues are essential to this discussion. The main argument is that sociolinguistics and…

At the heart of the nineteenth-century educational soundscape lies a paradox. Whilst "modern" classrooms generally strived for orderly silence, the goal of its educational practices was the production of competent "citizens". Middle-class boys in particular were expected to acquire a voice fit for business, the professions, or…

In Germany, unlike other European countries, citizenship education has a long history. Since the Second World War, its role has evolved from promoting de-Nazification in the West and state socialism in the East to emphasising common citizenship in a multicultural society. Today, the federal states ("Bundeslander") are largely autonomous…

The first comparative study of the spread of mass education around the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this unique new book uses a bottom-up focus and demonstrates, to an extent not appreciated hitherto, the gulf between the intentions of the government and the reality on the ground. This book is divided into four…

This long-awaited synthesis approaches the past three centuries with an eye to highlighting the importance of significant schools, as well as important women educators in the emergence of secondary education for girls. At the same time, each contributor pays careful attention to the specific political, cultural, and socio-economic factors that…

Examines enrollment trends in Germany and France around 1900 to determine whether democratic values and citizenship education were significant factors in increased enrollment in secondary schools. Maintains that the curriculum offered by elite secondary schools echoed the idealized attributes of the former governing elites. (CFR)

Traces the state educational program which at all levels aimed at the self-realization of the German race." (DB)