Ideas Institutions And The Politics Of Schools In Postwar Britain And Germany

This book addresses one the most contentious issues of postwar Western Europe, namely the organization of the primary and secondary stages of schooling in state education systems. In examining the politics of continuity and change in postwar schooling in Britain and the Federal Republic Germany, Gregory Baldi seeks to contribute to more general understandings of education’s place in the welfare state, the development of social institutions, and the relationship between material and ideational factors in shaping political outcomes over time.

Providing a wide-ranging, critical and up-to-date introduction to the history of education, this book explores its true meaning and value for education studies. With no assumption of prior knowledge, it considers key themes, individuals and situations in depth, highlighting the specific ways in which current educational practice is historically conditioned or, conversely, has been very different in other times and places and, by implication, might be different in the future. Chapters cover a diverse range of key topics, such as: the history of ‘big ideas’, such as liberal education the impact of state intervention on education the effects of imperialism the education of orators in ancient Rome the impact of Covid policies on British education the history of individual subjects, such as Geography the development of educational sectors Accessible and engaging chapters model a range of critical approaches to the past, while discussion questions challenge the reader to consider links with the present. New Studies in the History of Education introduces the sub-discipline to students of Education Studies and will help students and tutors to develop a more in-depth and critical understanding of the history of education, supporting them to develop their own historical awareness.

Tony Judt decided to write Postwar in 1989, the year the collapse of the Soviet Union provided European history with a rare example of a clearly-signposted ‘end of an era’. It's scarcely surprising, then, that the great virtue of Judt's book is the clarity and the breadth of its account of postwar Europe. His book coalesces around one central theme: the idea that the whole of the history of this period can be explained as an unravelling of the consequences of World War II. A bold claim, but Judt’s exceptional ability to create strong, well-structured, inclusive arguments allows him to pull it off convincingly. Judt’s work is also a fine example of creative thinking, in that he excels in connecting things together in new and interesting ways. This virtue extends from his unusual ability to combine the best elements of the Anglo-American and the French historiographical traditions – the latter informing his strong interest in the importance of cultural history – to his unwillingness to allow himself to be constrained by historical category and ultimately to his linguistic abilities. Postwar is, above all, a triumph of integration, something that is only made possible by its author's flair for creating strong, persuasive arguments.

Both the exponents and critics of neoliberalism assert the dominance of market forces in western nations. The Political Economy of State Intervention calls this into question. Through a re-examination of state intervention in the USA and Britain over the course of the "long depression" (1970-to date), this book argues that the state has performed an increasingly significant role in conserving capital, propping up an economic and social order that has lost its productive dynamism. The specific forms of capital’s dependency on the state may vary, however the underlying weaknesses of mature western economies have prompted new forms of state intervention narrowly aimed at conserving capital, especially in the wake of the financial crisis. The chapters consider factors which are usually posited as explanations for the long depression such as oil price shocks, domestic conditions and technological innovation. The work argues that the consensus view of neoliberalism has served to underplay the significance of the state’s role in failing to lift this long depression in several ways: it has lent a greater ideological coherence to the policies pursued by successive governments than they deserve; the state has been less subordinate to the market than is usually claimed and more often its maker; and there has been a significant growth in jobs located in the private sector that are funded by public money. The cumulative effect of this is a narrowing of the state’s purpose to conserving capital, a role which has contributed to its loss of authority as an institution that claims to represent society as a whole. It is theorised that this, in turn, has led to the insecurities of the existing political order and the rise of populism. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political economy, public policy, political theory, economics and sociology.

Scholarship on the history of West Germany's educational system has traditionally portrayed the postwar period of Allied occupation as a failure and the following decades as a time of pedagogical stagnation. Two decades after World War II, however, the Federal Republic had become a stable democracy, a member of NATO, and a close ally of the West. Had the schools really failed to contribute to this remarkable transformation of German society and political culture? This study persuasively argues that long before the protest movements of the late 1960s, the West German educational system was undergoing meaningful reform from within. Although politicians and intellectual elites paid little attention to education after 1945, administrators, teachers, and pupils initiated significant changes in schools at the local level. The work of these actors resulted in an array of democratic reforms that signaled a departure from the authoritarian and nationalistic legacies of the past. The establishment of exchange programs between the United States and West Germany, the formation of student government organizations and student newspapers, the publication of revised history and civics textbooks, the expansion of teacher training programs, and the creation of a Social Studies curriculum all contributed to the advent of a new German educational system following World War II. The subtle, incremental reforms inaugurated during the first two postwar decades prepared a new generation of young Germans for their responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state.

Do people's beliefs help to explain foreign policy decisions, or is political activity better understood as the self-interested behavior of key actors? The collaborative effort of a group of distinguished scholars, this volume breaks new ground in demonstrating how ideas can shape policy, even when actors are motivated by rational self-interest. After an introduction outlining a new framework for approaching the role of ideas in foreign policy making, well-crafted case studies test the approach. The function of ideas as "road maps" that reduce uncertainty is examined in chapters on human rights, decolonialization, the creation of socialist economies in China and Eastern Europe, and the postwar Anglo-American economic settlement. Discussions of parliamentary ideas in seventeenth-century England and of the Single European Act illustrate the role of ideas in resolving problems of coordination. The process by which ideas are institutionalized is further explored in chapters on the Peace of Westphalia and on German and Japanese efforts to cope with contemporary terrorism.

The key aim of this new book is to show how economic decline has always been a highly politicised concept, forming a central part of post-war political argument. In doing so, Tomlinson reveals how the term has been used in such ways as to advance particular political causes.