Educational reform in Germany 1918-1933

Abstract

This thesis is an account of educational reform – proposed, attempted, and achieved – in the so-called Weimar Republic. After an outline of the pre-1918 school system there follows a description of the political background to the Weimar period, with special attention given to the currents of political opinion in favour of educational reform. Next comes a survey of the Pedagogical Movement, the collective name applied to the various independent trends among educational reformer in the years before and after the Great War., such as the youth movement, the art educational movement, the establishment of many private boarding schools, and the attempts to create Arbeitsshule and the Einheitschule. Then follows a description on the involvement of the central government in educational reform during the Weimar period, including such topics as the educational clauses of the Weimar Constitution, the Reich School Conference of 1920, the fate of the Reich Grundschule Law of 1920, and the unsuccessful attempts to establish the non-denominational Volksschule as the standard type of school for most children. After that comes a survey of the attempts at Lander level to give effect to the prevailing ideas in education, dealing in particular with the attempts to implement the concept of the Einheitschule at all stages of education from the Grundschule to vocational and adult education. Following that is a description of the part played by the public experimental schools which were a feature of this period, special attention being devoted to the main centres of such activity - Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin. The last chapter looks at reform in the universities and at the not inconsiderable changes made in the arrangements for training Volksschule teachers. The conclusion sets out to define the essential spirit of educational reform in the Weimar Republic and to assess its significance for German education since 1945.