IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgd/341981.html

Moral and legitimate? Historical, legal, and affective issues around educational privatization in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Lillie, Karen
  • Hideg, Luisa

Abstract

Germany's education system is in the midst of privatization. Although this trend, which started in the 1980s, ostensibly parallels neoliberal education reforms across Europe and the Anglophone world, Germany's case is a special one. Privatization in the country is happening within a historical and legal context that favors public schooling; however, families increasingly exercise school choice to select "the best" for their children. The tension between historically and legally informed norms, on the one hand, and affective desires, on the other, is morally problematic for parents navigating between what is generally accepted as good for society and what they believe is good for an individual. At stake in this struggle is whether school choice becomes a "legitimate" part of the German education system, in a Bourdieusian sense. If it does, it risks strengthening social class closure mechanisms and heightening resultant social class anxiety.

Suggested Citation

  • Lillie, Karen & Hideg, Luisa, 2026. "Moral and legitimate? Historical, legal, and affective issues around educational privatization in Germany," MPIfG Discussion Paper 26/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:341981
    DOI: 10.17617/2.3715792
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/341981/1/1974135624.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17617/2.3715792?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexandra Semrad, 2015. "Modern secondary education and economic performance: the introduction of the Gewerbeschule and Realschule in nineteenth-century Bavaria," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(4), pages 1306-1338, November.
    2. Chih-Mei, Luo, 2018. "Are Labour Market Reforms the Answer to Post-Euro-Crisis Management? Reflections on Germany’s Hartz Reforms," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 738-754, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Cinnirella & Jochen Streb, 2017. "Religious Tolerance as Engine of Innovation," CESifo Working Paper Series 6797, CESifo.
    2. Gabriele Cappelli & Michelangelo Vasta, 2021. "A “Silent Revolution”: school reforms and Italy’s educational gender gap in the Liberal Age (1861–1921)," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(1), pages 203-229, January.
    3. Niels van Doorn & Darsana Vijay, 2024. "Gig work as migrant work: The platformization of migration infrastructure," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1129-1149, June.
    4. Gabriele Cappelli & michelangelo.vasta@unisi.it, 2019. "Can school centralisation foster human capital accumulation? A quasi-experiment from early XX century Italy," Department of Economics University of Siena 802, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    5. Raphaël Franck, 2023. "The impact of industrialization on secondary schooling during the industrial revolution: evidence from nineteenth-century France," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2007-2023, October.
    6. Cappelli, Gabriele & Baten, Jörg, 2016. "The Evolution of Human Capital in Africa, 1730 – 1970: A Colonial Legacy?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11273, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Semrad, Alexandra, 2015. "Immigration and educational spillovers: evidence from Sudeten German expellees in post-war Bavaria," Discussion Papers in Economics 24851, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    8. Pau Insa-Sánchez & Alfonso Díez-Minguela, 2023. "Starting high school? On the origins of secondary education in Spain, 1857–1901," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(2), pages 233-259, May.
    9. Semrad, Alexandra, 2015. "Educational expansion and social composition of secondary schools: evidence from Bavarian school registries 1810-1890," Discussion Papers in Economics 25261, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Francesco Cinnirella & Jochen Streb, 2017. "The role of human capital and innovation in economic development: evidence from post-Malthusian Prussia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 193-227, June.
    11. Niels van Doorn & Fabian Ferrari & Mark Graham, 2023. "Migration and Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy: An Intervention," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1099-1111, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:341981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.