The development of all-day schooling in Germany: how was it possible in this conservative welfare state?
| Verfasser | Augustin-Dittmann, Sandra |
1 Introduction
In the recent past, the German school system has been changed considerably: the traditional half-day school--open only until noon--has been supplemented by the alternative of all-day models. This development has strong impacts on the structure of the German welfare state. The promotion of all-day schools, on the one hand changes the relationship between social policy and the educational system, and on the other hand affects family policy and the underlying gender relations. Accordingly, the German welfare state as a conservative type--following Esping-Andersen (1990)--becomes more preventive and more women-friendly. In the light of the long tradition of the German half-day school and its social implications this development is quite astonishing.
Therefore, the main concern of this article is to explain how this change from the half-day school system to the establishment of full-time models was possible. Chapter 2 shows the embedding of the half-day school in the conservative German welfare state and its historical role for the efficiency of the social order. It shows that half-day schooling is an expression and a stabilization of the conservative structure, in which the preservation of the status quo and the traditional family model are important factors. The chronological course of events must be broken at that point to show first of all the fundamental change, which has been implemented through the promotion of all-day schooling. Before analyzing the political program, the impact of these policies for the German educational and social system is demonstrated: A double de-familialization can be identified, which modifies the traditional arrangement of the German welfare state. It is shown that the further development of all-day schooling is part of a third order change (Hall 1993) and matches the discourse on a so-called sustainable family policy.
After demonstrating the outcome, Chapter 3 brings the formation of the federal program for the promotion of all-day schools into focus. The program 'Future of Education and Care'--the so-called IZBB (Investitionsprogramm 'Zukunft Bildung und Betreuung')--was signed on May 12th 2003 by the social-democratic Federal Minister of Education, Edelgard Bulmahn, and the 16 Ministers of Education of the federal states. According to this administrative agreement (Verwaltungsvereinbarung) the federal government put four billion Euros at the federal states' disposal to invest it into the development of all-day schools from 2003 to 2009 (1) (Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung 2003). In fact, the concept of all-day schooling was not new in Germany, but very few schools of this type already existed. There has been much public discussion on this matter and committees of the educational system called for such reform during the time of educational expansion (Deutscher Bildungsrat 1969; Bund-Lander-Konferenz fur Bildungsplanung 1973). However few all-day schools were created at that time. It seems as if this well-known policy has suddenly been reawakened at a critical time. How was that possible?
To answer this question, the emergence of the IZBB will be explained by application of the multiple streams approach (Kingdon 1995). The combination of Esping-Andersen and Kingdon might be initially surprising. But whereas Chapter 2 is based on Esping-Andersen criteria to show the change in substance, his approach is not suited to explicate the process of policy change because it zooms in on stability and path dependency. In contrast, the multiple streams approach enables an analysis of how policy change is developing. It allows a holistic consideration of the political setting in which the change emerges. Esping-Andersen and Kingdon are combined because Esping-Andersen's typology can define which modifications happened and Kingdon's theoretical approach can explain how these changes came about.
The multiple streams approach makes comprehensible how certain solutions at certain times are converted into political decisions. It assumes that there are three independent streams flowing through the political system. Within the problem stream, it is defined what are circumstances to live with and what are problems to be solved by politicians. In the policy stream, political ideas are discussed. Here the decision is made whether an idea survives or is rejected. The politics stream contents political events like elections, campaigns or public opinion. In this stream, the mood is in favor or against a specific idea. The three streams can be coupled by policy entrepreneurs if a window of opportunity opens. These policy windows are occasions that make political reforms possible; for instance crisis, catastrophes, or the 'honeymoon' of a new government. Policy entrepreneurs are advocates of a particular idea (e.g. politicians, civil servants, lobbyists). They invest their resources--time, money, access to important people--to accomplish them. Describing the process of agenda setting in the US-American political system, the founder of the approach, John W. Kingdon, does not follow the idea of rational choice. Instead, he builds up on the assumptions of the garbage can model (Cohen et al. 1972) and questions the logic of the policy cycle (e.g. Lasswell 1956). While the policy cycle demonstrates the political process as a sequence of different phases, the multiple streams approach supposes that the streams flow simultaneously.
Kingdon's basic question is: "How does an ideas time come?" (Kingdon 1995: 1). Nikolaos Zahariadis added two more dimensions to the approach. One the one hand, he does not only adopt it for agenda setting, but also for the stage of political decision making. On the other hand, he does not only apply it to analyzing the presidential system of the United States, but also to parliamentary systems like in Great Britain, Germany or Greece. This way, the role of political parties becomes an important factor for the entire process (Zahariadis 2003, 2005). How the approach can explain the case at hand is shown in Chapter 3. On this basis, modification proposals are made in the conclusion. In the following Chapter 2, the shift of the German welfare state provoked by the promotion of all-day schools is analyzed.
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The Development of All-Day Schooling as a Change in Educational and Family Policy
In the following, the situation before IZBB will be described. Half-day schooling was an important part of the entire social arrangement of the traditional conservative German welfare state. Subsequently, the impact of the program is analyzed: the establishment of all-day schools in the recent past entails a double de-familialization in the conservative German welfare state and therefore changes it profoundly.
2.1 Half-day Schooling in a Conservative Welfare State
In Esping-Andersen's typology, Germany comes very close to the ideal type of a conservative welfare state, which is distinguished from the liberal and the social democratic one. The liberal type--shaped by liberal political forces--is characterized by a low degree of de-commodification, a less removed system of social security and its focus on poor relief. In contrast, the social democratic type--based on the activity of Social Democrats and strong labor movements--is a developed welfare state with high de-commodification and a universal claim. Formative characteristics of the conservative type are its development by conservative forces, the corporative design and the arising preservation of status differentials, as well as the upholding of traditional familyhood (Esping-Andersen 1990: 26-32). Germany relates to these three characteristics, and, accordingly, can be called conservative in a triple manner. Firstly, the development of the German welfare state was strongly influenced by conservative parties and the churches. Secondly, the core of German social policy is the system of social insurances and therefore the logic of actuarialism, which conserves the status quo of the insurants. And thirdly, its structure encourages traditional ways of living and classical gender roles. The development of all-day schools modifies the last two points of the conservative structure. Therefore, they elaborated further in the following.
2.1.1 Preservation of status quo
Germany plays a significant historical role in the development of the social insurances, since they were established by Bismarck (Esping-Andersen 1990: 48). Until now, they are--quantitatively and qualitatively--the most important parts of the German welfare state. They are organized as contribution systems of all wageworkers. The amount of monetary benefits of health, unemployment and pension insurances depends on the previous income. This actuarial principle maintains the living standards of the German insurants. Likewise, the actuarial principle also maintains social inequalities, since the social positions are carried into the phase of joblessness (Backer et al. 2008: 65). Hence, the German welfare state targets the conservation of the status quo of social stratification (Esping-Andersen 1990: 75).
The emphasis on the preservation of the status quo continues when looking at education as part of the welfare state. In contrast to many countries, the German welfare state traditionally does not include the educational system. Although education is a central parameter to combat social inequalities, the two policies were traditionally strictly separated in Germany. Furthermore, different federal levels are responsible: Social policy lies in the authority of the federal government, whereas education is located at the federal states (Kaufmann 2003: 269). Beyond the deep interconnection between social and educational policies concerning the distribution of opportunities in life, there are also great differences. Social policy predominantly reacts to problems that already occurred, and compensates with monetary benefits. Educational policy affects future...
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