The Educationalization of the ModernWorld: Progress, Passion, and the Protestant Promise of Education

Abstract

Nowadays it is a common cultural pattern to allocate perceived social, economical, and other problems to education in general and to the schools and teachers in particular. This ‘educational refl ex’ indicates the deep confi dence in education and schooling to make up for ascertained diffi culties of other social institutions and their developments. Accordingly, social crises trigger politicians, economic leaders, and ‘normal citizens’ to proclaim what education and the schools ought to be doing. A paradox, however, should start us thinking when looking at the last 50 or 100 years: Not the prolongation of compulsory schooling, the massive development and differentiation of our educational institutions, the increasing number of college degrees completed, the hundreds of popular guidebooks about better education published every year, or the increased investments of transnational organizations such as the World Bank in education becalmed the ‘educational refl ex’ of...