Direkte Demokratie und Schulpolitik. Lehren aus einer politikfeldanalytischen Betrachtung des Scheiterns der Hamburger Schulreform

Abstract

[Since the PISA Study in 2000, the German school system has been under constant pressure. Since party politics involving school policy tend to be clearly differentiated, the school reforms proposed in the different Länder after PISA vary strongly: while some focus on the quality of the school system, others see more need for change to improve equal access to education for all social groups. In Hamburg, the newly elected black-and-green Government in 2008 decided to go for a major reform that – as its most important feature – changed elementary school from four to six years and renamed them Primarschule. This reform was meant to improve significantly the equal access to education. Yet, the reform that had been accepted by all parties represented in the Hamburg Parliament (in the earlier Bürgerschaft bill) was defeated in a referendum that took place in summer 2010. The paper not only aims at explaining why the reform failed but also seeks to identify structural effects of direct democracy on school reforms that entail a redistribution of chances. This would challenge those studies which see direct democracy primarily as a means to empower minorities which have been discriminated against ("outgroups"). In conclusion – even though the Hamburg Case displays some peculiarities – the authors believe that school reforms with a redistributive focus are likely to be challenged by well-organized "Ingroups" with the help of procedures of direct democracy.]