EDUCATIONAL RIVALRIES 397
integrated schools systems can also be found in great number in other
Western industrialized states after 1945—for example, England, Italy, or
originally Sweden. The major diff erence between the two German con-
texts was rather that East German educational system was supposed to
do its part to contribute to the monist worldview and goal of ideological
homogenization that prevailed in GDR society.
Not only was educational policy part of the demarcation process, but
also historical scholarship on education in postwar Germany has tended
to reproduce these lines of separation rather than writing a geteilte nar-
rative of a shared and divided history. The following chapter aims to off er
such a more integrated approach.^10 It does not intend to narrate a story of
entanglements in the sense of a histoire croisée dedicated to outlining the
relatively rare aspects of the contacts and exchanges between the two Ger-
man states.^11 Rather, it seeks to explore the question of how both German
societies dealt with cross-system problems that emerged prior to reuni-
fi cation. There were four main areas in which both educational systems
had to grapple with issues that were not specifi c to their own respective
systems. The fi rst aspect was the particular social dynamic attached to
increasing educational aspirations within society and the calls for an ex-
pansion of participation in the educational systems—as well as the limita-
tions within this process, especially in the coordination of the educational
and employment systems (section 1). Second, there was the issue of the
conditions that allowed people to take advantage of educational oppor-
tunities in both educational systems, which was linked to the degree of
equality and inequality within the educational system on the whole (sec-
tion 2). The debates over the “scientifi cation” (Verwissenschaftlichung) of
the curriculum refl ected a third constellation of problems that had to be
dealt with in both systems, along with the question of which new areas of
knowledge (such as information technology or environmental education)
should be incorporated in the canon of school instruction (section 3).
Last, the perpetual problem of the purpose of political education plagued
both states (section 4). These four constellations also correspond to the
four functions of educational systems mentioned above.
Following an analysis of these aspects, a look at the transformation
processes that took place within educational policy after German reunifi -
cation traces the complex threads of development that were drawn over
a period of two decades. On the heels of the structural adjustments that
took place between the new and the old federal states, the beginnings of
a joint German transformation appeared, merging into a new cycle of re-
form whose dynamics were no longer defi ned by the division of Germany,
but rather by the international contexts in which they were embedded,
especially European integration.