410 EMMANUEL DROIT AND WILFRIED RUDLOFF
German school systems diverged. Whereas the diff erentiation of teaching
in the GDR, including more choices for pupils, was often discussed inter-
nally, it was hardly implemented. The introduction of the West German
upper grade–level reform in 1976, however, marked a decisive turning
point in the history of the Gymnasium. It did away with the traditional idea
of a fi rm canon of subjects and knowledge, as well as the existing hierar-
chies between main subjects and electives. These features were supposed
to be replaced by an introduction to basic scientifi c skills, learning by
example, and more room for an individualized choice of subjects for each
pupil. In general, the hope was that this reform would lead to a new, more
strongly self-determined culture of learning focused on scientifi c propae-
deutics. Nonetheless, the tension between individualization, the freedom
of choice, and compulsory subjects continued to be controversial.
The “orientation toward science” that was supposed to infuse class-
room materials, as well as methods of learning, was intended as a guid-
ing principle for “all ages” and for every “stage of mental development.”^75
It was also supposed to be implemented in the Hauptschule. Since the
1960s, the idea that the Hauptschule was supposed to off er a popular and
practical form of education (volkstümliche Bildung) was considered to be
passé. Practical learning with real-life situations was no longer thought
to be adequate in order to be able to deal with the demands of the tech-
nical-scientifi c age.^76 Consequently, the expected level of education that
pupils of the Hauptschule were supposed to receive rose considerably.
Teachers specializing in particular subjects replaced general education
teachers assigned to a class for all subjects, and more emphasis was put
on teaching specifi c topics in specially equipped classrooms for diff erent
subjects. But this restructuring of the Hauptschule intersected with the
tendency of more and more parents to send their children to a higher
school than the Hauptschule. The Hauptschule thus lost its status as the
“main school” of the three-tier system; over the long run, moreover, it has
developed into the catch-all school for pupils with an immigrant back-
ground.^77 At the beginning of the 1970s, the majority of the pupils in a
given age cohort still attended the Hauptschule, but enrollment began to
dwindle more and more.
The university system also found itself facing new demands and chal-
lenges. As “sites of research,” the universities in the GDR attracted an
increasing amount of political attention, eventually becoming a key el-
ement of a strategy of steered economic modernization.^78 Together with
the reform package introduced in the 1960s (including the third univer-
sity reform of 1968), a strengthening of the ideological education of ev-
eryone involved in the universities was fostered and promoted, despite
the persistence of a leftover bourgeois milieu in medicine and theology.