I thought members of the WIGS discussion forum may be interested in the
following recently published book:

RECONSTRUCTING EDUCATION           
East German Schools and Universities after Unification
By Rosalind M. O. Pritchard

Rosalind Pritchard begins her examination of Germany's educational system with
a general analysis of the processes of German Unification in an attempt to
determine whether it was really necessary to proceed so quickly. The answer,
she finds, comes in the affirmative.  Given this imperative and the fact that
Easterners were dissatisfied with their existing system, the New Bundesländer
accepted and implemented variants of content and structures in the Old
Bundesländer.  A critique of the reforms of education in the New Bundesländer
is therefore simultaneously a critique of education in the Old Bundesländer,
with the added variable that the circumstances in which the reforms had to be
implemented were extraordinarily inclement in the East where there was
economic collapse, mass unemployment and demographic decline of an
unprecedented dimension.

The book deals with school structure and its implications for equity; the
political dimensions of methodology and curriculum content; the introduction
of the Dual System of vocational education in a sick economy; how education
authorities addressed the values vacuum left by the demise of Marxism-
Leninism; how the churches handled the challenge of setting up denominational
schools and religious education in a country where there was little mandate
for Christianity.

Reconstructing Education also addresses, in some detail, the important issues
facing higher education in the East: the cull of staff in East German
universities, the attempt to introduce academic freedom and to increase
access, and the danger that East German universities may become subject to
some of the shortcomings which for so long have characterised higher education
in the West.  Case studies and substantial interview material richly
illustrate the author's arguments.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rosalind M. O. Pritchard is Senior Lecturer in Education in
University of Ulster at Coleraine, with responsibility for training teachers
of English to Speakers of Other Languages and a long-standing mission in
comparative education, with special reference to Germany. She is the author of
The End of Elitism? The Democratisation of the West German University System.
                                                                          
For further information please contact: Berghahn Books, 3 New Tec Place,
Magdalen Road, Oxford, OX4 1RE, UK
[log in to unmask]                                                            



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%