School Reform and the ‚Future of the Nation‘. 1922 and the (Assumed) Significance of Education between the Old and the New Order in Austria
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | That 1922 was a point between old and new order also applies for school-education in Austria. It was the year when Vienna became an independent federal state. This initiated an antagonism in educational policy between progressive forces in Red Vienna and conservative forces in the remainder of the country associated with fierce controversies about public education. Controversies were fierce because education then was supposed to be a key to shape future society. For instance, a book on rural school reform published in 1923 was subtitled: “Die ländliche Schul- und Volksbildungsarbeit und die Zukunft unseres Volkes.” This book is a perfect example to explore aspects of the educational debate of these years which have hardly come to notice so far. While research has concentrated on the controversies between Social Democrats and Christian Social Party and depicted a situation where positions were clear and antagonistic, this book reveals a different picture. August Bäunard, the author, neither was a political leader nor a leading educational thinker, but a committed school-teacher eager to share his ideas. His writing demonstrates how educational debates between the old and the new order were adopted and taken up in the row behind the leading thinkers. Based on this book and some additional examples, I will argue that the idea of shaping the future through education can be understood as an attempt to cope with the uncertainty of the situation between old a new order. However, the aspirations for future were rather ambiguous and sometimes inconsistent. This is especially the case for pedagogues who were in favor of the school reform launched by social democrats but not partisans of Social Democratic Party. Often, these pedagogues can be assigned to the German National movement. Bäunard’s book also is an example for the ambiguous pedagogical and political thinking of this group between old and new order, oscillating between anarchist and national conservative ideas, between pacifism and nationalism, however distinctly anchored to democracy in 1922, while we will find Bäunard in the ranks of National socialist after 1938. |
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