Schooling in Crisis : Rise and Fall of a German-American Success Story

Societies recurrently declare themselves to be in crisis. As crises proceed an educationalization, a delegation of social problems to schools, has been observable since the implementation of public mass schooling in German-speaking countries and the US. However, schools are not able to solve the problems, leading to crisis narratives of schools not delivering. The study identifies a social function of these recurrent crisis narratives in attempts to (re)integrate societies and (re)establish legitimacy of the system. It is firstly, an act to help societies discursively to address their problems and, secondly, to regain a legitimate social order. But what would happen, if this piece were removed, as an increasing number of parents opt out of the public-school system, thus fragmenting it?