The German Example: English Interest in Educational Provision in Germany Since 1800

Description

Over the past two hundred years German education policy and practice has attracted interest in England. Policy makers have used the 'German example' both to encourage change and development and to warn against certain courses of action. This monograph provides the first major analysis of the rich material from government reports (including work by Matthew Arnold), the press, travel accounts, memoirs, scholarly publications and the archives to uncover the nature of the English fascination with education in Germany, from 1800 to the end of the twentieth century. David Phillips traces this story and uses recent work in theories of educational policy 'borrowing' to analyze the reception of the German experience and its impact on the development of English education policy.

David Phillips is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Education at the University of Oxford, UK, and an Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, UK. He is the co-author of Comparative and International Education: An Introduction to Theory, Method, and Practice (Bloomsbury, 2014).

The German Example contributes in myriad ways to that key debate of comparative education, namely transfer and translation between cultural contexts. Thus, this volume provides both historical and contemporary examples of considerable interest to those who wish to understand the shape and reform of education systems in England and Germany even as it demonstrates how challenging such multicultural, multilingual scholarship is to craft. The collection of citations and statements...provide a considerable resource even for readers without substantial knowledge of both the lending and borrowing countries. -- Justin J. W. Powell * Comparative Education Review * A fascinating analysis of the extraordinary and multifaceted English publications on the German school system of the past two hundred years. -- Die Zeit