Comparative Education: Focus on Germany

Comparative International Education (IEMG 8530) is an elective course offered to MA in International Education Management students.  Taught by Dr. Meggan Madden, this course is designed to introduce IEM students to the various educational structures around the world, contemporary challenges faced by these systems, as well as theoretical lens through which these issues can be viewed.

At the start of the course, all students were assigned a country which was used throughout the semester as an individual case study.  As we discussed the various aspects of international educational structures and contemporary issues such as access, equity, and equality, we examined our individual countries to look for real-world examples of these topics.  This section of the website is thus a summary of what I discovered for my country, Germany, in regards to the following topics:

For similar research on other countries, please visit the course homepage.

Education Reform in Contemporary Germany

This paper examines education reforms undertaken in Germany after 2001 from a neo-Marxist perspective.  Following the poor performance of German students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, German policy makers have set out to overhaul the entire German education system, one of the oldest in the world, in order to improve student results in the areas of reading, math, and science.  When viewed through a neo-Marxist lens however, the unmistakable fingerprints of Neoliberal policymakers are evident.  Pushing for more standardized testing, privatization, and more autonomy, these neoliberal reforms openly argue for transitioning Germany away from an educational system “based on values” to one “based on data.”