Publication 4554

Excerpt: The introduction of compulsory schooling – in Western Europe during the long 19th century, reaching from Prussia (1764) to Belgium (1914) – has strengthened the role of organized education. How has this fact, viz. that education now takes place in an organized setting, influenced the nature of educational interaction? I want to tackle this complex question with the help of a systems-theoretical framework, inspired by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Departing from Luhmann’s writings on organizational theory, as well as from some of his shorter articles on education, this chapter focuses on the analysis of educational interaction in organized social systems.