The Politics of Comprehensive School Reforms
Cleavages and Coalitions

This book provides a comparative-historical analysis of school politics in Norway and Germany, inspired by Rokkanian cleavage theory.

Katharina Sass (Author)

9781009235181, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 August 2022

320 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.6 cm, 0.65 kg

'A very accomplished book which adds to the sum of knowledge about, and understanding of, the way in which cleavages and coalitions are expressed in the politics of comprehensive education. This is not a narrow specialism within the study of education policy but a central aspect of the subject, which should be read with pleasure and profit by undergraduates and researchers in the field.' Susanne Wiborg, author of Education and Social Integration

Why are school systems structured differently across countries? The Politics of Comprehensive School Reform examines this question through an in-depth analysis of school politics in Germany and Norway during the post-war period of educational expansion. Using a Rokkanian theoretical framework, the book argues that school politics can only be understood in light of the cleavages, or political divides, that shape actors' interests, ideologies, and inclinations for who they want to cooperate with – or not. The book analyzes cross-cutting cleavages connected to religion, geography, language, anticommunism, and gender, and demonstrates how Norwegian social democrats and German Christian democrats built successful coalitions by mobilizing support from different social groups. Extensively researched and expansively applicable, this book contributes to the interdisciplinary literature on the politics of education, and to the field of comparative welfare and education regime research. This book is also available Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Introduction
2. Back to the roots
3. Political playing fields: Actors' power resources and social base
4. The class cleavage: Struggles over comprehensive schooling
5. The crosscutting cleavages: struggles over religion, centralization, language, anticommunism, and gender
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: EU & European institutions [JPSN2], Comparative politics [JPB], Educational strategies & policy [JNF]