ABSTRACT
For a long time, the scholarly engagement with education and with the educational system in the Federal Republic of Germany was the uncontested domain of the traditional and influential discipline of Academic Pedagogy. The institutionalised educational system must be regarded as a cornerstone of the western project of modern society. Parsons, for instance, places the ‘educational revolution’, after the industrial and the democratic revolutions, amongst the most structurally significant processes which constitute modern society. Despite this, the classic German works in sociology did not deal with education in a systematic fashion. Only after educational issues rose to the top of the political agenda in the Federal Republic did this branch of sociology develop in this country as well.
