ABSTRACT
The notion that schools can act as an agent of social change is attractive to those trying to understand the change process. The unification process of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany provides an opportunity to explore serious issues related to the change process in education. Certain contemporary scholars are providing new paradigms that help us redefine the relationship schools have with society. The conventional debate, whether schools exist as an agent of social reform or whether school reform is largely conditioned by its social, political, and economic context, has been subsumed into a much larger argument related to educational reform. Any establishment is maintained by a network of habitual behaviors, socialized bodies, and other forms of control that permeate the entire system. Eastern Europe may emerge with social systems more humane, vital, and life-enhancing than in the previous social system.
