Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-24T23:50:12.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Origins of Primary Education Systems: Ideology, Institutions, and Interdenominational Conflict in an Era of Nation-Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2013

BEN ANSELL  and
JOHANNES LINDVALL
BEN ANSELL*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
JOHANNES LINDVALL*
Affiliation:
Lund University
*
Ben Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 1NF, United Kingdom (ben.ansell@politics.ox.ac.uk).
Johannes Lindvall is Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Box 52, 22100, Lund, Sweden (Johannes.Lindvall@svet.lu.se).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the development of national primary education regimes in Europe, North America, Latin America, Oceania, and Japan between 1870 and 1939. We examine why school systems varied between countries and over time, concentrating on three institutional dimensions: centralization, secularization, and subsidization. There were two paths to centralization: through liberal and social democratic governments in democracies, or through fascist and conservative parties in autocracies. We find that the secularization of public school systems can be explained by path-dependent state-church relationships (countries with established national churches were less likely to have secularized education systems) but also by partisan politics. Finally, we find that the provision of public funding to private providers of education, especially to private religious schools, can be seen as a solution to religious conflict, since such institutions were most common in countries where Catholicism was a significant but not entirely dominant religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 107 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 505 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aghion, Philippe, Persson, Torsten, and Rouzet, Dorothee. 2012. “Education and Military Rivalry.” Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University/Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Akenson, Donald H. 1970. The Irish Education Experiment. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ansell, Ben, Erman, Alvina, Gahnberg, Carl, Lindvall, Johannes, and Thomson, Henry. 2013. “A Database of Primary School Systems, 1870–1939.” Version 1.0. University of Minnesota and Lund University.Google Scholar
Arthur, James 1995. The Ebbing Tide: Policy and Principles of Catholic Education. Leominster: Gracewing Publishing.Google Scholar
Benavot, Aaron, Cha, Yun-Kyung, Kamens, David, Meyer, John W., and Wong, Suk-Ying. 1991. “Knowledge for the Masses: World Models and National Curricula.” American Sociological Review 56 (1): 85–100.Google Scholar
Benavot, Aaron, and Riddle, Phyllis. 1988. “The Expansion of Primary Education, 1870–1940: Trends and Issues.” Sociology of Education 61 (3): 191–210.Google Scholar
Berman, Sheri. 2006. The Primacy of Politics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berrien, Marcia T. 1964. Education in New Zealand. Washington: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education.Google Scholar
Bugge, Knud Eyvin. 1982. “Kirke Og Skole i Danmark 1930–1945.” In Kirken, Krisen og Krigen, eds. Montgomery, Ingun and Larsen, Stein Ugelvik. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 69–74.Google Scholar
Butts, R. Freeman, and Cremin, Lawrence A.. 1959. A History of Education in American Culture. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar
Caramani, Daniele. 2004. The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Confino, Alon 2002. “Federalism and the Heimat Idea in Imperial Germany.” In German Federalism: Past, Present, Future. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 70–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruickshank, M. 1963. Church and State in English Education, 1870 to the Present Day. St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Cusack, Thomas R., Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2007. “Economic Interests and the Origins of Electoral Systems.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Estevez-Abe, Margarita, Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2001. “Social Protection and the Formation of Skills.” In Varieties of Capitalism, eds. Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Finer, Samuel E. 1997. The History of Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3 Volumes.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1964. Thought and Change. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gingrich, Jane R. 2011. Making Markets in the Welfare State: The Politics of Varying Market Reforms. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grew, Raymond, and Harrigan, Partick J.. 1991. School, State, and Society: The Growth of Elementary Schooling in Nineteenth-Century France. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Walter, eds. 1936. Erziehungsgedanke und Bildungswesen in der Schweiz. Leipzig: Huber & Co.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A., and Soskice, David, eds. 2001. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Herrlitz, Hans-Georg, Hopf, Wulf, Titze, Hartmut, and Cloer, Ernst. 2005. Deutsche Schulgeschichte von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart: Eine Einführung. Weinheim: Juventa.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2009. “Distribution and Redistribution: The Shadow of the Nineteenth Century.” World Politics 61 (3): 438–86.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Stephens, John D.. 2008. “Partisan Politics, the Welfare State, and Three Worlds of Human Capital Formation.” Comparative Political Studies 41 (4/5): 600–37.Google Scholar
Jägerskiöld, Stig. 1959. Från Prästskola till Enhetsskola. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Johnson, F. Henry. 1968. A Brief History of Canadian Education. Toronto: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 1996. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 1998. “Democracy and Religious Politics.” Comparative Political Studies 31 (3): 292–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaspersen, Lars Bo, and Lindvall, Johannes. 2008. “Why No Religious Politics?” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 49 (1): 119–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, Robert E. 1973. The Irish: Emigration, Marriage, and Fertility. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kivinen, Osmo, and Risto, Rinne. 1994. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 39–52.Google Scholar
Knippenberg, Hans, and Herman, van der Wusten. 1984. “The Primary School System in the Netherlands 1900–1980.” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 73 (3): 177–85.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Ove. 2004. Kampen om Folket. Copenhagen: Nordisk Forlag.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1968. The Politics of Accommodation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1979. “Religious vs. Linguistic vs. Class Voting: The Crucial Experiment of Comparing Belgium, Canada, South Africa and Switzerland.” American Political Science Review 73 (2): 442–58.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H. 2004. Growing Public. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Rokkan, Stein. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Loss, Daniel. 2013. “The Afterlife of Christian England, 1944–1994.” Manuscript, Brown University.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. 2011. “Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD.” University of Groningen. http://www.ggdc.nl/maddison (Accessed September 13, 2011).Google Scholar
Mallinson, Vernon. 1963. Power & Politics in Belgian Education: 1815 to 1961. London: Heineman Education Books Ltd.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. 2004. Fascists. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Monty G., and Jaggers, Keith. 2011. “Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2009.” Maryland: University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Martin, Cathie Jo, and Swank, Duane. 2011. “Gonna Party Like It's 1899: Party Systems and the Origins of Varieties of Coordination.” World Politics 63 (1): 78–114.Google Scholar
Martin, Cathie Jo, and Swank, Duane. 2012. The Political Construction of Business Interests: Coordination, Growth, and Equality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McLeod, Hugh. 1997. Religion and the People of Western Europe 1789–1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLeod, Hugh. 2007. The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McNair, John M. 1984. Education for a Changing Spain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Ramirez, Francisco O., and Soysal, Yasemin N.. 1992. “World Expansion of Mass Education, 1870–1980.” Sociology of Education 65: 128–49.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kimberly J. 2002. “Forging the Frontiers Between State, Church, and Family.” Politics & Society 30 (1): 113–48.Google Scholar
Murphy, James. 1968. “Religion, the State, and Education in England.” History of Education Quarterly 8 (1): 3–34.Google Scholar
Nagel, Anne C. 2012. Hitlers Bildungsreformer. Das Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung 1934–1945. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag.Google Scholar
Noakes, Jeremy 1980. Government, Party, and People in Nazi Germany. 2. Exeter, University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Rokkan, Stein. 1973. “Cities, States, and Nations.” In Building States and Nations, Vol. 1. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Saville Muzzey, David. 1911. “State, Church, and School in France II: The Campaign for Lay Education.” The School Review 19 (4): 248–65.Google Scholar
Scheipl, Josef, and Seel, Helmut. 1985. Die Entwicklung des Österreichischen Schulwesens von 1750–1938. Graz: Leykam Verlag.Google Scholar
Shibata, Masako. 2004. “Controlling National Identity and Reshaping the Role of Education: The Vision of State Formation in Meiji Japan and the German Kaiserreich.” History of Education 33 (1): 75–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soifer, Hillel D. 2006. Authority over Distance: Explaining Variation in State Infrastructural Power in Latin America. Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Soifer, Hillel D. 2009. “The Sources of Infrastructural Power: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Chilean Education.” Latin American Research Review 44 (2): 158–80.Google Scholar
Soysal, Yasemin N., and Strang, David. 1989. “Construction of the First Mass Education Systems in Nineteenth Century Europe.” Sociology of Education 62 (4): 277–88.Google Scholar
Tannenbaum, Edward R. 1974. “Education.” In Modern Italy: A Topical History Since 1861, eds. Tannenbaum, Edward R. and Noether, Amiliana P.. New York: New York University Press, 231–53.Google Scholar
Tegborg, Lennart. 1969. Folkskolans Sekularisering, 1895–1909. Stockholm: Föreningen för svensk undervisningshistoria.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2004. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tveiten, Asbjørn. 1994. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 21–38.Google Scholar
van Kersbergen, Kees, and Manow, Philip, eds. 2009. Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilensky, Harold L. 1974. The Welfare State and Equality. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Ian R., Caldwell, Brian J., Selleck, R. J. W., Harris, Jessica, and Dettman, Pam. 2006. A History of State Aid to Non-Government Schools in Australia. Brighton: Educational Transformations.Google Scholar
Ziblatt, Daniel. 2008. Structuring the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.