Teaching Values as a School Education Mandate

Abstract

Schools are politically designated to teach values in order to promote social cohesion in a diverse society. This aspect is the main reason for compulsory schooling, not only in the sense of a legal obligation for children to acquire knowledge, but above all as a duty to attend an educational institution. Today, values stand as a political cipher for virtues, for ideals, common convictions and a common basis that goes beyond legal right. The state’s constitutional power to shape the school system, which is empowered by the Länder, is based on the premise that the state may not identify with a particular ideology or religion (neutrality requirement) and is limited by the constitutional parental right (and the fundamental rights of the child). The more intensive the influence on the personality, the more controversial the educational goals and the more dispensable or substitutable the respective teaching content or educational method, the more priority is to be given to parental right. The author attempts to balance the tensions in the design and implementation of the state’s educational mandate through a triad: Firstly, state education must be guided by constitutional principles; secondly, it must not overwhelm or indoctrinate the pupils, but must also teach controversial issues and, thirdly, education must aim at the pupils growing into a mature person (“moral personality”).