“You Can Make a Difference”: Teachers’ Agency in Addressing Social Differences in the Student Body

Teachers are key players in transforming the education system (van der Heijden et al., 2015). They shape educational processes, influence school policies, and make day‐to‐day decisions that have a direct effect on students (Vähäsantanen, 2015). Yet we currently know very little about whether they can contribute to the creation of social equality of opportunity. This article focuses by way of example on the experiences and interpretative schemes of teachers in Germany, as the country is known for its highly selective school system. It draws on data from an exploratory study based on 20 narrative interviews (Rosenthal, 2018) with schoolteachers at three comprehensive schools in East and West Germany, which were selected because comprehensive schools in Germany see themselves as a more equal‐opportunity form of education. The article begins by identifying four types of teacher action orientations in addressing the social differences of schoolchildren. Unexpectedly, only a few teachers exhibited a socially conscious inclination to act—for example, by providing targeted support to schoolchildren from socially disadvantaged households. In the second step, by comparing teacher biographies, school environments, and historical imprints, the article attempts to identify certain conditions under which teachers perceive themselves as responsible for addressing social differences among students. Beyond illustrating the interplay of biographical experiences and school culture, the study’s east–west contextualization opens up a new perspective for examining the lingering implications of the German half‐day schooling model even after the introduction of all‐day schooling in 2003. One possible conclusion is that the transformation of the German school system from a half‐day to an all‐day model has not taken the tasks of teachers into account, which, as this article points out, would be important in making them aware of schoolchildren’s different social backgrounds and their effects on achievement.

Book Reviews

Mark K. Cassell, Banking on the State: The Political Economy of Public Savings Banks (Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing, 2021).Bryce Sait, The Indoctrination of the Wehrmacht: Nazi Ideology and the War Crimes of the German Military (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019).Frank Bösch, ed., A History Shared and Divided: East and West Germany since the 1970s (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018).Christopher A. Molnar, Memory, Politics, and Yugoslav Migrations to Postwar Germany (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018).Eva Noack-Mosse, Last Days of Theresienstadt, trans. Skye Doney and Birutė Ciplijauskaitė (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018).Michael H. Kater, Culture in Nazi Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019).Rolf Steininger, Germany and the Middle East: From Kaiser Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019).

Regional Aspect: Commodity Structure of Germany’s Exports

The article examines the specificity of commodities exports of Germany’s eastern and western lands. The indicators of sectoral export specialization are determined by comparing sectoral export quotas of the federal lands and the East/West with the general German sectoral export quotas. Calculations are based on data from the country's Federal Statistical Office for 2008 and 2019. As a result of the analysis of the indicators obtained, the general characteristics of the export specifics in relation to industrial branches and federal lands in two parts of the country are formulated, changes among the main specialized branches are explored, the roles of individual lands in the creation of export profiles of East and West Germany and the degree of correspondence between export profiles of the East/West and their lands are determined. The author outlines the convergence of new and old lands in various dimensions of specialization, the success of the East in the competition for specialization in the cars export and the preservation of significant Western advantages in the mechanical engineering’s export specialization and in the formation of new sectoral export focuses, and highlights the federal lands that have achieved high efficiency in the given field (Saxony in the East and Baden-Württemberg in the West).

‘Trained immunity’ from Mycobacterium spp. (environmental or BCG) exposure predicts protection from Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

ABSTRACTEndeavors to identify protective variables that could be potentially responsible for reduced COVID-19 impact on certain populations have remained a priority. Multiple attempts have been made to attribute the reduced COVID-19 impact on populations to their bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination coverage ignoring the fact that the effect of childhood BCG vaccination wanes within the first 5 years of life while most of the COVID-19 cases as well as deaths have been observed in adults especially the aged with comorbidities. Since the supposed desired protection being investigated could come from heterologous ‘trained immunity’ conferred by exposure to Mycobacterium spp. (i.e., environmental and BCG), it is argued that the estimates of the prevalence of ‘trained immunity’ of populations currently available as latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) of populations would be a better variable to evaluate such assertions. Indeed, when we analyze the European populations (twenty-four) as well as erstwhile East and West Germany populations completely disregarding their BCG vaccination coverage, the populations with higher trained immunity prevalence consistently display reduced COVID-19 impact as compared to their lower trained immunity prevalence neighbors. The incidences, mortality, and interim case fatality rates (i-CFR) of COVID-19 are found negatively correlated with the trained immunity of populations that have comparable underlying confounders not the BCG coverage per se. It is submitted that to decisively arrive at dependable conclusions about the potential protective benefit that can be gained from BCG vaccination in COVID-19, the ongoing/planned randomized controlled trials should consciously consider including measures of trained immunity as - a) all individuals immunized do not respond equally, b) small study groups of higher background trained immunity could fail to indicate any protective effect.

Does Fixed-Term Employment Have Spillover Effects on the Well-Being of Partners? A Panel Data Analysis for East and West Germany

This paper answers three research questions: What is the impact of fixed-term employment on the well-being of partners? How do these spillover effects differ by gender, and do gender differences depend on socialization in East or West Germany? Do individual well-being, perceived job insecurity, and financial worries mediate the spillover effects? We use longitudinal data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), 1995–2017, and a sample of heterosexual couples living together, to estimate fixed-effects panel regression models. In contrast to previous studies, we consider asymmetric effects of entering and leaving fixed-term contracts by focusing on transitions from unemployment into fixed-term and fixed-term into permanent jobs. Confirming previous research on spillover effects of unemployment, we find that fixed-term re-employment increases partners’ well-being and that these effects are larger in case of re-employment by men and partners’ socialization in West Germany. We also show that transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs do not substantially increase the well-being of partners with little differences by gender and place of socialization. While the spillover effect of re-employment is mediated by changes in the well-being of the individual re-entering the labor market, changes in job insecurity and financial worries due to transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs are too small to produce meaningful effects on well-being. Although fixed-term contracts have been referred to as a new source of inequality, our results show that they cause little difference in the well-being of individuals and their partners and that finding a job matters more than the type of contract.

From the GDR to Eastern Federal Lands of Germany: features of economic and political transformation (1989–2019)

This chapter discusses the main stages of social transformation in East Germany since 1989. The author explores the reasons for the peaceful revolution, the split of the political elite, the attempts to unite left-leaning parties, and movements around the idea of adopting a new constitution and rejecting the statehood of the GDR. The causes of the collapse of the GDR, the features of institutional changes in the eastern lands after 1990, and the protracted nature of the transformation are analyzed. The chapter also presents the data on the costs of economic recovery in the eastern federal states and the main socio-economic indicators of development in East and West Germany. Specific attention is paid to the mental differences between East and West Germans and the causes of nostalgic sentiments among the population of the Eastern lands. The question of the modern perception and study of the history of the GDR is also considered. Conclusions are drawn about the specific features of the model of social transformation in East Germany.