Learning about social work in Germany: An intercultural exchange

Visiting the former East Germany

2007-09-28T14:10:00.000-05:00

At the tail end of our trip, we traveled to Rostock, in Northern Germany (see the map to the top right of this page). Rostock is a city in the former East Germany which is undergoing a major transformation. With an 18 percent unemployment rate in the former East Germany, social workers clearly have their work cut out for them on both a policy and direct practice level. While in Rostock, we not only learned of the increase of Nazi-like youth groups and activities (likely related to unemployment rates) but also the panopoly of interesting and creative community-based social programs that are now in existence for work with ex-offenders, whole neighborhoods and people with disabilities, for example. We were especially interested to learn of the strong community support for a local Jewish cultural center, which documents this history of Jewish people living in Rostock before and after the Holocaust as well as current efforts to support Russian Jewish immigrants. It was clear to this writer that the majority of Rostockers were interested in moving beyond the sad legacy of the Holocaust and fighting the image of Rostock as a center for Nazi-like activity among youth.

The closing of Sonnenland

2007-09-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

While in Hamburg, our hosts facilitated a tour of Sonnenland, a community which has traditionally supported by a community-centered social service collaborative for many years. In our understanding, state entities called for this agency to engage in activities that it felt were unethical and, as a result, this agency has lost funding, much to the chagrin of the community's residents who were clearly 100% positive about the impact of having the agency in their midst. Our understanding was that the closing of this agency represented a potential shift away from Germany's community organizing-focused social work service tradition.

Visiting Neuengamme...

2007-09-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

Neuengamme was a former concentration camp located near Hamburg, Germany. The visit was an intense one - and set the stage for 10 days of conversations about the lasting legacy of the Holocaust in Germany and the ways in which this has shaped social work and social welfare policy there. Photos thanks to Martina D.

Thoughts on our last pre-trip class session

2007-03-04T22:28:00.000-05:00

Tonight we met for our last class session before our departure this Thursday. We reviewed the concepts of social exclusion and social pedagogy (Sozial pädagogik). In addition, to a review on immigration issues in Germany and an introduction to the basic structure of the German health care system, students split into three groups to identify themes in their readings on child and family services, elder care and disability services.

The readings that we had access to in English provided us with an introduction to these service systems and the theories/approaches behind them, but we ended our class time together with a host of questions that we look forward to asking during our trip...we hope that what we have had access to has not been biased towards incorrect or inaccurate views of the German social service system...but we look forward to figuring some of that out!

A little bit of what we discussed in class:

Elder care services: Readings highlighted the seemingly culture-based expectation that women would act as caregivers for elders in their families (not so different from the U.S. reality). We were also surprised to see that the German government provides a stipend for women that engage in this care work (although it is not a large sum, and may leave women in a worse position in the long-term re: pensions). We also had questions about how elder abuse is viewed and/or handled at the government level - is there a system of care that works to prevent elder abuse?

Child and family services: The overwhelming feeling from the readings that we had was that the family unit (however defined) was at the center of policy and practice in this arena. We got the sense that parents were empowered in child protective situations and that the overarching theme in child welfare was more family welfare, and viewed from a prevention perspective as opposed to a reactive perspective. We were also surprised that Germany has passed an anti-corporal punishment law, but wondered about how well the law has been implemented and how oversight is accomplished. However, we had little access to information about state involvement in child protection re: emergency removals, we have many questions about this as many of us have worked in child protective service systems on cases involving abuse and neglect of children.

Disability services: Readings we had access to talked about the historical context in which current disability policy has developed, namely, the legacy of people with physical disabilities from WWI and WWI as well as the horrors of the holocaust re: people with disabilities (i.e. intellectual disabilities). We were surprised to see that German disability policy seems to have followed models set by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, per the readings we had access to. There appears to be a lively disability rights movement which we look forward to hearing more about - especially as it seems that assumptions about the basic rights of people with disabilities are not as much a given as they may be in parts of the U.S. We have a lot of questions about the educational system for children with special needs, among other issues.

Overall, we felt that there were some important parallels between German and U.S. systems, but also some ways in which the theoretical structures behind the systems varied dramatically.

We look forward to expanding our current knowledge!

German approach to insurance for Muslims

2007-03-03T22:33:00.000-05:00

When religious Muslims deal with money, they can quickly get into trouble as collecting or paying interest is prohibited under Islamic law. German insurers have discovered the market niche.

For a long time, many Muslims were critical of western insurances. Some Quran scholars saw them as a game of luck, which is forbidden by Islam's holy scripture. That's because neither the insured nor the insurer know whether an accident will ever happen. Religious experts also compare insurance with interest to the content of a fishing net that has not been lifted out of water -- it could be empty or full.

But banks and insurance companies have not been deterred by this when it comes to making a profit. Orthodox Muslims are a booming market segment, with growth of up to 30 percent expected just this year. Some say that products catering to Muslims will make up 20 percent of the insurance market in 20 years.

Pure insurances

That's why insurers have developed products that are acceptable under Islamic law. Munich-based Facility for Worldwide Unit Insurance (FWU), for example, has discovered the Middle East's market for life insurances.

"When we began in 2000, we saw that the offerings for life insurances in Islamic countries are quite small while the demand is growing," said Manfred Dirrheimer, the founder and head of FWU. "Western products offered there either didn't conform with religious laws or they did conform, but didn't make economic sense. We said that someone, who takes his faith seriously, shouldn't be punished with bad products."

FWU developed so-called takaful, or guarantee policies that conform with the Quran, and has been selling them in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The money of the insured can only be invested in places that have been deemed "pure" according to Islamic law.

"A classic insurance uses death rate statistics," Dirrheimer said. "I look at when someone was born and then I know the probability that he or she will survive the contract. The policy premium is based on probability. And that's a game of luck, according to an Islamic point of view."

No demand in Germany?

Takaful policies on the other hand have people paying money into a fund, which gets invested according to Islamic law. In the case of an accident, the affected receives the money that has been accumulated. The insurer therefore only administers a fund.

As the first western insurer, Germany's Allianz has also begun offering takaful policies in Indonesia last year. Company officials are especially hoping for good business in the country's Aceh province, the first in Indonesia that's introduced Sharia law.

While the market abroad is booming, similar policies are not offered in Germany. While more than two thirds of the country's three million Muslims consider themselves religious according to the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance, there's apparently no demand for such insurances.

Plans for new development in Hamburg's port

2007-03-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

Click here for photo links

STERILE CITY OR BRAVE NEW WORLD? (from Der Spiegel)
Hamburg Builds Its Better Half
By Charles Hawley in Hamburg
It's the largest development project in Europe. But as Hamburg seeks to reclaim its old harbor by building a brand new HafenCity, has it bitten off more than it can chew?
Listening to Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg talk, it's sometimes difficult to remember what exactly his job is. He gets animated about flood control. Lines of sight are a favorite topic. And should he go off on a tangent, there's a good chance he'll start talking about diaper changing stations and ice-cream parlors.
But a quick glance out the window of his offices is the only reminder necessary. Mounds of freshly moved dirt stretch almost as far as the eye can see. Pile drivers, earth-moving equipment, dump trucks and workers in hard hats are likewise in plentiful supply. So too is noise. After all, Bruns-Berentelg is a municipal planner, and these days, he is in charge of building an entirely new city.

The northern German port city of Hamburg is undergoing a facelift. Or, more accurately, the city is getting a second half. HafenCity -- Harbor City -- is its name, and the hugely ambitious project is the largest such development project currently in progress in Europe. Fully 12,000 new apartments are to be added to the current 14,000 that already exist in Hamburg's city center. Vast quantities of new office space are also being built along with shops, culture facilities, a new science center and a shiny new university campus.
What's more, each apartment complex, office building and public space is being opened up for architects to submit their designs, meaning HafenCity, when it is finished somewhere around 2020, will be an architectural smorgasbord with few equals. Rem Koolhaas is already on board to design the science center. Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas has come up with a dramatic new cruise ship terminal and hotel. And Herzog & de Meuron have designed a stunning new home for the city's philharmonic orchestra.
Hamburg turns toward the river
The final price tag for the city won't be too high either. Because the city owns much of the land, it is funding its share of the development project -- some €1.3 billion to be spent largely on roads and other infrastructure -- with lot sales. The rest is being carried by private investment. Bruns-Berentelg is hoping that the finished product will be a lively, new city center that fits seamlessly together with Hamburg's bustling old town.
"Urbanity doesn't develop by itself," he says. "One needs squares that function well as community spaces. You have to create the conditions for people to move around. It's a question of the mixture of the various uses. We have tried to do that by including residential buildings, office space, cultural offerings and shops."
The biggest advantage, though, is that HafenCity will once again extend Hamburg's downtown right up to the banks of the Elbe River. For decades, the city ended at the "Speicherstadt," an elegant collection of 18th century warehouses meant to served the harbor behind it. But with the arrival of mega-container ships, Hamburg had to relocate its harbor to make room for the bigger slips and larger machinery necessary in the new shipping age -- a story familiar from similar harbor reclamation projects (think Melbourne, London, and Hong Kong) the world over. In Hamburg, too, the old harbor area remained largely an ugly, barren wasteland. Until now.

"Right in the center of Hamburg we have the possibility to grow. Not by expanding outwards, but by changing the use of land that is right in the heart of the city," says Axel Gedaschko, in charge of development for the city-state of Hamburg. "Hamburg is once again turning towards the water."
License to play
Or rather, has turnedMany of the residential buildings have already been completed -- standing rank and file on the edge of what used to be a harbor slip -- carefully placed on concrete pedestals to allow for the inevitable flooding and making way for a romantic walkway along the water. The philharmonic is likewise well under way and is scheduled to open in 2009.
Only at the very end of last year, though, did the project turn towards what will eventually be its centerpiece: the Überseequartier -- or Overseas Quarter. Now merely muddy earth crisscrossed by bulldozer tracks, the 8.5 hectare (25.4 acre) area will eventually become 16 brand new buildings with 275,000 square meters (2.96 million square feet) of living, office and shop space. This is also where many of the world's premier architects will have license to play. Bruns-Berentelg reckons some 40,000 people will stream through the quarter every day.
And if it's up to him, he will have a large say in exactly how those 40,000 people move through the quarter. Indeed, Bruns-Berentelg's vision of urbanity often seems one of careful calculation and studied omission. There will be no shopping mall, with Hamburg opting instead for street-front shops. The exact location of subway and bus stops was a matter of intense planning, as was the ratio of footpaths to roads. There will be five kilometers of road to 10 kilometers of footpaths -- "Only 30 percent of the footpaths will be next to the streets. Pedestrians can use the other 70 percent to get around away from the roads," Bruns-Berentelg explains.
Post-modern amalgamation
But is there any room for spontaneity? "No, not really," Bruns-Berentelg admits. "It's not easy because with a newly created city, the question is how it holds together," he says. "The danger is that of creating a post-modern amalgamation."
That, in fact, is what many such ambitious development projects have turned into in the past. Berlin's shiny new Potsdamer Platz -- a project likewise directed by Bruns-Berentelg -- may have turned into a tourist magnet, but it hardly fits seamlessly into the city. The London Docklands, while now a popular place to live and work, took years before it was accepted as part of London. And La Défense in Paris -- an eerie collection of skyscrapers built in the 1980s -- somehow jumped straight from futuristic to passé without ever really capturing the hearts of Parisians.
Dr. Michael Bose, a senior lecturer on regional planning at the HafenCity University -- which is getting a new campus just next to the Überseequartier -- says that city planners have learned from such difficulties. But have often tended toward more control.
"We want something that has a specific identity," he says, referring to European city planners. "Some buildings should look nice and surprising and everything, but the identity of the city should be reflected. We don't want chaos and we don't want monotony. But within that spectrum, I think Europeans are more afraid of chaos. They tend toward more planning."
Mostly very sterile
Indeed. As of Monday, one can go to the visitor's center in Hamburg to check out the entries in the latest design contest for the Überseequartier -- detailed proposals for how the quarter's empty spaces should look.
But in the end, it may not really matter. Interest is high in Hamburg's new center, many companies have already committed to building new headquarters -- including Der Spiegel -- or moving into new office space there. Likewise, many Hamburgers have expressed an interest in living in HafenCity with the first wave already having moved in.
And at the end of the day, it may not matter how much planning has gone into the project. "When you look at new city quarters across the world, they are mostly very sterile," says Bose. "Life takes awhile to arrive. It happens when people begin using the new area in ways that the planners didn't really foresee."

BBC on an EU-wide history text

2007-03-02T16:48:00.000-05:00

Permalink

The German Education Minister, Annette Schavan, is to raise the possibility of creating a common European history book for use in schools across the EU. The idea is being discussed on the margins of a meeting of EU education ministers in Heidelberg, Germany.
Germany currently holds the EU presidency. A common history book is already being used in French and German schools. Each chapter is written by two historians, one French, one German. The idea is that pupils across Europe would learn about events and their causes from all sides - not just their own country's version. But in practice, it is almost bound to be controversial. There are no details yet about the possible content or the authors. The Franco-German book in use in schools for the first time this year covers European history since 1945. It gives both countries' points of view and is used in the final years of secondary school. Germany has traditionally viewed the EU as a peace project, a bulwark against the kinds of wars that devastated the continent before 1945. A spokesman for the German EU presidency pointed out that the proposed book would be a history of Europe, not of the European Union. But getting anything onto the printed page will be nightmarishly complicated. The EU has very limited powers in the field of education; the final say rests with national governments. Moreover, there is no getting away from the fact that precisely because the idea comes from Germany, other countries are likely to have their reservations. The historian Dr David Starkey told the BBC that what made Europe exciting was its differences, even though these had contributed to conflict, and the proposed book would seek to brush those differences away.

Women in Germany

2007-02-27T00:59:00.000-05:00

Please click on this image in order to enlarge it for viewing :)

Largest cities in Germany

2007-02-27T00:58:00.001-05:00

Please click on this image in order to enlarge it for viewing :)

German trial over Anne Frank book

2007-02-27T00:31:00.000-05:00

German trial over Anne Frank book (from the BBC)

The Diary of Anne Frank was displayed on the judge's deskA suspected German neo-Nazi has admitted publicly burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary, at the start of his trial with six others.
The suspects are accused of inciting racial hatred and disparaging the dead. Prosecutors in the eastern German city of Magdeburg said Lars Konrad, 25, threw the book onto a bonfire during a summer solstice party in June 2006. Anne Frank wrote her diary while she and her family hid from the Nazis in an attic in Amsterdam during World War II.

The indictment says the public burning took place in Pretzien, near Magdeburg, and that the accused, aged from 24 to 29, glorified the Nazis. Denying the Holocaust and incitement of racial hatred both carry maximum jail terms of five years under German law.
Mr Konrad's lawyer argued that he was merely trying to expiate an evil chapter in German history. But state prosecutor Arnold Murra said the defendants "ridiculed Anne Frank and all those who died in the concentration camps". The case shocked Germany, fuelling fears that neo-Nazism was on the rise in poor areas of the former East Germany.

Anne Frank's diary, found after the war, has moved millions of readers.
She died just before her 16th birthday in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

UNICEF report on child well-being in OECD countries

2007-02-25T23:34:00.000-05:00

Click here for links to the full report...

"Report Card 7 provides the first comprehensive assessment to date of the well-being of children and young people in the world’s advanced economies.
It recognizes that no single dimension of child well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child wellbeing as a whole. It also stresses that no strong relationship exists between the per capita GDP and child well-being. The Report, from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, measures and compares child well-being across more than 20 countries under six different headings – material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviours and risks, and young people’s own subjective sense of their own well-being.

According to the Report Card small North-European countries dominate the top half of the table, with child wellbeing at its highest in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
There is no strong or consistent relationship between per capita GDP and child well-being. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier European countries. Also no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well-being. All countries have weaknesses to be addressed and no single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being."

Out-takes that mention Germany:

The percentage of children whose parents spend time ‘just talking to them’ several times a week ranges from approximately 90% in Hungary and Italy to less than 50% in Canada and Germany.

In 18 of the 21 countries surveyed, the proportion of those who have been involved in fighting in the previous 12 months is over one third, ranging from fewer than 30% in Finland and Germany to more than 45% in the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The percentage of young people (aged 11, 13 and 15) who report smoking cigarettes at least once a week varies from 6% in Greece to 16% in Germany.

Khaled al Masri - "rendition" information

2007-02-25T17:09:00.000-05:00

Re: the issue of "renditions" by the U.S. CIA to countries in which torture is condoned

See this link: (or the latest news links to the right of the page)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/02/1533236&mode=thread&tid=25

http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2012967,00.html

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/02/16/31_to_stand_trial_in_cia_kidnapping_case/

Info on Tthe Nasty Girl" Film re: the third reich

2007-02-25T16:49:00.000-05:00

See: this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nasty_Girl

Commentary on research about the "Nazi welfare state"

2007-02-23T16:16:00.000-05:00

The above photo has the caption:

"The Nazis helped themselves to Jewish wealth and used it to feed the war machine."

HITLER’S BENEFICIARIES
Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State.
By Götz Aly. Translated by Jefferson Chase.
Illustrated. 431 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $32.50.

Additional commentary on this work in Der Spiegel (click here to go to that web page)

Handouts From Hitler

By DAGMAR HERZOG
Published in The New York Times: February 18, 2007

What was life like for a typical non-Jewish German under Nazism? Answers vary. A discredited though still popular view has it that the Third Reich was a nightmarish inferno where informants, scoundrels and sadists ruled through fear and intimidation. A state where constant terror ensured that citizens would cooperate, accommodate and capitulate.

Another position — one given renewed authority in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” and the subsequent scholarship it inspired — is that Germany in the 1930s and early ’40s was a land gripped by Jew-hatred. In this view, the German populace during the Nazi era required little or no incentive to summon both disgust and rage at the Jews in its midst — whether the anti-Semitism is understood as rooted in a time-honored German cultural tradition, or fueled by Germany’s traumatic defeat in World War I.

Yet another interpretation focuses on the tremendous personality cult that surrounded Hitler. German citizens were so entranced by the vision of a better National Socialist world to come that they happily submitted to the allures of fascism. In one version of this account, typical Germans are cast as unwitting victims of an unparalleled propaganda campaign (and thus also come to represent a cautionary tale of how media manipulators can redirect an innocent society toward warfare and genocide). In more sophisticated versions, the German people are understood to have been taken in by Hitler’s charisma not least because the remilitarization he initiated — not to mention the Wehrmacht’s early battlefield successes — was a balm to wounded national pride.

The provocative power of Götz Aly’s “Hitler’s Beneficiaries,” available in this fine English translation after having created a fierce debate in Germany, is that it seeks to move beyond each of these explanations. That it is not wholly successful does not diminish its intellectual significance as a fresh model for grasping how the Nazis gained such broad support from so many Germans for as long as they did.

In Aly’s view, Nazism secured the compliance of the German people not because of Hitler’s charisma or Goebbels’s propaganda, nor because of its anti-Semitic policies or the Gestapo’s ruthlessness. A majority of Germans were not seduced or scared by the Nazis. On the contrary, their loyalty to the regime was bought and paid for — quite literally so.

According to Aly, who teaches at the University of Frankfurt, millions of care packages of plundered items were sent back home from the occupied territories by Wehrmacht soldiers who were themselves given hearty rations and plenty of disposable cash. Clothing and household objects that had once belonged to Jews were sold at affordable prices at government-organized public auctions, or simply handed out free as emergency relief. And the Nazis also introduced a progressive income tax that shifted a far greater tax burden onto corporations and the very rich.

The above photo has the caption:
"Hitler took great care to pamper and coddle his people and they loved him -- and the Nazi regime -- for it.."

“Hitler’s Beneficiaries” argues that nothing more than an unremarkable pursuit of self-interest led most Germans to pledge allegiance to the Nazi regime. Germans wanted their children to have nice Christmas gifts. They wanted to set aside money for retirement. They wanted to send a special someone back home a pretty sweater from Holland or perfumed soap from France.
Citizens were sated with decent wages, generous overtime pay and innovative pension plans — that is, through the establishment of a complex, if absolutely amoral, welfare state.
Aly, in short, makes a serious and well-researched attempt to put the “socialism” back in National Socialism. And in so doing, he offers his own explanation for why so many Germans closed their eyes to the systematic expropriation of Jewish property and ultimately to the deportation of their Jewish fellow citizens, not to mention the Jews in the many nations occupied by or allied with the Nazis across the European continent.

Aly makes the case that although goods and gold, stocks and bonds, real estate and savings accounts stolen from murdered Jews accounted for at best 5 percent of the Third Reich’s operational revenues, this 5 percent was often the essential piece that stabilized the vulnerable economies of the occupied nations. The money allowed the regime to pass the costs of war and occupation onto the occupied while keeping the local populations and the German soldiers alike quiescent and complacent — and ultimately to benefit Germans back home. Many Germans hardly thought twice before moving into apartments that had belonged to deported German Jews, or furnishing those apartments with beautiful objects that had belonged to Jews of other nations.

This was grand larceny on a scale seldom seen in the modern world. From Tunisia to Greece, Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands, France and Italy to Serbia and Romania, Aly walks us through the Aryanization process. He demonstrates how Jewish property was first nationalized via a variety of tricks (like declaring the assets of deported Jews “ownerless” and therefore state property) and then funneled into German government coffers, and eventually into keeping the working and lower middle classes satisfied. He also shows that in a number of instances the urgency of the thievery process hastened deportations and killings.

“Hitler’s Beneficiaries” is based on a wealth of military and economic documents, and it is chock full of data on consumer spending power, money-laundering techniques, and bankers’ and civil servants’ inventiveness in making theft look legal — or invisible. The book also makes clear that even with the money and goods plundered in the occupied territories from both Jews and non-Jews, only a German military victory would have let the German economy survive the enormous debt burden it had accrued. The evidence is powerful on its own terms. Yet the connections Aly draws are not equally persuasive.

When “Hitler’s Beneficiaries” first appeared in Germany in 2005, scholars challenged Aly’s figures. Yet the discrepancies in the balance sheets of revenues and expenses they uncovered are explicable by the different calculation methods used, and Aly’s rebuttals to his critics have been included in this English edition. Readers can make up their own minds.

The above photo has the caption:

"German President Horst Koehler bows in memory at Auschwitz. Do Germans belong at Holocaust memorial ceremonies?"

The more significant problems have to do with interpretation. First, there is Aly’s monochromatic notion of human nature — the assumption that Germans under Nazism were moved primarily by material self-interest (rather than, say, feeling thoroughly enthusiastic about Nazi militarism as long as it was successful, and unconcerned that Jews were demoted to second-class citizens — and then disappeared).

The second difficulty has to do with assumptions about causation. It is Aly’s great accomplishment to demonstrate that World War II could not have gone on for as long as it did, nor the German populace kept content for as long as it was, without the expropriation of the property and monies of slaughtered Jews. But correlation is not causation, and illustrating connections does not prove motivation.

The historian Jonathan Petropoulos has written, “The Nazis were not only the most notorious murderers in history but also the greatest thieves.” “Hitler’s Beneficiaries” offers stark proof that the murder and the theft were in many cases integrally linked. The Holocaust was unquestionably accompanied by outrageous greed. Yet this fact cannot make us conclude that greed alone drove the Holocaust.

"Social pedagogy" and social work in Germany

2007-02-22T13:02:00.000-05:00

A link I found on social pedagogy - which is a term that our colleagues at the Rauhe Haus are using a lot...

The German tradition of social pedagogy has become associated with social work. This tends to obscure its educational credentials, particularly to English-language readers. Here we explore its history and current status.

The term sozial pädagogik came into usage in Germany around the middle of the nineteenth century. Karl Mager is said to have coined the term in 1844 (he was editor of the Pädogische Revue from 1840-48). It was used as an alternative to 'Collectivpädagogik' - and in contrast to 'Individualpädagogik' (van Ghent 1994: 95). However, it was the work of Friedrich Diesterweg (1790 - 1866), the Prussian educational thinker, whose concern with primary education brought the idea to a broader audience. He was exercised by the separation of theory and practice within teaching and is sometimes credited with originating the maxim 'learn to do by doing' (see Kliebard 1987: 37).

Diestersweg, evolution and educational action to help the poor

Diesterweg looked to Rousseau, Pestalozzi and, later, Froebel. He believed that people were able to develop, to respect and care for others, and to work for the good of the community (see Günther 1994: 296 - 297). He came to emphasise the idea of people carrying out their own activity, and of the fundamental importance of democracy, especially following the 1848 Revolution. Evolution was his central organizing idea:

The educational principle of evolution demands in the educational field: respect for human nature and of the individual; its stimulation to full development, expression, activity and initiative; natural, hence joyful, experience of life; stimulation to develop the senses, strengthening the body, to explore, to be lucid and to discover things; providing the minds with suitable nourishment; constant progress. It forbids; arbitrary assumptions and manipulations of human nature; any encouragement to act blindly and mechanically; any kind of drill; rote learning; uniformity; force-feeding with subject matter that is not understood etc. (quoted in Günther 1994: 297)

Diestersweg was keen to reform schooling - to take it away from the influence of the church and politics - and to turn it into a force for social change. He believed that general education should be open to everyone: 'First educate men, before worrying about their professional training or class, [because] the proletarian and the peasant should both be educated to become human beings'. (Let's hope its patronising tone lost something in the translation!) He went to argue for a social pedagogy: 'educational action by which one aims to help the poor in society' (1850, quoted in Cannan et al 1992: 73). Van Ghent comments, that as far as the poor was concerned, he did not distinguish between adolescents and adults, whereas such a distinction was necessary in the educational doctrines that were applied to the bourgeoisie. 'The threat of socio-economic struggles was apparently considered to be far more dangerous than the conflicts between generations' (va n Ghent 1994: 96).

Schleiermacher and societal development

What began to emerge was a conception of education concerned with societal (social) development. Here the contribution of Friedrich Ernest Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was of some significance. He went 'beyond the pedagogical principles of "natural self-development" to embrace an "education for community" (Gemeinschaft)' (Lorenz 1994: 91). 'Social' in this sense could relate to the aim of the educational endeavour - the creation of community - and to the site for the process - in society. Examining Schleiermacher's thinking, Lorenz says the following:
One of his theories is that individual intentions are already directed (by their nature as human intentions) towards sociability, towards universal social goals. The other is that only democracy allows the individual will to form. Public life needs to correspond to and reflect what is pedagogically, psychologically necessary for the healthy growth of the individual. The conditions for good education are those of a sound democracy; pedagogical and political processes condition each other. (op cit. 91-92)

This linking of pedagogy with community and democracy has remained a key theme - and can be seen in the work of later writers such as Dewey and Freire. However, it did not instantly recommend itself to those charged with responsibility for developing German schooling.

Natorp, community and social pedagogy

As the nineteenth century progressed debates and insights around the idea of community developed. For example, Tönnies (1855-1936) published Gemeinschaft and Gessellschaft (Community and Society) in 1887. There community was defined as 'the permanent and real form of living together, while society is only transitory and apparent, and therefore community should be seen as a living organism and society as a mechanical aggregate and artefact'. It was this idea of community, van Ghent argues, that became fixed in one of the most influential versions of social pedagogy - that proposed by Paul Natorp (1854-1924). According to him atomization had made Germany sick - what was needed was a strong sense of community (Gemeinschaft), and education that encouraged this, and that fought to close the gap between rich and poor. Such education was to take place in three environments: 'from the educating community of the household, through the national and uniform school, into the free self-education of adults of all social backgrounds' Marburger 1979 quoted in van Ghent 1994: 97).
Natorp may have been a progressive but such a vision of social pedagogy can, in the hands of a paternalistic state, serve as a new form of social engineering and adjustment (see Lorenz 1994).

We have here a question of lasting significance:

Is social pedagogy essentially the embodiment of dominant societal interests which regard all educational projects, schools, kindergarten or adult education, as a way of taking its values to all sections of the population and of exercising more effective social control; or is social pedagogy the critical conscience of pedagogy, the thorn in the flesh of official agenda, an emancipatory programme for self-directed learning processes inside and outside the education system geared towards the transformation of society? (op cit.: 93)

The basic issue is whether the vision of community or society entailed is pluralistic and inclusive, or narrow and exclusive. The former is concerned with education so that all may share in a common life (as Dewey put it); the latter with advantaging a particular group. This question has special significance given the nature of the ideologies that informed the activities of National Socialists in Germany during the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. It emerges in the experiences of a number of societies struggling to throw off the shackles of colonialism such as in the Indian social education programmes of the late 1940s (see Steele and Taylor 1994) and has been a feature of some of the educational debates around nationalism.

National socialism and social pedagogy

In a narrow and exclusive form, social pedagogy can become 'education' that directs the individual will towards the 'higher level of a communal will'. For example Ernst Krieck argued for Nationalpolitische Erziehung (national-political education - 'a totalitarian kind of education', based on irrationalism (van Ghent 1994: 100). As Sunker and Otto (1997) have shown when the pivotal notion of 'Volk community' (Volksgemeinschaft) is introduced into the notion of social pedagogy there is considerable danger in this. They argue (following Franz Neumann), that the totalitarian state, the Führer principle, and the ideology of the Volk community are intertwined. National socialist rule involved putting total, authoritarian organization in the place of pluralism; and the atomization of the individual. This latter element entailed breaking down the influence of groupings such as the family, the church and unions and replacing them with an identity to the Volk community and to its guardians/leaders. In the Volk community social contradictions and conflicts are overcome. Character would be formed as part of a larger whole and one's first duty was to the Volk. A pernicious twist comes in the politics of inclusion and exclusion. The Volk was one of 'blood and soil'. Those of other 'races', those with disabilities, those who sought to question were not fit to be members.

In Germany it was young people who were to become the particular object of such education (see, for example, Becker 1946, Harvey 1993). Youth organizations such as the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls) involved a strict separation of the adult world and that of youth. They assigned girls to youth and this allowed for their intervention in the 'modernization' of female life and in countering the influence of family (see Reese in Sunker and Otto 1997). 'Because the state here penetrated by means of racist legislation into the most intimate spheres, in the area of the family, education, reproduction and the body, it displaced the personal bonds that were still dominant there and replaced them with new societal authorities and state violence' (Reese 1997: 114). One of the particular forms utilized as an instrument of social discipline was the camp. Dudek (in Sunker and Otto 1997) has examined some of the key practices and ideas. For example, how the idea of team and service could be used to bind the behaviour of the individual and the camp community into the collective Volk community; and how 'comradeship' strengthened group identification. In a similar fashion Schiedeck and Stahlman have focused on the totalizing experience of education camps. (See organized camps).

Social pedagogy and social work

Unsurprisingly, there was a reaction to this understanding of social pedagogy during post-war reconstruction. The fear that the educational socialization apparently implied within social pedagogy could be directed to the needs of the nation at the cost of individuals and of significant groups hung heavy. Moves towards more individual, problem-based work seemed a safer option than the mass and group work of the then recent past. However, there was a limited counterbalance through the influence of writers such as Lewin (1948; 1951) on American 're-education' efforts. He made a strong case for the use of small groups in the resolution of conflicts and the promotion of democracy. It was a theme also taken up by somewhat more pessimistically by Lindeman (who also advised the British army education service in Germany - see Stewart 1987: 212-214). Thus, as the German social welfare system evolved social pedagogy did not take quite the course that Diestersweg envisaged. Rather than informing the shape of schooling it became seen as the 'third' area of welfare beside the family and school. It can be represented today as: a perspective, including social action which aims to promote human welfare through child-rearing and education practices; and to prevent or ease social problems by providing people with the means to manage their own lives, and make changes in their circumstances. (Cannan et al 1992: 73-74)

Conceived in this way it includes a wide range of practice including youth projects, crèches and nurseries, d ay-care centres, work with offenders and some areas of church work. The linkage with social problems and crisis work situates social pedagogy alongside social work. Social work in Germany is currently divided into two major branches: Sozialarbeit (casework) and Sozial Pädagogik. The former is a 'general social work service to families and other selected groups' (Cannan et al 1992: 73). Workers in both areas undertake a common first foundation year of training (Sozial Wegen) and then specialize in the different approaches.

Social pedagogy, Dewey and democracy

I want to quickly link up some of these concerns with developments in American thought. From the late nineteenth century on there was a US journal and community of practice centred around social education (see, for example, Scott 1908). Dewey, through the work of Hebart - and his knowledge of Rousseau, Froebel and Pestalozzi - sought to develop what could be described as child-centred theory. But he added to this a powerful dimension (and one that connects with the concerns of many early champions of social pedagogy) - that the experience required for learning was participation in community life (community was defined by Dewey in terms of sharing in a common life). Thus, his classroom was to be a community in itself - a place where there are group activities - where people cooperate. Teachers were to join in with the activities - to take part in a common endeavour. A critical point here is that Dewey saw the environment as social. People learn through interacting with a social environment

This then links across to to his - and other contemporary American writers concern for democracy. People like Mary Parker Follett and Eduard Lindeman studied German developments. We can see a number of similarities with the concerns identified in Follett's notion of training 'for the new democracy' (see la vie associative.

Professional identity

This discussion raises a number of questions about how informal educators label themselves as practitioners. Some reading this will be resistant to the notion that they could be considered as social workers. Others, perhaps used to the ways of discussing social work that are dominant in the UK, might be surprised at the extent to which education could be considered as part of the work. As Cannan et. al. (1992: 139) comment, within Britain there has been a long and political battle between two schools of activity - social work and community work.

This distinction exists in other European countries, but there is not quite the same separate philosophical or political rhetoric. Many people who work in community and social action programmes... in Britain, describe themselves as community workers or perhaps just project workers. There would be less shyness about using the term 'social worker' in may other European countries. (ibid.)

What is also of interest in the German tradition is the readiness of significant numbers of social workers to describe themselves as pedagogues. Pedagogy and casework appeal to different theoretical traditions - but both provide insights to the other. Furthermore, and of significance in relation to the growing usage of the notion of informal education (as, say against youth work) in the UK, is the way in which the notion of social pedagogy similarly transcends particular organizational settings.

Social pedagogy defines the task and the process of all 'social activity' from theoretical positions beyond any distinct institutional setting and instrumental interest, and thereby safeguards the autonomy of the profession and appeals to the reflective and communicative abilities of the worker as the key to competence. Social work, by contrast, tends to take the diversity of social services and agency settings as the starting point for the search for appropriate theories, a search which used to be guided by the desire to find a general, unifying theory of social work but has since given way to the more pragmatic and often eclectic use of theory elements from neighbouring disciplines. (Lorenz 1994: 97)

In other words, the taking of the notion of 'pedagogy' (or education) into the way in which you name yourself makes a direct appeal to a particular body of theory and practice. The title social work (like youth work) connects with a certain array of institutions and agencies.

Further reading

There is a marked shortage of English-language explorations of social pedagogy and animation. However, the situation is slowly changing - and here we are particularly indebted to the work of Walter Lorenz and Crescy Cannan.

Aluffi-Pentini, A. and Lorenz, W. (eds.) Anti-Racist Work with Young People. European experiences and approaches, Lyme Regis: Russell House Publishing. 208 + x pages. Collection of material which explores racism and the nation state; oppositional and relational identities; pedagogical principles and approaches plus case material from Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. Particularly welcome as the editors contribute substantial chapters concerning pedagogy.

Cannan, C., Berry, L. and Lyons, K. (1992) Social Work and Europe, London: Macmillan. 181 + xii pages. Includes some discussion of social pedagogy, animation etc. Has chapters on social Europe; social policies and social trends in Europe; social workers, organizations and the state; branches and themes of social work (concentrates on Germany and France); French social work; participation; and social a ction.

Cannan, C. and Warren, C. (eds.) (1997) Social Action with Children and Families. A community development approach to child and family welfare, London: Routledge. 225 + xiv pages. This book looks beyond the usual narrow confines of British social work texts - looking at more community oriented forms of engagement (especially family centres) and drawing on traditions of practice from the UK, Germany and France. There is some recognition of the potential of more educative approaches and a concern with local networks and institutions.

Lorenz, W. (1994) Social Work in a Changing Europe, London: Routledge. 206 + xii pages. Excellent discussion of social work in Europe this century - especially strong on animation and social pedagogy. Chapters on social work within different welfare regimes; ideological positions; social work Fascism and democratic reconstruction; social work and social movements; social work , multiculturalism and anti-racist practice; and emerging issues.

Sunker, H. and Otto, H-U. (eds.) (1997) Education and Fascism. Political identity and social education in Nazi Germany, London: Taylor and Francis. 180 + viii pages. Excellent collection of papers that explore the use of social pedagogy (pedagogy oriented toward 'folk community') to develop an ideology sympathetic to the social framework and programmes of the Nazis. Chapters explore the context; identity formation and social practice; work camps; correctional education; emancipation or social incorporation - the experience of girls and young women; why social workers adopted the new order; social work as social education; the quest for democratic education.

Other references

Becker, H. (1946) German Youth: Bond or free? London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 edn.), New York: Free Press.

Follett, M. P. (1918) The New State. Group organization the solution of popular government (3rd impression [1920] with introduction by Lord Haldane), London: Longmans Green.

van Gent, B. (1994) 'The invention of Dutch andragogy: The role of Octavia Hill and Paul
Natorp' in S. Marriott and B. J. Hake (eds.) Cultural and Interculteral Experiences in European Adult Education. Essays on popular higher education since 1890, Leeds: University of Leeds.

Gunn, G. (1992) Thinking Across the American Grain. Ideology, intellect and the new pragmatism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Günther, K-H. (1994) 'Friedrich Adolph Wilhelm Diesterweg' in Z. Morsy (ed.) Thinkers on Education, Paris: UNESCO.

Harvey, E. (1993) Youth and the Welfare State in Weimar Germany, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewin, K. (1948) Resolving Social Conflicts. Selected papers on group dynamics, New York: Harper and Row.

Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, New York: Harper and Row.

Linton, D. S. (1991) 'Who has the youth has the future' The campaign to save young workers in imperial Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steele, T. and Taylor, R. (1994) Learning Independence. A political outline of Indian adult education, Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

Stewart, D. S. (1987) Adult Learning in America. Eduard Lindeman and his agenda for lifelong education, Malabar, Florida: Krieger.

© Mark K. SmithFirst published July 1996. Last update: July 10, 1999

Info (in English) in social work-related institutions in Germany

2007-02-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

http://www.socialwork.de/"We found out that many social workers from different parts of the world are interested in Social Work in Germany but weren´t able to get any information since they didn´t speak the language. Just a few web pages offer an English translation and none of the portals do. At the same time, most Germans are able to speak or at least to understand English. Therefore, in many cases it is possible to make an inquiry in English. But how can you find out who is able to help you with your specific request and might be the right person to contact?
This page is here to assist you. It gives you an overview of Social Work in Germany. There are different categories like Universities, Magazines or WebPortals. To each entry you will find a short description, the email address and an URL. With this information you should be able to get the information you are looking for."

Germany-related film reviews from The New York Times

2007-02-22T12:36:00.000-05:00

Coolidge Corner Theatre film times: Click here

Before the Wall Fell, a Kafkaesque Nightmare (click on "kafkaesque" for an explanation in case you do not know what that means) :)

By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published in the New York Times: February 7, 2007

Nina Toussaint and Massimo Iannetta’s 2003 documentary, “The Decomposition of the Soul,” would make a reasonable double bill with the forthcoming fiction film “The Lives of Others.” Both films tackle the still unsettling topic of the East German Stasi, the fearsome secret police that, under the auspices of the Ministry for State Security and armed with the foreboding motto “Shield and Sword of the Party,” kept the populace in check for decades, often by forcing ordinary people to spy against one another. Both might also make your flesh crawl, though perhaps for different reasons.

An Academy Award nominee this year for best foreign-language film, “The Lives of Others” was a hit in Germany, and it’s easy to see why, given its forgiving message. A German and Belgian co-production, “The Decomposition of the Soul” is a tougher sell partly because it offers no palliatives, though partly because it’s a bore. It takes more than a worthy subject to make a good documentary, after all; it takes intelligent, specific, directed filmmaking. The German-born Ms. Toussaint and the Italian-born Mr. Iannetta have seized on a fine subject and, in Hartmut Richter and Sigrid Paul, former Stasi prisoners, found witnesses who put a face on a national calamity. Yet they have made a film as austere and barren as an old Stasi prison hallway.

The filmmakers basically employ one strategy: they shoot interviews with Mr. Richter and Ms. Paul inside the Stasi’s former prison (part of it now a museum) in the East Berlin district known as the Hohenschönhausen. These survivor-witnesses, who were arrested on different charges, alternately walk through the building’s desolate halls and rooms, movingly relate their stories on camera and stare silently into space, sometimes while their voice-overs continue. The filmmakers are big on silence, which perhaps they mean to seem poetic, but mostly feels like padding. Every so often the camera cuts to the outside or floats through the halls, and other voices join in, reading excerpts from texts written by a former prisoner named Jürgen Fuchs and from Stasi interrogation guidelines.

It goes without saying that some of the icier methods used by the Stasi directly recall those of the Nazis, whose systematic dehumanization of Jews, Gypsies and others finds an unsettling and, at least in this film, unexamined echo in the secret-police guidelines. These state that “the aim of decomposition is fragmentation, paralysis, to disorganize and isolate the negative enemy forces and thus allow a political ideological recuperation.” You sense the impact of that decomposition in Mr. Fuchs’s words and in the sagging, emptied-out faces of Mr. Richter and Ms. Paul, but this kind of glance at history is a poor substitute for a hard, steady and expansive examination.

THE DECOMPOSITION OF THE SOUL

Written (in German, with English subtitles) and directed by Nina Toussaint and Massimo Iannetta, based on texts by Jürgen Fuchs; director of photography, Remon Froment; edited by Sandrine Deegen; produced by Martine Barbé and Wolfgang Bergmann.

Confusion between words used in German and English

2007-02-22T12:17:00.000-05:00

Confusion between words used in German and English (click the title text to go to the link, which has a great table (scroll down) explaining some key differences)

Misunderstandings happen. Even between people who share the same mother tongue and culture. The chances of misunderstandings happening between speakers of different native languages and cultures are disproportionately higher.

After two and a half decades of fighting on both fronts, I hope that I am qualified to provide a reliable guide to the problems and differences that can - and very frequently do - arise when native German speakers speak English, or English-speaking people are conversing in German.

While fluency and unstilted conversation are the ultimate aims of both, and a sixth sense as to what is right in each language develops with practice, it is still inevitable that subliminal errors crop up in the heat of the moment - or simply that someone gets hold of the 'wrong end of the stick' and hangs on to it, regardless of what (s)he has been told or has read to the contrary.

Some of these misunderstandings are amusing, some are a nuisance, some can cause offense, but, when the origin is known, most of them are understandable. Where possible, the explanations are included in the examples below to aid the memory of anyone 'guilty' of these mistakes and wishing to avoid them in the future.

The following examples may not be needed to prevent the next world war, but you will be surprised how often they will smooth your path when communicating with German, Austrian, Swiss (maybe even Dutch or Scandinavian) business partners or flirting with the husbands/wives of the same.

The examples given apply to the present use of the words in day-to-day conversation. In the past, some of the words may have had the same meaning, but have diverged over the years. There are many reasons for these little misunderstandings and semantic quirks - too many to categorize here, as practically each example has evolved along a different route. Some just drifted apart; some are the results of enthusiastic German advertisers thinking it is 'cool' to use an English word: in some cases the trade name has established itself in the English but not in the German, and others have come via the French... The explanations are fascinating, but innumerable. Most will be self-explanatory with a little knowledge of German, English or the history of the two languages.

Karnaval (over today...but...)

2007-02-21T20:50:00.000-05:00

Per germany.info:

Women are allowed to cut off men’s ties on women’s carnival day.

The six days preceding Ash Wednesday are known in Germany as the «crazy days» as carnival begins in earnest. In the Rhineland region, festivities start on the Thursday, a day known as “women’s carnival”. Women literally assume power and symbolically storm the town halls in many places. Men are advised to wear an old tie since the women are liable to cut it off on that day and compensate the bereft wearer with a kiss.

"OneMinutesJr" workshop on child poverty in Germany

2007-02-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

From UNICEF: See video (auf Deutsch) here

17 children from the industrial region in Germany's Northwest participate in a OneMinutesJr workshop on child poverty. In the five-day workshop, the youngsters (age average is 14) will produce 17 OneMinuteJr videos about the way they see poverty. The workshop is supported by the German National Committee for UNICEF and the NGO Deutscher Kinderschutzbund. All films will be shown at a national conference on child poverty in Berlin. Several nationwide TV channels also produce feature stories about the workshop and its participants. Today (April 20), German international football player Christoph Metzelder visited the workshop and said: "It's amazing to see how well the kids can shape their ideas, how deep their thoughts are. Poverty is not only an issue in developing countries, it's also an issue here around us in Germany."

Everyday German Language

2007-02-21T20:00:00.000-05:00

This is from a site sponsored by the German government - seems to orient people to what it is like to live in Germany - appears to be targeted to immigrants in a number of different language

Hello and Goodbye

"Guten Morgen" – "Good Morning" is the most common form of greeting one another until around midday.

"Guten Tag" – "Good Day" is used until roughly 6 pm.

"Guten Abend" – "Good Evening" is said after 6 pm.

Many people also just use the simple "Hallo".

"Auf Wiedersehen" – "Good Bye" is said when leaving. The short form is "Wiederseh´n". The Italian word "Ciao", as well as "Tschüs", "Tschö" or "Tschüssi" can also be used to say goodbye.
"Hallo", "Tschau", "Tschüs", "Tschö" and "Tschüssi" are informal ways of saying hello and goodbye.

In Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and parts of Rhineland Palatinate people greet one another with "Grüss Gott" and "Servus" at any time of the day and with "Pfiat di Gott" or "Ade" when they are saying goodbye.

In the coastal regions of northern Germany in East and North Frisia, people also say "Moin", and "Moin, Moin".

"Gute Nacht" (Good Night) is said before going to bed.

"Mahlzeit" is said to other colleagues at work at meal times. This combines a greeting and the wish that the respective colleagues enjoy their meal.

"Du" and "Sie"

The most common way to address people is with the formal "Sie". This is used in public and at work. Even if neighbours or colleagues have known each other for a long time they often still use the polite form of the word "You" or "Sie". The informal "You" is "Du". This is used among close friends and close colleagues and with children until around the age of 16. Schoolchildren and students also use the informal "Du". The general rule of thumb is that the older person can offer to use the informal "Du" instead of "Sie". At work the higher ranked member of staff may offer to use the "Du" form.

"Bitte" and "Danke", "Please" and "Thank You"

The word "Bitte" or "Please" is usually said when asking for something: "Können Sie mir bitte sagen, wie spät es ist?" (Can you please tell me what time it is?), "Kann ich bitte die Zeitung haben?" (Can I please have the newspaper?). The word is a sign of pleasantness and politeness. When you pass something to another person you also usually say "Bitte sehr" or "Bitte schön". "Danke schön" or "Danke sehr" or "Vielen Dank" – "Many Thanks", "Thanks Very Much" etc. is the usual answer. If you are offered something to drink the word "Danke" means no thanks. You can say "Ja, bitte" or "Ja, gern" to say yes please.

Punctuality

Germans are said to view punctuality as a great virtue. Of course, radio shows and television shows begin at exactly the time they are supposed to. This is also usually the case for most buses and trains. But, just as in other countries, not everything goes exactly to plan all the time in Germany.

Appointments

"Gehen wir heute Abend ein Bier trinken?" (Shall we go for a beer tonight?) or "Gehen wir einen Kaffee trinken?" (Shall we go and have a coffee?): Appointments are often made in this form. It is polite to be punctual for private appointments.

Wikipedia on comparative definitions of poverty in Germany and the U.S.

2007-02-21T19:02:00.000-05:00

"In the EU "relative poverty" is defined as an income below 60 percent of the national median equalized disposable income after social transfers for a comparable household. In Germany for example the official relative poverty line for a single adult person in 2003 was 938 euros per month (11256 euros/year, $12382 PPP. West Germany 974 euros/month, 11688 euros/year, $12857 PPP). For a family of four with two children below 14 years the poverty line was 1969.8 euros per month ($2167 PPP) or 23640 euros ($26004 PPP) per year. According to Eurostat the percentage of people in Germany living at risk of poverty (relative poverty) in 2004 was 16% (official national rate 13.5% in 2003). Additional definitions for poverty in Germany are "poverty" (50% median) and "strict poverty" (40% median, national rate 1.9% in 2003). Generally the percentage for "relative poverty" is much higher than the quota for "strict poverty". The U.S concept is best comparable to "strict poverty". By European standards the official (relative) poverty rate in the United States would be significantly higher than it is by the U.S. measure. A research paper from the OECD calculates the relative poverty rate for the United States at 16% for 50% median of disposable income and nearly 24% for 60% of median disposable income[11] (OECD average: 11% for 50% median, 16% for 60% median)."

Source

Goodbye Lenin! (Movie viewing, Sunday, February 25th, 2007)

2007-02-21T18:37:00.000-05:00

Spoiler alert this link has information about this movie...

Readings for pre-trip class sessions: An introduction to social services in Germany

2007-02-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

Photo from a recent protest in Berlin addressing cuts to social welfare systems and services...

Seminar Outline: Pre-departure seminars will provide essential preparation for students to have a basic understanding of the people they will meet, the social service systems they will observe and the experiences they will have in Germany.

Seminar One: Overview: Lecture and discussion during this session will provide an overview of current German history, culture and politics as well as a foundation for understanding the theoretical underpinnings of the German welfare state.

Required readings:

· Goldberg, G. (2002). Introduction: The three stages of welfare capitalism. In Eds. G. Goldberg and M. Rosenthal: Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision. Auburn House: London. Pages 1-32.

· Rosenthal, M. (2002). Bibliographic essay. In Eds. G. Goldberg and M. Rosenthal: Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision. Auburn House: London. Pages 373-379.

Recommended:

· Stock, A. (2006). Affirmative Action: A German Perspective on the Promotion of Women's Rights with Regard to Employment. Journal of Law & Society. 33:1. Pages 59-73.

Seminar Two: The German welfare state: Historical and contemporary perspectives: Lecture and discussion during this session will address the German welfare state from historical and comparative perspectives. Discussion of Germany’s health and long-term care systems (for people with disabilities and elders).

Required readings:

· Backer, G. and Klammer, U. (2002). The Dismantling of Welfare in Germany. In Eds. G. Goldberg and M. Rosenthal: Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision. Auburn House: London. Pages 211-244.

· Goldberg, G. (2002). Diminishing welfare: Convergence toward a liberal model? In Eds. G. Goldberg and M. Rosenthal: Diminishing Welfare: A Cross-National Study of Social Provision. Auburn House: London. Pages 321-372.

· Kunstreich, T. (2003). Social welfare in Nazi Germany: Selection and exclusion. Journal of Progressive Human Services. 14: 2. Pages 23-52.

Recommended:

· Schaarschuch, H. (1999). A new social service professionalism? The development of social work theory in Germany. International Journal of Social Welfare. 8: Pages 38-46.

Seminar Three: Special topics in German social welfare policy: Lecture and discussion during this session will provide an overview of special population issues in the German welfare state. We will build on this introductory knowledge during our trip. Topics will include child/family policies (i.e. child welfare, child care), elder-care policies, disability-related policies and immigration-related issues. Each student should choose the readings in their area of interest and be prepared to speak on those readings in class

Child and family policy required readings:

· Baistow, K. and Wilford, G. (2000). Helping parents, protecting children: Ideas from Germany. Children & Society. 14: Pages 343-354.

· Hetherington, R. and Piquardt, R. (2001). Strategies for survival: Users’ experience of child welfare in three welfare regimes. Child and Family Social Work. 6: Pages 239-248.

· Kriz, K. (2006). How Grandmothers Became "Second Moms": Family Policies and Grandmothering in Britain, Germany and Sweden. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering. 7:2. Pages 220-240.

Recommended:

· Bussman, K. (2004). Evaluating the subtle impact of a ban on corporal punishment of children in Germany. Child Abuse Review. 13: Pages 292-311.

· Nybom, J. (2005). Visibility and ‘child view; in the assessment process of social work: Cross-national comparisons. International Journal of Social Welfare. 14: Pages 315-325.

Elder care required readings:

· Stark, A. (2005). Warm hands in cold age: On the need of a new world order of care. Feminist Economics. 11:2. Pages 7-36.

· Weiss, I. (2005). Interest in working with the elderly: A cross-national study of graduating social work students. Journal of Social Work Education. 41. Pages 379-39

· König, J. and Leembruggen-Kallberg, E. (2006). Perspectives on elder abuse in Germany. Educational Gerontology, 32(1), p25-35.

Recommended:

· Stock, S., Redaelli, M. and Lauterbach, K. (2006) The influence of the labor market on German health care reforms. Health Affairs, 25(4), p1143-1152.

Disability-related required readings:

· Jackson, C. (2001). Infirmative action: The law of the severely disabled in Germany. Central European History. 26:4. Pages 417-456.

· Heyer, K. (2002). The ADA on the road: Disability rights in Germany. Law & Social Inquiry. 27:4. 723-763.

· Mostert, M. (2002). Useless eaters: Disability as genocidal markers in Nazi Germany. Journal of Special Education, 36:3, p155-169.

Recommended:

· Jackson, R. (2006). The role of social pedagogy in the training of residential child care workers. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities. 10:1. Pages 61-73.

Immigration-related required readings:

· Auernheimer, G. (2005). The German Education System: Dysfunctional for an Immigration Society. European Education. 37: 4. Pages 75–89.

· Becker, F. and Korber, K. (YEAR?) Holocaust-memory and multiculturalism: Russian Jews in German media after 1989. (Incomplete citation, sorry folks)

· Ellerman, A. (2006) Street-level democracy: How immigration bureaucrats manage public opposition. West European Politics. 29: 2. Pages 293 – 309.

Recommended:

· Sainsbury, D. (2006) Immigrants' social rights in comparative perspective: welfare regimes, forms of immigration and immigration policy regimes. Journal of European Social Policy. 16: 3. Pages 229-244.

Germany bound...

2007-02-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

In March 0f 2007, 16 people from Salem State College's School of Social Work in Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. will be taking an academic trip to Hamburg and Rostock, Germany in order to learn more about the social welfare system in that country. More to follow!