The education system

pp. 37-59

in: Claudio Baraldi, Giancarlo Corsi, Niklas Luhmann, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

In Luhmann's theory, the understanding of education firstly requires the analysis of the relationship between social systems and psychic systems. Education addresses individual psychic systems as persons by dealing with (1) the relevance of personal contingent actions, (2) the need to assume personal memory, (3) the need to demand and offer personal motivations for behaviours. In the education system, the person is a point of reference for individual development, which can be understood as a product of intentional education, as distinguished from randomised socialisation. Education became particularly important with the rise of a functionally differentiated society. In this society, education has achieved a specific function, giving a form to pupils and life courses; it is based on the autonomy of organised interaction in schools; it is differentiated from, and interdependent with other important social systems.