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‘State education’ in German private primary schools in south-western Greater Poland in the 1930s
Creator: Publisher:
Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Place of publishing: Date issued/created: Date on-line publ.: Type of object: Subject and Keywords:state education ; German national minority ; Greater Poland ; United Evangelical Church
Abstract:
The article deals with the implementation of Józef Piłsudski’s Sanation model of ‘state education’ in private primary schools with German as a medium of instruction, which in the Second Polish Republic in the 1930s functioned in south-western Greater Poland. It was a border area, critical for national security, culturally and historically bound by Polish–German relations. The schools belonged to individual lay people, United Evangelical Church communities or associations of the German national minority. The students, with few exceptions, belonged to the Lutheran Church. Audit reports filed by Polish school inspectorates prove that teaching, ie performance of teachers’ duties, was mainly influenced by current politics and Polish–German relations. Increased political tension in the second half of the 1930s resulted in a decline, though not universal, of ‘state education’, neglect of teaching the Polish language, history and geography, absence of Poland’s White Eagle emblem, separatist tendencies among the minority and a rise in ethnic hostility. Poor training of German teachers for teaching the Polish language was also revealed. Evangelical schools displayed worse results than others, which confirms the point advanced in historiography about the United Evangelical Church’s aversion to Poland.
Creative Commons Attribution BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
Terms of use: Copyright holder:Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów PAN
Original in:Library of the Institute for the History of Science PAS
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