Luhmann on socialization and education

Educational Theory

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 1-23

  Vanderstraeten, Raf ^a  

^a UTRECHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

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EID: 0038975072     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2000.00001.x     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. Jürgcn Habermas and Niklas Luhmann, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie. Was leistet die System forschung? (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1971).
2. Franz Macicjewski, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie. Beiträge zur Habermas-Luhmann-Diskussion. Supplement 1 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1973).
3. Franz Maciejewski, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie. Neue Beiträge zur Habermas-Luhmann-Diskussion. Supplement 2 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1974.
4. H.J. Giegel, ed., System und Krise. Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie Beitrag zur Habermas-Luhmann-Diskussion. Supplement 3 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1975).
5. Jürgen Habermas, "Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Niklas Luhmann," In Habermas and Luhmann, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie, 144, 170.
6. The most recent overall bibliography of Luhmann's work appeared in the journal Soziale Systeme 1 (1998). René Görtzen has published a number of bibliographies of work of and about Habermas. For example, "Habermas: Werk und Internationale Wirkung," in Jürgen Habermas, ed. Detlef Horster (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991).
7. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), 354.
8. The sentence reads in the original German edition (Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderns. Zwölf Vorlesungen [Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp], 411 as follows: "Luhmanns Tbeorie, die heute im Hinblick auf Konzeptualisierungskraft, theoretische Phantasie und Verarbeitungskapazität unvergleichlich ist, weckt ailenfalls Zweifel daran, ob der Preis für seine 'Abstraktionsgcwinne nicht zu hoch ist.'" The German word "Phantasie" can be translated as "imaginativeness," but its meaning is ambiguous. It can also mean fantasy, phantasm, illusion. Habermas probably alluded to both meanings of the word (although he authorized the translation).1985.
9. Walter Reese-Schäfer, Luhmann zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 1992), 139-52.
10. Recent English-language overviews of aspects of the Habermas-Luhmann debate can be found in.
11. Toward a Non-Foundationalist Epistemology: The Eva Knock Habermas/Luhmann Controversy Revisited," New German Critique 61 (1994), 77-101.
12. Theory R.C. "Luhmann's Progeny: Systems Holub and Literary Studies in the Post-Wall Era," New German Critique 61 (1994), 143-61.
13. Loot Leydesdorff, "Habermas., Luhmann, and the Theory of Communication,"Systems Research and Behavioral Science, in press.
14. Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
15. The original German edition is: Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgameinen Theorie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp). This book will be cited as SS in the text for all subsequent references.1984.
16. Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996).
17. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979.
18. This book was reprinted (with an appendix) in 1988. An English translation of this book (entitled Problems of Reflection in the System of Education) has been announced by Berbahn Books in London, but has not yet appeared. The edited volumes are Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, eds., Zwischen Technologic und Selbstreferenz. Fragen an die Pädagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1982.
19. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr Zwischen Intransparenz und Verstehen. Fragen an die Pädagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986.
20. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Zwischen An fang und Ende. Fragen an die Pädagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1990.
21. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Zwischen Absicht und Person. Fragen an die Pädagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1992).
22. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Zwischen System und Umwelt. Fragen an die Päldagogik (Frankfuit a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1996).
23. They deal with means-end thinking, the hermeneutic Verstehen, the temporal boundaries of education, the intention of educators, and the environment of the educational system respectively. Luhmann's most important articles on the educational system are reprinted in Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 4. Beiträge zur funktionalen Differenzierung der Gesellschaft (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1987).
24. Dieter Lenzen and Niklas Luhmann Bildung und Weiterbildung im Erziehungssystem Lebenslauf und Humanontogenese als Medium und Form (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997.
25. Its topic is the life trajectory of individuals.
26. Jürgen Habermas, Die Einbezichung des Anderen. Studien zur politischen Theorie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1996), 393.
27. This hook contains an extensive appendix, in which Habermas replies to some reactions on his previous work. This appendix, in which he continues the Auseinandersetzungen with Nikias Luhmann, is not included in the English translation The Inclusion of the Other(Cambridge: MIT Press). The omission seems once more a symptom of the lack of interest in Luhmann's points of view outside the German-speaking world.1998.
28. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications (New York: Braziller, 1988).
29. Philip H. Coombs, The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 9.
30. Coombs, The World Educational Crisis and Philip H. Coombs, The World Crisis in Education: The View from the Eighties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
31. Heinz von Foerster, "On Self-Organizing Systems and Their Environments," In Self-organizing Systems, ed. Marshall C. Yovits and Scott Cameron (London: Pergamon, 1960).
32. Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology," Philosophy of Science 10 (January 1943.
33. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1948).
34. Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (New York: Avon, 1967).
35. A good overview of the morphogenesis of the field of cybernetics is offered in the Cahiers nr. 7-9 of CREA (Centre de Recherche Epistémologic et Autonomic in Paris). Most articles are written in French, some are in English. A recently updated, but unfortunately not annotated, bibliography of the field of sociocybernetics is Felix Geyer and Johannes van der Zouwen, A Bibliography on Sociocybernetics (Amsterdam: SISWO); the text is also available at For more background information on cybernetic pedagogy1998.
36. J.M. Heffron, "Toward a Cybernetic Pedagogy: The Cognitive Revolution and the Classroom, 1948-Vresent," Educational Theory 45 (1995): 497-518.
37. H.R. Maturana and F.J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition. The Realization of the Living (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980).
38. Milan Zeleny, "What is Autopoicsis?" In Autopoiesis. A Theory of Living Organization, ed. Milan Zeleny (New York: North Holland, 1981), 4-5.
39. Edgar Morin, La méthode. 1: La nature de la nature (Paris: Seuil, 1977), 197-203.
40. K. D. Bailey, "The Autopoiesis of Social Systems: Assessing Luhmann's Theory of Selt- Refercnce," Systems Research and Behavioral Science 14 (1997), 83-100.
41. Niklas Luhmann, Essays on Self-reference (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 2.
42. Benny Shanon, "Metaphors for Language and Communication," Revue Internationale de Systémique 3 (1989): 43-59.
43. This distinction between components is related to the distinction, introduced by Karl Bühler, between functions of linguistic communication. It comes also close to John Austin's typology of utterances and acts, namely, locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary language acts, and to John Searle's fairly similar classification of speech acts. But these authors depart from an action-theoretical approach to communication, within which communication is synonymous with the transmission of information (see SS, 117).
44. Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
45. Heinz Schmidt., "Das Erziehungssystem als soziales System. Codierung und Programmierung - Binnendifferenzierung und Integration" In Kritik der Theorie sozialer Systeme, Auseinander set zungen mit Luhmanns Hauptwerk, ed. Werner Krawietz and Michael Welker (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1992.
46. John Mingers, Self-producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis (New York: Plenum, 1995).
47. Joas; The Creativity of Action.
48. Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997), 790-91.
49. Nicholas Rescher, Pluralism: Against the Demand of Consensus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
50. Niklas Luhmann, Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988).
51. Niklas Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,. 1990.
52. Niklas Luhmann, Das Recht der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1993.
53. Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1995.
54. An English translation of this last book, entitled Art as Social System (Stanford: Stanford University Press), is scheduled to appear shortly.
55. Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 11-5.
56. Talcott Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 14.
57. Hence the name of this approach: structural-functionalism Structures, which were supposed to be more or less stable, were taken as the point of departure. They could, according to Parsons, provide a "picture" of the system; that is, a conceptual scheme which gives the setting for analysis of dynamic processes. Processes were studied in their function of contributing to the maintenance of these structures. The consequences of a dynamic process "will be found to fit into the terms of maintenance of stability or production of change, of integration or disruption of the system." See Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe: Free Press, 1951), 22. Parsons's approach of socialization and education is described in more detail in Talcott Parsons and R.F. Bales, Family, Socialization, and the Interaction Process (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956.
58. Talcott Parsons, "The School Class as a Social System: Some of its Functions in American Society," Harvard Educational Review 39 (1959): 297-318.
59. It is an interesting historical detail that Parsons died in Germany -only a few days after a symposium on his work, where both Habermas and Luhmann presented their view on systems theory. These articles are, together with the funeral oration, collected in Wolfgang Schluchter, ed., Verhalten. Handeln und System. Talcott Parsons' Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1980).
60. Miecheal Keren, "Ideological Implications of the Use of Open Systems Theory in Political Science," Behavioral 24 (1979); 311-24.
61. Dennis Wrong, "The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology," American Sociological Review 26 (1961): 183-93.
62. Talcott Parsons, "Comment on The Oversocialized Conception of Man' by Dennis Wrong," Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Review 10 (1962): 322-34.
63. Parsons, Societies, 14.
64. Niklas Luhmann, Soziologiche Aufklärung 3. Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1981), 161-63.
65. Luhmann, Soziologischeärung 4, 175-76.
66. Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch (Gpladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1995), 55-112.
67. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).
68. For a discussion of the self-endangering dynamics of modern society, and of the educational system in particular, see Raf Vanderstraeten, "Circularity, Complexity, and Educational Policy Planning: A Systems Approach to the Planning of School Provision," Oxford Review of Education 23 (1997), 321-3.
69. Raf Vanderstraeten, "The Performance of the Educational System," In The Performance of Social Systems, ed. Francisco Parra-Luna (New York: Plenum Press, 2000).
70. Education, according to Luhmann, is an activity of social systems specialized in "people processing." It is - in contrast to socialization - a social phenomenon, and displays the characteristics of social systems. According to Luhmann, its distinctive unity (or autopoiesis) can only he understood, when this definition is put to use. Luhmann has on repeated occasions paid attention to the structural characteristics of the educational system and to pedagogy's reflection of the particularities and problems of this social structure (notably Luhmann and Schorr, Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem). I have discussed this work elsewhere: Raf Vanderstraeten, Leren voor het leven. Opvoeding en onderwijs als maatschappelijk deelsysteem (Leuven Apeldoorn: Garant, 1995.
71. Vanderstraeten, "The Performance of the Educational System".
72. Raf Vanderstraeten, "Versäulungund funktionale Differenzierung. Zur Enttraditionalisierung der katholischen Lebensformen," Soziale Welt 50 (1999), 297-314.
73. Here, I continue the course pursued in the preceding sections and focus on the relation between education and socialization.
74. Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 4, 178-80.
75. The Differentiation of Society (New York: Columbia University Press), 229-54 and Luhmann, Essays on Self-reference, 86-98.1982.
76. D.C. Lortic, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 58-60.
77. Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, "Das Technologiedefizit der Erziehung und die Pädagogik," in Zwischen Technologic und Selbstreferenz; and Andrew Ahhott, The System of Professions. An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
78. A.O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).
79. K.E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing (Redding, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 38.
80. A.H. Niemeyer, Grundsätze der Erziehung und des Unterrichts für Eltern, Hauslehrer and Erzieher (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1970), 57-59.
81. The first edition of this popular book was published in 1796. It was frequently translated, and reprinted throughout the whole nineteenth century. See also Vanderstraeten, Leren voor het leven, 113-19.
82. Immanuel Kant, Werke in sechs Bände. Band VI Schriften zur Anthropologie, Geschichtsphilosophic, Politik und Pädagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, Kant's text on education was originally published in 1803.1964), 711.
83. J.F. Herbart, Allgemeine Pädagogik, Aus dem Zweck der Erziehung abgeleitet (Bochum: Verlag F. Kamp, 1971), 35.
84. The first edition of Herbart's magnum opus was published in 1808.
85. At least one important exception needs to be mentioned regarding John Dewey's and George H. Mead's pragmatism. This pragmatic philosophy also provides a powerful alternative to a subject-centered conception of education. As far as I can see, pragmatism and systems theory share important basic intuitions. Joas's rejection of Luhrmann's work is in my view based on an inadequate understanding of systems theory (especially in The Creativity of Action). Together with Gert Biesta, I have tried to uncover the convergence of both schools of thought in some preliminary investigations for a theory of education.
86. Raf Vanderstraeten and Gert J.J. Biesta, "How is Education Possible? Preliminary Investigations for a Theory of Education," Educational Philosophy and Theory 31 (in press).
87. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 120-35.
88. Robert Merton, The functions of a social practice arc its "observable objective consequences." See Robert K. Morton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe: Free Press, 1963), 24.
89. Manifest functions are those outcomes that are intended and recognized by the agents concerned; latent functions are those outcomes that are neither intended nor recognized. Notice that this conceptual definition refers to the input-output schema of the "open systems" model. The system's function is defined by its transformation of input into output, and the internal conditions of this transformative performance can be seen as structure.
90. Nicholas C. Burbules, Dialogue in Teaching: Theory and Practice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993), 131-42.
91. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (New York: Basic Books, 1976) and Michael W. Apple, Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (New York: Routledge, 1993).
92. Niklas Luhmann, "Erzichender Unterricht als Interaktionssystem,". In Erzichender Unterricht -Fiktion und Faktum! ed. fürgen Diederich (Frankfurt a.M.: GFPF, 1985).
93. Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 4, 181.
94. Helmut Willke, Supervision des States (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997.
95. Aifons Backes-Haasse, "Irritierende Theerie-systemtheoretischc Beobachtungen der 'Theorie-Praxis-Problcms' der Pädagogik," Vierteljahrsschrift fü wissenschaftliche Pädagogik 69 (1993): 180-200.
96. Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 5, 228-34.