How does education function?

Abstract

Niklas Luhmann speaks of the function of education in relation to modern society. Only within modern society, he argues, is it possible to speak of the differentiation of a specific function system of education. It is, more particularly, the differentiation of other function systems that leads to the question about the function of education. I look closely at Luhmann’s analyses of the function of education and make a plea for a socio-historical approach, which looks at the ways in which education “functions” within society. Depending on the situation, beliefs in the functionality of education have given form to specific characteristics of the contemporary world society.

Introduction

According to Niklas Luhmann, modern society comprises a variety of function systems. Education is on his list of important function systems, next to several other systems: politics, law, the military, the economy, science, the family (and intimate relations), art, medicine, and religion. This list of 10 function systems, which appeared in an early—but only recently published—version of his theory of society, was not intended to be exhaustive (Luhmann, 2017: 793–798). Some modifications and additional systems, such as the mass media, sports, and tourism, were discussed in later publications (e.g., Luhmann, 1996; Stichweh, 2016). Throughout his whole career, however, Luhmann defined the major subsystems of modern society by the functions they fulfill for the more encompassing system. The question I would like to address in this article is how we might conceive of the function of the system of education, especially in light of ongoing dynamics in world society?

This seems to be a simple question, but it cannot be answered easily. In general terms, the function of education is for Luhmann related to a basic problem of social or communication systems, namely the problem of “double contingency” (see Vanderstraeten, 2002, 2003). Communication presupposes that the different partners orient their actions and expectations to one another. It presupposes an (always incomplete) coordination of the mutual actions and expectations of the partners. ¹ But how are the partners able to expect each other’s expectations? What allows them to establish and maintain social relationships with one another? How can the ensuing uncertainties be controlled in the communication, especially under conditions of high complexity, when the range of options for each actor and thus the risks of failure are high? Seen in this light, Luhmann (2017: 755–760) maintains, the function of education cannot be understood simply as the development of individual potentials or talents. Its more crucial social function is to make premises for otherwise unlikely social contact possible, and to make them possible for contacts that would normally lie outside of educational settings. In systems-theoretical terms, the function of education is to ensure that the psychic (and bodily) environment of society offers favorable conditions for the ongoing reproduction of social or communication systems.

Historically the differentiation of the system of education is triggered by the breakthrough of the modern, functional form of differentiation. As long as double contingency problems can be solved relatively easily, no need for long, intentional forms of education emerges. Socialization suffices as long as social mobility and internal complexity are low, but “societies with relatively high degrees of complexity cannot seem to avoid going beyond mere socialization and mere ad hoc education” (Luhmann, 1995: 206). Coordinated intentional processes of education thus gain importance when societies come to depend on the reproduction of specialized forms of knowledge and skills. In this sense, the differentiation of the educational system is elicited by social transitions which impose increasing demands on the psychic environment of society. At the same time, however, Luhmann’s approach forces us to question the probability of successful education. How is education possible if the idea of systemic autopoiesis (self-production) builds on the distinction between system and environment, and if the relations between autopoietic systems and their environments are best described in terms of structural couplings, random perturbations, and “order from noise” (Luhmann, 1987, 1995; von Foerster, 1984)? How can education fulfill a function that cannot be fulfilled (in the way it seems to be expected)? What kinds of “solutions” have become possible? How have individual human beings and social systems adapted to the expansion of the educational system? Against this background, I explore here the function of education in society.

In a period of about 20 years from the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s, Luhmann published a substantial number of contributions on the sociology of education (at times in co-authorship with Karl Eberhard Schorr, but all of these co-authored contributions are part of Luhmann’s broader sociological project). Some observations about education also appear in his other contributions to social systems theory and the theory of society. Departing from all this work, I sketch here a socio-historical approach, which looks at the ways in which education functions within modern society. My presentation proceeds in three steps. To outline the basic structure of Luhmann’s approach, I first clarify the meaning of his concepts of socialization and education. Next, basic features of the historical differentiation of the system of education are reviewed. Afterwards, I look at structural couplings between education and its social environment and discuss the appropriateness of present-day characterizations of world society as “schooled society” (e.g., Baker, 2014). In the concluding section, I briefly return to Luhmann’s understanding of functionality.

Socialization/education

Before dealing with the function of education, it is helpful to reconstruct the distinction Luhmann draws between the concepts of socialization and education. Altogether discussions of socialization have a long history in sociological theory. The concept plays a prominent role in a broad variety of theoretical approaches from, for example, Franklin H. Giddings and Emile Durkheim to Talcott Parsons and Pierre Bourdieu. It is, however, much less prominent in Luhmann’s oeuvre. For Luhmann, socialization refers to changes that take place in the psychic and bodily environment of social systems. The concept thus impinges on several, divergent system references: on social systems and on individual human beings in their environment. In the monograph Social Systems, socialization is accordingly defined as the process that “forms the psychic system and the bodily behavior of human beings that it controls” (Luhmann, 1995: 241). Luhmann could therefore maintain that issues of socialization fall largely beyond the scope of sociological theory. ²

First of all, it should be taken into account that socialization is a common phenomenon. According to Luhmann, socialization comes about by participating in all kinds of social contexts. It depends on participation in communication, and especially on “the possibility of reading the behavior of others not as mere fact but as information—as information about dangers, disappointments, co-incidences of all kinds, about realizing a relation to social norms concerning what is appropriate in a situation” (Luhmann, 1995: 205). Socialization allows individuals to come to terms with the expectations that give structure to a particular social system. But “coming to terms” with its expectations does not have to lead to the “reproduction” of this social system (in the strict sense of the word). From Luhmann’s point of view, individuals are socialized when they know when to apologize.

While Luhmann puts emphasis on the autopoietic closure of social and psychic (as well as bodily) systems, it follows that psychic and social worlds cannot overlap. The meaning of specific norms or expectations cannot be identical in different psychic and social systems (in phenomenological terms, they have different meaning-horizons). When it comes to socialization, Luhmann argues, the basic process is the autopoiesis or self-production of the psychic system that brings about socialization in itself. In this sense, socialization is always and inevitably self-socialization.

Luhmann’s emphasis on the distinction between social and psychic systems leads him to point to unforeseen “side-effects” of socialization processes. Following Luhmann, a classic definition, which focuses on the reproduction of social norms, may allow us to discriminate between successful and unsuccessful socialization, but it does not allow us to account for the possibility of non-conformance (e.g., Luhmann, 1981: 161–163). Instead Luhmann proposes to employ an open-ended concept of socialization, which “overlays positively and negatively valued effects; and … [which] comprises conforming and deviant, pathological (e.g., neurotic) and healthy behavior” (Luhmann, 1995: 241). But the functioning of psychic and bodily systems as such is not the object of sociology. Only indirectly, in terms of the problems it might cause for the autopoiesis or self-production of social systems, might the self-socialization of psychic and bodily systems become of interest to society—and sociology.

Luhmann’s account of education builds upon his definition of socialization. While the relevance of socialization processes mostly remains limited by/to the stimuli of the socializing context, education intentionally aims for a broader and more lasting impact. For Luhmann, “education is (and here it differs from socialization) action that is intentionalized and attributable to intentions” (Luhmann, 1995: 244). It strives to “attain something that presupposes coordinating a plurality of efforts, something that cannot be left to chance socializing events” (Luhmann, 1995: 206). Education thus implements input-output or means-end principles. As we will see in more detail in the following section, when we discuss the differentiation of education, Luhmann argues that such patterns can still be found in contemporary school systems: “the enormous expenditure on interaction and the organization of learning situations, school classes, and school systems merely formulates this principle” (Luhmann, 1995: 206).

Given what was said about socialization, however, it should not be any wonder that Luhmann questioned the possibility of such input-output arrangements. Although education may be said to strive for a specific, otherwise improbable “output,” educational interventions also elicit other effects than those intended. The moment these actions or interventions become visible, “the person who is expected to become educated acquires the freedom to travel some distance or to seek and find ‘other possibilities’” (Luhmann, 1995: 244). One cannot expect that individuals merely “conform” or “adapt,” when they have to face educational interventions. Following Luhmann, it rather makes sense to assume that they will respond to the expectations in unintended ways and look for some kind of “opting-out” strategy. At school, for example, pupils frequently react with the cultivation of a deviant subculture or with alternative assessments of personal characteristics. Alternatively, they can pursue the official goals out of mere opportunism or avoid them as much as possible (Luhmann, 1995: 244). ³

Education leads to the formation of social systems, and it therefore falls for Luhmann within the scope of sociological theory. But education cannot accomplish what socialization cannot accomplish; it cannot bridge the gap with the psychic environment of society and ensure the reproduction of social norms (Luhmann, 2002: 48–81). Following Luhmann, the social interventions that take place in educational settings clearly burden the psychic environment of society. At times, he even suggests that educational interventions sharpen the distinction between the different systems involved in these forms of intentional socialization (e.g., Luhmann, 2017: 757–758). ⁴ Under these conditions, an important question is how the unintended “side-effects” of intentional socialization and the ensuing forms of “post-decisional regret” can be avoided as much as possible.

Officially, the system of education can be described as a system specializing in “people-changing” interventions, and thus as a social system that intends to prepare individuals for participation in social systems, and, more particularly, for participation in systems that are different from the settings within which the processes of education take place themselves. Educational intentions may bind a broad range of actions together, but the differentiation of the system of education also displays an underlying “structural deficit” (Luhmann, 1987, 1992; Luhmann and Schorr, 1982). This system cannot achieve what it officially pretends to achieve; it cannot reliably transform input into output. This paradoxical deficit (one cannot do what one does) can perhaps be negated within the educational system itself, but, as Luhmann repeatedly argued, we cannot adequately understand this system without taking into account that its options are structured and channeled by this deficit. ⁵

Differentiation/system

Let us now turn to the differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) of the system of education. According to Luhmann, the differentiation processes make clear:

[h]ow education’s sensitivity and insensitivity to environmental demands simultaneously increase, how autonomy emerges in the educational system (whether intentionally or not), and how the void of necessary internal determination must be filled—by ideals and organization, by ideologies and professional politics, and above all by autonomous reflective theories. (Luhmann, 1995: 206)

But what have been the decisive “moments” in this process of system formation? How did education establish and maintain autonomy in society? How does this system have an impact on the structural stability of our functionally differentiated society?

Typically, functionalist approaches direct attention to forms of specialization and professionalization. In his analysis of the genesis of “working-class education” in Great Britain, for example, Neil Smelser (1991) links functional autonomy with increasing specialization at the level of organizations (schools) and roles (teachers, inspectors, curriculum developers). Luhmann, by contrast, places emphasis on the institutionalization of complementary roles or role expectations for the professionals and their public: roles for politicians and voters in the political system, for doctors and patients in the medical system, for priests and lay people in the case of religion, and so on. His analyses direct attention to the changing forms of inclusion of individuals within society and its function systems.

Luhmann argues, more particularly, that the functional differentiation of modern society hinges on the institutionalization of a range of inclusion imperatives. This differentiation form is intimately linked with the differentiation of the rules for inclusion and exclusion in public roles.

If the society introduces compulsory school education for everyone, if every person regardless of his being nobleman or commoner, being Christian, Jewish, or Moslem, being infant or adult, is subject to the same legal status, if “the public” is provided with a political function as electorate, if every individual is acknowledged as choosing or not choosing a religious commitment; and if everybody can buy everything and pursue every occupation, given the necessary resources, then the whole system shifts in the direction of functional differentiation. (Luhmann, 1977: 40; see also Luhmann, 1997: 618–634)

Luhmann is thus interested in the social mechanisms used to regulate inclusion and participation in different function systems. In his view, different modes of inclusion (and exclusion) allow function systems to elaborate their eigenvalues—often without coordination with other systems. ⁶

As the citation above makes clear, Luhmann links the differentiation of the system of education with the introduction of compulsory school education. In the 18th and 19th centuries, during which the ideal of schooling for all was strongly put forward, education also acquired a new meaning. This “re-description” is probably best known under the title of the invention or discovery of the child (e.g., Ariès, 1960). This re-description refers to a social construction process at the completion of which the child is no longer viewed as an incomplete adult who lives in the same world as adults do, who grows into this world, and who therefore can be educated (i.e., completed) by adults, but who does not necessarily need systematic education in order to become a human being. Instead it is held to be a particular type of human being who lives in a particular type of world, who is naturally responsive to education (for example, by being curious and sensitive), but who also makes education particularly difficult because it lacks good reason and is at the mercy of its own whims and weaknesses. In order to be able to raise children, this re-description thus made it possible to underline the need for an appropriate and stimulating educational milieu. Moreover, the inclusion of the whole population into the process of education became explainable, as everyone comes into the world being helpless and everybody is somehow—the question is: how well?—educated by her/his environment.

After the introduction of compulsory schooling, everybody had to go through the educational mill (Luhmann, 1991; Luhmann and Schorr, 1988). While the requirement for inclusion not only allowed for the rise of a generalized conception of the public, namely a conception that abstracts from the (given) rank characteristics of the family to which the pupils belong, the functional setting of schools also allowed for a re-specification of this “generalized other.” As Luhmann suggests, the educational system has gradually become able to develop its own distinctions to observe and treat its public. By incorporating and articulating notions such as “merit,” “talent,” or “IQ,” for example, it increasingly secured its own space for meaningful educational action and decision-making (Luhmann, 2002: 111–141; Stichweh, 2016).

Next to the discovery of the child and the professionalization of education, the differentiation of the educational system also built on the introduction of new and broader—socially relevant—school curricula. At the moment that schools were opened up to larger populations, emphasis was put on the need to serve these populations. If schools had to exist for the entire nation, they had to prepare all new population members for participation in the different function systems of modern society (Labraña and Vanderstraeten, 2020; Vanderstraeten, 2004). Instead of traditional topics, such as religion and the classical languages, a variety of modern subjects were included in school curricula. Not only could these new curricula serve to underline the social relevance of education, but they also provided structure to educational processes. Based on curriculum planning, specific temporal sequences could be planned and legitimated. Education could be presented as an orderly process, consisting of steps or phases that follow each other in a specific order, while each step or phase could be seen to build on previous accomplishments and to enable new ones, and thus to be part of a more encompassing process. In this sense, the school curricula became key to the internal organization of this expanding function system. ⁷

These structural changes not only affected education in schools with school teachers; they also modified the role expectations with regard to parents and parenting. Teachers are currently not just acting in loco parentis. Consider the impact on the family of the temporal organization of the school day and the school year. Consider the impact of home work or (re)marks on report cards. Or consider possible confrontations between the “natural” authority of parents and the “professional” authority of teachers, for example, during parent–teacher consultations in primary and secondary schools. The process of “schooling the family” displays how balances within the educational system have shifted. Following the expansion of school education, expectations related to school education could more easily impose themselves within the educational system (Tyrell and Vanderstraeten, 2007; Vanderstraeten, 2007).

Despite (and because of!) the development of a range of educational plans, Luhmann has criticized the ways in which the educational system understands or gives form to its own function. In the monograph Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem, Luhmann and Schorr (1988) argue that the “reflection theories” developed and celebrated in this system (and, especially, the German, subject-oriented traditions of educational philosophy or pedagogy) fall short of adequately steering this system, because they fail to give attention to the complexities that are characteristic of demanding educational processes and of life in modern society. These theories put emphasis on the benefits of (more) education at the individual level, but they are blind to many of the complexities of the social world we live in. Luhmann repeatedly asked whether the price of the unforeseen and unintended “side-effects” of education was not too high (both for individual human beings and for modern society), and whether the results of the time invested in education were not worse than omitting educational efforts altogether. In his words: “It is an illusion to believe that this [educational plans] could happen in a way that matches reality or even approaches completion—though at best, it is a well-functioning illusion” (Luhmann, 1995: 207). However, this illusion has not led to a widespread disbelief in the function of education. Given the rapid expansion of the educational system, we might ask how it is changing modern society and its psychic environment. We might also ask how individuals and other function systems now adapt to education and the way it organizes itself.

Schooling/world society

Historically, Luhmann argued, the differentiation and formation of the system of education took place at a relatively late moment. It is only after the differentiation of function systems for politics, economics, religion, and, in part, also for science, that the prospects for education began to change. With his typical irony, however, Luhmann also questioned the rationality of this arrangement:

As with the completion of a puzzle, the pieces that have already been differentiated (from the others) have a suggestive influence on what can possibly and must necessarily be connected to them. But, unlike with a puzzle, it is not certain from the outset that a complete picture will be produced or that it will be understandable as a whole. (Luhmann and Schorr, 1988: 24)

In this light, we now look at the ways in which the system or education is changing modern world society.

To discuss how the system of education functions nowadays, it is helpful to return to the problem of double contingency. Education affects the structural stability of modern society when it facilitates the ongoing reproduction of communication systems. In the (more or less) recent past, Luhmann argues, individuals have become able to experience the effects of education in two ways: (almost) everyone is raised and educated in schools, and (almost) everyone can assume in their contacts with everyone else, that they too were raised and educated in schools. As a consequence, individuals are thus in the position to choose social contacts on the basis of educationally defined (and certified) bits of knowledge, which they can assume to be acquired by themselves and by the others. They are not only themselves for several years of their life included in school education, but they have also become “consumers” of educational “outputs” (Luhmann and Schorr, 1988: 28).

Seen in this light, the function of education cannot be limited to the education of individual human beings. Education only functions, when it includes large populations. Education now creates an important basis for the expectations and actions of others because individuals are able to assume that others, whom they might engage with, are educated too. In our complex and differentiated society, it also makes sense to direct attention to specific types of “output”: not just (well-)educated individuals, but individuals with particular qualifications. Educational credentials and degrees (as well as particular school results, and so on) facilitate the autopoiesis of social systems, while they provide individuals with signposts of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and expertise which people possess. ⁸ They make it easier to meet “on common ground” and establish communicative relationships.

A broad variety of role structures has now become coupled with educational outputs and credentials. While people’s career planning has come to rely heavily on education, especially on credentials and degrees acquired in schools and universities, the demand for education has increased substantially in most parts of the world. Not only has enrollment in primary and secondary education mostly become compulsory, but enrollments in postsecondary institutions have also grown apace. In recent decades, the proportion of the age cohort going on from secondary school graduation to some kind of higher education is often more than 50 per cent—a situation unprecedented historically. What one or two generations ago was considered a normal education has become totally inadequate (Baker, 2014). As a strong belief in education has become incorporated into basic social structures, we might also say that education is able to export its standards to its social environment.

A clear indication of this shift is the fact that expenses for education are now commonly perceived as investments in human capital. From an economic perspective, the impact of educational credentials and degrees on the labour market is nowadays unquestionable. Although it can be questioned what students really learn at school, there is little doubt that the labour market has become increasingly organized around educational credentials and that educational credentials now constitute formal requirements for entry into a broad range of occupations (Bills, 2004). We might, in other words, also say that other function systems have adapted to the expansion of the educational system. Existing expectations have changed in reaction to the rise of new forms of qualification.

Important, too, is the fact that the distinction between high- and low-schooled individuals currently acquires special importance. Early school leaving has become a social problem precisely at a time when school participation is on the increase. At the moment when it became more or less self-evident to participate in higher education, it also became problematic not to finish school and graduate. Despite the fact that the number of early school leavers has decreased drastically during the last decades, the expansion of formal education has created a “dropout problem” for people who quit school at an early age (Dorn, 1996). This dropout problem is another indication of the growing social belief in education and educational credentials. Early school dropout has increasingly become a social issue—and not just an educational one. Increasing expectations with regard to full inclusion in secondary and higher education have brought about new exclusion problems.

The distinction between the high- and the low-schooled also gains relevance in socio-geographical regard. The shifting expectations regarding education nowadays lead to new forms of geographical segregation and clustering at both ends of the human capital distribution. On the one hand, social and economic geographers now point to the geographically uneven rise of the so-called knowledge economy. It is the “smart” or “skilled” city which currently flourishes (e.g., Glaeser and Saiz, 2004; Moretti, 2013). The geographical clustering of university graduates has increased markedly; “hubs” or “hot spots,” characterized by high concentrations of university graduates, are emerging at the global level. On the other hand, additional analyses also point to the lasting geographical segregation of early school leavers or school dropouts. Just as some places and local labour markets have become attractive because of the presence of many high-schooled individuals, other labour markets suffer from the presence of comparatively high shares of unschooled individuals. Geographical inequality and educational inequality can now be used as indices of social inequality (Vanderstraeten and Van der Gucht, 2015).

But is it useful to characterize the contemporary world society as a “schooled society” (Baker, 2014)? For sure, never before have so many individuals dedicated so much time, energy, and resources to becoming educated. At the same time, however, many distinctions produced within the educational system remain socially irrelevant, or only gain relevance under conditions that cannot be controlled by the educational system itself. The economic value of education, for example, depends very much on specific forms of production and their organization. In other function systems, other distinctions are used to make sense of the world. We are familiar with definitions of society which highlight the (un-)importance of particular function systems, including secular society (religion), capitalist society (economy), democratic society (politics), and knowledge society (science). In various ways, all major function systems leave their mark on world society. Education can now surely be added to this list. But our functionally differentiated society is only loosely integrated (Luhmann, 1997). In this light, it makes sense to give ample attention to the heterogeneity of contemporary society.

Conclusion

In his functional analyses, Luhmann looked at functions as particular problems which arise in the course of social evolution. These functional problems make it possible to join together and organize specific kinds of activities, to distinguish between alternatives, and so on. But these problems cannot be met within the different function systems; they rather constitute self-reproducing catalysts which drive these systems and modern society (e.g., Luhmann, 2017: 1017–1060). From this perspective, Luhmann also looked at the function of education in modern society. He connected the function of education with the problem of structural stability within modern society, but also pointed to the lasting impact of a structural deficit underlying the educational system. Time and again, his analyses of education focus attention on the “dysfunctionality” of this function system (Vanderstraeten, 2019).

The structural deficit characterizing the educational system is the counterpart of the autopoiesis of social and psychic systems. Education cannot intentionalize and rationalize socialization processes, given the distinction between the social system of society and the multitude of psychic and bodily systems in its environment. It thus cannot achieve what it pretends to achieve. Luhmann argues, moreover, that the educational system does not adequately react to its structural deficit. As it is currently organized, it does not reduce existing tensions (Luhmann, 1987, 1992; Luhmann and Schorr, 1982, 1988). The differentiation and formation of this function system have increased the distance between society and its psychic environment. The more time people spend at school, the less prepared they become for the demands of society (Luhmann, 1981, 1995).

At the same time, it makes sense to ask why education is currently widely believed to be functional in/for modern society. In the preceding section, I have tried to look at the ways in which education has become relevant within society, and, more particularly, at the ways in which education changes the system of society of which it is itself part. This side of the relationship between education and society is hitherto still largely uncharted territory, although it is becoming increasingly clear that a belief in the functionality of education now defines basic parameters of the demand for and supply of education, and also contributes to the formation of specific characteristics of the contemporary world society. It will be important to integrate analyses of the rise of the “schooled society” with the broad range of other analyses and assessments of the dominant structures of world society.

As Luhmann argued, the differentiation of the educational system was a relatively late development which built upon and complemented other processes of functional differentiation. In the present-day world society, however, education has acquired a fairly robust social identity. More than in previous decades, educational distinctions now constitute a difference that makes a social difference. Luckily, one might say, however, the integration of society is not only dependent upon the way education functions. Luckily, the educational system is only 1 of 10 or more function systems.