Case study: Re-mythologisation as a real product of socialist personality development
In the case study Re-mythologisation as a real product of socialist personality development (TP III, University of Hildesheim; Corsten & Pierburg), 100 interviews from earlier studies (Niethammer et al., 1991; v. Plato, n.d.; Corsten et al., 2008) are evaluated using secondary analysis. These interviews were conducted at various points in time (30 interviews from 1987/88 during the GDR era, 10 from 1992 and 60 from 2001-2010) with adult individuals and cover a wide spectrum of birth cohorts (1928-1980). The project focuses on the systematic re-analysis of these interviews based on the mythical themes of “biographical normality fiction”, “community pathos” and “restrained loyalty to the system”. In addition, contemporary witnesses from the available samples are re-interviewed in order to determine, in a longitudinal design, which of the mythical themes are constant and which are changing and how. This will enable cross-sectional comparisons with the two other narrative-analytical case studies (see below “Cluster C”).
The case study is part of the joint project ‘Between Educational Myths and Counter-Narratives,’ a collaboration between the Library for Educational Research Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, the University of Rostock and the University of Hildesheim.
Joint project: Between Educational Myths and Counter-Narratives. The struggle for narratives and biographical positions on the GDR
The joint project ‘Between Educational Myths and Counter-Narratives’ builds on the results of the project work from an initial funding phase. The central result was the identification and reconstruction of two motifs and narratives in particular that date back to the GDR and have survived it, with high mythologising potential in the field of education. Following on from this, the aim is now to reconstruct contradictions, possibly also objections and counter-narratives, struggles for interpretation, tacit resistance, but also active opposition to these educational myths in the GDR, which are closely linked to ideas of a “modern” education system. In the joint project, the case study is located in Cluster C:
Cluster C: Myth derivations – educational histories between fictional normality, community pathos and systemic scepticism
When myths diffuse into people’s everyday narratives, they take on special forms that differ from other modes of narrative representation of facts, such as patterns of interpretation, rationalisation or justification (cf. Corsten, Gordt & Pierburg, 2023). Educational myths are rare phenomena in the empirical evidence of educational biographical narratives. The accounts of contemporary witnesses on the education system in the GDR hardly documented models of “socialist personality development”, but rather mythical themes, symbolic fragments or set pieces of everyday or social patterns of interpretation that refer to gaps, frictions and resistances, are linked to specific experiences of the educational world in the GDR and reflect these. The narrative analysis-oriented case studies thus provide the overall network with answers to questions about the contexts in which educational myths are linked to everyday practice and whether and how expectations of “socialist” education proved (or prove) themselves. In this way, the genesis and variation of narrative patterns can be reconstructed and identified across educational biographies; shifts, reinterpretations and relativisations of educational myths over time come into focus.
Case Studies in Cluster C:
Re-mythologisation as a real product of socialist personality development (Prof. Dr. Michael Corsten, Dr. Melanie Pierburg, both University of Hildesheim)
Narrated childhood experiences in the GDR (Dr. Irene Leser, HU Berlin)
Shared childhood memories – narratives in the memory dialogue between primary school pupils and older people from divided Germany (Prof. Dr. Detlef Pech, Dr. Julia Peuke, both HU Berlin)