Summary
The case study is dedicated to the analysis of ‘Myths in narrated educational and childhood experiences in the GDR’ based on interviews with contemporary witnesses relating to images of childhood, school and education. An analysis of the available biographical interviews relating to educational myths will be carried out, new interviews with former respondents will be collected, evaluated and compared with the results of the re-analysis. Conceptually and methodologically, the case study is based on theories of social memory (Halbwachs 1985, Assmann 1999, Welzer 2006), structural myth theory (Barthes 2010) and oral history (Thompson 1973, Niethammer 1991).
The case study focuses on the reflexive transfer potential of concise eyewitness accounts for the problem of how historical knowledge about the educational processes of the GDR is preserved and transformed in the communicative memory of society through a combination of transmission and reinterpretation. The case study is part of the research network ‘Educational Myths of the GDR’ and is located at the University of Hildesheim in the sub-project ‘Constructions of Childhood’.
Joint project: Educational Myths of the GDR
Participating institutions: Library for Educational History Research Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Rostock, University of Hildesheim
Link: https://bildungsmythen-ddr.de/projekt
Spokesperson for the network: Prof. Dr. Sabine Reh
The entire joint project investigates myths about the education system in the GDR. It asks how these myths were able to reinforce their positive assessment in the “post-reunification period”. Firstly, narratives from biographical interviews with people who grew up in the GDR are analysed as components of a “collective memory”. Secondly, these narratives are critically reconstructed and placed in their historical context using various previously unexplored and unprocessed image sources, videographies and written sources from the education and training system of the GDR.
Subproject: Constructions of Childhood in the GDR (subproject of the University of Hildesheim)
Subproject team: Prof. Dr. Meike Sophia Baader, Prof. Dr. Michael Corsten, Dr. Simon Gordt (2020-2021), Dr. Sandra Koch, Friederike Neumann, Dr. Melanie Pierburg
The subproject at the University of Hildesheim consists of the case studies ‘Myths in narrated educational and childhood experiences in the GDR’ (Prof. Dr. Michael Corsten) and ‘Image worlds in children’s literature and schoolbooks in the GDR’ (Prof. Dr. Meike Sophia Baader).