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6.1 Self-description and Reflection

The education system, like any other subsystem of the functionally differentiated society, includes its own semantics (Sect. 3.4.6), i.e. the communicative production of ideas, ideals, values, images of itself as distinct from its environment, concepts and theories that reflect on the specificity of education. According to Luhmann, pedagogy is the theory of education, more precisely the theory of reflection of the education system, i.e. the theory whereby the system observes and describes itself. Each subsystem of the functionally differentiated society develops theories of reflection: there are theories of knowledge in the science system, theology in the religion system, theories of law, theories of economy, theories of aesthetic in the system of art, and so on. This chapter analyses how the subsystems of the functionally differentiated society develop and construct this kind of theories, in particular the ways in which the education system develops and constructs pedagogical theories.

It is preliminarily important to highlight the distinction between operation and observation, which was introduced in Sect. 3.3.4. This distinction is perhaps one of the most abstract contributions in Luhmann’s theory, and radicalises and connects different scientific developments, in particular the concept of autopoiesis, as proposed by Maturana in biology, and the concept of observation, as proposed by Von Foerster in cybernetics and Spencer Brown in logic. As explained in Sect. 3.3.1, at the operational level, social systems produce and reproduce themselves though communication. At this level, the content of communication is not relevant: a lecture in the classroom reproduces communication like a football game, a religious service or a debate in Parliament. However, when we consider what is communicated, we look at communication as an operation of observation. In this case, communication is considered insofar as it states something producing information, which may be attributed to someone’s utterance. In short, each communication reproduces the social system on the one hand, and produces contents to which the social system can refer on the other.

As we have seen in Sect. 3.4.6, Luhmann defines contents of communication as semantics. Semantics condenses meaning, confirms it, remembers or forgets it (Luhmann 1997:2012, Sect. 3.13). When dissemination media, such as writing and printing, were differentiated in society, semantics started to evolve in a relatively autonomous way from societal structures. Against this background, it is necessary to distinguish between systemic structures (the form of differentiation of society or the structures of its subsystems) and semantic structures, which produce distinctions, and therefore knowledge, including anything that can be used in communication. Communication observes, i.e. constructs, reality through these distinctions.

The reality constructed in a social system includes the system itself, as the system can observe itself and produce a corresponding semantics. Social systems observe themselves through communication: every communication, by referring to the previous ones, can refer to either information, thus continuing the talk about what was talked about, or utterance, e.g. by questioning motives, intentions, and interests. The determination of who has produced the utterance, what has been uttered, why it has been uttered and when it has been uttered, enables the autopoiesis of communication to continue. This implies that social systems, and in particular society, depend on continuous self-observation. In the classroom, for example, the teacher continuously focuses on specific topics or thematises the ways in which the pupils behave, and the pupils can talk about the teacher’s attitudes, preferences and intentions. At this interactional level, however, self-observation can only be a topic of discussion in the classroom. Social systems can build much more complex and articulated self-observations, which are condensed in texts, which are self-descriptions of the social system within the social system (see Sect. 3.4.6). Self-descriptions coordinate specific self-observations and can be recognised and reused for different purposes. Self-descriptions stabilise a semantics that allows the social system to refer to itself in different conditions.

Self-descriptions lead to the reflection (see Sect. 3.4.6) of the social system upon itself when semantics is produced to indicate the unity of the system. This indication allows the social system to distinguish itself from its environment, and therefore also from other social systems. Reflection has the function to build the identity of the system; it is a selective self-indication marking the difference of the system from its environment. Identity is not a ‘copy’ of reality, but is rather a form of re-entry of the difference between system and environment into the system. Identity is a self-description that leads the social system to reflect on what possibilities are excluded from the form of identity itself. Therefore, reflection does not anchor the social system to some reality; rather it stimulates structural change and creates uncertainty in the social system (Luhmann 1990b, pp. 483, 537).

When its identity is problematized in the social system, reflection takes the form of reflection theory through an internal search for, and comparison of, different solutions to the problem of identity (Sect. 3.4.6). Reflection theories require sophisticated and selective methodological and conceptual criteria. They provide articulated descriptions of the structural and operational features of social systems. In the case of the education system, reflection theories provide articulated descriptions of the function of education, of educational organisations (schools and universities), of classroom interaction and of the history of the education system.

Reflection theories tend to describe themselves as sciences, as they are used to search for functional equivalents (see Sect. 3.1) concerning the solution of problems of identity. They describe themselves as educational or pedagogical sciences, especially in the German tradition, economic sciences, political sciences, legal sciences, and so on. According to Luhmann, however, this is an abuse of the term ‘science’, which is employed to legitimise reflection theories and to build trust in their capacity to loose and recombine (Auflöse- und Rekombinationsvermögen) conceptual semantics. Only the reflection theories of the science system are ‘scientific’ in a strict sense. In particular, according to Luhmann, pedagogical theories seek support in their ability to compare different educational traditions or structures, including moral and humanistic values, rather than in the descriptive power of scientific concepts. For this reason, pedagogical theories are more uncertain and unstable than scientific ones (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Sect. 4.4).

Reflection theories are important for the self-organisation of subsystems in the functionally differentiated society. In particular, they reflect on the diversity of operational plans in these systems. The difference between the operational plans of the various subsystems leads to a differentiation of reflection theories. For example, economic theories reflect on the multiplicity of transactions, theories of law reflect on the diversity of judgments in court, and pedagogical theories reflect on the diversity of classroom interactions (Luhmann 2002, p. 202). The systematic reference to these operational plans determines important limitations for the conceptual elaboration of reflection theories, but it also lets these theories free to choose the forms of their conceptual constructions.

Reflection theories are not provided for direct use in practical contexts. The scientific style of formulations leads these theories to take a distance from the practices in social systems, although they are produced within these systems. It is beyond any doubt that theories of law concern decisions in courts, economic theories concern transaction conditions, and pedagogical theories concern the practical conditions of educational communication in the classroom. However, these reflection theories are not provided to be used in courts, transactions or classrooms, as this practical use would create strong constraints for them, preventing their abstraction and generalisation, therefore also preventing the construction of identity of the overall system within the system.

6.2 Pedagogy as a Reflection Theory of the Education System

As we have seen, pedagogy is the reflection theory of the education system, describing purposes and institutions of this system. Pedagogy is engaged not only in defining education as a subsystem of the functionally differentiated society, but also in criticising it, posing problems and looking for different and equivalent solutions of the problem of identity of education. In this sense, pedagogy aims to be ‘scientific’ and establishes specific needs of conceptual coherence, although not necessarily in scientifically acceptable way. According to Luhmann, pedagogy is an academic discipline, rather than a science (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Chap. 4).

Pedagogy began to take shape as a theory of education when it took control of the learning process, depriving the family of this authority and reflecting on the conditions under which pupils can be better educated in the absence of family ties. In the eighteenth century education was still anchored to humanism (Sect. 4.1), but with the introduction of educational interaction (erziehender Unterricht) and the concept of pupil, the education system started to determine its autonomy (Luhmann 1997:2013, pp. 237–238). The object of education changed, as the pupil was no longer defined as an adult under development, therefore imperfect, but as an observer with her/his own world, acting and reacting to her/his own internal dynamics. This allowed the development of a pedagogical ideal that on the one hand considered the whole humanity as perfectible and on the other promoted adult education. In contemporary pedagogy, this has shifted the focus from the education of pupils to the life course (Sect. 4.8).

Three main issues led to the development of pedagogy over the past centuries (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Introduction): (1) the autonomy of the education system, which requires reflection on its differentiation as a subsystem of the functionally differentiated society; (2) the control over the effects of education which requires a specific technology and its application in educational practices; (3) the social consequences of education, which raise the issue of educational responsibility for the process of social selection (see also Sect. 5.4).

6.3 Reflecting on the Autonomy of the Education System

Reflection on the autonomy of education requires the semantic construction of ‘formulas’ that symbolise the unity of the education system, thus allowing the construction of its identity (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a/2000, Sect. 1.4). Symbolising the unity of a social system means that this system must be able to indicate, in a unified way, not only what it is, but also what it might be. In other words, a social system must reflect on the contingency of its structures.

An important observation in the functionally differentiated society is that everything could be different from what it is. However, this observation does not guarantee any operational connection, leading instead to indeterminacy. Semantic formulas allow the expression of contingency in a way that can be used at the operational level, leading to both imagine other possibilities and provide plausible determinations. Luhmann calls these formulas contingency formulas. On the one hand, contingency formulas are ideal and not specified formulas; on the other hand, they are sufficiently structured to allow specification (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a, Sect. 1.6). Contingency formulas allow the system to deal with the need of contingency, both formulating the unity of its internal distinctions and raising the question of which other distinctions would be possible. This is a paradoxical formulation (concerning both what exists and what would be otherwise possible) forcing the system to reflection (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Sect. 4.2).

Contingency formulas are produced in all the subsystems of the functionally differentiated society. The contingency formula in the economy system is scarcity, which leads to reflecting on the function of this system and raises the question of how needs satisfaction can be postponed. Political theories have originally considered the common good as a social aim, but with the development of the welfare state and its problems, the contingency formula of legitimacy has become more relevant, representing political preferences. In the law system, the contingency formula is justice, and this system systematically looks for decisional criteria that are compatible with it. The scientific contingency formula states that possibilities must be contained to allow the production of scientific truth/falsity, for example through the criterion of falsifiability. In all these cases, contingency is limited, but without precise indications on how the social systems should operate and on what kind of structures they should develop.

The education system has developed a sequence of contingency formulas in its history. In the eighteenth century, pedagogical theories elaborated the ideal of ‘human perfection’, distinguishing between perfection (Vollkommenheit) of the human being, as harmonious formation, usability (Brauchbarkeit) of the results of education, and happiness (Glückseligkeit) of human beings. In this way, the education system articulated its function in society (perfection), its performance for the other societal subsystems (usability), and its own reflection (happiness).

The idea of perfection in particular is very old and became relevant for education when pedagogy reflected on the way in which the (potentially perfect) human being can be brought to its natural completeness through nature, i.e. the way in which nature can be used against nature. According to philanthropic thought, education should develop all human provisions until the ideal state of happiness is reached. The purpose of education is not reaching truth, but happiness, and education is necessary because human beings are inherently selfish and must therefore be guided. This idea raised for the first time the problem of educational tools, i.e. of educational technologies. The idea of perfection refers to religion and morality, following the belief that, without religion, society cannot be improved. Perfection can therefore be specified in educational programmes only based on religion. In the second half of the eighteenth century, however, perfection was redefined as perfectibility, paving the way for different interpretations of the idea (now simply an ideal) of perfection.

In this period, family education was still important in pedagogical theories; it was based on moral and social criteria (e.g. gallantry, pedantry). It was only when classroom education became central that family education had to be redefined based on its relationship with school. However, most children of the upper class were still educated at home, and school was seen as a more constrictive institution. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, however, pedagogy stopped considering family and school as competitors and started seeing them as different phases of the educational process.

Luhmann and Schorr (1979a/2000) point out that, at this stage of differentiation, the education system did not conflict with religion and family, which were considered at the origin of the educational process. The change in reflection depended on economy. The industrial revolution began without posing the problem of training the workforce, despite placing demands on education. However, the pressure of economy caused for the first time a contrast between the function and the performance of education. On the one hand, there was still a tendency to reach human perfection; on the other, it became necessary to take into account the needs of the ‘division of labour’ and of the rising organised industrial economy. Work became the normal business of everyone, but it was hard to think of it as a form of perfection. Organised work required rationality, standardisation and new skills. Pedagogy had to adapt to these changes, for example setting up industrial schools where teaching and production could take place together. The economy developed rapidly and the tension between the ideal of perfection and the practical usability of education became very strong.

New important questions arose in pedagogy. How can be perfection consistent with utility, and how can both be consistent with the happiness of human beings? How is it possible to reconcile human beings and citizens? The first suggested solutions, for example through a sequence (first perfection, then utility) or a selection (upper class has more chances to reach perfection), worked for a short time. The incompatibility between the function of education (perfection) and its performance (usability) forced pedagogy to change the contingency formula.

The new formula came from Germany: Bildung. This term is difficult to translate into other languages while respecting the pedagogical meaning that it had in the second half of the eighteenth century, i.e. education and formation, as well as self-formation. Luhmann and Schorr (1979a/2000, Sect. 1.11) argue that the change started thanks to the organisational potential of the state, which implemented the differentiation of schools and universities and the employment of academic staff to administer them. The pedagogical semantics, however, continued to refer to the human being and to education as fulfilment of the inner form of individuals, in short to the ideal of perfection. What was relatively new was the belief that pupils should actively take part in the educational process, thus contributing to Bildung.

A major change came from Kantian philosophy, which overturned the traditional foundations of education, proposing that it is not education that grounds morality, but morality that grounds education. The aspects that were important in the old conception, i.e. personal interests, pleasant sensations and even the ideal of happiness, as well as confidence in the possibility of building educational technologies that could be tested and verified, were first questioned and then abandoned. Wilhelm von Humboldt contributed to this development, becoming famous in the German-speaking area, and very influential in the European debate. His contribution to education was based on two basic points. First, the ambition to build a science-based education by unifying different disciplines (the idea of a Humboldt-University, which is still considered the modern foundation of university); thus, education can no longer rely on scientific criteria to prefer some disciplines with respect to others, but it must rather develop the idea of a unifying science. Second, the idea of the subject as a self-formed individual. According to this perspective, human beings were born as individuals and can be educated only as persons (Sect. 4.4), and no longer based on natural factors. The theory of Bildung arose from the combination of these two basic points as a ‘harmonious’ relationship between subject and science. The subject is formed and developed through knowledge and with reference to universality; the world is open for humankind, and science enables humankind to refer to the world. The individual is idealised and education loses its role of building human beings starting from their natural dispositions. Subject and education are the two sides of a circular relationship, where individuals ‘form’ themselves through education that ‘forms’ them as individuals.

The pedagogical problem is thus reformulated, reflecting on how it is possible to teach people to be individuals and to aim to universality, i.e. how it is possible to reconcile education constraints and individual freedom. The problem was formulated by rethinking the relationship between function and performance, i.e. by rethinking the question of the utility of education, rather than by reflecting on the function of education. The point was that utility cannot be opposed to Bildung; how individuals realise their relationships with the world is an individual business, and through Bildung each individual learns how to manage this relationship in an infinite variety of ways, as individuality is infinite.

The turning point that connected pedagogy to the philosophical production of the time was the detachment of education from the family. The new pedagogy needed to explain why fathers were no longer in charge of education, which was now performed in schools through educational interactions. While for fathers education was a ‘quasi natural’ occupation, in schools it had to be built through teaching, competence and scientific truth. The connection with the ‘political-economic’ ideas of the nineteenth century is clear: schools are more suitable for education because they can break the bond with the family, in the same way as alienation can guarantee the realisation of workers’ self-consciousness. Pupils can understand themselves only at a cognitive level, therefore only through school education, i.e. through Bildung. University became the place where ‘real’ education takes place, because here the objective world ‘resists’ to scientific research, and this motivates learning. Clearly, only science was able to satisfy the needs of education, in particular didactical needs. Scientific knowledge could guarantee the ability of pedagogy to realise Bildung, and thus the independence of subjects, regardless of the social contexts in which individuals could try to fulfil themselves.

In this way, at both the organisational and the semantic level, and under the guidance of pedagogy, the education system differentiated itself as a subsystem of society. The individual could be considered only through Bildung, despite the fact that in the late nineteenth century other theories of individuality emerged, relying on different factors, for example the division of labour. Nevertheless, the contingency formula of Bildung began to show its limits; being centred on the individual, the education system could not reflect on itself within itself as a subsystem of society. This was clarified by the difficulty in conceiving educational performances. The idea that the individual is the centre of every educational process excluded the possibility of distinguishing education from teaching. Nor was it possible to ground education on the idea of emancipation of the subject, as this idea only leads to a critique of society without clarifying how the infinite horizons of the world and the subject can be defined and specified. The ideal of Bildung became synonymous with education, even in the school organisation, and thus it became impossible to determine it. How can the education system orient itself to universality and at the same time specify itself in all the educational forms that include the whole population?

Luhmann and Schorr (1979a/2000, Sect. 1.12) argue that pedagogy has abandoned the universalism of the subject who faces the world, orienting itself to the learning process as such. Thus, the self-reference of the learning process has become relevant: the learning ability, i.e. learning to learn, is the new contingency formula. The idea is not new, as it can be found in Humboldt, who however confined it to the university, where the individual was supposed to be sufficiently autonomous. The real novelty lies in the connection between learning ability and school, thus concerning the whole education.

Learning does not mean acquiring knowledge or skills, but taking advantage from what has been learned to continue learning. Learning is a future-oriented concept, as it means continuous reworking of the learned patterns in situations that cannot be predicted and are therefore always new. Learning is not a modern virtue, rather it is a special ability that can be applied in any occasion and, therefore, should be always available. Thus, learning indicates the willingness to adapt, i.e. cognitive expectations rather normative expectations (see Sect. 3.3.2). In the education system, reflexivity of internal processes replaces founding principles and, although anything may be different, limitations can only be derived from these processes, therefore they can only be found inside the system.Footnote 1

In the temporal dimension, learning ability creates the future in each present, i.e. in each moment in which what has been learned is recombined in a given situation. This involves the need to select the teaching subjects not based on the knowledge that has to be learned, but on the process of learning to learn, which requires specific curricula and educational technologies. From the point of view of the function of education, topics are interesting if they favour adaptation. From the point of view of the educational performance, adaptation should be contextual. The relationship between function and performance is thus rebalanced.

Learning ability is a contingency formula, not a target to be reached. It limits what it is possible. However, limitations cannot come from learning ability itself, because learning ability has no limits in itself; in principle, it is always possible to learn more and better. Through this contingency formula, the education system becomes more and more autonomous from other subsystems, including science, which provides most of the knowledge that is taught. The reference to economy continues to be important, e.g. through vocational training, but this does not imply that education becomes dependent on economy. School and university education do not guarantee a smooth transition to work. On the contrary, the higher the education is, the more difficult it is to apply the learned abilities in the workplace. The reference to the ‘professional practicality’ of education underestimates this problem, which depends on the autonomy of the education system. The discrepancy between the knowledge that is learned in schools and universities and the knowledge required to work is likely to cause problems and ‘reality shocks’. Problems however can only be addressed through learning ability, which is limited by this discrepancy.

To sum up, the contingency formulas symbolising the pedagogical reflection primarily allow reflection on the autonomy of the education system. Through learning ability, organisational developments, reference to work and to the adaptability of what has been learned, the education system reflects on its differentiation within society and becomes autonomous at the level of educational ‘practices’.

6.4 Reflecting on Time: The Educational Technology

Another problem that arises in the pedagogical reflection is related to the temporal dimension, in particular to the creation and control of the effects of teaching. The pedagogical concept dealing with this problem is that of educational technology.

The problem stems from the fact that teaching must take place in a sequence and this is possible only if one can expect that it will lead to the desired effects, and that errors will be easily identified (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Sect. 1.1, 1982: p. 14ff.). In the nineteenth century, educational technology was conceived by combining (more or less linearly) causality, rationality (according to the means-ends scheme) and sociality (involving the pupils’ subjectivity). The overall picture seemed plausible, but problems arose due to the uncertainty caused by the relationship between different possible causes and the learning process. This uncertainty had to be reduced, in order to make decisions on the teaching practices. Education oriented itself to the output, i.e. to the results that can be observed in the pupils, but it also asked how causes could be identified taking into account the complexity of the classroom and what happens in the classroom every day.

Moving from the concept of Bildung, pedagogy was based on the Kantian scheme that distinguishes between causality at the empirical level and freedom at the transcendental level. This led to a paradoxical combination of causality and freedom. Even today ‘educating to freedom’ is considered an important pedagogical symbolic formula. The idea started from the observation of the possibility to influence the subject’s self-reference, which led to reflect on the conditions of education. The problem, however, was formulated in too general a way and the solutions relied on the superiority (including the technical superiority) of morality, thus entailing that education is based on morality and not vice versa. The problem was the subject’s self-reference: if ‘method’ must realise the general in the particular, and technology must choose the means that adjust to this objective, the education process can work only under a specific condition, i.e. pupils’ participation and involvement. If pupils are free, the question is how they can be educated and how one can ensure that they will behave correctly. Pedagogy reflects on this problem as a technological deficit, therefore looking for the support of morality on the one hand and science on the other, but without solving the problem. Hence, pedagogy has the task of understanding and determining what happens when school classes follow their own dynamics becoming unpredictable (Luhmann and Schorr 1979a:2000, Sect. 2.6). At the end of the nineteenth century the conclusion about the problem of time and of the relationship between causes and effects, was that it is not possible to know if the past can give instructions to the present and if present decisions can be adjusted to the (unknown) future. Pupils’ past and future were no longer understood in a relation between cause (past) and effect (future). Past and future were understood as the two sides of the pupil’s individuality. The pupil’s present became the point of tension between these two temporal horizons, turning into an object of criticism and controversies that needed change and therefore reform.

This development made the traditional ideas of nature and humanism, as well as any anthropological or moral foundation, useless. The education system became autonomous and differentiated, but it could not yet accept the idea of technology, which was deemed to undermine the humanity of human beings. Mass education has not solved the problem of technology, but it has bypassed it. School organisation has unified the differentiated aspects of the educational process, so that the work of the teacher is ensured by differentiating its problems. The technological deficit is thus divided into pedagogical and organisational problems, i.e. in theoretical and practical problems. General pedagogy is concerned with methods and purposes of education, while applied pedagogy deals with specific means of training to educational practices. In this way, the technological deficit is almost hidden in pedagogical theories. Education and teaching can be distinguished and teaching has the function to generate situations that can be evaluated by pedagogy, either providing or not providing solutions for teaching problems. Communication can be oriented to purpose programmes (oriented to future decisions) at the teaching level, and to conditional programs (based on the past) at the educational level.

Luhmann points out that technology (and causality) are always selections that can be attributed to some observer. For each cause, there are countless effects, and for each effect, there are countless causes. Each observer must select the specific connection between cause and effect, and it is here that problems arise. How important is the physical space where teaching takes place? Is the teacher decisive for learning? What is better: chalk and blackboard or multimedia whiteboards? How many pupils is it better to have in a class to ensure adequate teaching and learning? Is it better to rely on ‘apodictic’ teaching programmes (i.e., if it works it works, if not then not) or on conditional programs (if it works there are certain consequences, if not there are others)? Does it make sense to leave space for improvisation, thus creating occasions and trying to seize them? This kind of problems has been posed for a long time, and pedagogy has always been looking for, and producing, educational technologies.

However, the conditions that produce uncertainty in classroom communication cannot be eliminated. This uncertainty depends on double contingency (see Sects. 3.10 and 4.10): in the classroom the relationship between the pupils and the teacher creates uncertainty, and both the pupils and the teacher are aware of this. This condition does not rule out either causality or technology, as education is not limited to its immediate effects in the classroom. Pedagogy aims to achieve long-term purposes with few decisions at the organisational level. However, a discrepancy is generated between the pedagogical ambition to intervene on the presuppositions of individual behaviour and the possibility of providing school organisation, which can only ensure decision-making, verifying whether what should be taught is really taught and learned. Pedagogical reflection is guided by the quality of knowledge, in particular ‘scientific’ knowledge, while school organisation must take into account the ‘micro-politics’ and the exercise of power at the administrative level.

The result is that teachers cannot know whether they are acting properly or adequately, since mistakes or deviations can be attributed to either pedagogical ideals or organisational decisions, or even to their own behaviours. In this complex situation, teachers can only deceive themselves: they must act ‘akratically’ (Luhmann 1987b, p. 64, with reference to Oksenberg Rorty 1980), i.e. they act intentionally but the description of their actions prevents the achievement of their intentions. The meaning that they give to their actions is too generalised; therefore, it loses any contact with the concrete conditions that make their actions possible. The meaning of actions is reaffirmed, although it cannot be realised. The reason for this inability must remain latent; otherwise, communication will be blocked.

6.5 Reflecting on Social Responsibility

The issue of the relationship between social selection and the specific selection medium of the education system has been already discussed in Chap. 5. Luhmann argues that the education system produces internal differences based on the secondary code better/worse, thus exerting an influence on other social systems in society. This statement is consistent with the statistics monitoring how the privileges of the upper social ‘class’ condition educational success. Families having more money to spend can afford better training courses for their children and maybe even access to the best universities. Pupils growing up in privileged cultural environments can ‘inherit’ distinctive attitudes and habits. Families of professionals can guarantee their children jobs in already established organisations. Despite all these considerations, it is exclusively the educational system that can apply the selection code and is fully responsible for it.

The difficulties of pedagogy in reflecting on this problem can be seen not only in the pedagogical discussion on the ‘social’ aspects of selection, but also in the lack of attribution of inequalities to the education system. On the one hand, inequalities are attributed to societal differences; on the other, they are attributed to individual differences between pupils. ‘Talent’ and ‘commitment’ are the key words that indicate the most important forms of attribution. These forms of attribution can be used in educational practices, but they raise a number of questions requiring very difficult answers. What are the causes of a difference of talent between pupils? Are they biological, psychological, or social causes? Is this difference a problem of character or family socialisation? How is it possible to distinguish between talent and commitment? In particular, talent and commitment are two different forms of attribution, i.e. talent, which does not depend on pupils’ decisions, is attributed to external factors, while commitment, which depends on pupils’ will, is attributed to internal factors. This does not mean that talent and commitment are mere inventions of teachers or ‘experts’, but it means that observers do not agree on them, attributing their meaning differently and noting different causes. In short, it is a dilemma with no solution.

Pedagogy discusses this issue by resorting to all sorts of external consultation. However, this is not enough, as an internal reaction is also needed, and in the education system, this results in questioning the educational structures and trying to change them.

6.6 Reforming Education

In the education system, there is great hope to solve internal problems by reforming schools and universities. It seems that education aims to educate itself, always claiming the best for itself. Quality (or in American English, excellence) and equality are the permanent objectives of education reforms. The systematic waves of reform, together with the goals that the education system aims to achieve, lead to some sociological considerations.

First, the two objectives of reform, i.e. quality and equality, are incompatible (Luhmann and Schorr 1988), as it is not possible to create quality without distinguishing between those who are better and those who are worse, i.e. without discriminating someone. Equality does not allow distinguishing different performances or abilities; therefore, should it be achieved, it would block any assessment of quality. It is impossible to educate all pupils in the best possible way, because, if everyone is ‘better’, it will be impossible to understand what ‘better’ means. Therefore, equality and quality cannot be pursued simultaneously, although the idea of equality can be mitigated and reduced to that of ‘equality of opportunities’, which leaves to ‘commitment’ and ‘talent’ the possibility to make a difference in terms of quality (see Sect. 6.3.2). Even in this case, however, it would not be possible to guarantee or prove that the produced inequalities are not due to social differences, such as class, habits (Bourdieu 1979:1984), or family origins.

The idea of quality (or excellence) hides a paradox that pedagogy rarely observes and deals with: ‘quality’ is not a symbolic unity, but it is a difference, as education cannot have the best unless it also creates the worst. Education cannot have one side of the distinction without the other. Since selection is a code (see Sect. 5.3), a performance can be indicated as better only if it is possible to indicate another one as worse. This means that the education system always produces both sides (better and worse) and that the distinction itself is produced by the system. Reforms apply this code to the education system itself; they suggest that a better future for this system can be achieved through reforms, but this suggestion requires the awareness that the present is worse than that future. If we observe the education system, and not simply some specific educational organisations, we can see that better and worse are always simultaneous, i.e. education is always better and worse at the same time. This paradox is usually concealed by formulating the distinction in the dimension of time, so that today is worse than tomorrow, and tomorrow will be better than today thanks to a given reform. A well-known case is the wave of reforms of the sixties, which involved all educational institutions in the ‘Western world’, as it was called at that time. The triggering factor was the launch of the Sputnik by the Russians in 1957, which caused such a stir in public opinion that some pedagogists talked of ‘educational catastrophe’. The socialist countries seemed far ahead of the ‘free world’ in terms of technological advancement, and this was attributed to the poor quality of the education system in the US. This observation led to all sorts of initiatives to improve education, in the United States as well as in Western Europe, with an emphasis and wealth of means and resources that was never reached again in the following decades.

Another sociological consideration of considerable importance concerns the object of reforms. Pedagogy talks of reform only when it plans important changes, aiming to improve society by improving education. This ambition legitimises the denomination of change as ‘reform’, rather than adaptation or variation of some specific factor. The question that thus arises, however, is what can be made an object of reform?

Luhmann proposes to distinguish three different types of system (Sect. 3.4.1): (1) society as an encompassing social system that includes all communication; (2) organisations, like schools and universities, based on membership; (3) interactions, like classroom interactions, based on the mutual perception of participants. Against this background, the question is which of the three types of system can be reformed? This question can be answered only if we identify the systems to which decisions can be applied. This limitation excludes society as an object of reform; society certainly changes continuously, both at the operational level, through each communication, and at the structural level, processing experiences through the distinction between fulfilment and disappointment of expectations; however, it is not possible to decide about these changes. As Luhmann states, quoting Fuchs (1992), society is ‘unreachable’. In their turn, interactions can certainly be planned to some extent. However, the changes introduced in and through interactions become relevant only if they can go beyond the boundaries of the single interaction, and can thus be generalised at different levels, for example at the organisational level. In fact, reforms can take into account only organisational variables (Corsi 1994). Reforms concern the premises of decisions in organisations, i.e. personnel, communication ways and decision programming. Social structures can be intentionally changed only at this level. In the case of the education system, therefore, reforms can only concern schools and universities, in particular their decision-making structures.

Reforms may concern firstly personnel, e.g. the criteria of selection of teachers, their training, their salary, their number, which determines the size of the educational establishment. Secondly, reforms may concern communication ways, e.g. teachers’ administrative and educational competencies and responsibilities, in the classroom as well as in the school organisation. Finally, reforms may concern decision-making programmes, e.g. the objectives that have to be achieved in terms of curricula and syllabi, the forms of assessment and the criteria of access to and exit from schools and universities. These are the types of variables available for reform, which cannot concern the whole society or the education as a societal subsystem. Against this background, the values and desires of reformers cannot be turned into decisions; it is impossible to decide to either improve the pupils’ performances or make the pupils equal or better.

These are not the only limitations of reforms. Another problem, which is common to all the subsystems of the functionally differentiated society, is that reforms are not linear processes, for example linear sequences of planning, implementation and evaluation. Here we can see the circularity that is typical of all communication processes; as soon as the intention of reform becomes visible, the situation becomes unpredictable. People take sides, change their preferences, fear possible developments, oscillating between old and new ideas. Consequently, decisions are delayed and/or adapted to the context, which gradually takes different forms. The realisation of a reform requires strategies taking into account these changes. For this reason, a function of reforms could be making visible differences of interest that would otherwise be only latent and only left to discussions and tensions in organisational interactions (meetings, administrative bodies, etc.). The advantage of reforms is that the system produces controversial, if not contradictory, self-descriptions, which makes it possible to create resistance of the system against itself. This is an advantage because in this way the system gets a more realistic representation of reality, opening up several possible scenarios and thus increasing the decision-making potential.

Conversely, reforms have not the function to achieve the objectives that they propose. This can be seen in the fact that reforms envisage a specific future by forgetting the past, in particular forgetting the reforms that have already been tried. Quoting Nils Brunsson (Brunsson and Olsen 1993), Luhmann uses the term ‘forgetfulness’: reforms forget that their objectives have been pursued in other past reforms and even forget the reasons of failure of these previous attempts. This is one of the major resources available to reformers: a new platform is proposed, from which the reform can start and thanks to which proposals seem to be formulated for the first time. Again, the expected result of reforms is the production of new possibilities of self-observation, which cannot be obtained without attempting to achieve the reform. Reforms exploit the fact that the past is known, while the future is unpredictable. However, the past is known only to some extent, as only a small part of what happened is remembered, and what is forgotten is unknown. This forgetfulness allows reformers to present their reforms as new and transform uncertainty about the future in opportunities to determine it. Reforms are thus articulated temporal paradoxes, dealing with the indeterminable as determined; in this way, they also become a past that can be observed. If they are considered in the context of time, reforms do not have the function to achieve the objectives that they propose, but rather to promote the structural dynamics of the system.

Luhmann (2000c, pp. 330–360) proposes to distinguish between reforms as intentional change and reforms as unintentional change, the latter described as ‘evolution’ in sociology. Although he has not elaborated a theory of the evolution of the education system, he argues that the function of reforms is to keep the dynamics of the system in motion. The changes promoted by the reform very quickly produce forms of uncertainty and lack of transparency, which are not controllable. Often, reforms end up trying to save the situation and reconcile the conflicts. In this way, the system can become sensitive to new or changed societal conditions, such as changes in the labour market, new skills which are required by companies or other organisations, new needs of families or even of pupils as autonomous individuals, changing composition of the population attending schools, and so on. The system can get rid of at least part of the incrustations that are formed in the course of time, experimenting different structures.

Whether reforms will be successful or not cannot be predicted. Evolution does not mean improvement, not even in the sense of better adaptation to changing environmental conditions. It is very likely that, after a reform, some observers will evaluate the system as better than before the reform, while others will probably evaluate it as worse. Overall, as we have seen above, reforms do not affect the autonomy of the education system: in order to give meaning to their actions, teachers neither need to rely on the success or failure of a reform, nor are they forced to draw on the dominant opinions of the pedagogical establishment. Teachers operate in school classrooms, where they implement the system’s autonomy, also observing what they do, and can do, better or worse (Luhmann and Schorr 1988, p. 488).

6.7 The Sociological Observation of Education

The sociological observation of pedagogical reforms evokes the problem of the relationship between sociology, understood as a scientific discipline, and reflection theories in other subsystems of society. This relationship is doubly controversial. On the one hand, sociology claims an objectivity that non-scientific theories of other subsystems cannot claim, while knowing that science is ‘just science’ and cannot replace theories of reflection in other subsystems. On the other hand, the other subsystems ask for autonomy from scientific observation, but at the same time, they know that the problems posed by sociology can be ‘irritating’ and therefore potentially informative.

Luhmann has clarified that science cannot be considered superior to reflection theories of other subsystems, including pedagogy. Moreover, import and export of theories, concepts or distinctions is excluded, as sociological theories of education are based on conditions that are very distant from the practical needs of teachers. In this sense, sociology cannot give any operational instruction to other subsystems, including education. It merely observes how these subsystems observe, looking for blind spots and conceptual difficulties and assessing their historical and semantic plausibility. For this reason, sociology can at best create communicative difficulties in these systems (i.e. ‘irritations’).

In particular, it is interesting to understand the difference of perspectives between pedagogy and sociology. Pedagogy distinguishes between education and pedagogical reflection and reflects on this difference as a difference between praxis (education) and theory (pedagogy). For sociology, this difference can refer to the distinction between operation and observation. At the operational level, education exists as communication in schools and universities, above all as communication in the classroom, and only marginally as pedagogical communication. Pedagogy observes this operation of communication by adding its specific distinctions, i.e. by elaborating theories and pedagogical concepts that could hardly be developed in schools. Pedagogy observes the difference between operation and observation not as a difference, but as a unity, conceiving itself as something that should be learned, if necessary through reforms. Sociology, however, observes that this reflection does not operate in a neutral way, as it changes the system and therefore its own assumptions. Pedagogical reflection is a continuously self-falsifying communication.

The relationships between sociology and the theories of reflection of other subsystems are regulated through the differentiation of scientific and academic disciplines, and their contacts are often triggered by either issues that can occasionally affect both sociology and reflection theory or theoretical developments that can lead to seek direct communication. The problem is whether and how the partners of the relationship between sociology and reflection theory can take each other seriously. The problem is not the imposition of one perspective upon the other, but the possibility of comparing different perspectives. A sociological theory re-enters in what it describes, in this case in the self-description of the education system; therefore, a sociological theory may also correct or enrich its idea of pedagogy, in the same way as pedagogy may take into account the contribution of a sociological theory. It is difficult to predict how this relationship can develop, in that it is based more on ‘understandable misunderstandings’ than on the mutual test of different concepts. Luhmann, together with Schorr, tried to plan this comparison, organising a series of volumes under the subtitle ‘Questions to pedagogy’ (Fragen an die Pädagogik), which involved sociologists and pedagogists. This is a unique case in Luhmann’s scientific production. We shall report on the consequences of this attempt in Chap. 7.

The difficulty that sociology meets in being taken seriously by other subsystems is not only due to differences of function, or to the theoretical weakness of sociology itself. Luhmann argues that there is also a die-hard prejudice still hindering the reception of sociological theoretical research and production. This prejudice is based on the difference between praxis and theory (Luhmann 2000c, pp. 473–474). All theories raise the question of what their applications may be. However, the problem, according to Luhmann, is not how to answer this question, but to ask whether the question is justified. The distinction between theory and praxis was invented in the nineteenth century. In the pre-modern tradition, theory and praxis were distinguished in a different way: theory was distinguished from everyday knowledge; practice was distinguished from poiesis, i.e. from the production of artefacts. Theory and praxis were put in opposition probably as a reaction to the differentiation of the system of science. Modern science monopolises validated ‘objective’ knowledge, but in society objective knowledge does not have a higher value than the reflection of other subsystems. This may have created the idea that scientific knowledge, in particular social sciences, is only legitimate if it can be applied elsewhere.

Theory is an object of study in itself, but it may also stimulate the question about its effects on the practice of education, law, politics, religion, and so on. The distinction between theory and practice is a theoretical distinction because theory is decisive on both sides. Yet, even if it is decisive on the side of practice, according to Luhmann there is no reason why theory should strive to be understandable for practitioners. Why should theory accept the limitations that would follow from this condition? It is not clear how this could improve the performance that should be expected from a theory. A theory includes its own programme of improvement, and it can only be improved based on the problems that it poses. Adapting theory to practice would only have the effect of lowering claims against theory. For this reason, Luhmann concludes that a loose coupling of cognition (theory) and action (practice) is preferable, given that this loose coupling seems to underlie the condition of stability of any system, including the education system (see Sect. 6.1).