Educating the Citizen: Two Case Studies on Inclusion and Exclusion in Prussia in the Early Nineteenth Century

During the decades following the year 1800, a number of complex transitions were set into motion in Prussia. This industrially and politically backward country governed by a late absolutist regime was transformed into a modern bourgeois society. The Stein and Hardenberg reforms of the years 1807-1815 aimed at fundamental changes in the state administration, the military, the church, the schools and other segments of society. As part of these reforms new juridical definitions of the "public" and the "private", of property, liberty and personal rights, and, last though not least, the concept of "citizenship" emerged and gained momentum. The historical introduction of the concept of citizenship in particular, initiated by the French revolution, was a milestone for the nation-building process in Prussia as well as in other European countries. But it also becomes apparent that the understanding of citizenship depended in high degree on the specific cultural context and sociopolitical conditions of a country. How, then, did citizenship take shape in Prussia? In spite of its universal claims, the concept was never designed to regard a population as some homogeneous mass, void of internal differentiation. Instead, the concept of citizenship was tied to new boundaries, patterns of inclusion and exclusion, conceived mainly along the categories of gender and religion. In this context the authors are interested in the effects of educational and school policy measures on the internal differentiation of a seemingly universal concept. They explore these measures and their effects by means of two case studies, one addressing the role of women, the other the role of the Jewish community in Prussia. (Contains 72 footnotes.)