Entmachtung durch Idealisierung : amerikanische Familienrhetorik im 19. Jahrhundert

Abstract

It is nowadays a commonplace observation that most of the private functions on-ce performed by the family have been successively taken over by public institutions. This "disempowerment" of the private sphere has launched an endless series of discussions over the appropriate competences of state and family. One of these controversies is taken up for analysis: the American school debate in the first half of the 19th century which dealt with the question of who is responsible for the education of the child - the state (teacher) or the family (mother). The somewhat surprising result: instead of an open and clearcut controversy one finds several overlapping discourses reflecting quite different concerns, and a sequence of small, almost hidden, modifications of the original idea. Last but not least, all sides cherish the same uncontroversial family ideal. Only with the benefit of hindsight, and relying on "archeological" methods, it is possible to reconstruct a "progressive" line of reasoning that eventually asserted the role of public education over that of the family.