After World War II, America assumed the responsibility for helping to reform Germany's educational system. American educational policy did not have a clear direction; three distinct phases are discernible. (AM)

Between 1945 and 1955, American efforts to reform education in Germany included an initial phase of punitive purges, an imposition of American curricular models, generously endowed reorientation programs, and attempts to persuade the Germans to reform their own system. These contradictory shifts were not the result of rational policy decisions.…

Reports on the educational initiatives in the Netherlands during the nineteenth century in relation to mental retardation. States that the optimism towards people with mental retardation that emerged in many countries in the second half of the nineteenth century did not emerge within the Netherlands. (CMK)