Many researchers believe that professional development derives from power struggles. This case study shows that the professionalization of nineteenth-century secular French primary school teachers was generated by the interplay between teachers and other participants--particularly the Catholic church, families, and the state--in the funding and…

In the mid-1920s, a virulent renewal of the age-old German dispute regarding what form German schools should take resulted in a political crisis. Worsened Catholic-liberal relations contributed to a split in the bourgeois middle, making political cooperation more difficult and hindering a moderate evolution of the Weimar state. (RM)