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The Social Differentiation of the Educational System

Raf Vanderstraeten

University of Leuven, Belgium and University of Bielefeld, Germany

In line with a long sociological tradition, Niklas Luhmann has analysed the basic characteristics of modern society in terms of social differentiation. Luhmann has focused on the forms of differentiation, and argued that modern society is differentiated according to subsystems that concentrate on one function (e.g. the economy, law, science, politics, education). In the first part of the article, I explore the backgrounds of this systems-theoretical framework. In the second part, this framework is used to analyse the structural characteristics of the educational system. This system has its basis in the school’s complexes of interaction and organization. But education is also confronted with the consequences of its own autonomy, its own mode of operating. It is suggested that these secondary effects have more impact on the evolution of this system than its societal environment.

Key Words: education • functional differentiation • interaction • Luhmann • organization • systems theory

Sociology, Vol. 38, No. 2, 255-272 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038504040863
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R. Vanderstraeten
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