Between Ideology and Economy: The "Time Politics" of Child Care and Public Education in the Two Germanys

The article compares the discourses and policies of the "timepolitics" of public, that is, institutionalized, extra-familialcare and education of pre- and elementary school children inEast and West Germany. The FRG and the GDR represented two highlydistinct welfare and education systems, which referred to eachother in a complex relationship of "distancing and interconnection."Proceeding from the concept of the "path dependency" of societaland political developments, the article analyzes which factorsworked together when, how, and in which concrete historicalcontexts to form specific discourses and policies of the "timepolitics" in both German states.