The School Reform Movement

A crucial factor shaping Popper's early thoughts on education and psychology was the impact of the school reform movement headed by Otto Glöckel, undersecretary of education in 1919 and president of the Vienna School Council between the two world wars in “Red Vienna.” After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Social Democrats were the leading party, but the upheaval of social reform proved temporary because one year later, in 1920, the coalition government of Social Democrats and Catholics fell apart. The socialists had to retreat, especially from rural areas, but in Vienna they won the municipal elections, and this urban milieu provided the chief breeding ground for radical ideas about education. Although the prewar Austrian school system had an excellent reputation throughout Europe, the prospects of attending university were dim for working-class children. After completing the elementary school, at the age of ten or eleven, they were submitted to an examination, the successful completion of which allowed them to go to the gymnasium. Those who failed had to go to the vocational schools, by which access to the university was foreclosed. By extending the period of uniform education and postponing career tracking to an older age, the school reform movement strove to encourage working-class children to enter the university and thereby to pursue higher professions, a project whose success was deemed essential for a truly socialist society to arise.