The book argues that the history and culture of each country or region is critical to educational success and that the relationship between the education and the state must be validated, both internationally and historically, in order to be of actual conceptual value and that the peculiarities of these relationships must be considered both politically and theoretically.

Carla Aubry is Lecturer in Education, Psychology and Didactics at Pädagogische Maturitätsschule in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.

Michael Geiss is Researcher and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Vocational Education at the Institute of Education, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Veronika Magyar-Haas is Researcher and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Social Pedagogy at the Institute of Education, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Jürgen Oelkers is Emeritus Professor of General Pedagogy at the Institute of Education, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Part 1: Introduction Bringing Education Back in: International Perspectives on the Relationship between State, Culture and Society Carla Aubry, Michael Geiss, Veronika Magyar-Haas, and Jürgen Oelkers Part 2: Comparing School Systems The National State, the Local, and the Growth of Mass Schooling: History Lessons from England, France, and the United States Miriam Cohen State Intervention in Backward Countries: Some Case Studies of State Education Systems in Hispanic America (ca. 1870-1920) Gabriela Ossenbach Part 3: Financing Education The Provision of Education and the State: From Equity to More Equality Carla Aubry State Education, Crisis and Austerity: An Historical Analysis through the Lens of the Kondratiev Cycles Vincent Carpentier Part 4: Educational Administration To Write Like a Bureaucrat: Educational Administration as a Cultural Phenomenon Michael Geiss Bureaucratizing from the Bottom up: The Centralization of School Discipline Policy in the United States Judith Kafka The State of Education in the States: The Evolving Federal Role in American School Policy Patrick McGuinn 'Governing by Numbers': Social Work in the Age of the Regulatory State Holger Ziegler Part 5: Power, Myths of Community, and Utopia 'Among School Children': The Churches, Politics, and Irish Schooling, 1830-1930 Deirdre Raftery Make the Nation Safe for Mass Society: Debates about Propaganda and Education in the USA in the 20th Century Norbert Grube Conceptualizations of Dignity and Exposure in Critiques of Community: Implications for Ethics and Educational Theory in the Work of Plessner and Nancy Veronika Magyar-Haas 'Taking the Path of Least Resistance': Expulsions from Soviet Schools in the Stalinist 1930s E. Thomas Ewing Utopia, State, and Democracy Jürgen Oelkers