“Wer Vorwärts Kommen Will, Muss Auch Mal Rückwarts Denken”: Reflections on the Case Studies

Abstract

We began our book by outlining a simple set of categories that can be used to describe a political culture, but we have concluded that the dimensions that we chose are, by themselves, too simple a tool to capture all of the challenges that await each of the governments we have examined. Nonetheless, we also discovered some intriguing confirmation that political culture is a useful lens for understanding how different governments have coped with 25 years of increasing pressure to modernize and reform their school systems. It is worth revisiting our categories to see how they held up in our critical application. What we offer are some conclusions, and also a variety of questions that deserve further investigation.