Educational administration is the central link between education policy and educational practice; nevertheless, its structures have so far been insufficiently researched. This is where the exploratory research project REFORM, based at the University of Konstanz, comes in. Its aim is to create greater transparency regarding the formal and real structures of educational administration. Internationally, it is widely acknowledged that the way an education system is structurally organized has a major impact on how well it can provide future generations with high-quality education. Educational administration plays a key role in this context: due to its legal and administrative embedding, it functions as a joint between political decision-making levels and concrete educational practice.
Despite its importance, however, we still know little about the actual structures of educational administration. While responsibilities and procedures in the German, hierarchically organized education system—from ministries through administrative levels (e.g., school authorities) down to schools—are formally defined in laws, regulations, or organizational charts, there is growing criticism that, in practice, the system is dysfunctional, opaque, and characterized by unclear responsibilities.
This is precisely where the research project “REFORM – Mapping of Formal and Real Structures of Educational Administration,” based at the University of Konstanz and funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation, comes in. The starting point is an organizational-theoretical distinction between
- formal structures (e.g., laws, regulations, organizational charts) and
- informal structures (e.g., verbal agreements).
According to the project’s thesis, a third structural level emerges in the field of education due to the state’s educational mandate enshrined in the Basic Law and the associated requirement of equal treatment: real structures. These include internally formalized processes such as coordination routines or allocations of responsibility that are not visible from the outside and therefore appear informal—but are clearly regulated and binding within the organization. To date, these real structures have not been examined in empirical educational research. Yet such research is essential in order to assess whether, and to what extent, structures of educational administration are functional or dysfunctional.
