Traumatisierung und Notstandssemantik. Bildungspolitische Kontinuitäten vom Sputnik- zum PISA-Schock

Traumatisation and national emergency semantics. Continuities in educational policy from Sputnik to the PISA shock The successful launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in the autumn of 1957 had a lasting impact on U.S. educational policy: expenditures on education and science skyrocketed in order to keep up in the technology race with the Soviet union. This article explores the conditions in which the launch of a satellite led to a profound shock while at the same time analysing the semantics of war and vulnerability. After this, the author asks whether there are parallels to the shock experienced by Germany with respect to the PiSA results in 2000. In both cases education was a power resource, even if the competitive situations were very different. Georg Picht's educational disaster is forwarded as a bridge between the national emergency semantics of Sputnik and PiSA.