Problems of pedagogical continuity within a minority

Abstract

The German minority in Denmark has its own highly esteemed private kindergartens and schools, but there is one major problem which this article deals with. The kindergartens are very popular, and therefore they attract many children, not only those of endoga‐mous couples, but also those of exogamous and majority couples. The German schools do not enjoy the same popularity, even if there are no pedagogical reasons for this. Consequently, only some of the children pass from the German kindergarten to the German school. Thus there is a lack of pedagogical continuity. Seen from a linguistic point of view, this is irrational, for at the age of three, when the children (most of them monolingual Danish‐speaking) start in a German kindergarten, they get a ‘language‐bath’ in German, but this intensive stimulation comes to an end when at the age of six the children are transferred to a Danish school. The motives of the parents for choosing both kindergarten and school are analysed. ‘Deutscher Schul‐ und Sprachverein fur Nordschleswig’ (the body responsible for all the schools) wants a higher percentage of the children to pass from the German kindergartens to the German schools, emphasising the unity of the two pedagogical institutions, but this would require such radical changes in the curriculum that it is hardly acceptable for the schools; and even if they were carried out, it might not solve the problem because the essence of the problem is emotional and therefore irrational: many people in the German‐Danish border region are still ‘blocked’ towards ‘Deutschtum’.