In Germany, one of the richest countries in the world, around 2.8 million children live in poverty.

Despite all social policy measures, poverty is downright inherited, says the sociologist Carolin Butterwegge, who did her doctorate with a dissertation on the poverty of children with a migration background and was a member of the left-wing parliamentary group in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament from 2010 to 2012.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

  • Follow I follow

In the book “Children of Inequality”, which they wrote together with her husband, they denounce that “the richest children in the country have been showered with tax gifts in the billions”, while the really needy are not reached with education and participation packages.

There are now "first class children and second class children".

Money and educational opportunities

The unequal distribution of income is slowing growth and de-solidarizing in the eyes of the poverty researcher Butterwegge, who taught political science at the University of Cologne from 1998 to 2016 and ran for the office of the Federal President in 2017 as a non-party member of the Left.

He was formerly a member of the SPD, but resigned in 2005 in protest against Hartz IV because he sees the reform as a "disciplining instrument".

Anyone who is lucky enough to be born into a family that is very wealthy does not have to work hard to achieve more than their “lower class” peers.

Habitus, social status and familiar name of the family of origin are usually enough to convince HR managers of large companies, consulting agencies or law firms of the qualifications of an applicant.

According to the authors, in order to combat child poverty, the minimum wage has to be raised to more than twelve euros, there is a need for solidarity-based citizens' insurance, basic child benefits and significantly higher taxes for the rich and the hyper-rich.

Carolin and Christoph Butterwegge are of the opinion that money mainly determines the educational opportunities of children.

As correct as it is that the pandemic hit the socially disadvantaged, especially children and adolescents, and the warning that the Corona generation must not be left behind seems understandable, the solutions proposed by the two authors are just as implausible. This applies to economic and tax policy, but also to education policy. The demand for an expansion of early childhood educational facilities and improved care is reasonable, but the plea for an inclusive school system with a single school is absurd: “The goal is 'a school for everyone' from the first grade to grade 10 or 13 based on the Scandinavian model (...). That would not only mean the conversion of Hauptschule and Realschulen, but ultimately also the abolition of the Gymnasium. "

Known dates without an original vision of the future

Apart from the fact that teaching in Scandinavian schools is more differentiated and in smaller groups than the two authors can imagine, every performance comparison in recent years has shown that especially the weak pupils are even more disadvantaged in inclusive systems such as comprehensive schools.

Are the authors not familiar with these studies?

And do you really believe that differences in talent (regardless of socio-economic status) and various early childhood imprints can be leveled out in the education system?

Apparently they know nothing about the dark side of the six-year elementary school like in Berlin and Brandenburg, at the end of which many children, whose support is so important to the authors, still do not master basic cultural techniques such as reading, writing and arithmetic. The bashing of the secondary school, which is no longer available in most federal states, also has an effect from that time. The special schools, which are valued by parents of disabled children, want to abolish the Butterwegges at the same time - after all, there is the UN Disability Convention. However, this does not say anything about the abolition of special needs schools or the widespread introduction of inclusive teaching, but about access to the education system for all disabled people.

Educational deficits can be a consequence of poverty, but they are by no means always, there are many counterexamples of gifted children from socio-economically weak families with and without a migration background.

Anyone reading this book will find a wealth of known data, but unfortunately no original visions of the future.

Equalization certainly does not lead out of inequality, but aggravates it.

Carolin and Christoph Butterwegge: "Children of Inequality".

How society robs itself of its future.

Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2021. 303 pp., Hardcover, € 22.95.