Frame Archives - understand-culture

The Vocabulary of the Frame

Im Rahmen der Gesetze — within the framework of the laws. It is a standard formula of German law and administration.

Rahmenbedingungen — framework conditions. Also Rahmenvertrag, Rahmenlehrplan and Rahmentarifvertrag, a framework contract, a framework curriculum and a framework collective agreement.

Aus dem Rahmen fallen — to fall out of the frame. Duden explains it as departing strongly from the norm.

Den Rahmen sprengen — to burst the frame, to go far beyond the usual.

Sich im Rahmen halten — to stay within the frame, not to exceed a certain measure.

Spielraum, Freiraum, Handlungsspielraum — room to play, free space, room for action.

Erst die Pflicht, dann die Kür — first the compulsory program, then the free program. The words come from gymnastics and figure skating. Duden defines the Kür as an exercise whose parts the athlete puts together by free choice.

Plan the Forms, Not the Process

From 1932, economists of the Freiburg School around Walter Eucken developed ordoliberalism. In this view, the state creates an Ordnungsrahmen, a framework of order, that guarantees competition and the freedom of citizens in the market. Eucken’s formula is often quoted: Staatliche Planung der Formen – ja; staatliche Planung und Lenkung des Wirtschaftsprozesses – nein. (State planning of the forms, yes. State planning and steering of the economic process, no.) Ludwig Erhard’s economic policy after the war drew on these ideas. Ordnungspolitik, policy that shapes the economic order through stable framework conditions, is still one of the three classic areas of German economic policy.

When the Frame Itself Changed

Until 2006, the Basic Law allowed the federal government to pass Rahmengesetze, framework laws. They did not regulate an area completely. The states had to fill in the frame, and the federal law could go into detail only in exceptional cases. The universities and the civil service were regulated this way. Changing this system took years. In 2003, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat set up a joint commission under Edmund Stoiber and Franz Müntefering. On 17 December 2004, it failed over the question of who controls education. The coalition agreement of 2005 restarted the reform on the basis of the commission’s work. The Bundestag passed it on 30 June 2006 with 428 votes to 162, and the Bundesrat on 7 July 2006. On 1 September 2006, the federal power to pass framework laws was abolished.

Riding in the Woods

Article 2 of the Basic Law grants freedom and states its limit in the same sentence: Jeder hat das Recht auf die freie Entfaltung seiner Persönlichkeit, soweit er nicht die Rechte anderer verletzt und nicht gegen die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung oder das Sittengesetz verstößt. (Everyone has the right to the free development of his personality, insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or the moral law.) In 1989, the Federal Constitutional Court applied it to horseback riding. A law in North Rhine-Westphalia allowed riding in the forest only on field paths and bridle paths, but not on other forest paths. The court ruled that general freedom of action covers any human activity, riding in the woods included, and that any law in line with the constitution can limit it. One judge, Dieter Grimm, dissented. In his view, riding in the woods was not protected by this freedom at all.

The Sector Agreement Stays the Standard

In Germany, the rules of a collective agreement apply directly and are binding. A deviation is allowed only if the agreement itself permits it, or if it favors the employee. On 12 February 2004, the union IG Metall and the employers of the metal and electrical industry signed the Pforzheim Agreement. It allows a plant to depart for a limited time from the agreed standards, such as working hours or holiday pay, in order to save or create jobs. The conditions are strict. Only the parties to the collective agreement can agree on the deviation. The employer must prove that it is necessary. The employees receive defined benefits in return, and they can sue for them. IG Metall sums it up: Der Flächentarifvertrag bleibt der Standard, die Abweichung die Ausnahme. (The sector-wide agreement remains the standard, and the deviation the exception.)

The Framework Training Plan

A national training regulation for a recognized occupation must contain an Ausbildungsrahmenplan, a framework training plan, which sets out what an apprentice must learn and in roughly what order. Training regulations typically require each company to write its own training plan for each apprentice on this basis. They allow the company to change the order and the timing soweit betriebspraktische Besonderheiten die Abweichung erfordern, as far as the company’s practical circumstances require it.

In Their Own Responsibility

The school law of North Rhine-Westphalia describes the teacher’s freedom and its frame in one sentence. Teachers teach, educate, advise, assess and supervise their students in eigener Verantwortung, on their own responsibility, im Rahmen, within the framework, of the educational goals, the applicable laws and regulations, the orders of the school authorities and the decisions of the school’s conferences. In Hesse, the principal may intervene in the teaching of a fully trained teacher only when a rule has been broken. After the shock of the first PISA study in 2000, the states committed to applying national educational standards from the 2004–05 school year. The standards fix what students must be able to do at the end. They are meant to give schools and teachers greater freedom in choosing and arranging the content.

The Weekly Plan

The Wochenplan, a weekly plan, is a common method in German primary schools. The teacher sets a fixed amount of compulsory and optional tasks for the week. The children decide for themselves when to do them, in what order, and whether alone or with others. The method comes from reform education. It spread through German primary schools from the late 1970s as a way to teach children to direct their own work.

Freedom Within Limits

The Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs gives parents of preschool children a brochure called Freiheit in Grenzen, freedom within limits. The name comes from a parenting program of the same name by the Munich psychologist Klaus A. Schneewind. The brochure sets out three principles. The first is to value the child as a person in every situation. The second is Fordern und klare Grenzen setzen, to make demands and set clear limits. The third is Die Eigenständigkeit des Kindes fördern und das Kind in den gesetzten Grenzen bewusst gewähren lassen, to support the child’s independence and to deliberately let the child act freely within the limits that have been set.

The Allotment Garden

A Kleingarten, an allotment garden, is a private space of one’s own. It is also regulated by a federal law, in force since 1 April 1983. The garden is for growing produce for one’s own use and for recreation, not for business. The garden hut may cover at most 24 square meters, including a covered seating area. In 2004, the Federal Court of Justice ruled that, as a rule, at least a third of the plot should be used to grow fruit and vegetables for the household.