Volume 46 (2026), Issue 179

In 1981/82, members of the fields of health, social work, and education of the Socialist Office founded the magazine Widersprüche. In this time of green awakening and radicalized conservative turn, they attempted to establish an initial position as an editorial collective: "Defend, criticize, and overcome simultaneously." Under this programmatic framework, they aimed to contribute as an opposition to defending the material achievements of the education and social sectors, criticizing their hegemonic function, and concretizing concepts for their overcoming. Convinced that an alternative social policy is neither politically nor theoretically sufficient for a socialist perspective in the education and social sectors, they formulated the first attempt at an alternative to social policy as considerations for a "politics of the social."