This article deals with the recommendations for a specific type of school (Schullaufbahnempfehlungen) of primary school teachers in the transition process from primary to secondary school. Empirically, the social practices and the pedagogical self-images of teachers in this process are examined. In global comparison, the transition process in the German education system is an extreme peculiarity: Based on specific criteria (performance level, working and social behavior and learning develompent) primary school children are already divided at the age of 10 years (4th class) in the three or two-tier school system - Hauptschule and Realschule respectively Oberschule as well as Gymnasium. The recommendation are created by teachers who thus make a major and far-reaching decision for the educational and general biography (e.g. the economic success on the later labour markte) of the assessed childern (Maaz et al. 2010).

Despite institutionally guaranteed permeability of the German education system, once made educational decisions are very stable for the further educational pathways. From different purchasable educational titles directly result hierarchical social position assignments (occupations) with evident differences in terms of income, status, recognition and power (Solga 2009, Ditton 2010). This fact raises immediately the question of educational equity and social inequality as a genuine problem or dimension of the social or educational theory. In this context the relationship between school and society is evident. In modern, functionally differentiated societies the school as a social institution is described by different theoretical concepts in its elementary selection and allocation function. Controversial in these approaches is merely how this fact should be classified politically and morally. Be it in an affirmative manner as a meritocratic ideal, in which the school assigns the highest achievers and brightest the most important and sought after social functions as it is proclaimed by (neo)liberal or structural-functional theories (Luhmann 2002, Hadjar 2008, Fend 2009) or from the point of view of critical social theories that view school with its cultural codes and interaction structures as an institution of the ruling classes and thus becomes a central hub in the reproduction of social inequality and the hedging of capitalist relations of domination (Bourdieu 1971, Bünger et al. 2009).

Starting from these premises this contribution follows the research question of how teachers interprete their decisions and how they classify the selection and allocation process from an educational and scientifical point of view. We are interested in both the implicit and explicit reference to the teachers on social theory concepts and the terms of the research results of empirical educational science, which have drawn a complex picture of the transition processes in primary schools. Here, results are particularly interesting that have revealed a deviation of performance-related meritocratic selection and allocation criteria for further school career. On the structural level, the high selectivity of the German education system and the coupling of the educational success with social background conditions is particularly noted. Furthermore, it is empirically evident that children from lower social classes even within the same cognitive abilities have an approximately three times less chance of a prestigious grammar school place than children from higher classes (Explanation: different recommendation despite equal performance or different grades despite equal performance) (Maaz et al. 2011, Maaz et al. 2014).

Thus, the contribution investigates implicit ideas and models of teachers for a fair education system and a just society by the example of decision-making practices in school transition processes and argues for a return of the criticism and critical social theory of society in education and explicitly in teacher training.

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