The article outlines two lines of thought in the current debate on education. First, the declining results in schools are seen as an overarching problem for the school system, second, individual performance within schools is disconnected from societal, collective goals. We then discuss different modes of thinking of socialization in relation to general didactics. The teachers’ role in that sense is to socialize the next generation into a given social order. Another mode of thinking regards the young person as discovering society, within society. We argue, inspired by Wolfgang Klafki, for a conception of “general didactics” as a response to the need for an education for society that has solidarity as an overarching aim, rather than to produce new members to society. We end the article with the conclusion that the limits of general didactics are in one way or the other societal, inasmuch public education reflects the need for social (re-)production of knowledge, norms and values.