In the GDR, connectedness to life (Lebensverbundenheit) described a general didactic principle (Didaktisches Prinzip) that played an increasingly important role in the planning of curricula and methodological guidelines, especially during the 1970s. In the pedagogical dictionary (Pädagogisches Wörterbuch) published by the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (Akademie der Pädagogischen Wissenschaften, APW) of the GDR, the term was defined as the relationship of an education system, an educational or teaching process to social life (APW, 1987b, p. 223). The use of the term refers, on the one hand, to problem surveys that sought to address the difficulties of an ineffective, scientistic orientation to teaching practice. On the other hand, it was important to secure knowledge and make it applicable in the face of a tense economic situation and the worsening shortage of skilled workers.

The requirement of a connectedness to life primarily placed demands on teachers to teach certain skills and attitudes in their lessons, as they were to prepare those being educated for the requirements of social practice (APW, 1987b, p. 223). General intellectual skills, flexibility and a deeper understanding of school lesson content should be developed, and independent problem-solving skills should be promoted to a greater extent to contribute to generally leading life (Lebenspraxis) successfully.

According to objectives of Marxist-Leninist theory, this specifically referred to the socialist life (Drefenstedt, Drews, Jandt, 1976, p. 126): the socio-politically connotated life practice as it was supposed to be or appear in propagated socialism (APW 1987a, 305). This did not necessarily refer to the - possibly problematic - lifeworld of young people and pupils and was therefore not to be understood as being congruent with a close connection to everyday life due to these implications. The connection of teaching to the needs of an economic system under the concept of polytechnics, the focus on children and youth organisations as a place for leisure activities and the comprehensive claim of socio-political education in the classroom becomes clear here (APW, 1987b p. 223). Connectedness to life is thus linked to the scientific nature of teaching and partisanship.