European Educational Research Journal

European Educational Research Journal
2010, volume 9, Number 3
SPECIAL ISSUE
Mapping the European Educational Research Space:
policy, governance and cultures


PART 1

Pia Cort. Stating the Obvious: the European Qualifications Framework is not a neutral evidence-based policy tool, pages 304‑316
In European Union policy documents, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is described as a neutral tool embedded in an evidence-based policy process. Its purpose is to improve the transparency, comparability and portability of qualifications in the European Union. The aim of this article is to denaturalise the EQF discourse through a discursive reading of the EQF policy and a review of research on national qualifications frameworks in a number of primarily Anglo-Saxon countries. The argument may seem obvious: the EQF policy is not neutral (policies never are), nor is there evidence to substantiate the claim that the EQF is a case of policy learning from ‘good practice’.

Francesca Caena & Umberto Margiotta. European Teacher Education: a fractal perspective tackling complexity, pages 317‑331
This article takes stock of the complex scenario of the European education space in its past, present and future developments, which highlights the priorities of the modernisation, improvement and convergence of the goals for education and training systems in the knowledge and learning society. The critical case of teacher education is then analysed within the European Higher Education Area, with its characteristic display of national and cultural features and constraints, often jostling with European recommendations about the competences and preparation of quality European teachers. This results in changes and reforms at a diverse pace, or even with contradictory trends, in different national contexts. An approach for tackling some of these issues has been devised by the European project EMETT (European Master for European Teacher Training), involving an academic network of eight universities within its Lifelong Learning Programme. The outcomes and reflections of this project work are thus reported, concerning the development and implementation of a European teacher education curriculum for a joint Master’s degree. The key European priorities of mobility and intercultural, multilingual competences in teacher education have been taken into account within the framework of an integrated, flexible curriculum that can best be described by a fractal metaphor dealing with complexity from an ecological perspective.

Mariana Gaio Alves, Claudia Neves & Elisabete Xavier Gomes. Lifelong Learning: conceptualizations in European educational policy documents, pages 332‑344
Over recent years, lifelong learning has been a central and guiding principle in the formulation of European educational policies. Within this general framework, the authors have been developing a research project that allows them to approach the theme of lifelong learning and European educational policies, taking into account four levels of analysis, namely: the supranational, the national, the institutional and, finally, the individual level of analysis. This methodological strategy reflects a theoretical understanding of policy as the result of the actions of a diversity of actors at different levels. This article focuses on the supranational level of analysis, drawing on data from an analysis of European educational policy documents. First, the authors clarify the methodological issues raised by the research findings presented. Second, they discuss the results concerning the process of definition of European educational policies. Third, the authors briefly revisit the evolution of the idea of lifelong learning and discuss the results regarding its plurality of meanings and conceptualizations within the documents considered for analysis.

Nafsika Alexiadou, Danica Fink-Hafner & Bettina Lange. Education Policy Convergence through the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC): theoretical reflections and implementation in ‘old’ and ‘new’ national contexts, pages 345‑358
This article addresses two key questions about the convergence of education policies in the European Union (EU). How does the open method of coordination (OMC), a new governance instrument for the Europeanisation of education policies, change existing national education policy making and how can the OMC and national responses to it be researched? The authors argue that the OMC brings to national policy making a particular set of ideas about education, such as an emphasis on the contribution of education to building competitive economies and a new public management approach. The authors further suggest that the significance of such policy ideas in national education policy making can be best analysed through a combination of sociological institutionalism and discourse analysis. Hence, ‘implementation’ of EU education measures – which have been developed through policy learning – should be understood as a combination of a ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ policy-making process that links EU and national levels. Finally, the article suggests – on the basis of a preliminary exploration of the implementation of education OMC measures in the United Kingdom and Slovenia – that education OMC policy ideas resonate to varying degrees in ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states.

Peter Jones. The Politics of the Economics of Education in the European Union, pages 359‑380
This article critically examines the work of the European Commission-sponsored network, the European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE). The aim is to develop understanding of the context and significance of the mobilization of the economics of education research and policy paradigm within the European Union’s Education and Training 2010 Work Programme. Drawing on a summary of the paradigm and critical assessment of policy texts produced by the network, the article examines the strategic opportunities which the paradigm offers the Commission in its attempts to promote reform of member state education and training systems. It is argued that the policy documents produced by the Commission drawing on the work of the EENEE demonstrate the intention to promote the network’s findings as the basis for education reform. However, in key respects, the paradigm has proved unable to gain member state commitment to pursuing an economics of education agenda for reform. The established European Union policy on ‘efficiency and equity in education and training’ displays a marked reluctance to frame education and training funding in economic terms while at the same time drawing on key economics of education policy priorities (preschool education, the need to reflect on the efficiency and equity implications of tracking, and the importance of ongoing reflection on the funding of higher education). In conclusion, the article argues that the Commission has mobilized the economics of education politically and strategically but that tactical and selective use of an economic evidence base within the negotiation of European Union policy positions has done more to establish the European Union level as a factor in the governance of education and training than to produce effects in terms of the shifting of policy discourse or preference in the formulation of agreed European Union policy texts.

David Rutkowski & Laura C. Engel. Soft Power and Hard Measures: large-scale assessment, citizenship and the European Union, pages 381‑395
This article explores the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) with particular emphasis on the European Union’s (EU’s) involvement in the regional portion. Using the ICCS, the EU actively combines hard measures with soft power, allowing the EU to define and steer cross-national rankings of values of EU citizenship. The authors contend that once hard measures of citizenship are produced, they become an efficient ‘truth’ that can be legitimated through evaluation and ranking. As measures are represented in comparative tables, the conversation shifts to ‘Why are we ranked here?’ rather than ‘How/why were we ranked?’ This shift requires critical discussion, one which is often difficult, given the politics of agreement and funding patterns underlying assessment.

Sotiria Grek. International Organisations and the Shared Construction of Policy ‘Problems’: problematisation and change in education governance in Europe, pages 396‑406
Over recent years, research has shown the ways that national governments have seemingly ceded some of their autonomy in education policy development to international organisations (IOs) in the context of globalisation and one of its conduits, Europeanisation. This article develops the idea that IOs, and particularly the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have had significant policy influence within the context of education policy development in the European education space. The article focuses on an examination of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the more recent Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in order to discuss processes of problematisation and normalisation of the notions of ‘skills’ and ‘competencies’ by the two major European IOs, the OECD and the European Commission. It examines the ways both concepts have turned into a policy problem in need of soft governance through new data, standards and policy solutions. The article presents work in progress as part of the new project Transnational Policy Learning: a comparative study of OECD and EU education policy in constructing the skills and competencies agenda, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It is therefore a speculative article, setting out the research agenda and explaining the reasons why the construction of policy problems at the European education policy level needs to be further problematised itself by the research community.

Romuald Normand. Expertise, Networks and Indicators: the construction of the European strategy in education, pages 407‑421
This article describes the networks of experts involved in the fabrication of indicators and benchmarks supporting the Open Method of Coordination led by the European Commission. In studying international expertise, it explores the policy borrowing process and the transfer of knowledge between several agents and institutions at global level. Our hypothesis is that science and policy are not in a discontinuing relationship but represent, through the building of instruments and methodologies of measurement, a corpus of scientific knowledge and normative principles held by representatives of supra-national organizations and States.

Johanna Ringarp & Martin Rothland. Is the grass always greener...? The Effect of the PISA Results on Education Debates in Sweden and Germany, pages 422‑430
What does a country do when its schools and educational system in general do not produce the results the country believes they are capable of? This article describes the political debates that comparative international studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment have given rise to in Germany and Sweden. As a result of the assessments, both countries have gone outside their borders in order to find new models and policy norms. The article analyzes whether or not the debate on educational policy in the two countries plays a role in policy borrowing. Germany looks to the north, primarily to Sweden – the country at the forefront of pedagogy – but also to Finland. At the same time, Sweden is in the process of dismantling just those parts of its educational policy that have aroused interest and admiration in other countries, especially Germany. Instead, it is investing in individual solutions, elite education and apprentice systems. Through the use of public funds, Sweden has gone from having one of the industrialized West’s most centralized educational systems to one of its most decentralized and privatized. Accordingly, the authors pose the following questions: Who is learning from whom? And is the grass always greener on the other side?