Session Information
23 SES 02 A, Europeanisation and Education Governance: Comparative Analysis
Paper Session
Contribution
Quality and questions about how to improve the quality of an education system have dominated education policy debates in the last thirty years. Improving the knowledge basis for policy makers through increasing evidence and undertaking international comparison is considered a promising possibility. It is assumed that there are currently in most countries gaps in the evidence available to policy makers, therefore the EU and the OECD promote the development of a variety of instruments for data collection such as internal and external evaluation of educational institutions, statistics, national and international learner assessments and national reports (OECD, 2007; EUC, 2011). The aim is to establish an ongoing, evidence-based, evaluative system which allows monitoring the effects of the education system of a country as a whole. Further, following the argumentation of New Public Management it is also considered important, to make this evidence easy available to the public.
Looking at the three countries Germany, the Netherlands and the UK it can be noted that all have responded to the evidence based agenda, but the countries do vary in their response to address national educational reporting. The UK, for example, publishes since 1997 annually the Education and Training Statistics UK which has a lifelong perspective on education and provides statistics on all four states but without any commentary. Since 2008 data on national comparison are no longer included in this publication. In the Netherlands the Dutch Inspectorate publishes annually the Verslag van de Staat van het Onderwijs in Nederland’. This report is mainly focused on schools but addresses the quality of context, processes and effects. Germany has introduced its first national Report (Bildungsbericht Deutschland) in 2006. The German national report draws on a variety of sources and claims to assign the different studies included a value and a position in the overall evidence base (Rürup, 2007).
Given this context the research project investigates the following questions:
- How can the entanglement between convergence processes with the European education space and processes of transformation and divergence on national level be observed, understood and explained using the example of national educational reporting?
- In what way does the national educational reporting differ, although recommendations are made within EU policy?
- What potential impact does the developed, chosen or maintained national way of educational reporting in the three countries have and how could it be increased?
The study is theoretically oriented on the concept of Govenance (Benz, et al. 2007) and Political Science. The governance perspective has gained importance in the German-speaking countries with the research field “Educational Governance” (Altrichter, et.al, 2007; Altrichter & Maag Merki, 2010). This perspective assumes that all forms of governing such as bureaucracy, market etc. can be understood as forms or mechanism of coordination of autonomous actors whose actions are interdependent and can therefore mutually support or hinder each other. Theories from Political Science provide understanding on the EU as governance network (Kohler-Koch, 1999) and on different administrative structures and types of federalism across European states (Gabriel & Kropp, 2008).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Altrichter, H. & Brüsemeister, T. & Wissinger, J. (2007) Educational Governance. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag Altrichter, H. & Maag Merki, K. (2010) Steuerung der Entwicklung des Schulwesens, in: Altrichter, H.; Maag Merki, K. (Hg.): Handbuch Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, S.15-37. Benz, A., Lütz, S.& Schimank, U. u.a.. (Hg.) (2007) Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. European Commission Education (2010) Knowledge System for Lifelong Learning. Available at: http://www.kslll.net/Default.cfm (accessed 6.1.2011) Gabriel, O.W & Kropp, S.(Hrsg.) (2008) Die EU-Staaten im Vergleich. Strukturen, Prozesse, Politikinhalte. Dritte aktualisierte Ausgabe. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag. Kohler-Koch, B. (2009): The evolution and transformation of European governance. In: Kohler-Koch, Beate; Eising, Rainer (Hrsg.) The transformation of governance in the European Union. London: Routledge (Routledge/ECPR studies in European political science, 12), S. 14–35. OECD CERI (Hg.) (2007): Evidence in Education. Linking Research and Policy. Unter Mitarbeit von OECD. Paris. Rürup, M. (2007): Zum Wissen der Bildungsberichterstattung. Der deutsche Bildungsbericht als Beispiel und Erfolgsmodell, in: Brüsemeister, T. & Eubel, K.-D. (Hg.) Evaluation, Wissen und Nichtwissen. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, S. 141-169. Schimank, U. (2007) Elementare Mechanismen, in: Benz, A.; Lütz, S.; Schimank, U.; Simonis, G. (Hg.) (2007) Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag , S. 29–45. Schimank, U. (2010) Handeln und Strukturen. Einführung in die akteurstheoretische Soziologie. 4. völlig überarbeitete Auflage. Weinheim: Juventa Verlag.
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