Search

Reforms in higher education have been passed in many European countries in the last decades, mostly trying to adapt national systems to new European and global challenges. This study examines some consequences of such major reforms in France and Spain. Specifically, these reforms introduced new agencies whose remit was inter alia to provide evaluation of research and to make such assessments pivotal for academic career progression. The paper investigates empirically whether, and to what extent, these new forms of authority have been capable of engendering the expected change to the system of academic career evaluation. The respective policy approaches and policy implementation in France and Spain reveal that these reforms triggered a reconfiguration of powers at various levels of academic life – affecting strategies for successful career development. Policy-making implications are relevant when these two countries are compared, suggesting that more radical policy approaches (coercive isomorphism, the French case) do not result in more change to academic evaluation practices than mimetic ones (the Spanish case). It is also important to note that coercive isomorphism encountered more frictions in its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education reforms come in two general types: access and quality reforms. Access reforms provide more educational opportunities, while quality reforms improve educational effectiveness. This paper investigates empirically the factors affecting the enactment of these two kinds of reforms in public primary and secondary education. By using a novel dataset of U.S. state legislation from 2008 to 2013, we find that both access and quality reforms are more likely in times of bad educational outcomes. Moreover, this is the first study documenting that teachers' union strength correlates positively with access reforms and negatively with quality reforms. Our results also shed light on the way teachers' unions promote their political interests: both lobbying and contributions are effective at opposing undesired reforms, but contributions have an extra effect of influencing the enactment of desired reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research documents a correlation between education and political ideology, usually indicating a positive relationship between education and left-wing political views. In this paper, I examine to what extent this association is causal. I merge political ideology data from 25 waves of Eurobarometer surveys with information on 18 educational reforms in 11 European countries. I then instrument for educational attainment with a regression discontinuity design that estimates the increase in education due to compulsory educational reforms. Notably, it appears that omitted variables bias is important here. I find a significant causal effect of education moving individuals to the right when properly addressing the endogeneity whereas there is a significant association between education and left-wing political ideology when treating education as exogenous. I find that on average, among the individuals compelled into additional education from these specific reforms, an additional year of education moves individuals to the right of the political continuum by about 5–6%. However, I also find no evidence of a causal effect on political ideology for a subgroup of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education became a rallying cry in Luxembourg's general elections of 1974. For the first time in the country's post-war history, the Socialists and Democrats entered the government, with new plans for education. The unbroken rule of almost 30 years by the Christian Democrats was over. New 'global' educational concepts were employed to introduce changes in the national curriculum, the aim being a transformation from an elite to a mass system of participation. One of these changes was the idea of the comprehensive school, which divided the electorates, parties and press respectively. Yet, this fundamental change has received little attention in the academic literature. What were the differences between the parties when it came to education policy? By intersecting politics, globalisation and education, this paper examines the impact of the election events of 1974 on Luxembourg's political discourse. The conclusion points to the central role the parties played in the proliferation of new educational norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyses the varied socio-economic implications of ICT-based educational change. Drawing from a rich, 3-year long research project with 20 secondary schools throughout Europe, the social, human, professional, institutional, and economic costs for building the school of tomorrow in close alliance with ICT are discussed. The aim of this paper is to show the real costs involved in such a comprehensive model of educational change, which cannot be reduced to the cost of installing computers in classrooms. Rather, it must aim at capturing the varied long-term requirements necessary for educational change in conjunction with ICT. Great emphasis is placed on questions concerning the very sustainability of innovation and the necessity to adopt a long-term perspective that provides us with a realistic socio-economic evaluation. We argue that the real costs of educational change only become apparent when short-term improvements have been converted into sustainable changes that last beyond a project’s life-time. Key aspects for lasting contributions are identified, among which “network building” and applying a “bottom-up strategy” for change are given particular importance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

“New” school inspections are essential parts of “evidence-based governance” concepts and have been implemented by many European countries as a major strategy to assure and improve the effectiveness and quality of their education systems. However, national inspection systems vary in their composition and in their contextual features. Using online survey data from approximately 2300 principals in 7 European countries, the paper explores the role of “accountability pressure” as an element for understanding the operation of inspection systems. The results indicate that principals who feel more “accountability pressure” are more attentive to the quality expectations communicated by inspections, more sensitive to stakeholders’ reactions to inspection results, and more active with respect to improvement activities. However, also the number of unintended consequences is increasing with pressure. Inspection systems in different countries are seen by school leaders as applying differential degrees of “accountability pressure”, which is reflected in system-specific amounts of improvement activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The governance of higher education has been changing across Europe, most notably in response to the reform agenda that has been pervading many higher education systems. This wave of reforms has given enhanced visibility to external stakeholders, which has been often received with contrasting views. Some regarded it as a factor that would undermine institutions' mission, while others viewed it as a rhetorical change, which would hardly have an impact on institutional life. In this paper, we analyse the introduction of external stakeholders in governance and quality assessment processes by looking at the Portuguese experience, and more specifically at their contribution to the implementation of internal quality assurance systems. We use empirical data collected from four higher education institutions under the framework of the IBAR project, subsumed in the form of barriers to and good practices for the implementation of policies and procedures for quality assurance. The results suggest that although the presence of external stakeholders has become more visible, it is yet to be fully reflected in the way institutions are governed or the way in which they manage their internal quality assurance processes and mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the European Commission's 'Europe 2020' strategy, the early school leaving (ESL) rate in European Union (EU) Member States must be reduced to a maximum of 10 per cent by 2020. This paper proposes a nonlinear distribution method based on dynamic targets for reducing the percentage of early school leavers. The aim of this method is to provide policymakers with alternatives in terms of transferring the EU-wide headline target to individual national targets. Weighting was based on four indicators: ESL rate, unemployment rate, expenditure on education as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), and expenditure on schools per student. As a result, nine possible scenarios for ESL reduction have been constructed for each of the EU Member States in three groups: the whole EU up to June 2013 (EU27), EU Member States which joined before 30 April 2004 (EU15) and EU Member States which joined after 30 April 2004 (EU12). This method allows the European policy to be translated into specific national targets that would converge in the aggregate goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of European-style education in Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as Egyptian reformers and governments, in their desire to create relevant and effective educational institutions, began looking to Europe for inspiration. The resulting institutions utilized modern methods while preserving the local character of education, often straddling the line between the strictly European and Egyptian. With these compromises and negotiations, ultimately, one of the most influential legacies of European education was the belief in education as a "cure" for all the ills of modern Egyptian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of the lifelong learning discourse in actual governmentality. Starting with a description of the origins of lifelong learning in the discussions about alternative education in the 1960s and 1970s, the current adoption of lifelong learning by the European Union is used to show its critical components. Along with the distinction between formal and informal learning it is demonstrated how lifelong learning attempts to change the field of learning from enclosed environments to a totality of learning events, while at the same time attempting to change the individuals into self-organizing learners. We show that lifelong learning has a crucial role within the strategies of subjectivation, since its mandate is to provide individuals with the necessary skill-sets. Finally the methodological prerequisites of the administration of Lifelong Learning are investigated, showing the corresponding developments in the European Union and their contribution to generating a European population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the changes that are taking place in European higher education: a shift from the Humboldtian notion of the university to one that operates under quasi-market pressures. While increasing the culture of accountability in universities, this development, linked to shifts in their sponsorship and associated 'missions', is associated with an erosion of traditional mechanisms of trust. The focus is on UK experience, which is now extending internationally. Lessons are drawn on some of the institutional changes and problems that may lie ahead for European universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European universities must face the crisis of the Humboldtian model, and find new organisational solutions. This paper proceeds from two starting observations. The first is the one according to which we are in a “cultural shift” that makes culture the element on which performance, including technologically and cognitively, depends. The development of societies now depends on the culture shared by human beings more than on their economy or technology. The second observation is that culture itself and its ethical underpinning should be open for consideration. The development of society now depends on culture and on its adaptive capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]