A Short History of Europeanizing Education: The New Political Work of Calculating the Future

A constant element of Europeanization, from the 1950s, was the cultural strategy of creating a common identity, fabricated through cultural symbols and exchange; education was enmeshed within this strategy. In particular, cultural cooperation was associated with a new identity, "a European model of culture correlating with European integration." European identity was treated as fixed, as contained within the histories and spaces of national states; it was described as an "exceptional source of development, progress and culture." If culture was contained within the nation state, then a new language of identity, established through education as cultural cooperation, would affirm a common space. In 1971, the ministers for education, following the intentions of the Conference of Heads of State meeting at the Hague in 1969, decided to create a working party that would devise a European Centre for the Development of Education, a way of financing it, and a way to establish forms of active cooperation in the field of education. This step was preceded by reliance on the Council for Cultural Cooperation, established in 1962. Again, in 1974, the ministers for education reaffirmed their new direction, "Europe as an exceptional source of culture," by confirming that allowance must be made for the "traditions of each country" and that education cannot be seen merely as "a component of economic life." The shift toward a "Europe of Knowledge" in the late 1990s involved a further intensification of the early work on collaboration, network, symbolic acts, and the systematization of the vocational and higher education arena. The sensitivity toward national policies and planning and the blockage in the organization of Europe they had caused had to be overcome. The management of combined economic and social policies (especially in the broad area of education and research) had a new strategy. Now, it would be focused on outputs and not on inputs. It was to be based on information about systems in Europe, progress toward goals and the focus of the action shifted from the constituent states toward other social actors (cities, companies, public-private partnerships, etc.) and onto the individual. This article discusses the emergence of a Europeanization process in education, a distinctive spatial, political, and scientific process. It is describing a trend and its significant actors and events. This article also gives some background on the most significant data collection agencies that have been the main carriers of the Europeanization of education systems in Europe. (Contains 2 tables and 6 notes.)