Introduction: School Policy Reform in Europe between Transnational Alignment and National Contestation

TY - CHAP

T1 - Introduction

T2 - School Policy Reform in Europe between Transnational Alignment and National Contestation

AU - Krejsler, John Benedicto

AU - Moos, Lejf

PY - 2023/8

Y1 - 2023/8

N2 - This chapter introduces to how school policy reform in Europe increasingly aligns national school and education policies to proliferating transnational collaborations. This takes place mostly via transnational collaborations like the OECD and the EU, and for higher education the Bologna process. But even the IEA contributes by means of influential surveys, knowledge production and methodological development. The chapter explains this alignment as processes of de-contextualization, when policymakers broker consensus in transnational agencies, up against the ensuing processes of re-contextualization when this de-contextualized consensus has to be re-contextualized in different national contexts. This alignment in terms of common standards, social technologies and qualification frameworks aims at facilitating mobility of students, workers and business as well as fostering a European identity among citizens from Europe’s patchwork of small and medium-size countries, representing different languages, cultures and societal contexts. As emphasized in the chapter, these processes of policy transfer, exchange and mutual inspiration are equally rife with national contestation as transnational norms meet with national traditions. With reference to the book’s eleven country chapters (ten EU countries, representing Northwestern, Southern, Central & Eastern Europe + Western Balkans, as well as England) the introduction points to the diversity of contestations that transnational policy also produces when it meets particular national contexts, ranging from progressive reform pedagogy and Bildung resistance to positivist and economistic approaches to education over increasing focus upon ‘national values’ to recent outright nationalist resentment to transnational and multilateral encroachment upon national sovereignty. The chapter also points to national school policy and practice as increasingly framed by digitalization and commercialization.

AB - This chapter introduces to how school policy reform in Europe increasingly aligns national school and education policies to proliferating transnational collaborations. This takes place mostly via transnational collaborations like the OECD and the EU, and for higher education the Bologna process. But even the IEA contributes by means of influential surveys, knowledge production and methodological development. The chapter explains this alignment as processes of de-contextualization, when policymakers broker consensus in transnational agencies, up against the ensuing processes of re-contextualization when this de-contextualized consensus has to be re-contextualized in different national contexts. This alignment in terms of common standards, social technologies and qualification frameworks aims at facilitating mobility of students, workers and business as well as fostering a European identity among citizens from Europe’s patchwork of small and medium-size countries, representing different languages, cultures and societal contexts. As emphasized in the chapter, these processes of policy transfer, exchange and mutual inspiration are equally rife with national contestation as transnational norms meet with national traditions. With reference to the book’s eleven country chapters (ten EU countries, representing Northwestern, Southern, Central & Eastern Europe + Western Balkans, as well as England) the introduction points to the diversity of contestations that transnational policy also produces when it meets particular national contexts, ranging from progressive reform pedagogy and Bildung resistance to positivist and economistic approaches to education over increasing focus upon ‘national values’ to recent outright nationalist resentment to transnational and multilateral encroachment upon national sovereignty. The chapter also points to national school policy and practice as increasingly framed by digitalization and commercialization.

KW - comparative education

KW - national school

KW - school policy

KW - transnational policy

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85167892225&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-35434-2_1

DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-35434-2_1

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-3-031-35433-5

SN - 978-3-031-35436-6

T3 - Educational Governance Research

SP - 3

EP - 23

BT - School Policy Reform in Europe

A2 - Krejsler, John Benedicto

A2 - Moos, Lejf

PB - Springer

CY - Cham

ER -