| European Educational | ISSN 1474-9041 | ||
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Volume 7 Number 2 2008 | |||
Other issues available | Journal home page | Publisher home page | |||
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CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text] | |||
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ECER 2007 KEYNOTE VIEW
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The Process of Finding a Shape: stabilising new research structures in Swedish teacher education, 2000‑2007 |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.157 |
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This article explores the development and effects of Swedish post-war policies on the emergence of a research base for teacher education. From 2001 onwards, it is possible to undertake research and postgraduate studies within teacher education in Sweden, which prior to the 2001 reform was not possible. The article draws on a variety of frameworks to explore relationships between various parts of teacher education and also more widely in the university. These include relations of power, discourse and gender based on the theoretical perspectives of Bourdieu, Foucault, Sarfatti Larson and Connell among others. Policy documents relating to teacher education and research into national, regional and local perspectives were used to explore institutional history, structures and research development in teacher education from 1946 to the present time. For a micro-level perspective, an interview study was also carried out between 2000 and 2002 with teacher educators and senior managers who from the late 1940s were responsible for teacher education programmes, in and around Umeå, in northern Sweden. A further complementary interview study was carried out with teacher educators and union representatives between 2005 and 2007. The extended study reveals the emergence of new research areas in teacher education as a multilayered process involving a variety of actors at different levels at Umeå University and elsewhere. The aim of the article is to explore the implications of the new research structures for teacher education in Sweden and also to contribute to current cross-national discourses on the need to establish a research base for teacher education. |
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Middle-Class Families and School Choice: freedom versus equity in the context of a ‘local education market’ |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.176 |
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This article analyses the impact of social class on the process of school choice in Spain from the viewpoint of middle-class families. This practice must be seen in the framework of the new social context generated by the information society. The article begins by briefly describing changes in school choice policies in Spain. For a wider understanding, these changes are related to the broader process of the marketisation of education, which has been taking place in this country for the last 20 years. In the second part of the article, qualitative data are presented on how middle-class parents understand and experience the process of choosing a particular school for their children. In this study, 24 interviews were carried out in the city of Granada (southern Spain). They were fully transcribed and analysed using the methodology suggested by ‘grounded theory’ and Bourdieu’s concept of social class. Aspects related to social and cultural capital are added to the traditional social class indicators, which are usually expressed in economic terms. Attention centres on the creation of reconversion strategies for these different forms of capital used by families to obtain positional advantage for their children. This research thus revisits the principles of social reproduction theories from the viewpoint of the ‘winners’, i.e. middle-class families. |
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The Changing Relations between Education Professionals, the State and Citizen Consumers in Europe: rethinking restructuring as capitalisation |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.195 |
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This article focuses on research about welfare state restructuring in education and its implications for the teaching profession. Several things are described and discussed. However, amongst the most important are pan-European developments in the social relations of production in education over the past 50 years with respect to the socialisation, habituation and commercialisation of education labour, and a suggested lowering of general standards of public education and increasing class differences in the amount and quality of education consumed by citizens. The idea expressed about this is that neo-liberal restructuring is leading to the creation of apparatuses through which education is objectified for economic accumulation through an outsourcing of functions that were formerly carried out within first domestic and voluntary, and then state arrangements to capitalist enterprises. This is part of a successive privatisation of education services for processes of capitalisation. It consists of an updating of the moral and legal determination of education services by the prevailing standards of market capitalism and an abdication of responsibility for the plight of negatively affected individuals, who, nevertheless, in some intriguing way still often support the system of transformation in question. |
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From Symbols to Numbers: the shifting technologies of education governance in Europe |
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SOTIRIA GREK Centre for Educational Sociology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.208 |
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This article focuses on the changing nature of education governance in Europe. It looks at the shifting discourses and policy practices in the ways in which the European Commission has aligned itself to education and discusses the reasons for what is presented as a substantial shift in the tools and resources for governing the European education space. The article suggests that, alongside other significant developments, the knowledge economy has had two significant effects on education governance in Europe: first, a rapid change of policy discourse and practice, moving from constructing a European ‘culture’ to a Europe of learning governed by numbers; and second, education is slowly moving from the margins of European governance to the very centre of its policy making. The article discusses the new technologies of governance that have powered this shift and makes a case for the significance of recognising and studying them further. |
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Age of Indicators: changes in the Finnish education policy agenda |
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JAAKKO KAUKO & JANNE VARJO Department of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.219 |
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Quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) have become a vital part of education governance, both globally and nationally. This article is an attempt to represent and analyse first, how the idea of education indicators has arrived, has been accepted and has been modified in Finland. Secondly, it describes what are the aims given and actions taken in developing national indicators by different actors. The article sketches the development of education indicators in Finland through two time periods of high adaptational pressure of Europeanisation. During the ‘short 1970s’ (c.1970‑76), the idea of social indicators was introduced for the very first time on the Finnish comprehensive education policy agenda. This first attempt faded away by the mid 1970s. However, the ‘long 1990s’ reinvented the idea and it seems that this period, beginning from c.1986, is still ongoing. Drawing on Börzel & Risse’s thoughts, the authors explain the differences in these two decades mainly with the changes in ‘facilitating factors’ and the duration of adaptational pressure. |
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Improving Learning in All-Day Schools: results of a new teaching time model |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.232 |
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Following the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment for Germany, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research founded the capital investment program ‘Future Education and Care’ as a federal measure to support the expansion of all-day schooling in Germany. During this process it became obvious that learning and teaching in all-day schools had to take place within new time structures. In this context, the Land of Bremen initiated a new teaching time model, which is, so far, unique in Germany. The results of empirical longitudinal accompanying research on the presence teaching time model indicate that pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds profited most from the new model. Further, teachers’ workload decreased and there was an increase in their cooperative behaviour. |
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Advancing the European Education Agenda: international conference of the European Education Policy Network (EEPN) and the Centre for Educational Policy and Innovation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium |
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doi:10.2304/eerj.2008.7.2.243 |
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An international conference on the theme ‘Advancing the European Education Agenda’ took place in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium from 30 November to 1 December 2007. This conference, part of a conference series organised by the European Education Policy Network, aimed to stimulate debate among policy researchers and policy makers who are interested in the rapid education policy developments taking place in the European arena. In this report the authors provide an overview of the key themes, challenges and tensions that were raised during this meeting. These discussions clustered around four themes: higher education, research and innovation; mobility, integration and inclusion; learning, languages and skills; and bridging the gap between education policy and research. |
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