| Policy Futures in Education |
ISSN 1478-2103 | |
Volume 6 Number 6 2008
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CONTENTS [click
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SPECIAL ISSUE
European Educational Futures
Guest Editor: PALLE RASMUSSEN
Palle Rasmussen. Introduction. European
Educational Futures, pages 662‑664
doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.662 VIEW
FULL TEXT
Risto Rinne. The Growing
Supranational Impacts of the OECD and the EU on National Educational Policies,
and the case of Finland, pages 665‑680
Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Palle Rasmussen
& Edward Lorenz. Education in the Learning Economy: a European perspective,
pages 681‑700
Carmel Borg & Peter Mayo.
Globalisation, Southern Europe and European Adult Education Policy, pages 701‑717
Susan Robertson. ‘Europe/Asia’
Regionalism, Higher Education and the Production of World Order, pages 718‑729
Holger Daun. Islam, Christianity and
Secularism in European Education, pages
730‑743
Oskar Negt. Adult Education and
European Identity, pages 744‑756
Marek Kwiek. Academic
Entrepreneurship vs. Changing
Governance and Institutional Management Structures at European Universities, pages 757‑770
Ariane Baye & Marc Demeuse. The
European Commission Stepping Up both
the Efficiency and Equity of Education and Training Systems, pages 771‑780

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The Growing Supranational Impacts of the OECD and
the EU on National Educational Policies, and the Case of Finland
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RISTO RINNE Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Education, University of
Turku, Finland
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.665
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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The trends of globalisation have had
unavoidable impacts in steering and guiding the decisions of national
policy-makers and the direction of national education policies. In the
obscuring processes of supranational homogenisation of education and
educational policy, supranational regimes, such as the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU), play a
significant role. The traditional idea of meritocratic competition is
challenged by globalisation and by the new standard setting of the
supranational organisations, and nation-states are losing their power to define
standards and to control the key features of educational selection. The process
is proceeding particularly in the field of higher education, where the stakes
to win reputational capital are at their highest. The message, objectives and
language of those organisations are cast in the same mould. They have started to
speak in the same words with the same stress, repeating the same phrases about
globalisation, economic efficiency and productivity, and swearing that
globalisation is inevitable in the name of progress. In this article,
historical change in the educational policies of the OECD and the EU and the
implication of these policies for national education policies are studied.
Special emphasis is laid on the field of higher education and the national case
of Finland.
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Education in the Learning Economy: a European
perspective
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BENGT-ÅKE LUNDVALL Aalborg University, Denmark
PALLE RASMUSSEN Aalborg University, Denmark
EDWARD LORENZ University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.681
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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Innovation is crucial to the competitiveness
of the economies of Europe, and learning is crucial to innovation. The most
important trend shift is not that knowledge is becoming more important but that
it is becoming obsolete more rapidly than before, so that firms and employees
constantly have to learn and acquire new competencies. This involves different
types of knowledge of which the less formalised, learnt through experience, are
often just as important as the formalised, learnt through exposure to teaching.
The article opens with a presentation of different categories of knowledge,
their consequences for approaches to education and the concept of the learning
economy. Drawing on cross-national data it is then shown how European economies
are characterised by dramatic differences in work organisation and learning at
the workplace. The authors illustrate how such differences are linked not only
to inequality of access to workplace learning but also to institutional and
cultural differences between different national school systems in Europe. They
argue that traditional schooling, isolated from society and organised according
to traditional disciplines and educational methods, is insufficient in the
context of the learning economy. Educational principles and cultures focusing
on collaboration, interdisciplinarity and engagement with real-life problems
are needed to prepare people for flexible and innovative participation in the
economy and society.
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Globalisation, Southern Europe and European
Adult Education Policy
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CARMEL BORG & PETER MAYO Faculty of Education, University of Malta
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.701
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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In this article, the authors define some of
the most evident features of globalisation from below, which they distinguish
from hegemonic globalisation, and draw out its implications for adult
education. They draw out the implications for European adult education that
emerge from the different features of these two types of globalisations. They
then refer to the history of and contemporary provision in adult education in
southern Europe and argue that there are elements there that can serve the
purpose of a revitalised counter-hegemonic adult education approach. They then
explore whether this thinking makes its presence felt in two major European
documents, the EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning and a recent report on adult
education, carried out for the European Commission, provided by the European
Association for the Education of Adults. They do this given that the
international literature on adult education is dominated by ideas and
experiences emerging from the central European states and Nordic countries.
They highlight the recurrence in the Memorandum of the tendency to
vocationalise adult education at different stages of a person’s life. They
consider the EAEA report to be more expansive and representative than the
Memorandum but they also argue that there is a tendency to uncritically accept
the vocationalisation of older adulthood. The issue of migration from
south-of-the-equator populations to Europe, and especially southern Europe, is
also considered, given that it is a prominent feature of the intensification of
globalisation. Its implications for adult education practice are also
considered, also and mainly in light of the situation obtaining in the frontier
countries of southern Europe.
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‘Europe/Asia’ Regionalism, Higher Education and
the Production of World Order
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SUSAN ROBERTSON Centre for Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of
Bristol, United Kingdom
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.718
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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From the early 1990s onwards, various European
Union (EU) reports have commented on the low level of European exports and
foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Asian region, and the invisibility of
Europe in the Asian imagination in comparison with the United States. To
overcome this problem, a series of policy and programme initiatives have been
launched that include higher education as a platform, that are funded by the EU’s
development agency EuropeAid, and that use the inter-regional institutional
structures of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the
Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM). Initially, the focus for higher education was on
generating European visibility and Asian capacity through the creation of
networks and curricular initiatives. However, since 2000 the higher education
initiatives in the successive Asia–Europe inter-regional policies have been
reoriented towards realising the Lisbon 2000 Agenda of developing a globally
competitive European knowledge-based economy. Asia–Europe inter-regionalism is
now being used to facilitate an explicit competitiveness agenda for Europe
through (i) prioritising the development of a European market in higher
education that is attractive to Asian students; (ii) synchronising Asian higher
education structures with those that have developed in Europe as a result of
the Bologna Process; (iii) recruiting ‘talent’ from within the Asian region;
and (iv) the development of research collaborations, such as funded research
institutes. Whilst funded by the EU’s development agency EuropeAid, these
initiatives have as their target not the very low-income countries in ASEAN and
ASEM, but China and India. This generates tensions in the foreign-policy mix of
education, trade and development, making the EU vulnerable to charges of
imperialism and neo-colonialism, whilst the inter-regional structures
themselves carry their own politics which in turn shape the terrain of higher
education.
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Islam, Christianity and Secularism in European
Education
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HOLGER DAUN Institute of International Education, Stockholm University, Sweden
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.730
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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At a very general (‘civilisational’) level,
compulsory and upper secondary education in Europe is based in the Christian
tradition and does not easily tolerate other types of education. Europe is the
only continent that has been able to combine modernisation and secularisation,
and this has continuously favoured religious schools of the Christian type but
disfavoured Muslim initiatives. Also, during the past decade all the education
systems have been required to produce competitiveness and social cohesion. The
first requirement has made education more focused on intellectual, technical
and cognitive features and less on values and morals. The second requirement
derives from the cleavages resulting from the drive for competitiveness as well
as flows of immigrants and minority demands for their rights. However, none of
the pressures, drives and requirements has resulted in any deep-going change in
the multicultural direction of European education.
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Adult Education and European Identity
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OSKAR NEGT Department
of Sociology, University of Hannover, Germany
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.744
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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Europe is coming together. This is a historic
project; for the first time in modern history, will and consciousness are used
for bringing political, social and cultural unity to the European continent. In
this process lifelong learning and hence adult education are gaining in
importance. The European project takes place in an age characterised by radical
changes and crises in work, civil society and the human existence as such. In
this situation citizens need new key skills to cope. Also, identities need to
be strengthened and reshaped and new types of solidarity need to be developed.
Learning must not be restricted to the acquisition of technical and vocational
skills, but will increasingly become learning to cope with the world and to
establish new hierarchies of values which enable individuals to create a democratic
Europe. To achieve this goal adult education must cease to be the
responsibility of the individual and rather become an institutionalised and
shared responsibility.
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Academic Entrepreneurship vs. Changing Governance and Institutional Management Structures at
European Universities
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MAREK KWIEK Center for Public Policy, Poznan University, Poland
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.757
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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This article discusses academic
entrepreneurship in the context of ongoing changes in university management and
governance in European universities. The comparative perspective is provided by
the European Union (EU) research project ‘European Universities for
Entrepreneurship: Their Role in the Europe of Knowledge’ (EUEREK) comprising
seven European countries, and it draws heavily from ideas and research results
of Burton Clark, Michael Shattock and Gareth Williams. It views transformations
in university governance and management in the context of the recent emphasis
by the European Commission (EC) on the vital role of changes in institutional
governance and its ‘modernisation agenda for universities’. The article
presents a general discussion of the EC’s prioritisation of areas of
transformation of European universities in which governance structures figure
prominently, discusses the role of risk-taking at entrepreneurial institutions
and shows the role of risk management. It also discusses the clash of old
academic and new managerial values at entrepreneurial universities and the
traditional academic idea of collegiality. Finally, conclusions are drawn
regarding the future of public institutions in Europe.
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The European Commission Stepping Up Both the
Efficiency and Equity of Education and Training Systems
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ARIANE BAYE Education & Training Department, University of Liège, Belgium
MARC
DEMEUSE Institut d’Administration
scolaire, University of Mons-Hainaut (UMH), Belgium
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doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.6.771
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ABSTRACT 中文摘要
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This article analyses the Communication of the
European Commission (EC) devoted to efficiency and equity of European education
systems. It shows the Commission’s difficulties in integrating the multiple
dimensions of education equity and the confusion between pedagogical and
economical notions of efficiency. The authors also analyse the means proposed
by the Commission to foster equity and efficiency at different education
levels. Under the guise of a specific interest in pre-schooling, the arguments
concerning compulsory education were rather lightweight and incomplete, and
those on higher education worrying. This article raises the concerns and
questions that remain after the reading of this Communication
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