The State of Educational Research in Slovenia

Pavel Zgaga
Slovensko društvo raziskovalcev na področju edukacije (SLODRE)
Autumn 2012

The Slovenian Educational Research Association (SLODRE) was established on 5 May 2011. It is a voluntary, independent, non-profit association of domestic and foreign natural persons and domestic legal persons, which deal with scientific and research activities in the field of education in the Republic of Slovenia.

Slovenia is an independent country since 1991; it accessed the European Union in 2004 and the Euro zone in 2007. Its teritory is 20.273 km² and population is 2.050.189 (2011). The educational system has a long tradition and is well developed. This can be illustrated with a few figures from the European benchmarks: there are less than 15% of low performers; over 90% of young people achieve upper secondary level; participation in formal education for age group 15-24 years is over 70%. Its higher education is composed of 5 universities (3 public, 1 private and 1 international) as well as of about 30 colleges.

Upon its establishment, SLODRE set two main objectives:

• to connect Slovenian researchers in the broader field of educational research, and consequently helping creating the conditions for an even more successful scientific and research work in Slovenia in the aforementioned field;
• to join EERA, thus facilitating the operation of Slovenian researchers in the broader field of educational research also in the European and international space.

During its first two years, SLODRE has been achieving its objectives primarily with the promotion of its operation among university teachers and assistants, senior and junior researchers, graduate students and others connected with the education research; by raising awareness about the education research, discussing the problems of education research nationwide and addressing the responsible authorities and by organising events for its members and other concerned parties.

SLODRE consists of members who might be natural and/or legal persons. There were 16 founding members (11 natural and 5 legal persons) while today there are 91 registered members (86 natural and 5 legal persons). Members – natural persons are mainly teachers and researchers from universities (faculties of education, arts, social sciences, theology) and from the National Institute of Education as well as from other institutions and NGOs. Members – legal persons are three universities via their faculties (in three cases Education and in one case Arts) and the National Institute of Education.

SLODRE is a young association but the tradition of educational researchers’ cooperation and integration researchers is rather long. Like in other countries of the Central Europe, the tradition of educational research in Slovenia extends from “Pädagogik” to “Education Sciences”. During the 1980s, both “Pädagogik” and “Education” were critically analysed within the ideological context of the times; the half-formal group of young researchers addressed these issues under a name of the “School Field”. The main targets of that period were critical approaches towards education policy and politics based on new epistemologies and interdisciplinary approaches to education and education reforms. Scenarios for educational future beyond 1989/90 were drafted and an independent journal – The School Field – was established.

With independence of the country (1990) a new national system of education became one of the main priorities and a number of researchers from this and other non-formal groups engaged in reforms and overall development. Faculties of Education started to grow and to sharpen their focus to research mission; on the other hand, the National Institute of Education got stronger and bigger. Main topics were related with the quality teacher education, with complex issues of education achievements and education measurement as well as of education research related to development of the national education policy.

During the 1990s, Slovenian educational researchers were well connected to the European and global arena; as a proof one only needs to mention that ECER 1998 was organised in Ljubljana. In that time, The School Field changed into an international journal which readers can find today under the name of Theory and research in education (SAGE, since 2003). However, the Slovenian version of the “old” School Field still exists.

The area of educational research has expanded very much over the last two decades but remained rather fragmented at the national level. This was another important reason to establish SLODRE: it shall play a role of an “umbrella” in the field of education research as there is an obvious need for coordination. The EERA membership importantly enhances this role.