This symposium explores commonalities and differences between cases of European national school and teacher education policies that have turned increasingly transnational and US state cases that have turned increasingly national/federal. The purpose is furthermore to identify possible transatlantic policy lending/borrowing.

The papers pursue the hypothesis that European and US cases show striking commonalities in spite of considerable differences in institutions and contextual backgrounds (Diamantopoulou, 2003; Labaree, 2014; Krejsler 2017(forthcoming). The US is a nation consisting of a federation of states, and much responsibility for education is located at the state level. The EU is an inter-governmental set of institutions, strong in economic matters but weak in matters of education. At a formal level, relations between central and local levels of education policy in the two contexts are clearly different.

In Europe national school and teacher education policy-making has become increasingly influenced by policy advice from complex transnational policy forums (Bologna Process, OECD, EU) (Rasmussen et al., 2015); whereas US education policy is generated within a more integrated body of 50 states and its plethora of discursive forces (Rhodes, 2012).Both ‘bodies’, however, operate according to ‘soft law’ and consensus-building around imagined needs of competitive global Knowledge Economies’ (Hamilton et al, 2008; Rhodes, 2012; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010; OECD, 1996).

In this symposium we focus upon school and teacher education policy and take the US states of Texas, California and Wisconsin and the EU countries of Denmark and France as cases. We will discuss issues like the role and impact of soft policy governance, evidence-based policy and its coupling to accountability measures like high- or low-stakes testing and other political technologies. We will identify issues that are specific to each region and issues that travel between them. The papers thus add to research that stresses the importance of understanding the interplay between dominant regions in the world: how and by what parameters they become comparable and what ideas of education and public good that represents (Meyer & Benavot, 2013; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010).

Complex policy processes in the US between federal, national and state levels that linger between compelling and voluntary elements combine in deepening collaborations. This  resembles developments in European education policy, in particular policy-making by means of the Open Method of Coordination, where member states are committed to common policy objectives and benchmarks rather than to policy instruments.  Mutual peer pressure and the fear of excluding oneself from mainstream decision-making, funding, debate and policy advice ensures adoption of standards, performance indicators and benchmarks in both contexts. The effects of transnational and federal governmentality practices may be direct, as demonstrated by the Bologna Process and the No Child Left Behind Act. More often, however, effects touch upon national and state agendas in such indirect ways as mentioned above.

However, nation and state policy processes simultaneously succeed in maintaining policy discourse that resonates with nation and state particularities. Recent developments appear to be turning against federal and transnational influence with Brexit and the election of Donald J. Trump as president. In the US the adoption of the Every Student Succeeds Act (December 2015) points to a reversal of powers to the state level. In Europe the effects of the Brexit are uncertain, since it also removes one of the major opponents to common education policy from the EU negotiation tables.

The papers in this symposium draw on critical education policy theory and post-Foucauldian conceptions of governmentality. Empirically they draw on discourse analyses of EU, European national, US federal and state documents as well as data and existing studies on policy reform and implementation from both contexts. 

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