Session Information
23 SES 09 B, Policy Learning/Borrowing
Symposium
Contribution
In matters of education and schooling the United States has significant influence on Europe, perhaps especially the countries of Northern Europe. This influence is partly due to the leading role of the US in international organisations like the OECD, whose policies have significant impact on European countries. More generally the dominant role of the US in the world economy, in science and technology as well as in popular culture inspires other governments to try out policies and practices developed in the US context. An example is the focus on evidence-based educational policy connected with high-stakes accountability in the ‘No Child Left Behind’ initiative, which contributed to its eager adoption in much of Europe. However, European policy-makers adopting American practices seldom discuss how these practices are embedded in US school systems. In this paper we will look at Danish school policy and the associated teacher education policy, trying to trace the impact of agendas being increasingly set in transnational forums like the OECD, EU, the Bologna Process and IEA, and the extent to which this these developments reflect similar developments in US K-12 policy. Our hypothesis is that the federal turn in US K-12 policy has affected in many aspects the transnational turn in European national school policy, but mainly indirectly rather than through direct policy borrowing An illustrative example is a 2004 OECD report on insufficient evaluation culture in Danish schools which was instrumental among other issues to introducing 10 national adaptive tests in Danish school (and thus overcoming a strong tradition of resistance to testing in Danish school). Although the tests were low-stakes (not high-stakes as in the No Child Left Behind Act) they reflect an increased sensitivity in Danish school policy to transnational policy advice. This also opened the door for international (not least US) testing experts. Similarly, Danish school policy increasingly refers to evidence and what works discourse. The influence comes from a variety of sources, the OECD playing a key role, but also considerable import of evidence approaches from the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries. The approach in the paper will be explorative. We will not present a finished analysis of the two contexts and cases but rather discuss frameworks for analysis and empirical examples. Empirically we will draw on official information and existing research. The theoretical framework will draw mainly on post-Foucauldian and critical education policy research.
References
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