Research topic:

The everlasting foundation and context for this discussion is the question of how, and for what purpose, societies chose to educate the next generation so it gets capable of taking over society.

Our point of departure is that we need to analyse the close links/couplings/relations between the core of schooling, student’s learning/Democratic Bildung, and the leadership and organising of schools. The relations can be seen at all levels: discourse context, vision, themes and processes.

Here we shall focus on two, distinctively different discourses: The global, neo-liberal market place. This perspective is named the civilization perspective, the Global Learner Discourse. The other discourse has a cultural perspective: cosmopolitanism, getting to relate, to know and to open up to the other cultures, norms and people on their own conditions, the Citizen of the World Discourse.

Theoretical and methodological frameworks:

This symposium focuses on governance (sociological and political theories), leadership (leadership theories) and education (theories of General Education and effective education). The methods used are mainly discourse analyses.

Outcomes

Differences between discourses will be analysed at 4 levels:

At the discoursecontext level, the level of developing and discussing discourses, one could say:

1. that the outcomes based discourse is focusing on the civilisation and the labour market and on the state’s governance. International comparisons of students’ basic learning outcomes, like the OECD’s PISA, are important tools (social technologies),
2. the cultivating/Bildungs discourse focuses on civilizations, but also on the cultural context. Focus of this discourse is the dialogue between cultures, building on understanding and acknowledgement and appreciation of the ‘other’.   

The vision level is concerned with explicit and implicit expressions of the purposes/goals/aims of education:

1. the outcomes discourses’ interest for schools’ aims being the position in the PISA league table. How to meet the centralized expectations, and standards and measurement in international and national learning outcomes test,
2. and the cultivating/bildung discourse expresses the purposes of schooling: the developing of unique and free citizens and individuals with interest and capabilities to acknowledge and live with other people in democratic, deliberative communities.

The themes, concerned with the content of education,

1. outcomes discourses tend to focus on basic skills as described within a top down oriented culture of scientific curriculum and an understanding of learning being context- and content free,
2. the cultivating/bildung discourse emphasise education/instruction that focus on important societal and cultural themes (the ‘epoche-typical key problems’: like peace, environment, inequality)

The process level, the level of learning, teaching, organising and leading education:

1. the outcomes discourse focuses on individual students’ learning outcomes while producing data through tests and documentations. Management and organisation with data and accountability. Technocratic homogenisation.
2. while the cultivation/bildung discourse works with relations, teaching and communication. Schools must qualify students to get to know; to become socialized and to be subjectifified: students are invited into the world as subjects.

Relevance to European educational research:

The papers contextualize the analyses in the Nordic countries and the European sphere.

References Moos, L. (2017). Dannelse. Kontekster, visioner, temaer og processer. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Moos, L., Nihlfors, E., & Paulsen, J. M. (2016). Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain. Dordrecht: Springer. Paulsen, J. M., & Henriksen, Ø. (2017). Mediation, Collaborative Learning and Trust in Norwegian School Governing: Synthesis from a Nordic Research Project. Nordic Journal of International and Comparative Education, 1(1), 68-84. doi: org/10.7577/njcie.1952 Paulsen, J. M., & Høyer, H. C. (2016). External Control and Professional Trust in Norwegian School Governing: Synthesis from a Nordic Research Project. Nordic Studies in Education, 36(2), 86–102. doi: 0.18261/issn.1891-5949-2016-02-02 Rowan, B. (1990). Commitment and control: Alternative strategies for the organizational design of schools. In C. B. Cazden (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 16). Washington DC: American Educational Research Association.