Session Information
23 SES 07 B, The European Education Space after the Economic Crisis
Symposium
Contribution
Education research concentrating on the Europeanisation of education policy is now challenged by the question of how the economic and political implications of the 2008 economic crisis has affected the European education policy space. While findings about the accelerating Europeanisation of the education space continue to be persuasive (Nóvoa and Lawn 2002; Ozga, 2011; Nordin and Sundburg 2014), it has been argued that the effects of ‘travelling policy’, combined in various ways with pre-existing policy traditions and interacting with national policy traditions and institutional conditions, has greatly varied across Europe, (Jones and Alexiadou 2001; Ozga &Jones 2006; Jones et al 2008). In this symposium we will develop this argument further through the analysis of national experiences from Greece and Hungary two countries which sit at the semi-periphery of the world system (Wallerstein 1984, Arrighi and Drangel 1986) and Sweden, a core country, which has experienced decentralisation and transformed into one of the most marketised world education systems.
We will argue that the 2008 economic crisis has triggered changes which demand that we revisit arguments that Europeanisation is the main dynamic of education policy within nation states. The cases of Greece and Hungary allow us to discuss the particularities of the semi-periphery of the world system and the unevenly developed system of national economies gathered in the European Union. We are particularly interested in how austerity regimes unfolded in the education systems of the European semi-periphery and how the relations to Europe as an educational space and policy-making authority have changed during the last decade in the two countries studied. As a response to the uncertainties of the economic crisis, the narratives of national sovereignty strengthened, which entailed the rising criticism of certain aspects of the European project. We will argue that it is not only among the populist right but also in the policies of government where questions of borders, identity and sovereignty have become more prominent and where tensions between European policy makers and national governments have become sharper.
Research Questions:
- What have been the key aspects of EU education policy which influence the making of education policy in Greece, Hungary and Sweden since 2008?
- What are the main political and structural tensions between the integrative vision of the European education space and national policy-making? What are the national strategies to address these tensions on a rhetorical and on a policy level?
- What are the shared characteristics and main differences in how Hungary, Greece and Sweden reshaped their education policies in post-2008 Europe?
Through the analysis of national experiences from Greece, Hungary, and Sweden we will try to identify vectors of transformation that are at work in Europe as a whole – renaissance of nationalism and religious influence; mass movements of population; the changing role of the state in service provision, privatization and other aspects of neo-liberal paradigm; decentralization/centralization as a model of governance; emergence of new educational actors; the changing relationship between the labour market and education policies and particular state project in shaping the future workforce through education; and service provision. The analysis will also help us to understand how the position that a state occupies within this system affects its internal configuration: the strength and orientation of its governing class; the economic and social resources that it has at its disposal; its capacity to withstand or accommodate external pressures. The three countries selected allow comparative exploration of different forms of adaptation to European policy.
References
Arrighi, G.& Drangel, J. (1986) The stratification of the world-economy: An exploration of the semi-pheripheral zone, Review, X(1), pp. 9-74 Bieler, A. and Morton, D.A. ( 2006) A Critical Theory Route to Hegemony, World Order and Historical Change, New York: SpringerLink Jones, K. & Alexiadou, N. (2001) The Global and the National: reflections on the experience of three European states, paper presented at the European Conference of Educational Research, Lille. Jones K. et al (2008) Schooling in Western Europe, New York: SpringerLink Nordin, A. & Sundburg, D. (2014) Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: the making and governance of knowledge in the education field, Oxford Studies in Comparative Education, Oxford: Symposium. Nóvoa, A. & Lawn, M. (2002) Fabricating Europe: The formation of an education space, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ozga, J. & Jones, R. ( 2006) Travelling and embedded policy: the case of knowledge transfer, Journal of Education Policy, 21(1) pp. 1-17. Ozga, J. (2011) Researching the Powerful: Seeking knowledge about the Policy, European Educational Research Journal, 10 (2), pp. 217-224. Wallerstein, I. (1984) The Politics of the World-Economy, New York: Cambridge University Press.
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