The educational policies and major developments that have marked the history of the French and Israeli educational systems have more similarities than one might imagine, as shown by the comparative work on the reforms carried out during the 1960s and 1970s to unify the structures of education, generalize and democratize access to secondary education (Resnik 2008). From 1980, educational systems of rich countries are led to new developments: extension of studies until the end of secondary education, then, significant increase in access to higher education, but also territorialization of educational public action and, more recently, the rise of public policies marked by the individualisation of action (Dutercq & Resnik 2009), assessement of students’ achievements and accountability (Dutercq & Maroy 2014). These convergent developments have been accentuated by strong incentives of international organizations (OECD and the World Bank in particular) and by the intensification of international comparative assessments (PISA among others) (Felouzis 2012, Mons 2015) that lead to globalization of education (Burbules & Torres 2000, Dale & Robertson 2009, Resnik 2013).

The presentation is based on a research that aims to analyze the main changes in educational policies conducted in France and Israel since the early 2000s. On the one hand, these developments followed the massification of secondary education and access to higher education. On the other hand, they are linked to a relative withdrawal of centralized national states in a period of restriction of educational expenditure and a search of efficiency.. France and Israel are particularly interesting countries to compare because their education systems initially have strong similarities, in particular in terms of structures but also due to the highly centralized governance and the State's important role. We will try to highlight in our presentation how these systems have been transformed in the recent period of globalization of educational policies by following the same slogans, delivered by the transnational organizations, but by interpreting them according to different socio-political contexts and ideological choices.

Beyond its socio-political dimension, the interest of our research, as we will present it in the context of the conference, is its methodological nature: on what common basis can we develop an international comparison of the educational policies of the countries? How to build a relevant analytical model to compare the evolution and reforms of two different national education systems?

To conduct this international comparison, we need a Neo-Weberian-type analysis model built and proven in previous research (Resnik 2008, 2012). Indeed, this paradigm theoretically supports the diachronic and synchronic comparisons of educational reforms. In the era of globalization, as equivalent educational models are adopted around the world, a synchronic comparison makes it possible to point out the differences between the reforms adopted in various countries. On the other hand, the diachronic comparison makes it possible to compare the reforms in the same country and thus to follow the evolution (processes, transformations...) of the educational policies through time. Our Neo-Weberian theoretical model includes three key concepts: the concept of knowledge producers as a status group, the concept of structuring the reformist discourse, and the concept of a global network (with international networks and forums at its center). This model has previously allowed us to compare France and Israel from the point of view of the great structural reform of the 1960s based on a discourse of equality of opportunity. This model enables us to compare these two countries from the point of view of the managerial reform that starts in the early 2000s based on a discourse of search for efficiency, accountability, parents’ school choice. To analyze the development of this reform in both countries, we have relied on the comparison of institutional discourses on educational policies: laws and official instructions, letters of mission from ministers and senior territorial officials (rectors) but also interviews of these leaders and spokespersons in the mainstream press. We have also begun to carry out a series of interviews with central actors of the managerial reform, specialists in French and Israeli educational policies, but also experts who are considered producers of knowledge.

As part of this presentation, we will show the first results of our research still in progress. The comparison highlights some major transformations of educational policies in Israel and France (but also in other countries). We will point to two. First, we note the rise of educational economists and public policy experts in the design of educational policies, with a discourse oriented on the need to assess the impact of the mechanisms put in place. Secondly, there is also increasing participation in the implementation and development of the educational policies of partners outside the world of education and the state sphere, in particular non-governmental organizations and associations, and local political authorities (cities and regions). Moreover, this presentation will give us the opportunity to show the validity of a theoretical-methodological approach to the analysis of educational policies, of a comparative and sociological nature. This approach enables us to develop a sociological approach to international comparison, especially adapted to the study of the evolution of educational policies which is characterized, in particular in the countries studied, by a transformation of the State, moving from a role of rules producer to a role of regulator (Dutercq 2005). Besides, this approach allows us to decipher the implicit implications of certain politico-educational changes that have appeared in the Franco-Israeli space since the 1960s and that led to a shift from a proclaimed search for democratization and the reduction of inequalities in education to a pure quest for efficiency supported by the development of managerialism.

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