This symposium addresses the Double Challenge that education policy currently faces in Europe and beyond: 1) that the transnational political order has reshaped the way education is conceptualized and governed; 2) the gradual undermining of this transnational order by a return to national solutions. The symposium explores a genealogy of the clash between the transnational order and new nationalisms/national solutions in education policy and explores this clash in the forms of current contestations at the level of national policy initiatives and institutional practice. Denmark and the UK are used as national European cases where principles of the welfare state and educational traditions are challenged by transnational approaches to education. Australia, the United States and Japan are used as comparative cases beyond Europe that have been influential in shaping transnational trends whilst being currently hampered by similar (re-)nationalizing trends.

Since 2000 there has been an increased convergence of transnational actors dealing with higher education (Bologna Process & EU) and school (OECD & IEA). This convergence is largely based on educational standards rooted in Anglo-American traditions, such as school effectiveness, evidence and outcome-based curricula (Brøgger, 2019; Krejsler, 2020). Education policy research shows that schools and higher education have been thoroughly influenced by transnational policy agendas (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). OECD and IEA act through international networks designed to collect and compare statistical data and thus exercise external multilateral surveillance. The Open Method of Coordination (OMC), the collaboration method of the EU and the Bologna Process, also makes use of comparison of data, but with the purpose of internal peer surveillance. Both approaches produce education standards, incentive structures and shared values that shape the views of key actors in education across local, national and global levels(Hultqvist, Lindblad, & Popkewitz, 2018; Sellar & Lingard, 2013).

Whereas the transnational order is well-researched, the rise of national opposition in education policy has not yet been explored scientifically. The rise of national opposition is a growing, multi-faceted phenomenon that comprises: 1) A nationalism that contests aspects of globalization, such as the outsourcing of jobs and a receding welfare state (Standing, 2011; World Bank, 2016);  2) a populism that rejects globalization as an elitist project with little resonance among the disadvantaged (Judis, 2018). In education, this national opposition manifests e.g. in Northern Europe as resistance to transnationalization and its Anglo-Saxon inspired education standards that often lack resonance in continental education contexts compromising previous more German-inspired school and university traditions (Blossing, Imsen, & Moos, 2016).

The symposium suggests that education policy’s turn toward national solutions is embedded in a complex wider-reaching geo-political crises, of which Europe and the European Union in particular have not been spared. Recently, post-World War II transnational alliances, such as the EU, have been thrown off balance by the rise of nationalisms and populisms (e.g. illiberal democracies in Hungary and Poland, electoral progress of the far-right in Italy, Germany, Austria and Sweden) (World Bank, 2016). Increasing political volatility also manifests in rising Euro-skepticism (e.g. Brexit) along with right-wing party alignments across Europe (Kriesi, 2014). Eurobarometer polls (EB 2007-2018) show that trust in EU governance dropped precipitously after 2007. In the United States you see similar trends spreading in the wake of the Trump administration. In Australia you see populist trends with the current Morrison administration. Nationalist trends and increasing opposition to multilateral solutions, however, have become a global phenomenon, including Brazil, Russia etc. 

The papers in this symposium draw on critical education policy theory, governance theory, and post-Foucauldian conceptions of governmentality. Empirically they draw on analyses of transnational and national education policy documents as well as national education debates and existing studies on policy reform.

Blossing, U., Imsen, G., & Moos, L. (2016). The Nordic Education Model: 'A school for all' encounters neo-liberal policy. Dordrecht: Springer. Brøgger, K. (2019). Governing through Standards: the Faceless Masters of Higher Education. The Bologna Process, the EU and the Open Method of Coordination. Dordrecht: Springer. Hultqvist, E., Lindblad, S., & Popkewitz, T. S. (Eds.). (2018). Critical Analyses of Educational Reforms in an Era of Transnational Governance. Cham: Springer. Judis, J. B. (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. New York: Columbia Global Reports. Krejsler, J. B. (2020). Imagining School as Standards-Driven and Students as Career-Ready! A comparative genealogy of US federal and European transnational turns in education policy. In F. Guorui & T. S. Popkewitz (Eds.), Handbook of Education Policy Studies: School/University, Curriculum, and Assessment (Vol. 2), 351-383. Singapore: Springer. OA: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-981-13-8343-4_19.pd Kriesi, H. (2014). The Populist Challenge. West European Politics, 37(2), 361-378. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing Education Policy. London & NY: Routledge. Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2013). The OECD and global governance in education. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5),710-725. Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat: The new dangerous class. London: Bloomsbury. World Bank. (2016). Polarization and Populism: Europe and Central Asia Economic Update. Washington D.C.: World Bank.