The present article focuses on the representation of consultants and their implication in the sensitization, diffusion and application of social justice norms in educational policies. It lays on the first results of a current PhD in sociology of public action - a French translation of policy analysis, an approach between sociology and political science -, on international French-speaking consultants worlds and the notion of consultocraty as a new way of education and training governance in and through international and European cooperation and public development aid.

The research veers towards identifying who these new professionals are, the consultants, and to understand their representation of educational aims. This interactional study will focus on an exploration of their experience, action and representation in order to understand their role in the definition of current and future educational objectives and to answer to the following issue: which degree of implication do they have in the integration of Social Justice norms in education governance in Europe and Africa (creator, productor, translator, interpreter, advocator, mediator, mirror, vigilante)?

A recurrent purpose of international and regional organizations favoring the access to quality, equitable and inclusive education to all (Orivel, 2004, Forquin, 2004, Cerqua, 2015, Jean, 2017) invites to address and to evaluate these global norms in the educational systems. With this article, we, as sociologists, aim to understand the origins of these Social Justice norms in the educational policies discourse and the translation of those global norms in their implementation on the field. Sociology of public action use a diachronic approach to understand the policy as a process and not as a sequentialization of policy phases, between elaboration and implementation, between “conception/negotiation” and “execution/application”, or between policy and administration (Dubois, 2003). We understand and analyse the institutionalization of and by the public action (Dubois, 2003).

Transnational dynamics, as Europeanization, regionalization, globalization, normalization, change the State’s role, its power, the orientation of public action (Viltard, 2009; Knight, 2014; Zgaga, 2015; Zahavi, 2019), as well as the policy trajectory particularly in context of public development aid (Johnson, 2006; Charlier et Croché, 2010). Educational systems, evaluated by international organizations (for instance PISA of OECD or PASEC of CONFEMEN), are externalized and tends to be harmonized. This harmonization process of the organizational systems of Higher Education in the international scene could be compared to the transition from a jazz group having personal interpretation to a symphonic orchestra with commons priorities (Yavaprabhas, 2010). Research on these processes reveals that the countries of African Region are perfused by the international public development aid (Provini, 2015), but simultaneously of this instrumentalization changing universities from outside, revealed endogenous dynamics inside the universities (Loiret, 2007). What of the basic educational systems, primary and secondary levels?

Policy studies revealed the consultocraty as the new way of public action governance (Saint Martin, 1999; Saint-Martin, 2000; Matyjasik, 2013) and demonstrated the impact of the consultancy on endogenous privatization of education (Ball et Youdell, 2008; Gunter et al., 2015; McClure, 2017) and a culture of evaluation and control by results from the entry of “non-educational expert subjectivities” (Pons, 2014; Serpieri et al, 2015, p. 296).

To respond our objective of understanding the governance of education, by and through the international and European cooperation in a public development aid context, we will use: - Symbolic interactionist approach of the sociology of profession: by studying the apparition of these new professionals, the consultants, and their worlds (degrees of interaction with the consultancy). - Network ethnography (Ball and Junemann, 2012) of policy studies by identifying “policies as the assembling processes occurring through the displacement of knowledges, technologies and subjectivities” (Serpieri et al, 2015). By symbolic interactionist approach, we could identify different degrees of integration in consultancy traducing several visions of the professionals they are. Added to a network ethnography (Ball and Junemann, 2012) for a transdisciplinary approach we could demonstrate the creation of spaces for expert subjectivities. Firstly, we assess more than 30 semi-directive interviews with consultants from French-speaking countries, from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland in their contribution in bilateral or multilateral programmes, including European cooperation programmes. Our analytical method consists of structurally clearing the interviews and proceeding to thematic analysis (Bardin, 2013) by using an application of data analysis. Then, we cross the data with an analysis of the documentation and an exploration of the blogs and websites of the consultants. Secondly, we conduct an ethnography of public action (Dubois, 2012) by a network ethnography in the consultancy sphere, bi and multilateral cooperation programmes, included those from the European Commission, as well as from an experience inside the French ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. This method consists of showing the several interactions in educational policies, between “both human and non-human actors, involved in (and produced by) the space of policies” (Serpieri et al, 2015, p. 296) Finally, ethical aspects and reflections on the researcher posture will be presented.

Expected outcomes: Consultocraty is a new way of governance of educational policies creating and opening up spaces of non-educational expert subjectivities: - Micro-worlds of consultants, in plural, because of their different subjectivities and degrees of interaction with the object “education”, being mediators of modes, translators of national policies or vigilantes of social justice, becoming creators of norms or advocators of a neo-liberalism approach in educational systems. - Consultants are blurry professionals. - A “meta-governance” conception extending, widening, complexifying, deepening the processes of negotiation and concertation finely elaborated for a specific use (expertise), opening to the change, impacting an endogenous privatization of educational and international cooperation systems. - This meta-governance tends to harmonize the educational systems by creating norms, rules and criteria and to simplify the discourse of education aims.

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