Session Information
23 SES 07 B, Research Politics and the Knowledge-Policy Relationship II
Paper Session
Contribution
The communautarisation of the Belgian education system took place in 1989 when the national system was split in two separate communities, French-speaking and Flemish-speaking, acting from then on as two distinct public authorities (in regard of education policy and other cultural matters). Their previous common history (Mabille, 2000) as a national system is very peculiar, as it was characterized by a consociative arrangement, which is typical of small central European nations (The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland). In each of these countries, one could find several distinct integrated sociological communities living side by side on the same territory. In such contexts, the formation of the Nation-State was a complicated process during which the distinct communities (catholic and anticlerical in Belgium) agreed to live together solely on the basis of a ‘pact’, according to which each community would be given equal rights to organize its own collective life. This allowed each community to create a wide range of organizations dealing with almost every aspects of daily life, i.e. a pillar.
Such an arrangement can be seen as the pre-history of "governance" (Papadopoulos, 2002). Indeed, in many countries, the implication of non public actors in the elaboration of policies and in the delivery of services – including in sectors such as education and health – dates back to the 19^th century and flourished during the 20^th century. In these various countries, public services such as education and health care have been ruled and provisioned by private collective actors (= by the so-called organized civil society), and financed by the State. In other words, public-private partnerships have been in place for a long time in these contexts, where policy choices are indeed constructed by these private organized actors in a form of negotiation with the State whose role is sometimes brought down to that of a non-authoritative coordinator. In such context, governance - understood as the coordination of diverse actors in providing services- is an old affair. It is however also opposed to new current forms of governance. While old forms of governance required a form of discretion on the part of all actors involved (Mangez, 2009), the new "governance turn" promotes evaluation, accountability and transparency. Additionally, the governance turn is linked up with new international alliances, the Europeanization of education policy and trends towards international competitiveness (Simons, 2007).
The two-voice presentation will examine this common history and focus particularly on recent past through a discussion comparing the policy trajectories taken by the Flemish-speaking north and the French-speaking south of the country since their divorce in 1989. Specific attention is given to the knowledge - policy relationship: the balance between the requirement for discretion (inherited from the past) and the (future-oriented) need for evidence is examined in both parts of the country.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Lawn, Martin, Lingard Bob. (2002) “Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: the role of transnational policy actors.” European Educational Research Journal 1(2). Mabille, X. (2000). Histoire politique de la Belgique. Facteurs et acteurs de changement. Bruxelles : Editions du CRISP. Mangez, Eric. (2009) “De la nécessité de discrétion à l'Etat évaluateur.” Revue Nouvelle 32-37. Papadopoulos, Yannis. (2003) “Gouvernance et transformations de l'action publique: quelques notes sur l'apport d'une perspective de sociologie historique.”, in Pascale Laborier; Danny Trom, Historicités de l'action publique. PUF, Paris: 119-135 Simons, M. (2007). ‘To be informed’: understanding the role of feedback information for Flemish/European policy. Journal of Education Policy, 22, 531-548.
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