Over the last two decades, many large –scale education reforms perceived educational quality through the deployment of measurable standards of pupil attainment whereas accountability mechanisms and “governing through data”  (Lawn, 2011, 287) were equated with more efficient data production and change driven ‘by comparison against the past and competitors’ (Lawn 2011, 287). However, the last years under the circumstances of crisis shivering the global community, and the drawbacks of the education quality models put in place (Day & Smethen, 2009; Sachs, 2001; Woods & Jeffrey, 2002, p. 92; Power, S. & Frandji, D. (2010); Bald, 2006; Mansell, 2006; Jaecyung, 2010), we are led to consider educational quality under a new prism.

This paper, balancing between the global and the local, introduces the concept of the sociopolitical hidden curriculum taking as units of analysis EEP (European Education Policy) GEP (Greek educational policy) and the GEF (Greek educational field).  The socio-political hidden curriculum considered as the more or less conscious curriculum formed by a given’s society perception of risk, depending on everything that goes on in society, all beliefs and values and understandings that are passed on education policy makers, teachers and students by the sociopolitical context through the sociopolitical conditions, refers mainly to the repercussions the socio-political context has on the educational contracts in the political (official policy), professional (teachers) and individual (students) level.

The sociopolitical hidden curriculum is important to the educational quality discourse to the extent it affects the exchange agreement between educational partners and their social context.  The author arguing that the degree of synchronization and tuning between the different educational contracts could affect the success of educational quality sets a double aim: a) explore the impact the sociopolitical hidden curriculum has in three levels of analysis: EEP, GEP and GEF, b) explore the degree of synching between the above layers of educational policy and the respective educational contracts, c) explore the emerging results in terms of educational quality.

The theoretical framework is based on four main axes:

1. Studies focusing on the importance of the social and relational dimension of environment for teaching and learning: (Dilley, 1999, p. 19; F.-G. Desprairies, 2003, p. 110; Erikson & Schultz, 1997, p.22; Crossant et al., 2003; Bourdieu,  ; McDougall,1920; Lewin, 1948; Ash, 1952; Bion, 1961; G.H. Mead, 1963; Abric, 1996;Marcel Mauss, 1969; F. Flahault, 1978; C. Castoriadis, 1975; Dewey 1938; Piaget, 1947; Vygotski 1934; Moscovici, 1984; Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Abric, 1988). 

2. Scholarship on risk and crisis management (Bauman, 2007; 2011;  Boinm 2009, Wachtendorf, 2009; Falkheimer, 2008; Giddens, 2002; Japp 2005, 83-84; Luhmann 1993).

3. Scholarship on educational and general contract theory: (Evequoz, 1984; McCulloch, P. 1994, p. 10; Jackson, 1968; Morfaux & Lefranc, 2010; Salanié, 1994).

4. Standardization and framing theory in the European education policy level: Slovic, 1987;Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2004; Brehmer, 1987; Roberts, 1990; Kletz, 1996; Timmermans & Epstein, 2010, p. 84). (Botzem et al. 2012; Castoriadis 1987, 1995;  Hall, 1973, 1976; Miller, 1990; Philo, 2008).

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