The policy studies and politics of education network met for only the second time in Hamburg, but there was already evidence of a growth of interest in the network since the first meeting at Lisbon. We received 38 submissions of papers to the network and accepted 36. (Two were rejected because they were purely descriptive and did not contain any European content).
In addition we had 4 symposia proposals, all of which were accepted, varying in size from 4-5 papers to 10-12 papers delivered over 2 days. In addition we were able to run 2 symposia jointly with network 19.
The symposia were on the following topics:
- Education Governance and the Europeanisation of Education Policy
- Trading in Education Services- examining GATS
- Education Policy and Education research: comparative analyses of a tense relationship
- National Education Reform in Post-Socialist Countries. (Unfortunately this symposium had to be cancelled because of last minute funding problems for some of the researchers involved)
The 2 joint symposia with network 19 were:
- Democratic Education: cases from the Nordic Countries
- Changing identities in Education.
We were also able to group together a number of papers on teachers and teachers’ work.
The network sessions were very well attended, including audiences of over 40 for the last sessions of the conference on Saturday morning. It was generally felt that the organisation of papers into related topics had helped to foster discussion. Very few paper givers failed to turn up.
There was a network meeting to discuss ways of developing the activities of the network. That meeting agreed to identify a group from among the co-convenors to support the attempt to generate further membership of the network and to identify themes where the network would particularly welcome submissions for the 2004 conference. (These are now on the Network 23 front page).