21.

European Educational Research Journal:

http://www.wwwords.co.uk/eerj/content/maincontents.asp

Numbers: 1,2,3,4

Volume 6 Number 1 2007

The Rhetoric of ICT and the New Language of Learning: a critical

analysis of the use of ICT in the curricular field
GEIR HAUGSBAKK & YNGVE NORDKVELLE Lillehammer
University College, Norway
This article focuses on how we perceive new technology and
technological development within educational settings, and seeks to
establish a critical link between the rhetoric of information and
communications technology (ICT) and what Biesta called ‘the new
language of learning’. Within this ‘new language’ the learner is a
consumer, with needs that must be fulfilled by the teacher. This
rhetoric implies that ‘teaching’ has been replaced by ‘learning’ and
challenges the conventional curricula in many respects. The article
applies Biesta’s perspective to a concrete scrutiny of current trends in
education and the introduction of ICT in education in particular. The
analysis gives support to Biesta’s main hypothesis, but it also
indicates that the radical shift from teaching to learning is
accompanied, and we might possibly say influenced, by the rhetoric
connected to the use of ICT. In recent Norwegian curricular texts ICT
takes a position as the rationalising tools by which teaching can be
made efficient, individually designed and flexible. The intention is to
critically examine the way in which teaching is more or less
automatically replaced by learning, the influence the rhetoric of ICT
has had, and how ICT and learning seem to be connected through
merely rhetorical couplings.
Why Shouldn’t Teachers and Teacher Educators Conduct Research
on their Own Practices? An Epistemological Exploration
MIEKE LUNENBERG Vrije University, Amsterdam, Netherlands
PETRA PONTE Leiden University, Netherlands
PIET-HEIN VAN DE VEN Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen,
Netherlands
doi: 10.2304/eerj.2007.6.1.13
VIEW FULL TEXT | CHINESE ABSTRACT 中文摘要 | BACK
TO CONTENTS LIST
The idea of teachers and teacher educators engaging in research is
not, in itself, new, but in recent years the propagation of this idea
seems to have become really popular. This growing popularity brings
the risk that practitioner research will degenerate into an increasingly
vague and obscure ‘container concept’. The aim of this article is to
pause to allow time to reflect on the concept of practitioner research
from a perspective that sees knowledge, knowledge-constitutive
interests and knowledge construction as interrelated.
The ‘Response’ of the Greek State to Global Trends of Educational
Policy Making
DIONYSSIOS S. GOUVIAS University of the Aegean, Rhodes,
Greece
Many academics in the past have attempted to provide an overview
of the general and common elements and ‘trends’ in contemporary,
international education policy, focusing mainly on the most advanced
– economically and technologically – countries of the ‘West’: from
the increasing adoption of market ideologies in (public) education, to
the introduction of modern management techniques into the
organisation of state schools; and from a rising support for ‘public
choice’ theories to the prevalence of the ‘perfomativity’ criterion. The
main aim of this article is to examine the degree of ‘adaptation’ of
the contemporary Greek educational system to the above trends.
Using Ball’s analytic model (1998), this will be done through a
comparison between the specificities of the Greek social – and
consequently, educational – formation and those of other advanced
countries of the ‘West’, drawing examples mainly from the European
experience.

The Knowledge Society and Global Dynamics in Education Politics

ANJA P. JAKOBI University of Bremen, Germany
This article explores the linkage between the idea of a knowledge
society and effects of internationalisation in education policy-
making. The fact that the idea of a knowledge society is widely
shared is brought together with an explanation of increasing
dynamics in education politics. The central argument is that the idea
of a knowledge society has helped countries to increasingly perceive
themselves as similar with respect to necessary educational changes.
In consequence, they exchange policies which, some decades ago,
would have been assumed to be bound to and determined by specific
national traditions. Theoretically, the article is conceptualised in an
institutionalist framework and illustrates the theoretical thoughts by
the example of lifelong learning. Methods applied are content
analysis, descriptive statistics and interviews.

The Social Organisation of Education Research in England

MARTIN LAWN University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
JOHN FURLONG University of Oxford, United Kingdom
The field of education research has grown enormously in England
over the last 25 years – in size, complexity, forms of production and
purpose. It has been shaped by governmental, market and production
changes, and it appears to be moving outside the university sector as
well. The British Educational Research Association is trying to map
the field and to make sense of its development. This article begins
with a search for relevant data about the key elements in the field –
personnel, institutions, output, etc. – and tries to draw conclusions
about the next steps in the inquiry.

The Infrastructure of Educational Research in Scotland

WALTER HUMES University of Paisley, United Kingdom
This article offers a descriptive and analytical account of the current
state of educational research in Scotland, viewed against the
background of constitutional change within the United Kingdom and
debates about the nature, function and quality of research activity and
output. It starts by considering how to undertake the task in hand and
argues that it is necessary to draw on a combination of institutional,
developmental and interactive approaches. Thereafter the relatively
disappointing Scottish results in the 2001 UK Research Assessment
Exercise are reported to set the scene for subsequent efforts to
improve research capacity. The role of the Scottish Executive in
determining research priorities, commissioning projects and using
the findings of research in helping to inform policy is outlined,
taking account of important structural changes following devolution.
A key development has been the Applied Educational Research
Scheme (AERS), a collaborative university-led initiative, funded
jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council
(previously the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council). This
consists both of substantive research networks and a capacity-
building programme of research training for beginning and
developing researchers. Established research centres, with different
histories and emphases, are described in order to raise issues about
the balance between applied research, linked to policy priorities, and
fundamental research which seeks to develop new theories and
models. The role of the Scottish Educational Research Association,
which has links with the British and European Educational Research
Associations, is considered. Various attempts by different bodies to
promote teacher engagement in research are also described. In the
final section an attempt is made to assess what progress has been
made. It is concluded that while the overall climate for the conduct of
educational research has improved, providing real opportunities to
demonstrate the value of research, there remain a number of
challenging problems. These include: issues of research quality;
inadequate opportunity to undertake fundamental (as distinct from
applied) research; tensions between the demands of teacher
education programmes and universities’ research aspirations; the risk
of ‘collaboration’ becoming ‘consensus’; and the absence of a
developed international perspective.

Educational Research and the Restructuring of the State: the impacts

of parliamentary devolution in Wales
GARETH REES & SALLY POWER Cardiff University, United
Kingdom
This article explores the relationships between educational research
and the state. However, the aim is not to construct idealised versions
of what the relationship between research and educational policy
ought to be, but rather to examine the ways in which the state is able
to influence the priorities of educational research through its role as
the key funder of such research and as a principal consumer of its
results. Empirically, the analysis is located in a particular historical
context: the restructuring of the United Kingdom (UK) through the
devolution of powers from the UK central government to a
Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly in Wales, each with its
devolved executive. In particular, the effects of this devolution on
educational research are analysed through an examination of the
transformation of educational research in universities; and of the
ways in which the Welsh Assembly Government has used research in
the processes through which educational policies are developed.
Processes of globalisation have created complex interactions between
civil society and different levels of government in many societies,
which have had important consequences for the ways in which
education policies are produced and the roles played by different
forms of ‘expert’ knowledge (including educational research).
Accordingly, the significance of the analysis extends beyond the
specific, historical context in which it is located.

Gauging the Deliverable? Educational Research in Northern Ireland

JOHN GARDNER & TONY GALLAGHER Queen’s University
Belfast, United Kingdom
This article considers the landscape for educational research in the
smallest country of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland. As
elsewhere, educational research exists in political and economic
circumstances that have considerable influence on its direction,
nature and purpose and this article seeks to contextualise these
influences. Northern Ireland differs considerably from the other three
jurisdictions by virtue of it being very small (a population of circa
1.5 million), a fact that creates systemic difficulties such as capacity
weaknesses in both numbers of researchers and the range of research
skills available. Perhaps most importantly, however, Northern Ireland
is uniquely distinguished from England, Scotland and Wales by
having a proportionately large selective education system (grammar
and non-selective secondary schools) and a politically and religiously
divided population. This article argues that in combination with such
national pressures as the Research Assessment Exercise, these
contextual features result in a largely instrumental role for
educational research – a tool to gauge what policy changes are
deliverable. A strategic direction based on a dialogue between the
government and the researcher community is therefore needed to
prevent the continuation of a perceived ad hoc and fragmented
system of educational research. The challenges of building a thriving
research community in such circumstances also include the need to
promote innovative ideas and related research, and to encourage
greater inter-institutional collaboration. This in turn, it is argued, will
help to create a community of practice capable of both sustaining
itself in the future and making available a broader range of research
competence.

Volume 6 Number 2 2007

Editorial. Didactics – learning and teaching in Europe

The place of didactics, learning and teaching has been the subject of
discussion within the European Educational Research Association
(EERA) for several years. Significant steps were taken in 2006 at the
conference in Geneva to advance this work through the organisation
of an Invited Plenary Panel and an Opening Symposium as the first
steps towards establishing a new EERA Network in this field. These
initiatives received strong support and led to the establishment of
Network 27 on Didactics – Learning and Teaching. The articles in
this special issue of EERJ are based on contributions made by the
authors to the Opening Symposium and Plenary Panel at the
European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in Geneva in
2006.

Whilst issues related to teaching, learning and subject content are

central to pedagogical practices, associated discussions have tended
to be fragmented. This fragmentation can be reinforced by
institutional structures, particular policy initiatives, the strength of
some discourse communities and the relative weaknesses of others.
EERA Network 27 on Didactics – Learning and Teaching has been
established with the aim of providing a space for dialogue for
integrating such discussions, and this issue of EERJ is intended to
provide a record of the starting point and to support the process of
widening the debate. We hope this space will attract interest from
educational researchers with interests in pedagogical practices,
curriculum, student learning and the teaching of specific subject
areas.

This issue of EERJ comes at a time of growing interest in teaching

and learning at an international level, including particular interest in
questions related to associated research and scholarship. Against this
background are the long traditions within continental Europe when it
comes to such questions. For example, the tradition of Didaktik can
be traced back to John Amos Comenius in the seventeenth century
though there is little discussion of didactics as such in the English-
speaking educational community. Discussions about the nature of
didactics, learning and teaching have taken on different
characteristics in different national contexts and development has
been especially strong in the domain of subject didactics.
Furthermore, associated ideas have influenced the development of
teacher education significantly in several countries within continental
Europe over recent years.

For these reasons we believe that it is timely to create a space for

dialogue in order to share perspectives and questions collectively as
an EERA community in relation to the advancement of research and
scholarship in the field of didactics, learning and teaching. This issue
includes articles based on the presentations made at the ECER in
Geneva by Stefan Hopmann, Michel Caillot, Yves Chevallard, Brian
Hudson, Kirsti Klette and Meinert A. Meyer.

Stefan Hopmann traces the origin of Didaktik back to the ideas of

students’ activity (Socrates), in a disciplinary setting (Hugh of Saint
Victor), with a certain order of knowledge (Thomas Aquinas) and
necessary choice of subject matter (Comenius). In the German
context, Didaktik, in its different forms, can be described as
systematic reflection about how to organise teaching in a way that
brings about the individual growth of the student. This means that
subject matters can open up different educative meanings for
learners; and thus that teaching and learning follow different paths.
Didaktik as presented is very different from a curriculum perspective
where subject matter and meaning have to be close and also from the
French tradition of transposition didactique, which is interested in
differences between meanings and subject matter in order to enable
the learning of the appropriate meanings of such matter.

Building a new academic field is the focus of the article by Michel

Caillot and in particular considers the case of French didactiques. He
outlines how French disciplinary didactiques were created and how
they have come to be recognised by the academic and instructional
systems. Since the creation of Instituts Universitaires de Formation
des Maîtres (IUFM) in 1991, they have become completely
integrated in French educational research and training systems. The
associated development of French didactiques is seen as a major
evolution in education that has taken about 40 years. In addition,
more recent developments in the French-speaking area on
comparative didactics are discussed. This is seen as a new field of
research that groups together disciplinary didacticians in a common
research programme.

The article by Yves Chevallard is on the topic of readjusting didactics

to a changing epistemology. It is based on his talk given at the
Plenary Panel in Geneva and provides an overview of the gradual
development of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). It
stresses important stages in the development of views of teaching
and learning, and the establishment of new attitudes towards ‘the
didactic’, seen as an anthropological dimension of social life.
Furthermore, it emphasises the logic behind the evolution of a
‘science of the didactic’ that, in adapting to the changing nature of its
object of study, currently brings to the fore new ideas, among which
the concept of ‘study and research course’ (SRC) is seen to be most
promising.

Differences between traditions in relation to teaching and learning

provide the focus for the article by Brian Hudson, who compares
these and asks what can we learn about teaching and learning? The
article aims to highlight the ways in which the study of Didaktik has
offered new dimensions to and fresh insights on the notion of
reflective practice. In particular, this tradition is seen to offer tools
and ways of thinking that help to recognise and hold the complexity
of teaching–studying–learning processes. This provides a relational
framework which places the teacher at the heart of teaching–
studying–learning processes. Finally, the article aims to highlights
ways in which such tools and ways of thinking can help to inform
approaches to development in the didactical, pedagogical and
technological uses of information and communications technology
(ICT) for learning.

The contribution by Kirsti Klette focuses on trends in research on

teaching and learning in schools and in particular on the meeting
point between didactics and classroom studies. The relation between
teaching, instruction and children’s learning is seen to arise whenever
models of the teaching–learning process are discussed or whenever
problems of learning occur. The primacy of teachers and teaching as
the primary subjects of research is seen to have contributed to a
rather limited understanding of what goes on in schools and
classrooms. Few studies of teachers and teaching have examined the
extent to which differences in teacher effectiveness are related to
differences in teachers’ subject matter knowledge. Furthermore,
discussion of issues related to teaching and learning in general terms
has tended to be separate from the content that has been taught. She
argues for the need to bridge studies of teaching and learning with
studies of the subject involved in order to establish a conversation
between didactics and classroom studies.

Finally, the article by Meinert Meyer considers didactics, sense

making, and educational experience and in particular focuses on
student participation in classrooms. He aims to demonstrate how
effective cultivation of educational experience in schools will lead to
a new perspective on the process of teaching and learning. There are
seen to be no privileged methods of teaching and learning, but that in
practice most teachers have in mind some fuzzy ideas of what good
instruction is, and furthermore there is seen to be a great variety in
how teachers involve their students and how students get involved in
what happens in school. This is seen to be why the student’s didactic
competence should be used in the instructional process and teachers’
and students’ sensitivity for classroom participation and student
involvement should be increased. Examples of how learners view
their educational process, and how sense making can be identified
and described, are outlined

We hope that this issue of EERJ will provide a further stimulus for
dialogue on the advancement of research and scholarship in the field
of didactics, learning and teaching. If you have been stimulated by
any of the issues raised we encourage you to consider making a
proposal for a contribution to a future ECER in the near future.
Restrained Teaching: the common core of Didaktik
STEFAN HOPMANN University of Vienna, Austria

Didaktik is at the centre of most school teaching and teacher

education in Continental Europe, but at the same time almost
unknown in the English speaking world. The article gives a brief
outline of the history and the common core of Didaktik, of its current
situation, and of the basic differences compared to the Anglo-
American concept of ‘curriculum and instruction’ and the French
‘transposition didactique’. The common core of Didaktik is
characterised as ‘restrained teaching’, based on (a) a commitment to
Bildung, (b) the educative difference of matter and meaning, and (c)
the autonomy of teaching and learning.

The Building of a New Academic Field: the case of French

didactiques
MICHEL CAILLOT Université René Descartes, Paris, France

In this article, the author attempts to show how French disciplinary

didactiques were created and have developed. At the beginning,
nobody could forecast the future and whether the didactiques would
one day be recognised by the academic and instructional systems.
The French didactiques are strongly based on school subject matters.
Since the creation of Instituts Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres
(University Teacher Training Institutes) in 1991, they are completely
integrated in French educational research and training systems: a
major evolution in education that has taken about 40 years. More
recently, a new field of research is developing in the French-speaking
area: comparative didactics that groups together disciplinary
didacticians in a true research programme.

Readjusting Didactics to a Changing Epistemology

YVES CHEVALLARD IUFM d’Aix-Marseille, Marseilles, France
This article provides an overview of the gradual development, in the
span of two decades (1985-2005), of a theorisation which has come
to be known as the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). It
stresses important stages in the dismissing – based on both fact and
theory – of some widespread views of teaching and learning, and the
establishing of new attitudes towards ‘the didactic’, seen as an
anthropological dimension of social life. It emphasises the logic
behind the evolution of a ‘science of the didactic’ that, in adapting to
the changing nature of its object of study, currently brings to the fore
new ideas, among which the concept of ‘study and research course’
(SRC) seems to be most promising.

Comparing Different Traditions of Teaching and Learning: what can

we learn about teaching and learning?
BRIAN HUDSON Umeå University, Sweden

This article explores differences between traditions in relation to

teaching and learning and aims to highlight the ways in which the
study of the Central European and Northern European traditions of
Didaktik has offered new dimensions to and fresh insights on the
notion of reflective practice. In particular these traditions are seen to
offer tools and ways of thinking that help to recognise and hold the
complexity of teaching-studying-learning processes. A key tool for
the analysis of the complex relations between teacher, student and
content is the Didaktik triad. This provides a relational framework
which places teaching and associated design issues at the heart of
teaching-studying-learning processes. Furthermore, it provides a
means for teachers’ thinking about the most basic how, what and why
questions around their work. Another key aspect of such traditions is
the emphasis that is placed upon meaning and intentionality from the
outset of the process of preparation for teaching. Connections are
also made with current thinking in the field of scholarship in teaching
and learning. Finally, the article aims to highlights ways in which
such tools and ways of thinking can help to inform approaches to
development in the didactical, pedagogical and technological uses of
information and communications technology for student-centred
learning.

Trends in Research on Teaching and Learning in Schools: didactics

meets classroom studies
KIRSTI KLETTE University of Oslo, Norway

The relation between teaching, instruction and children’s learning

arises whenever models of the teaching–learning process are
discussed or whenever problems of learning occur. Despite massive
research efforts we still know little about how differences in learning
activities are related to students’ learning. The primacy of teachers
and teaching as the primary subjects of research has contributed to a
rather limited understanding of what goes on in schools and
classrooms. Few studies of teachers and teaching have examined the
extent to which differences in teacher effectiveness are related to
differences in teachers’ subject matter knowledge, and there is still a
tendency to discuss issues of teaching and learning in general terms
separated from the content that has been taught. In this article the
author argues for the need to bridge studies of teaching and learning
with studies of the subject involved – to establish a conversation
between didactics and classroom studies. An analytical design and
framework able to bridge the teaching–learning gap needs to be
developed. Emerging technologies in video/audio documentation
provide one chain of investigations for bridging how different
thematic patterns are linked to instructional activities and interaction
formats in classrooms.

Didactics, Sense Making, and Educational Experience

MEINERT A. MEYER University of Hamburg, Germany

This article focuses on student participation in classrooms. It aims to

demonstrate that effective cultivation of educational experience in
schools will lead to a new perspective on the process of teaching and
learning. There are no privileged methods of teaching and learning,
but most of the teachers have in mind some fuzzy ideas of what good
instruction is, and there is a great variety of how teachers involve
their students and how students get involved in what happens in
school. That is why the student’s didactic competence should be used
in the instructional process and teachers’ and students’ sensitivity for
classroom participation and student involvement should be increased.
Examples of how learners view their educational process, and how
sense making can be identified and described, are given. Sense
making is an individual affair, and what the teachers want is not
necessarily in accord with the students’ constructions. Therefore, it is
not only of interest to examine how learners acquire knowledge and
skills but also how they develop the ability to decide things for
themselves and act responsibly in an increasingly complex and
difficult world.

The International Social Organisation of Educational Research in

Europe: reviewing the European Educational Research Association
as an example – facts and questions
Armin Gretler passed away on 6 October 2005. Armin was a founder
member of the EERA and served on its Council, representing
Switzerland. He was a sociologist and founding director of the Swiss
Coordination Centre for Research in Education in 1971. He remained
Director until retiring in 1999. Prior to that he had been working as a
consultant for UNESCO (Paris) and the Bureau International du
Travail (Geneva). He was amongst others a founding member of the
Swiss Society for Research in Education (SSRE), the European
Educational Research Association and other international
associations. He published in different areas of education policy,
including migration, teacher education research, and the place of
education research in the social sciences. In the early 1990s, Armin
was asked to convene a meeting of national educational research
associations in Aarau in Switzerland, in order to establish the
EERA. Armin was a great supporter of the European Education
Research Association. In this article, originally titled ‚Fakten und
Fragen zur internationalen sozialen Organisation der
Bildungsforschung in Europa am Beispiel der European Educational
Research Association’, he describes the early days of the Association.
It is important to be reminded about the early desires of its founding
members for a European association and its priorities. (Of course,
some of the information about the national associations, in particular
their membership figures, is no longer valid today.)
======================================

Volume 6 Number 3 2007

Introduction to Special Issue

Local Autonomy or State Control? Exploring the Effects of New
Forms of Regulation in Education

Education reforms dismantling centralised education bureaucracies

are emerging all over Europe. A main aim is to enhance autonomy at
local government and school levels. As a result new forms of
regulation in education are being established. By regulation we mean
the public activity which is normatively founded in the law and the
legislative procedures aiming to supervise and control what is subject
to regulation (Lægreid & Christensen, 2006). Hence, deregulation
implies a reduction of centrally directed activity. The introduction of
private schools followed by the marketisation of state schooling
within decentralised systems of control where responsibilities are
devolved to municipalities are examples of deregulation. Re-
regulation occurs when central government reclaims control, often in
an indirect manner through such means as target setting, performance
measurement and the use of quality indicators. This thematic issue is
devoted to exploring the deregulation and re-regulation of
compulsory education in Britain and Scandinavia.

Traditionally education in Scandinavia has been subject to rigorous

central regulation. Yet during the last two decades it has undergone
processes of decentralisation and deregulation and, more recently –
since the beginning of this century – signs of re-regulation have
appeared. In Britain education reforms have followed a different
direction, moving away from local governance towards a system of
stronger central regulation and increased marketisation. In both
Britain and the Scandinavian countries these developments are
associated with the rise of the New Public Management (NPM).
NPM approaches to education and welfare provision involve
challenging central government control and emphasising greater
autonomy at subordinate levels and entities in order to promote cost
containment, efficiency, service quality and consumer empowerment.

However, deregulation emphasising increased local autonomy seems

to accommodate mechanisms which, paradoxically, tend to increase
central control. The concept of autonomy is commonly understood as
freedom and capacity to act (Lundquist, 1987). A consequence of this
enhanced freedom and capacity to act at a local level is that the
central government loses its grip. Accordingly, in both the
Scandinavian and British reforms we observe a kind of re-regulation
through the introduction of audit and control systems of reporting
and evaluation in the public sector. Yet, at the same time, the
importance of autonomous municipalities and schools is still being
emphasised. Thus, there seems to be an interaction and overlapping
of state control and local autonomy which will be explored from
different angles throughout this journal issue.

The articles problematise and contest some aspects of how local

autonomy – i.e. the autonomy of local authorities, schools and
professionals – is treated within NPM discourse. The NPM rhetoric
around autonomy is ambiguous. On the one hand, the NPM logic
favours a considerable degree of independence for local political and
professional decision makers. On the other hand, the NPM has
involved the use of central political decision making to frame local
autonomy, so that in practice, a clear-cut division between both
autonomy and control and politics and professionalism is difficult to
uphold.. The growing influence of the NPM in the field of education
is also transforming the relationship between politics and
professionalism in significant ways. Implicitly, a profession is
defined by its jurisdiction over a specific occupational field (Abbott,
1988). However, advocates of NPM tend to argue for a reduction of
professional influence in politics (Byrkjeflot, 2005) whilst
professionals tend to mistrust politicians’ capacity to govern. This
means that teacher autonomy might conflict with politicians’ interest
in governing education, Moreover, NPM implies new conditions for
professionals, emphasising an individualised type of professionalism
which relies on situational knowledge, competence and performance
(Svensson, 2006) in contrast to the more traditional conditions of
formal education, occupation, monopoly and licensing. Linked to this
is NPM’s emphasis on openness and a wider public understanding of
processes, results and effects in education, sometimes referred to as
transparency processes. Accordingly, schools and professionals are
becoming more accountable for providing education and achieving
results. This trend is reflected in the increased use of performance
measurement technologies, such as regularly administered
standardised national tests, inspections and evaluations, to monitor
the performance of both educational providers and students.

However, although different national educational systems are being

re-regulated by the introduction of more or less similar reforms, there
is still a lack of understanding about the degree of convergence or
divergence due to difficulties in making meaningful cross-national
comparisons. Discussions of these questions from a comparative
perspective have tended to anticipate a convergence of western
educational systems. The articles in this issue reject this stance. The
degree of convergence and divergence that can be observed depends
on the focus or level of analysis and the determination of indicators
to be compared. Changes can be identified at different stages and
levels; for instance, in political ideas and debates, in reform
decisions, in actual practice or in policy results (cf. Pollitt, 2001), or
at central, municipal, school or classroom levels. Conclusions about
convergence in education at one stage or level do not necessarily
correspond with convergence at others; and increased devolution and
accountability, as well as demands for audit and control, might have
different motivations (e.g. educational quality-related or cost-saving
related motivations) and effects in different countries.

The contributions to this issue were first presented at the workshop

‘Local autonomy or state control? Exploring the effects of new
regulation in education’ at the Stein Rokkan Centre for Social
Studies, University of Bergen, supported by the Norwegian Research
Council. The contributions reflect the interdisciplinary character of
the workshop and include comparisons between Britain and
Scandinavian countries, and between Norway and Sweden and
Scotland and England. Two of the three European welfare state
models, i.e. the social democratic and the liberal, are included (cf.
Esping Andersen, 2002).

National comparisons of the consequences of new modes of

regulation for local or professional autonomy are relatively limited in
educational research. In order to make meaningful comparisons of
the consequences of new forms of regulation in compulsory
education several clarifications and tasks are needed. In the article
‘Unpacking Autonomy and Control in Education: some conceptual
and normative groundwork for a comparative analysis’ Alan Cribb &
Sharon Gewirtz make a contribution to this relatively neglected field
of educational research. The article begins with a consideration of
some of the conceptual complexities involved in making sense of
autonomy and control, sketching out a three-dimensional analytical
scheme focused on: the loci and modes of autonomy (who are the
agents and how is their agency being exercised?), the domains of
autonomy and control (what are the spheres over which
autonomy/control is being exercised?) and the loci and modes of
control (the general forms and specific mechanisms by which
autonomy is regulated, the agents of control and how their agency is
exercised). Then, by setting out the main arguments around
autonomy and control, the article goes on to illustrate the major value
conflicts that arise in processes of enacting autonomy/control. A
particular purpose of the article is to avoid the seemingly widespread
– and usually unspoken – normative presumption that autonomy is
good and control is bad. In education the balance between local
autonomy and state control is obviously important but what is
exactly at stake if we speak about the balance shifting between the
two? Teachers do need both autonomy and control; the issue is the
balance between the closely linked ideas and the forms they take in
combination.

There is no doubt that the balance between state control and local
autonomy has been challenged in Swedish compulsory education.
From being once strongly state centred, compulsory education has
from the beginning of the 1990s been affected by far-reaching
reforms which have attempted to deregulate the schooling system
and increase local autonomy. A new policy initiative on school time
which allows school professionals freedom to make decisions on
time distribution was implemented as a five-year experiment from
1999. In the article ‘A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State
Control and Strengthen School Autonomy: the experiment with local
time schedules’ Linda Rönnberg analyses and discusses whether the
experiment has affected school autonomy. In order to understand
local autonomy two dimensions have to be accounted for: the
freedom to act and local actors’ capacity to act. The experiment made
discretionary space available for local actors but in some cases local
autonomy was limited by the actors’ limited capacity for action.
Rönnberg argues that both of these dimensions need to be considered
in any analysis of local autonomy. She also suggests that even if the
actors have the discretionary space and the capacity to make use of
that space they may lack an interest in implementing reforms, or they
may see the reforms as irrelevant. The authorities’ lack of effort in
building schools’ capacity and interest in making use of local
freedom suggests the reform may be essentially symbolic in
character and this may also explain why some schools avoided
implementing the experiment.

In line with Rönnberg’s findings based on the study of the Swedish

local time schedule project is the idea that devolution of decision
making to school level does not mean that teachers are necessarily
capable of making use of the autonomy. Nor does devolution
necessarily correspond to a strengthening of teachers’ status and
authority. Teachers’ professional autonomy in Sweden and Norway is
sensitive to the complexity of changing conditions. In the article
‘Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of
Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden’ Ingrid Helgøy & Anne
Homme explore changes in education regulation in the two countries
and their implications for teacher autonomy. The comparison, which
is based on policy analysis and teacher interviews, indicates a
striking difference in the conditions for teacher professionalism in
the two countries: while Norwegian teachers’ daily work has been
regulated by a prescriptive and detailed national curriculum, the
autonomy of Swedish teachers has been framed by a goal-oriented
national curriculum. The Norwegian teachers are characterised by
weakened individual autonomy but also by a relatively strong
collective professional identity. Teachers accept national standards
and control in education which function to provide a secure body of
professional knowledge for teachers and to underline the significance
of teachers’ formal education. In contrast, Swedish teachers
experience a high degree of individual autonomy but rely on a more
personalised type of professionalism emphasising teachers’
knowledge, competence and performance as individual properties.
Based on this finding Helgøy & Homme identify a need to redefine
the concept of professionalism and suggest a differentiation between
old and new professionalism. Using the dimension of
individualism/collectivism the authors explore the concept of teacher
professionalism and point to the limits of autonomy in relation to
devolved responsibilities in the governing of education.

Helgøy & Homme’s study of teacher autonomy in Norway and

Sweden indicates considerable differences between two countries
often described as very similar. Cross-national comparisons in the
field of education show that while globalisation may be a convergent
force, nationalism can act as a divergent force. A comparison of
aspects of NPM at work in Scotland and England highlights some
significant differences. Margaret Arnott & Ian Menter explore the
relationship between local autonomy and central control. Their
article ‘The Same but Different? Post-devolution Regulation and
Control in Scotland and England’ analyses changes in secondary
education policy. Privatisation, performativity and the policy process
are examined in the two national contexts. Arnott & Menter argue
that to understand the ways NPM has evolved in post-devolution UK
it is essential to analyse pressures for convergence and divergence in
education. The welfare state and the public sector were questioned in
the 1980s and 1990s in Scotland, but the loss of public confidence
was not perceived to be as striking as in England. The premise of
much of the NPM agenda was that the public sector was failing. The
process of questioning in the Scottish political scene arguably
stemmed from financial pressures rather than a questioning of
relationships between welfare professionals, the state and
individuals, which drove the agenda in England. Although there is
evidence that aspects of the Scottish cultural tradition and visions of
‘the new Scotland’ are having effects on both policy processes and
outcomes, the signs of convergence in the enactment of NPM are
strong when comparing Scotland and England. However, the impact
of market forces and competition on schools and local authorities is
much more visible in England than has been the case in Scotland.
Even though NPM is evident in the regulation of education in both
countries, national historical institutional traditions act as modifying
influences.

Changes in the governance of education are considered to be a

common trait shared by the Nordic countries and Britain. Devolution
and NPM reforms are shared characteristics implying a shift from
government to governance, from strong hierarchical educational
systems to decentralisation and local autonomy including an
expansion in the numbers of actors influencing education. In the
article ‘Governing the Governance of Education – the state strikes
back?’ Christine Hudson suggests that the state is able to adapt to
changing circumstances and find new ways of governing rather than
being forced to step back and allow other interests to play the
primary role in governing education. The argument is built upon a
comparison of the education systems in the Nordic countries and
Britain. The comparison shows that despite cross-national differences
all countries have introduced new forms of ‘soft’ regulation and have
widened the range of actors involved in education. Because of the
importance of education the state will not disappear, Hudson argues;
rather, the increased use of output controls indicate that the state is
more present than ever but that it is operating in coexistence with
other actors. This challenges some of the literature on governance
which implies a ‘hollowing out’ of the state.

The articles in this thematic issue offer new insights for

understanding and evaluating the nature and operation of local
autonomy and central control in education. From different
perspectives the articles illuminate the dynamic processes of
decentralisation and centralisation and the relationships between
them. The articles show how processes of regulation can be both
congruent and incongruent. In general, increased local autonomy
seems to imply strengthened state control. However, this sample of
nation-specific studies implies different combinations of state
regulation–local autonomy relations and different degrees to which
local autonomy is being utilised. The collection of articles represents
an initial step which points to three main issues around which there is
considerable scope for further research. First, the normative
connotations of autonomy as solely beneficial are opposed by
findings in the articles. For example, local autonomy can be an
efficient tool for producing variation which in turn might increase
social inequality in, and unequal access to, education. Further, local
autonomy can threaten teachers’ collective professional identity by
individualising demands for teacher performance. Second, there is a
need for multilevel analysis in education research. The specific
patterns of interconnection between the different levels in the
governance of education shape education practice; and policy effects
have to be explored at school level and be related to subsequent
processes of policy making. Third, we hope to have demonstrated the
advantage of doing cross-national analysis in education. National
education policies are inspired by global trends but modified within
national institutional contexts. The difference between England and
Scotland, despite a long period under the same education
government, shows the significance of national educational
traditions. The Scottish national identity has been prominent in both
pre- and post-devolution Scotland. In contrast, Norway and Sweden
have similar national educational traditions but because of different
financial positions reforms have been implemented differently since
the 1990s. Accordingly, it would seem that national transformations
of global trends may be driven by different forces set into motion by
specific incidents.

Ingrid Helgøy, Anne Homme & Sharon Gewirtz

References
Abbot, A. (1988) The System of Professions. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.

Unpacking Autonomy and Control in Education: some conceptual

and normative groundwork for a comparative analysis
ALAN CRIBB & SHARON GEWIRTZ King’s College London,
United Kingdom

To make meaningful comparisons of the consequences of new modes

of regulation in education for local autonomy in different national
settings we need to a) be clear about what is meant by local
autonomy and state control, b) be clear about why the balance
between local autonomy and state control matters and c) produce
good quality empirical data and analysis. The purpose of this article
is to make a contribution to the first two of these tasks which are
relatively neglected in the education research literature. The authors
begin by unpacking some conceptual complexities involved in
debating issues of autonomy and control, distinguishing between
three dimensions of autonomy-control: loci and modes of autonomy,
domains of autonomy-control and loci and modes of control. They
then go on to illustrate some of the normative complexities
surrounding issues of autonomy-control, using the case of individual
teacher autonomy to explore arguments about the value of autonomy
and control. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of these
complexities for the task of policy analysis. In doing so, they seek to:
‘trouble’ the presumption that autonomy is necessarily good;
challenge the notion that control and autonomy are discrete entities
in some simple zero-sum relationship to one another, drawing
attention to the ways in which control can be seen as ‘productive’ as
well as ‘destructive’ of autonomy; and sketch out the multi-
dimensional nature of cross-national comparative evaluation of
regulation in education.

A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State Control and Strengthen

School Autonomy: the experiment with local time schedules
LINDA RÖNNBERG Umeå University, Sweden

In 1999, after a series of far-reaching reforms aiming at

decentralisation, deregulation and increased local autonomy in
Swedish education, the Government decided to introduce a five-year
experiment, which would develop these reform efforts even further.
Even though Swedish compulsory schools already were the most
autonomous in Europe with regard to decision making on school
time, an experiment which allowed schools to freely decide time
allocation and time management was launched. At least on paper, the
experiment indicates a shift from state control to local autonomy,
allowing school professionals to be free to make decisions on time
distribution previously controlled by the state. The aim is to analyse
and discuss whether the experiment has affected school autonomy or
not and how this can be understood. The theoretical point of
departure is a two-dimensional view of autonomy, where both
freedom of action and capacity for action need to be taken into
account. The freedom of action (the discretionary space for local
actors) provided within the experiment is analysed through three
properties of the experimental programme: programme clarity,
division of responsibilities and control mechanisms. The schools’
capacity for action concerns the extent participating schools make
use of the discretion provided within the experiment. This is analysed
in three schools with reference to their ability to organise themselves
in a flexible way, as well as to what extent the schools have shown
previous capacity for action and readiness for reform. Based on this
analysis of the experiment, it is concluded that if reform efforts are
made to increase school autonomy, they should not one-sidedly be
focused on increasing local actors’ freedom of action (such as
abolishing the national time schedule). Such efforts should also be
accompanied by measures to reinforce local actors’ capacity for
action. Unless local actors can make use of the discretion given to
them by a superior (political) body, local autonomy will be far less
than was intended, since freedom to act exceeds the actual capacity
to act.

Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of

Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden
INGRID HELGØY & ANNE HOMME Stein Rokkan Centre for
Social Studies, Bergen, Norway

Local autonomy is one of the recent trends in reforms of compulsory

education. However, several parallel trends such as individual
accountability, performance and visibility challenge professional
autonomy. The aim of this article is to explore how accountability
and transparency reforms affect teacher autonomy in Norway and
Sweden. The authors argue that both individual teacher autonomy at
the local workplace and autonomy at the national level embracing
teachers as a collective group are important in analysing teachers’
professional autonomy. In comparing teachers’ professional
autonomy they differentiate between processes of individualisation
and collectivisation. Their analysis indicates, although intra-national
differences, that the difference between Norwegian and Swedish
teachers is striking. While the Swedish teachers experience a high
degree of individual autonomy, their influence on national policy
processes seems weakened. This leads to the assumption that
professional autonomy as a result of transparency and accountability
reforms, even if the teachers report individual professional autonomy,
reduces the authority of the profession at the national policy-making
level. The analysis indicates that Norwegian teachers are
characterized by old professionalism. The strong input regulations in
Norway limit individual teacher autonomy. Even with weakened
individual autonomy, teachers still manage to supply conditions for
national education policy making. This means that teachers still are
autonomous at the collective level. Moreover, the findings indicate
that national standards and control in education are accepted as tools
for securing professional knowledge and status.

The Same but Different? Post-devolution Regulation and Control in

Education in Scotland and England
MARGARET ARNOTT Glasgow Caledonian University, United
Kingdom
IAN MENTER University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
When ‘New Labour’ came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997,
one of their first major initiatives was to establish new devolved
political institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Drawing upon developments in education in Scotland and England,
this article explores some aspects of ‘regulation’, ‘autonomy’ and
‘control’ in the post-devolution context. The purpose of the article is
to assess the ways in which New Public Management have
influenced education policy in the two countries. Aspects of the
governance of education are examined in the two national contexts.
The ‘modernisation’ of the teaching profession is examined as a
particular case, as well as more general aspects of governance. A
number of similarities and differences in the two countries are
identified. The themes that best demonstrate these similarities and
differences are privatisation, performativity and the policy process.
The conclusion seeks to identify the extent to which developments in
either or both countries can be attributed to the global neo-liberal
agenda.

Governing the Governance of Education: the state strikes back?

CHRISTINE HUDSON Umeå University, Sweden

In many countries, there have been changes in the way in which

education is governed, with greater fragmentation of responsibility
between the state, local government, schools, individuals and the
market often accompanied by a move from detailed regulation to
framework legislation. Previously, these developments have been
seen as part of the move from government to governance whereby
the state is forced to step back and allow other interests to play a role.
However, in recent years more subtle theories of governance have
been developed which argue that, rather than retreating, the state is
adapting to changing circumstances and finding new ways of
governing. The importance of education not only in terms of creating
and maintaining national identity but also for economic development
suggests that this is an area from which the state will not willingly
abdicate its role. This article suggests that support for the new
governance theories can be found in the field of education. It argues
that the growth in the attempts to control educational outputs
through, for example, demands for quality controls, standardized
testing, evaluations and so on and the introduction of national bodies
responsible for carrying out these controls can be interpreted as a
sign that the state, far from relinquishing its role, is finding other
ways of controlling education. A comparative approach is adopted
and these ideas are explored in relation to education systems in the
Nordic and British countries. The article draws on a qualitative
analysis of official policy documents, legislation and official
statements concerning education in the respective countries.

Scientometric Approaches to Better Visibility of European

Educational Research Publications: a state-of-the-art-report
ALEXANDER BOTTE German Institute for International
Educational Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

This article reports on methodological approaches to evaluate the

relevance and quality of educational research publications. In the
first section it focuses on the ISI Social Science Citation Index and
shows that this standard instrument for bibliometric measurement is
insufficient for the representation of European educational research.
In the following sections, alternative approaches are delineated in
order to constitute the proposal of a multi-attributive setting for a
new observation and evaluation instrument for social science
academic publications. The final section outlines a project proposal
submitted to the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union,
supported by the European Educational Research Association
(EERA).

Volume 6 Number 4 2007

This issue is still in production.