Internationalization of Education Policy

A New Constellation of Statehood in Education?

Kerstin Martens, Philipp Knodel, Kenneth A. Loparo, Michael Windzio

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137401694
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Études supérieures

This book investigates and discusses the phenomenon of internationalization of education policy and its consequences for national policymaking processes. By comparing educational outcomes and actors' reactions in different countries, it provides detailed insights into a highly contested policy field.

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Introduction: Outcomes and Actors’ Reactions on Internationalization in Education Policy – A Theoretical Approach

Philipp Knodel, Michael Windzio and Kerstin Martens

Introduction

Education systems in Europe have undergone profound changes within the last ten years. In response to demands of the labour ­markets, increasing costs for public education institutions or demographic challenges, the education sector has successively come under pressure. New contexts, procedures and arenas of governance emerged that, beside the established actors involved, shape education policy. Although ­traditionally assumed to be a genuinely ‘national’ policy field, various international initiatives and programmes have triggered fundamental education ­system reforms in many countries. What we can observe by now in the education landscape is different from the status-quo ante internationalization processes and presents a new constellation of ­statehood in education policy.

While most research in this field focuses on international governance and policy changes, the consequences of internationalization on the domestic level have not yet been analysed in sufficient depth. Although various studies have provided a picture of the structural and political changes that have been triggered by the transformations taking place in the field of education policy, yet, the implications have not been analysed expansively. We know little about the outcomes of educational systems and the political actors’ reactions to these changes.

In order to fully understand the phenomena of internationalization, this study seeks to answer a set of questions: Does the internationalization of education policy trigger domestic policies that have the desired effects on the outcomes at the levels of secondary and tertiary education? How do those actors affected by internationalization and resulting domestic reforms respond to new constellations of statehood? How can these reactions be explained, and what are the similarities or differences between countries? Figure 1.1 presents the approach of this book.

Figure 1.1 Studying the dynamics of internationalization.

In this introductory chapter, we develop a theoretical framework for capturing the changes in outcomes as well as the diversity of actors’ reactions. The first part introduces different perspectives on the transformation of the state in the field of education. Two prominent examples for internationalization in secondary and higher education, namely the Bologna Process and the Programme for International Student Assessment study (PISA), will be discussed in more detail in part II. By critically reviewing current literature on internationalization, part III identifies lacunas in research. Part IV specifies our dependent variable, namely educational outcomes and reactions on internationalization in the field of education policy. In order to analyse the outcomes, we refer to theories of systemic and institutional differentiation as well as theories of organizational behaviour. Actors’ reactions are discussed by combining arguments from the literature on political opportunity structures and resource mobilization with a variant of value-expectation theory (VET).

Transformation of the state in education policy

The policy field of education is a prime laboratory for observing if, to what extent and with what consequences a transformation of statehood is taking place. Serving to secure a nation’s coherence and wealth through the training of the population in its history, culture, language and tools for a good economic performance, education policy has remained a mainly state-dominated policy field, and for a longer period of time than many other policy fields. Nevertheless, we can observe tremendous dynamics within secondary and higher education over the last decade. The international environment is considered the main stimulus for policy changes (Corbett 2005; Martens et al. 2010; Martens et al. 2007; Verger 2012), and it has triggered domestic reforms of education policy in different ways and with different dynamics. Two processes exemplify the phenomena of internationalization.

The most influential programme in secondary education is the PISA Study. Seventy-five participating countries, as diverse as Thailand, Qatar, Tunisia, Uruguay and Belgium, are subject to the same comparative programme. Conceptualized by the Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development (OECD), PISA is not ideologically unbiased, but rather evaluates education from an economic perspective. Education is regarded as a crucial determinant for the economic performance of a country and the overall standard of living. A low-quality education system is thus equated with risks to overall economic prosperity. PISA focuses on the output of education systems and assesses how students are capable of applying the knowledge and skills learned in school in their future working life and society. The inquiry covers reading, and mathematical and scientific literacy, with a particular emphasis on one of these subjects in each assessment cycle.

The development of educational indicators in the OECD in the mid-1980s was prompted by the political interests of a few countries, particularly the U.S. and France, who pushed the OECD to produce better and more comparable data in education. Both countries, for very different reasons, were concerned about their respective national education systems and the domestic obstacles to reform. The U.S. feared losing the technology race of the Cold War; France’s left-wing government was concerned about educational opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged children. Conceptualized by the OECD secretariat in cooperation with national experts and institutions, the first ideas for PISA arose in the early 1990s. The OECD continued to develop an agenda for conceptualizing and designing outcome indicators in conjunction with member countries and networks of experts (Martens et al. 2007; Martens and Wolf 2009; ­Normand 2010). Today PISA represents a strong shift towards outcome and performance measures, triggering changes in many participating states.

Unlike previous international processes or evaluation schemes in secondary education, PISA has been widely publicized in participating countries and initiated heated debates about the efficiency and effectiveness of education systems, at least in those countries with lower-than-expected rankings (Martens and Niemann 2013). As a standard international assessment, PISA filters out examples of best practices in highly ranked countries and identifies the weaknesses of low-ranked participants. By doing so, it puts countries under pressure to improve their systems and adapt successful models. Despite criticism, PISA presents one of the most politically acknowledged studies in comparative education statistics.

In higher education the most prominent example of internationalization is the Bologna Process. It represents the largest process of structural harmonization of education systems in the world. The number of countries participating in Bologna has grown to a total of 47, ranging from Iceland to Turkey, from Portugal as far as Kazakhstan. Although originally an intergovernmental initiative between participating countries, it has been closely linked to the EU’s Lisbon Agenda of making the EU ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world’ by 2010 (Berlin Communiqué of Ministers 2003). At the recent ministerial conference in Leuven, national education ministers declared their intention to complete the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2020. The participating countries agreed to implement a comparable higher education structure, consisting of a three-cycle bachelor-, master- and doctorate-level degree structure, a Europe-wide structure for quality assurance in higher education and the recognition of foreign degrees and other higher education qualifications (for an overview see Reinalda et al. 2006; Walter 2006).

It was events on the European level that gave rise to the remarkable political dynamics. The starting point for the Bologna project was the Sorbonne Declaration. At the 800th anniversary celebration of the Sorbonne University in 1998, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom signed the project’s declaration. Although with different reasons for signing the declaration, these countries agreed on closer cooperation in issues of higher education as well as to vague goals of common reforms in their countries. While the German, French and Italian governments were driven by domestic pressures, the British did not want to miss out on a common initiative between their European partners (Corbett 2005: 169; Witte 2006: 329; Martens and Wolf 2009). One year later, education ministers of 29 countries signed the Bologna Declaration. In the years since, the Bologna Process has been increasingly institutionalized and a number of guidelines have been developed. This has led to fundamental policy changes in most of the participating countries (Crosier et al. 2007).

The Bologna Process triggered wide-ranging reforms in the domestic systems of higher education in many of the participating countries. Since its central aim has been the creation of an EHEA enhancing the comparability and compatibility of higher education structures and degrees in Europe, the Anglo-American understanding of consecutive study structures needed to be implemented within all participating countries. Other basic objectives include the introduction of a three-tier system, a common credit transfer system, the promotion of academic mobility and European cooperation in quality assurance. From this viewpoint, higher education is considered to play a central role in the current transformation into knowledge-based economies as a key element in social or labour market policy. Capable higher education institutions thus are perceived as bearing the potential to increase the competitiveness of the overall economy and further economic growth through research and innovation. In essence, the Bologna Process is considered the greatest reform initiative in higher education of the last decades. By incorporating the Bologna aims into its Lisbon strategy, the EU gained leverage in the field of education policy.

From a more general perspective, the Bologna Process represents shifts in higher education policy towards increasing global competition. This internationalization can be observed at different levels. Countries and their higher education institutions (HEIs) engage in attracting international students or staff and establish bilateral relations with developing regions. In addition, HEIs have started to open so-called ‘branch campuses’ in other parts of the world. The ways of dealing with these new phenomena differs largely between European countries. In some countries, such as Germany or Austria, the Bologna Process has been dominating domestic discourses and policy reforms. UK higher education policy, in contrast, has traditionally been oriented towards overseas students and its main competitors, in particular the U.S. and Australia. In France, the Bologna Process has triggered domestic reforms, but the main debates in higher education policy-making focus on the global competitiveness of French HEIs.

In sum, education policy today is exercised by a new constellation of actors in education policy-making: while the state is still a vibrant shaper and mover of education policy, new actors and institutions are participating in the design, implementation and evaluation of education policy and its outcomes. Particularly, processes and procedures of policy-making at the international level are becoming more important elements that need to be acknowledged when studying education policy. The aforementioned Bologna Process and the PISA Study are the most prominent examples, but they are part of a broader shift in education policy. In this research project, we understand internationalization as a set of processes that are driven by supra- or international organizations, which can be either governmental or non-governmental. These processes substantially change the character of education policy-making, which has become (1) interdependent – that is, multiple levels of authority are involved, (2) competitive – that is, both education institutions and countries compete, and (3) diffuse – that is, new actors participate in policy-making.

Research in the internationalization of education policy

Education policy as a research subject gained attention predominately within the last decade (for an overview of research on education in political science, see Jakobi et al. 2010; Busemeyer and Trampusch 2011). The fact that the EU has no assigned political competences in education matters has made it previously far less attractive than other po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Outcomes and Actors’ Reactions on Internationalization in Education Policy – A Theoretical Approach
• Part I – Quantitative Analyses
• Part II – Case Studies
• Part III – Conclusion
• Index