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Boomerangs and Trojan Horses: The Unintended Consequences of Internationalising Education Policy Through the EU and the OECD

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European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research

Part of the book series: Higher Education Dynamics ((HEDY,volume 26))

Abstract

During the last few years, the EU and the OECD have become increasingly involved in the field of education policy. Both international organisations have been approached by national governments in this issue area and have triggered and shaped domestic debates about the reform of national education systems. In this contribution, we look at the two most prominent among these initiatives: the ‘Bologna process’, which is by now commonly associated with the EU and involves the standardisation of degree structures in higher education with the goal of creating a single European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and the OECD’s ‘Program for International Student Assessment’ (PISA), which regularly evaluates the performance of school students in different national education systems. Both processes stimulated extensive public debates and compelled policy makers to restructure their national education systems.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Katherine Bird, Karin Fischer-Bluhm, Thomas Conzelmann, Anja Jakobi, Detlef Jahn, Dirk Lehmkuhl, Evelies Mayer, Sandra Mittag, Harald Müller, Alexander Kenneth Nagel, Reinhold Sackmann, Silke Weinlich and Lisa Zelljadt, in addition to participants in seminars at the University of Victoria, Canada, the Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, the European University Institute, Florence and Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Research presented in this chapter results from the project ‘International Education Politics’ at the Collaborative Research Center 597 ‘Transformations of the State’. The centre is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Kerstin Martens

  2. Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Darmstadt University of Technology, Frankfurt, Germany

    Klaus Dieter Wolf

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  1. Kerstin Martens
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CIPES, Universidade do Porto, Rua 1 de Dezembro 399, Matosinhos, 4450, Portugal

    Alberto Amaral

  2. Ensino Superior (CIPES), Centro de Investigação de Politicas do, Rua 1 de Dezembro 399, Matosinhos, 4450-227, Portugal

    Guy Neave

  3. Centre de Sociologie des Organisations,, CNRS, rue Amélie 19, Paris, 75007, France

    Christine Musselin

  4. Fac. Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway

    Peter Maassen

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Martens, K., Wolf, K.D. (2009). Boomerangs and Trojan Horses: The Unintended Consequences of Internationalising Education Policy Through the EU and the OECD. In: Amaral, A., Neave, G., Musselin, C., Maassen, P. (eds) European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 26. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9505-4_4

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