Abstract
We can learn much by exploring how dominant Northern nations, in their fear of falling behind other ‘global knowledge economies’, produce imaginaries that affect how global standards are construed. The transnational turn in European education policy represents a narrative in which a nation will fall behind if it does not optimize its human capital, a narrative about moving ahead toward shared truth regimes that transform school, education, and educational research. Comparative surveys (e.g. PISA, Teaching & Learning International Survey (TALIS), Trends in International Mathematics & Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)), country reports, and performance indicators are employed. Usually this transnational turn is observed from an inward-looking perspective that emphasizes the effects on European integration. The important effects of these processes, however, produce formats that travel globally as well. The OECD, the European Union, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, and the Bologna Process all include a network of partner countries and economies whereby nations outside Europe adopt the discourse and political technologies of organizations of Western European and US origin and dominance. This produces a global language of achievement, competition, and ranking. Drawing on post-Foucauldian governmentality theory, this study is based on discourse analysis of policy documents and literature on policy reform. It adds to research on the traveling of policy between dominant and less dominant regions in the world, questioning how and by what parameters they become comparable.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Appadurai, A. (2006/1996). Disjuncture and difference in the global economy. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization and social change (pp. 179–188). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. Abingdon & Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Biesta, G. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still Won’t work: From evidence-based to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(5), 491–503.
Brøgger, K. (2016). The rule of mimetic desire in higher education: Governing through naming, shaming and faming. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 72–91.
Brunn, G. (2004). Die Europäische Einigung: Von 1945 is heute. Bonn: Reclam.
Carney, S. (2010). Reading the global: Comparative education at the end of an era. In M. Larsen (Ed.), New thinking in comparative education: Honouring the work of Dr. Robert Cowen (pp. 125–142). Brill: Rotterdam.
Castells, M. (2000). End of millennium. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cerny, P. G., & Evans, M. (1999). New labour, globalization and the competition state. Cambridge, MA: Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University.
Dale, R. (2009). Contexts, constraints and resources in the development of European education space and European education policy. In R. Dale & S. L. Robertson (Eds.), Globalisation & Europeanisation in education (pp. 23–44). Oxford: Symposium Books.
Dean, M. (2007). Governing societies: Political perspectives on domestic and international rule. Maidenhead, UK & New York: Open University Press.
Dreyfus, H., & Rabinow, P. (1982). Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Brighton: Harvester Press.
EC. (1992). The Maastricht Treaty. Brussels: European Commission Retrieved April 30, 2015, from www.eurotreaties.com/maastrichtec.pdf.
EC. (2000). Presidency conclusion, March 23–24. Lisbon: European Commission.
Elfert, M. (2013). Six decades of educational multilateralism in a globalising world: The history of the UNESCO Institute in Hamburg. International Review of Education, 59(2), 263–287.
EQF. (2008). The European qualification framework for lifelong learning. Luxembourg: European Commission, Education and training. Retrieved from http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/news/EQF_EN.pdf.
Foucault, M. (1993). Qu’est-ce que les Lumières? Magazine Littéraire (309, avril 1993), 61–74.
Foucault, M. (1997). On the genealogy of ethics - an overview of work in progress. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Foucault - ethics, subjectivity and truth (essential works of Foucault 1954–1984) (Vol. 1, pp. 253–280). New York: The New Press.
Foucault, M. (1998). Polemics, politics, and problematizations: An interview with Michel Foucault. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Foucault - ethics, subjectivity and truth (essential works of Foucault 1954–1984) (pp. 111–119). New York: The New Press.
Gornitzka, Å. (2006). The Open Method of Coordination as Practice: A watershed in European education policy? ARENA Working Paper, (16). Oslo University.
Green, A. (2006). Education, globalization, and the nation state. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization & social change (pp. 192–197). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grek, S. (2014). OECD as a site of coproduction: European education governance and the new politics of ‘policy mobilization’. Critical Policy Studies, 8(3), 266–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2013.862503.
Gunter, H. M., & Mills, C. (2017). Consultants and consultancy: The case of education. Cham: Springer.
Henry, M., Lingard, B., Rizvi, F., & Taylor, S. (2001). The OECD, globalisation and education policy. Oxford: IAU Press & Elsevier Science Ltd.
Hopmann, S. T. (2008). No child, no school, no state left behind: Schooling in the age of accountability. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40, 417–456.
James, O., & Lodge, M. (2003). The limitations of ‘policy transfer’ and ‘lesson drawing’ for public policy. Political Studies Review, 1(2), 179–193.
Judis, J. B. (2018). The nationalist revival: Trade, immigration, and the revolt against globalization. New York: Columbia Global Reports.
Keeling, R. (2006). The Bologna process and the Lisbon research agenda: The European Commission’s expanding role in higher education discourse. European Journal of Education, 41(2), 203–223.
Krejsler, J. B. (2017). Capturing the ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’ agenda in education: A truth regime and the art of manoeuvring floating signifiers. In M. Y. Eryaman & B. Schneider (Eds.), Evidence and public good in educational policy, research and practice (pp. 21–41). Cham: Springer.
Krejsler, J. B. (2018). EuroVisions in school policy and the knowledge economy: A genealogy of the transnational turn in European school and teacher education policy. In N. Hobbel & B. Bales (Eds.), Navigating the common good in teacher education policy: Critical and international perspectives. New York & London: Routledge.
Krejsler, J. B., Olsson, U., & Petersson, K. (2012). Governing Europe by comparison, peer pressure & self-interest: On the Bologna Stocktaking Process as operator of national education policy. Bulletin of Institute of Technology and Vocational Education, 2012(9), 35–47.
Krejsler, J. B., Olsson, U., & Petersson, K. (2014). The transnational grip on Scandinavian education reforms: The open method of coordination challenging national policy-making. Nordic Studies in Education, 34(3), 172–186.
Lawn, M., & Grek, S. (2012). Europeanizing education: Governing a new policy space. Oxford: Symposium Books.
Meyer, H.-D., & Benavot, A. E. (Eds.). (2013). PISA, power, and policy: The emergence of global educational governance. Oxford: Symposium Books.
Mohamedbhai, G. (2013). Toward an African higher education and research space (AHERS): A summary report. Working Group on Higher Education (WGHE) of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).Retrieved from adeanet.org/en/system/files/resources/ahers_summary_report.pdf.
Nóvoa, A., & Lawn, M. (2002). Fabricating Europe: The formation of an education space. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
OECD. (1996). The knowledge based economy. Paris: OECD.
Pereyra, M. A., & Franklin, B. M. (Eds.). (2014). Systems of reason and the politics of schooling. New York & London: Routledge.
Petersson, K., Olsson, U., & Krejsler, J. B. (2015). The social question revisited: The configuration of the social dimension in the European education space. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), The “reason” of schooling: Historicizing curriculum studies, pedagogy, and teacher education (pp. 200–214). New York & London: Routledge.
Popkewitz, T. S., & Brennan, M. (Eds.). (1998). Foucault’s challenge: Discourse, knowledge, and power in education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2006). Globalization and the changing nature of the OECD’s educational work. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization & social change (pp. 247–260). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London & New York: Routledge.
Robertson, S. L. (2017). Approaching policy borrowing and lending in higher education. In P. N. Teixeira & J.-C. Shin (Eds.), Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions. Cham: Springer.
Robertson, S. L., Bonal, X., & Dale, R. (2006). GATS and the education service industry: The politics of scale and global reterritorialization. In H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization & social change (pp. 228–246). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robertson, S. L., Neves de Azevedo, M., & Dale, R. (2016). Higher education, the EU, and the cultural political economy of regionalism. In S. L. Robertson, C. Olds, R. Dale, & Q.-A. Dang (Eds.), Global regionalisms and higher Globalisation Education & Social Futures Education. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Schriever, J. (2012). Discourse formation in comparative education (4th ed.). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Sedelmeier, U. (2007). The European neighbourhood policy: A comment on theory and policy. In K. Weber, M. E. Smith, & M. E. Baun (Eds.), Governing Europe’s neighbourhood: Partners or periphery? (pp. 195–231). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2012). Understanding policy borrowing and lending. Building comparative policy studies. In G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldow (Eds.), World yearbook of education 2012. Policy borrowing and lending in education. New York: Routledge.
Telhaug, A. O., Mediås, O. A., & Aasen, P. (2006). The Nordic model in education: Education as part of the political system in the last 50 years. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(3), 245–283.
Voogt, J., & Roblin, N. P. (2012). A comparative analysis of international frameworks for 21st century competences: Implications for national curriculum policies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 44(3), 299–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2012.668938.
Wagenaar, R., & González, J. (Eds.). (2008). Tuning educational structures in Europe. Universities’ contribution to the Bologna process. An introduction (2nd ed.). Bilbao: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Deusto.
Zeitlin, J., Pochet, P., & Magnusson, L. (Eds.). (2005). The open method of coordination in action: The European employment and social inclusion strategies. Bruxelles: Peter Lang.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Krejsler, J.B. (2019). How a European ‘Fear of Falling Behind’ Discourse Co-produces Global Standards: Exploring the Inbound and Outbound Performativity of the Transnational Turn in European Education Policy. In: Ydesen, C. (eds) The OECD’s Historical Rise in Education. Global Histories of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33799-5_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33799-5_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33798-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33799-5
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)