The activities of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the yearly European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) are mainly organised in standing networks. Through the example of the Policy Studies and Politics of Education network, this article takes a closer look at network activity and the ways in which it contributes to…

This article discusses the dynamic interaction between global policy and knowledge flows and two post-communist education systems--Hungary and Romania--with special attention to the appropriation of post-bureaucratic regulation tools and the structural changes enhanced by the knowledge transmitted by the Programme for International Student…

This article builds on previous research which has emphasised the role of comparisons of educational performance in creating visibility and borderlessness, and moves the argument a point further. The article claims that apart from increased visibility, what the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has brought to education systems…

The extent to which the goals and contents of (compulsory) education should to be regulated has been a complicated balancing act in the Netherlands. Against a background of a long-standing statutory tradition of freedom of education, governmental decisions about "what knowledge is of most worth" have been delicate. The purpose of the analysis…

Whether and to what extent we are in the process of reconstructing higher education following the Bologna Process orientation is the issue underpinning this article. To address this issue, the authors consider data from an exploratory survey conducted in a Portuguese university, focusing on the field of education. They take into account the…

This article problematizes the construction of youth as a "driving force" in the contemporary configuration of the European Union (EU) as an educational and political space. The study draws empirical nourishment out of documents that are central to the ongoing formation of the Union, be it White Papers, scripts or memos concerning political arenas…

In this article, the author tells the story of her search for appropriate tools to conceptualise policy work. She had set out to explore the relationship between the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Australia's education policy, but early interview data…

The open method of coordination (OMC) within the Lisbon strategy is discussed in terms of a European Space for Education and "programme ontology". The focus is on indicators and the European dimension, and how they "work" in the forming of contents and identities in this European Space for Education. The OMC is analyzed in relation to Nancy…

The construction of the European education space has typically been attributed to European education policy makers, institutions, and networks. Rarely do scholars consider the role of outside, non-European actors in shaping the terrain of European education thought and practice. This article considers the construction of the European education…

Historically, education policy making has been interwoven with the nation-building project. However, the centrality of the nation state in education policy making has been constrained by a wide range of new socio-political and economic phenomena that relate to European integration. This article explores the ways in which European education…

In European Union policy documents, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is described as a neutral tool embedded in an evidence-based policy process. Its purpose is to improve the transparency, comparability and portability of qualifications in the European Union. The aim of this article is to denaturalise the EQF discourse through a…

Over recent years, lifelong learning has been a central and guiding principle in the formulation of European educational policies. Within this general framework, the authors have been developing a research project that allows them to approach the theme of lifelong learning and European educational policies, taking into account four levels of…

This article addresses two key questions about the convergence of education policies in the European Union (EU). How does the open method of coordination (OMC), a new governance instrument for the Europeanisation of education policies, change existing national education policy making and how can the OMC and national responses to it be researched?…

Over recent years, research has shown the ways that national governments have seemingly ceded some of their autonomy in education policy development to international organisations (IOs) in the context of globalisation and one of its conduits, Europeanisation. This article develops the idea that IOs, and particularly the Organisation for Economic…

What does a country do when its schools and educational system in general do not produce the results the country believes they are capable of? This article describes the political debates that comparative international studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment have given rise to in Germany and Sweden. As a result of the…