Education policy and the European Semester:

This paper discusses the workings of the European Semester (ES) in relation to the policy field of education. My study shows how the ES enables the steering of education policy through encouraging specific economic and employment-related actions by European Union (EU) member states. With a focus on the relationship between the EU institutions and member states, this paper examines how the ES discursively promotes certain approaches to education through country-specific recommendations (CSRs). In this study, CSRs are revealed as policy spaces where European and national interests are brought together, enabling shared problem definition and collective learning. The paper illustrates how policy moves through translation and negotiation in the construction of CSR. The evidence drawn on here comes from analysis of CSRs in 2011–2016 and 15 semi-structured interviews with key policy actors, mainly from the European Commission, Council and Parliament. This paper concludes that CSRs work through soft power to manage governing tensions through translation and by building convergence and consensus. The analysis is framed theoretically by research on governing and knowledge and draws on a social constructivist perspective on policy work.

Section: The European Semester and The Framing Of Education Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing through consensus? The European Semester, soft power and education governance in the EU

Eeva

2021

“…Teacher policy issues have figured in Semester Country Reports and National Reform Programmes for numerous member states during the 2010s, and CSRs related to, for instance, teacher education, professional development and attractiveness of the profession have been issued for a number of them, such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta and Slovakia. Characteristically, teacher and education policy issues are included as part of labour market issues in Country Reports and CSRs (A2, A5, A7, A8, A9, B1, B2; see also Stevenson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Institutional Infrastructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The European Union’s governance of teachers and the evolution of a bridging issue field since the mid-2000s

Sorensen,

Dumay

2024

Concerned with European Union (EU) governance of teachers since the mid-2000s, this paper makes an empirical as well as theoretical contribution to education policy studies in the context of EU governance. Drawing on neo-institutional field theory and an empirical material of policy documents and interviews, the paper analyses the consolidation and evolution of a field at the EU level that is focused on the governance of the teaching profession. We argue that this field constitutes a bridging issue field, spanning several policy domains, including education, employment and economy, and characterised by non-linear and relatively slow change. We demonstrate how the field since the mid-2000s has become elaborated via the strategic framing of teacher skills and careers as policy issues, the mobilisation of actors and networks, and an expanding institutional infrastructure of mechanisms and policy instruments. Theoretically, the paper advances the debate on EU governance by highlighting the epistemic gains of neo-institutional field theory in making sense of soft governance contexts and their trajectories as an outcome of the interplay between issue framings, different types of actors, and institutional infrastructure.

“…Following this process, the Commission publishes Country Reports where they identify challenges and progress in each country, and subsequently issue Country Specific Recommendations that cover a range of areas and policy fields (including education). In response, member states submit National Reform Programs, which in turn are reviewed and evaluated by the Commission, before they are endorsed by the European Council and, in June adopted by the Council (for education, see Eeva, 2021;Stevenson et al, 2017).…”

Section: The Economizing Institutional Structures Of the Lisbon Strat...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Education policy governance and the power of ideas in constructing the new European Education Area

Alexiadou

Rambla

2022

Twenty ye ars after the Lisbon strategy, education policy in the European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture, with a new set of strategic goals endorsed for the 2021–2030 decade. This article examines the complex interplay of ideas, institutions and actors, in articulating education policy priorities in the new European Education Area (EEA). Drawing on documentary reviews and interviews with policy actors in the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, we trace the rise and fall of policy ideas in the new framework. The negotiations over the definition of EEA reveal new tensions between and within European institutions over specific policy ideas, with “lifelong learning” and “gender” as the most controversial ones. Continuing, longstanding tensions between the education and employment fields remain, and present a difficulty for the construction of a comprehensive and cohesive education policy program.