Neo-liberalism, discursive change and European education policy trajectories

Souto-Otero, Manuel

doi:10.4337/9781783476466.00027

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…It could also be asked whether the preference for incremental change was the result of the EU education policy arena already having accentuated NPM strategies. Although NPM techniques are undoubtedly present in EU policy-making in education (see Lange and Alexiadou, 2007) this explanation does not seem altogether likely due to the current nature of its policies (Gornitzka, 2017: 57; Souto-Otero, 2017) and because NPM is a relentless process , which is not ‘over’ (Christense and Laegreid, 2017) nor finished.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The analysis in these respects offered here is only partial, as it refers to documents openly available. It should be complemented with an analysis of other ways to influence policy-making through what could be called ‘backstage politics’, and its informal practices and contacts (Souto-Otero, 2017; Wodak, 2015). For example, firms like McKinsey, known to be influential in the area of education (Coffield, 2012), do not perform policy evaluations but use other means to influence the education agenda and bring about paradigmatic change.…”

Section: Research Questions and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Private companies and policy-making: Ideological repertoires and concealed geographies in the evaluation of European education policies

Souto-Otero

2018

European Educational Research Journal

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This article explores the relationship between education, training and the single market, focusing on the market for the production of policy evaluations in the areas of education and training, culture and youth of the European Commission. Two questions are addressed: the first question relates to the geographical distribution of the organisations that deliver policy evaluation services to the European Commission ('Commission') in those areas; and the second relates to the nature of the ideas for policy development put forward in the evaluations examined. Based on information gathered from 23 evaluations carried out between 2012 and 2016 (in particular, the circa 300 recommendations they included), the analysis reveals that although the Commission relied on competitive processes for the award of those evaluations, competition was somewhat restricted: there is a marked dominance of a limited number of countries as the powerhouses for the Commission's education policy evaluation. In relation to the second question, and by contrast to other policy spaces, the analysis provided little evidence of unfettered penetration of private sector 'ideological repertoires', lexicons and sensitivities into the European policy evaluation space.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research Questions and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Private companies and policy-making: Ideological repertoires and concealed geographies in the evaluation of European education policies

Souto-Otero

2018

European Educational Research Journal

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“…Studies on this issue mainly focus on the role of ideas and actors in formulating policy (Burchell et al, 2014), as well as on the balance between economic and social goals shaped by institutional and political developments (Souto-Otero, 2017;Streeck, 1995). We seek further to develop knowledge in this area by expanding the existing discussion to include the role and impact of statistical job quality indicators in EU employment policy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back?

Piasna

Burchell

Sehnbruch

2019

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research

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This article analyses the development and use of the concept ‘job quality’ in European Union (EU) employment policy. Using a set of complementary public policy theories, it examines how both political and conceptual factors contributed to the failure to achieve any significant progress in articulating job quality in the EU’s policy objectives and guidelines. Conceptual clarity in defining what job quality is (and what it is not), from whose perspective it should be considered, and which direction of change indicates improvement, are vital prerequisites for an effective integration of job quality into the EU’s employment strategy and into the elaboration of any successful social indicator. A constant political struggle between different stakeholders at EU level, and a need to reconcile the often-contradictory views of the social partners, has precluded the completion of this first step. Instead, attempts to include job quality into the policy formulation process were made without simultaneously adapting the overall narrative, which continued to give prominence to flexibility and deregulation. The outcome has been a rather cursory and inconsistent effort to implement policies and actions aimed at boosting job quality.

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Neo-liberalism, discursive change and European education policy trajectories

Cited by 2 publications

References 32 publications

Private companies and policy-making: Ideological repertoires and concealed geographies in the evaluation of European education policies

Private companies and policy-making: Ideological repertoires and concealed geographies in the evaluation of European education policies

Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back?

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