Alexander-Kenneth Nagel

Introduction—Education Policy in Transformation

2010 is an “education year”: the results of the “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA)—the largest survey on students’ performance—are being published again and will continue for another round of three evaluations; the Bologna Process—the largest project to provide Europe with a comparative higher education degree system—is supposed to be implemented within the region. Although the PISA Study and the Bologna Process have by now established themselves as prominent political issues with substantial impact on the political debate all over Europe and beyond, scholars of political science and political sociology have been rather reluctant to give this field the attention needed. This volume analyzes the significant changes in the field of education policy observable since the 1990s. It deals with the impact of the PISA Study and the Bologna Process as the most prominent examples with regard to the growing role of international organizations (IOs) and their impact on national education systems.

Comparing Education Policy Networks

Having once been a traditional domain of the nation state, the political responsibility for education is now increasingly dispersed between regional, national, and international, as well as public and private, actors. It is the aim of this chapter to shed light on the territorial and modal dispersion of national education policy networks by means of a systematic network analytical description. The central research question therefore is how the interactions and coalitions between international and national, private and public, actors have changed (both qualitatively and quantitatively) within the last decade, thus to account for changes in national education policymaking. The descriptive enterprise refers to four case studies, that is, Germany, Switzerland, England, and New Zealand, which will subsequently be put in a synoptic and comparative perspective. Drawing from pair-comparisons, the explanatory aim of this chapter is to study the influence of international organizations on national education policymaking and the capacity of national veto players to cope with that interference as determinants of change in national education policymaking.

Measuring Transformation of Education Policy—a Mixed-Method Approach

In his famous essay, “The Methodology of the Social Sciences” Max Weber indicated that new social and cultural phenomena bring along new academic problems. These new academic problems, however, call for an adjustment of the paradigmatic and methodological apparatus. In this chapter, we point to the methodological challenges arising from new and complex social phenomena in the realm of internationalizing education policy and how they can be addressed by a systematic combination and pooling of different methods with their particular strengths and limitations. Basically, new analytical problems can be dealt with in three different ways. The first and least desirable way is to downsize the phenomenon in question to make it accessible within a given methodological framework. The second is to refine a given methodological framework to make it cover more aspects of the phenomenon in question, thus to increase the validity of the respective type of data. The third is to deepen the overall validity of analysis by a systematic rearrangement of the methodological framework. Such an arrangement should combine both qualitative and quantitative methodological strategies with descriptive and explanative logics of research. A carefully arranged mixed-method approach can not only account more deeply for more facets of the phenomenon in question, but can also connect the methods involved in an appropriate way in order to counterbalance their limits and to pool their strengths.

Education Policy, Globalization, and the Changing Nation State—Accelerating and Retarding Conditions

In many countries educational policy today is under transformation. New demands of the labor market, the necessity of lifelong learning, technological progress of education delivery, and last but not least international comparative surveys, such as the PISA Study (Programme for International Student Assessment) and the Bologna Process for a common European Higher Education Area bring about challenges for national policymaking in the field of education.

Local ‘formulas of peace’: Religious diversity and state-interfaith governance in Germany:

Religious pluralization in line with participatory policy approaches has led to a new field of cooperative governance of religious diversity. This article explores the collaboration between state and (inter-) religious actors in two metropolitan regions in Germany, namely Hamburg and Rhine-Ruhr. Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork, this article provides a systematic analysis of discursive and structural measures of state-interfaith governance in the two regions. It clearly shows that state-interfaith governance gains in importance and is practiced in various forms depending on the contextual setting. Based on this, comparative case analysis shows that state-interfaith governance in Germany is characterized by (1) a prominent role of the established churches; (2) a potential of accommodating religious diversity which is, however, restricted by a narrow orientation of the world-religion model and the predominant focus on Islam; and (3) takes place in a complex multi level setting which calls for further investigation.

Interreligious relations and governance of religion in Europe: Introduction:

In recent years, the growth and expansion of interreligious initiatives have received increasing scholarly attention worldwide, and interreligious actors and repertoires are gaining relevance within emerging governance regimes of religious diversity in Europe and beyond. However, empirical research in this field is still very limited. With the aim to fill this gap, this special issue gathers four original contributions aimed at critically describing, understanding and reflecting upon the rise of the ‘interreligious sector’ and its growing relevance to the governance of religious diversity in contemporary Europe.

Introduction : Relations interreligieuses et gouvernance de la religion en Europe:

Ces dernières années, la croissance et l’expansion des initiatives interreligieuses ont reçu une attention croissante dans le monde entier (Cheetham et al. 2013 ; Cornille, 2013). Les répertoires et acteurs interreligieux gagnent en pertinence dans les gouvernances émergentes de diversité religieuse en Europe et au-delà (Griera et Forteza, 2011 ; Nagel, 2016). Cependant, la recherche empirique dans ce domaine est encore très limitée. Jusqu’à présent, la plupart des recherches sur les relations interreligieuses ont été élaborées dans une perspective théologique (Moyaert et al., 2015), et visaient à examiner les promesses et les périls des initiatives interreligieuses dans des domaines tels que l’éducation (Leirvik, 2008 ; Byrne, 2011), les processus de paix (Bercovitch et al., 2009) ou des échanges dialectiques. Malgré quelques exceptions notables (Lamine, 2004 ; Halafoff, 2011 ; 2013), les approches sociologiques des dynamiques interreligieuses n’en sont qu’à leurs débuts. Certaines études ont implicitement traité des questions interreligieuses à travers l’analyse de salles multiconfessionnelles dans les espaces publics (Cadge, 2018 ; Crompton, 2013 ; Gilliat-Ray, 2005) ou des lieux de pèlerinage partagés (Albera et Couroucli, 2012 ; Walton, 2016), mais beaucoup moins d’efforts ont été consacrés à examiner l’implication des acteurs interreligieux dans la gouvernance de la religion. Toutefois, cela est en train de changer. Actuellement, un nombre croissant de chercheurs mènent des recherches empiriques sur les initiatives et la gouvernance interreligieuses dans une perspective de sciences sociales, et notre objectif a été d’inclure une partie importante de cette nouvelle branche d’étude dans ce numéro spécial.

Bedeutung und Wandel von Religion im Migrationskontext

Wie verandert sich Religion unter Bedingungen von Migration? Die Geschichte vom Goldenen Kalb lasst sich als eine exemplarische Antwort auf diese Frage lesen: Geflohen aus Agypten, irren die Israeliten durch die Wuste. Als Mose von seiner Zwiesprache mit Gott nicht wiederauftaucht, gibt sein Bruder Aaron der Forderung des Volkes nach und lasst ein Idol aus dem gesammelten Gold der Gemeinschaft fertigen. Was aus der religiosen Binnenperspektive ein Paradebeispiel fur den Abfall vom rechten Glauben ist, unterstreicht aus religionssoziologischer Sicht die Bedeutung von und den Innovationsdruck auf Religion im Migrationskontext.

Religion, Ethnizität und Migration

Der Beitrag erschliest den Zusammenhang von Religion, Ethnizitat und Migration aus religionssoziologischer Sicht. Anhand bestehender Debatten in der Migrationssoziologie, Sozialanthropologie, Ethnologie und Religionswissenschaft werden zunachst vier zentrale Problemstellungen herausgearbeitet: Sie umfassen die Intensivierung bzw. Hybridisierung der religiosen Lebensfuhrung im Migrationskontext, Dynamiken der religiosen Selbstorganisation, die offentliche Prasenz und Governance religioser Vielfalt sowie die transnationale Konstellation, die sich aus der Zuwanderung und Etablierung von Religionsgruppen ergibt. Im Anschluss daran werden ausgewahlte quantitative und qualitative Befunde zu den Erscheinungsformen und Folgen religioser Pluralisierung dargestellt, etwa die religiosen Migrationsprofile verschiedener europaischer Lander und verschiedene Formate lokaler interreligioser Praxis. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden abschliesend einige konzeptionelle Herausforderungen erortert, die sich fur die religionssoziologische Erforschung von Migration, Religion und Ethnizitat stellen. Dazu gehort zum einen die institutionelle Dynamik religioser Migrantenorganisationen, die bisher zu einseitig als Prozess der Verfestigung und Etablierung verstanden wurde, und zum anderen die oft unkritische Uberfuhrung eines spezifischen religionsgeschichtlichen Deutungsmusters von Diaspora in eine Begriff lichkeit zur Analyse von Religion, Migration und Transnationalisierung.

Religionssoziologie in ‚relationalistischer‘ Perspektive: Migration und religiöse Netzwerke

In diesem Beitrag mochte ich uber eine relationalistische Perspektive auf den Zusammenhang von Religion und Migration nachdenken, einige Fragestellungen konturieren und mit empirischen Beispielen illustrieren. Der Ausgangspunkt meiner Uberlegungen ist das „Manifesto for a Relational Sociology“ von Mustafa Emirbayer (1997). Darin kontrastiert er idealtypisch eine substantialistische und eine relationalistische soziologische Perspektive. Laut Emirbayer stellen „substantialistische“ Ansatze auf Entitaten ab, sei es der einzelne Akteur (Mikro), symbolische Interaktion oder Organisationen (Meso) oder ganze Gesellschaften bis hin zur Weltgesellschaft (Makro). Im Unterschied dazu betrachten ‚relationalistische‘ Zugange, wie sich Entitaten in Beziehungen immer wieder neu ausrichten und formieren.