Christian Maroy

Convergences and Hybridization of Educational Policies Around "Post-Bureaucratic" Models of Regulation

Our purpose is to document convergences and divergences in the mode of institutional regulation of the education systems in five European countries (Belgium, England, France, Hungary and Portugal). On the national level, partially convergent policies create, to varying degrees and with different temporal rhythms, variants of a post‐bureaucratic regulation regime which seeks to go beyond the bureaucratic–professional model which remains dominant today, by highlighting either the traits of an ‘evaluative state’ or those of the ‘quasi‐market’ model. However, beyond the influence of these transnational models, path dependencies also exist and, in addition, we witness hybridization of these models with institutional, political and/or ideological constraints specific to each country.

Regulation in school systems: a theoretical analysis of the structural framework of the school system in French-speaking Belgium

In the context of a weakening social consensus about the purpose of schooling, what kind of social forms and procedures enable educative action to be co-ordinated and stabilized, at least to some extent? In order to answer this question, the authors develop a two-fold approach to regulation within school systems, defining regulation as ‘the process through which rules are produced and social action is oriented’. From a methodological point of view, grasping this process encompasses both an analysis of the structural framework and a comprehension of the social interactions which produce rules. On the one hand, regulation is understood as the articulation of several forms of co-ordination resulting from a particular historical process. The analysis of the structural (institutional) framework in French-speaking Belgium illustrates this first moment of the approach. On the other hand, attention is given to interactions and games between actors, particularly at a local level, in order to understand how rules are constructed and how organized action can emerge.

Vernacular Globalisations: Neo-Statist Accountability Policies in France and Quebec Education.

Abstract The article argues that there is no single globalisation of education systems, but rather multiple globalisations of each system taken in its individual context. We propose three explanatory factors to account for these vernacular globalisation processes, that is, for individual policy trajectories in each national context: path dependence on earlier policy choices and institutions, education policy-making through bricolage, and finally the translation by national actors of international-level ideas or tools as a function of the debate, institutions or national power dynamics in question. The research design is based on the study of a most-likely case: accountability policy in two school systems – France and Quebec – which show strong variations. Document analyses and semi-structured interviews were conducted in both cases. In the two countries, distinct vernacular globalisations are at work leading to different neo-statist accountability policies. In Quebec, the reinforcement of state power through a growing vertical accountability and the systematic development of regulation tools between policy actors and levels lead to a ‘centralisation by institutional linkage’. In France, we rather witness a ‘globalisation by discursive internalisation’ in which transnational imperatives are integrated in official discourses on the regulation of the education system, but without radically questioning the mainstays of this regulation.

Steuerung und Wettbewerb zwischen Schulen in sechs europäischen Regionen

In den letzten zwanzig Jahren haben Bildungspolitiker/innen in vielen europaischen Landern neue Steuerungsmethoden eingefuhrt, die von den Modellen des „Quasi-Marktes“ und des „evaluativen Staats“ inspiriert wurden. Verschiedene Formen von Schulautonomie wurden entwickelt, der Wettbewerb durch Starkung der freien Schulwahl durch Eltern gefordert und Evaluierungen sowie vertragliche Vereinbarungen mit Schulen vorangetrieben. Das Ziel dieser Masnahmen ist es, die Qualitat und Effektivitat von Bildung durch Uberwindung des professionell-burokratischen Steuerungsmodells, das seit den 1960er-Jahren die meisten Schulsysteme gepragt hat (vgl. Maroy 2006b), zu verbessern.

Introduction to the sub-issue "New modes of regulations of education systems"

Traditionally, in a juridical and political sense, political regulation is considered as the totality of institutional arrangements and control mechanisms and the framing of actions by a recognized political authority. Thus, regulation is classically exercised through legislation and hierarchical principles and is assimilated into rules and procedures. In other words, regulation is exercised through what is called in French règlementation. Accordingly, for almost 30 years, under the impact of various factors (a public financial crisis, neo-liberal critiques, globalization, and individualization of society), the welfare state has experienced crises of rationality and legitimacy and has sought new forms of action and intervention in society. Consequently, multiple practices and processes (decentralization, deconcentration, contractualization, evaluation, public–private partnerships, etc.) are developing to face the ‘deficiencies’ of state bureaucratic interventions. Furthermore, we are witnessing the advancing of ‘liberalization’, or privatization and the market. The result is the rise of new public actors (regions and departments) or the mobilization of actors from the world of business or civil society in the production and management, indeed regulation, of collective functions. It is in this context of public action’s changing modalities that the notion of regulation is emerging and gaining stature. It is becoming a recognized reality, but also acquiring a new theoretical status. Regulation is definitely not just rules and procedures and is much greater than the actions of control and administration stemming from the ‘top’. This ‘control regulation’ interacts with various ‘autonomous regulations’ (Reynaud 1993). Therefore, in a broad sense, social regulation designates multiple processes, contradictory and sometimes conflictual, orienting actors’ conduct and the definition of the rules of the game in a social or political system (Dupriez and Maroy 2003). Regulation results from an intertwining of situated actions and coordinating measures, in continuous interaction. It relies on varied institutional arrangements including rules and incentives established by the public authorities, market mechanisms, evaluation devices, hierarchical control, cognitive or normative schemes of reference. These bear on different objects and issues such as financing, fluctuations in student numbers, and pedagogical orientations. Moreover, it could have origins in different levels or scales of public action: supranational, national or local. Like governance, which is henceforth ‘multilevel’ or ‘multiscalar’ (Dale 2005), we could then speak about ‘multiregulation’. This question of regulation in education systems is at the core of the current subissue which presents some major results of the Reguleducnetwork research. Seven research teams have been involved in this research network, realized between Compare Vol. 39, No. 1, January 2009, 67–70

Comparing Accountability Policy Tools and Rationales1

For twenty years, educational systems in numerous countries have been establishing national objectives and systems of indicators allowing them to “steer” the system, and to better “regulate” the processes and functioning of schools or governance bodies at the intermediate level. Moreover, procedures to evaluate schools’ results, and indirectly teachers’ work, are being developed, along with more or less demanding mechanisms for accountability.

El profesorado quebequense frente a la “gestión basada en resultados”. Un estudio cualitativo en cuatro Centros de Secundaria

En el curso de los 15 ultimos anos, Quebec (Canada) ha desarrollado una politica de accountability - Gestion Basada en Resultados (GBR) – que concierne a todo el conjunto del sector de la educacion obligatoria de esta provincia. Esta politica se despliega en todos los niveles del sistema educativo y pone en practica nuevas herramientas de planificacion y de contractualizacion, asi como tambien herramientas estadisticas que permiten hacer visibles los resultados (academicos) y establecer objetivos de rendimiento. La GBR implica una mirada de cambio de las practicas del profesorado para hacerlas mas “eficaces” y, asi, contribuir a la realizacion de los objetivos de las politicas ministeriales: mejorar los indices de diplomados, las tasas de logro, reducir el abandono escolar. En este articulo analizamos las reacciones del profesorado de cuatro centros de secundaria a las demandas de cambio de las practicas pedagogicas que les son indicadas por los gestores escolares. Para ello, nos basamos en una tipologia de respuestas a las politicas educativas desarrollada por Cynthia Corbun (2004). Nuestro analisis muestra que las respuestas mas frecuentes son el rechazo y el acomodo, pero tambien la renuncia a ciertas practicas deseadas, asi como las practicas “imposibilitadas” por la puesta en marcha de la GBR, un tipo de respuesta que se agrega a la tipologia de Corbun. Mostramos que estas respuestas varian segun las practicas establecidas por la organizacion institucional, tambien en funcion del contexto del centro educativo, y de las diversas estrategias y configuraciones de los actores implicados en ello.

El profesorado frente a las políticas de rendición de cuentas: ¿qué redefinición(es) de su profesionalismo y de su responsabilidad social? (presentación disponible en español, francés e inglés)

Coordinan : Christian Maroy, Universidad de Montreal (Quebec, Canada), christian.maroy@umontreal.ca; Yves Dutercq, Universidad de Nantes (Francia), yves.dutercq@univ-nantes.fr; y Mar Venegas, Universidad de Granada (Espana), mariter@ugr.es

Toward a postbureaucratic regulation regime of schools? Some questions and evidence from the European Reguleduc research

Using evidence from the Reguleduc European research experience, the pertinence of a “multilevel” international comparative analysis may be called into question. Reguleduc research, on one hand, links data on European educational systems’ modes of regulation collected from various empirical entry points (national, local academic spaces, and educational establishments) and, on the other hand, interprets the games of a number of actors at different levels from varied social perspectives. There is at once a recognition of necessity, partnered with an acknowledgement of the difficulties, of an international comparative analysis combining levels of analysis and contexts to observe and interpret change in modes of regulating school systems.