Christina Segerholm

National policy brokering and the construction of the European Education Space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland

This paper draws on a comparative study of the growth of data and the changing governance of education in Europe. It looks at data and the ‘making’ of a European Education Policy Space, with a focus on ‘policy brokers’ in translating and mediating demands for data from the European Commission. It considers the ways in which such brokers use data production pressures from the Commission to justify policy directions in their national systems. The systems under consideration are Finland, Sweden, and England and Scotland. The paper focuses on the rise of Quality Assurance and Evaluation mechanisms and processes as providing the overarching rationale for data demands, both for accountability and performance improvement purposes. The theoretical resources that are drawn on to enable interpretation of the data are those that suggest a move from governing to governance and the use of comparison as a form of governance.

Fabricating Quality in Education : Data and Governance in Europe

This book argues that data and their use constitute a form of governance of education. It highlights the ways in which education is steered and managed so that a European education policy space is ...

‘We are doing well on QAE’: the case of Sweden

The paper analyses quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) policy and activities in mandatory schooling at national level in Sweden. Two studies are reported: a textual analysis of national policy documents concerning QAE, and an interview study conducted with national policy brokers. Questions addressed are: What are the characteristics of Swedish QAE activities? What European and international ideas on QAE are considered relevant to Swedish national policy? To what degree is international QAE policy disseminated across the Swedish school system? And, does Sweden influence international QAE policy in any way? QAE activities are analysed in relation to the European Union’s and international organisations’ efforts to influence national education policy. Results show that Sweden was historically early equipped with means to control quality in schooling. By the end of the 1990s, there was a marked increase in national regulations, increasing the number of QAE activities directed at Swedish schooling. The development of QAE in Sweden, therefore, has been related to a shift in governing policies and practices towards governing by objectives and results; and national QAE policies have successively strengthened this governing doctrine. Finally, Swedish national brokers maintain an image of doing quite well on QAE policy and practice compared to other European countries.

Governing by inspection? European inspectorates and the creation of a European education policy space

This paper draws on the first, completed phase of a research project on inspection as governing in three European inspection systems. The data presented here draw attention to the rather under-researched associational activities of European inspectorates and their developing practices of policy learning and exchange, and highlight their significance as contributing to an emergent European Education Policy Space (EEPS). The paper is framed by original approaches to inspection that locate it as a set of governing practices, connected to changing governing forms and the growth of networks of relationships and flows of data across Europe. Comparisons are drawn between the relationships with Europe of inspectorates in Scotland, Sweden and England, drawing on Jacobssons conceptualisation of regulative, inquisitive and meditative governance as a framing device.

Mediating school inspection - Key dimensions and keywords in agency text production 2003-2010

This paper reports on an analysis of how school inspection in Sweden – its aims, directions and procedures – is portrayed in texts produced by the responsible national authorities. The study involves a textual analysis of official annual accounts and plans (texts directed to the government, municipalities, schools and the public) produced by the National Agency for Education and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate. The analysis concentrates on key concepts conveying the dominant ideas of inspection and education. The analysis is structured around four dimensions that are based on an understanding of inspection as education governance and on the characteristics of the Swedish education system. The results suggest that the rhetoric and dominant ideas of schools inspection changed when the responsibility for inspection was transferred to the Swedish School Inspectorate in the autumn of 2008. Key concepts before that time are more supportive of schools and municipalities, recognising local conditions. Later, a language with the intention of detecting shortcomings and supporting an ideology of individual rights and juridification is apparent.

Researching Evaluation in National (State) Politics and Administration: A Critical Approach

Evaluation is increasingly taken as a public good, as an activity aimed at development and betterment. At the same time, evaluation is increasingly integrated in accountability movements and in institutionalized systems for governance. It is also embedded in a consumer-oriented New Public Management ideology. Against this background, it is high time to start critically examining evaluation itself as a phenomenon and practice. A conceptual framework for carrying out critical studies of evaluations in national (or state) settings is provided, and examples from previous such studies are given to illustrate possible findings. The framework is meant to capture forces that shape an evaluation process and the knowledge claims that result. These forces can restrict evaluation or enable it to provide a critical examination meant to be part of a public debate. By scrutinizing the premises for, the implementation of, and the impact of public-sector evaluations from a critical perspective, evaluators should gain a more thorough understanding of the various power plays of which evaluation is a part. Further discussions of and additional research on public-sector evaluation, to increase our knowledge and understanding of evaluation as a practice, are encouraged.

In the Public Eye: Swedish School Inspection and Local Newspapers: Exploring the Audit-Media Relationship.

This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate’s media strategy, how inspection is represented and conveyed, the messages sent, and who gets to speak. Literature on governance, and the role and function of the media in the wider audit society is applied theoretically. Four municipalities were selected to represent different demographical and economical structures and previous inspection experiences. The empirical material includes interviews with leading inspection officers and newspaper articles. The local newspapers portray the Inspectorate as a legitimate institution acting on behalf of and protecting the public, and even more so, the educational consumer. The current format used by the Inspectorate – a succinct reporting only on deviations – links with a favored format of the media, reinforcing the tight media–inspection relationship and leading to implications for education governance and policy.

National Evaluations as Governing Instruments: How Do They Govern?

The National Agency for Higher Education in Sweden carried out an evaluation, during 1995–1996, of all higher education programmes in care and nursing. The aim was to see if the programmes reached standards appropriate for higher education. Several care and nursing schools and programmes were found to be below the necessary standards, i.e. the criteria set by evaluators engaged in the national evaluation. According to those responsible for the programmes, the evaluation and its criteria were used at the local level to set out plans for development, even though the evaluation was criticized. Therefore in this article it is argued that national evaluations can work as national governing instruments, to support national policy. Two different theoretical frameworks are used to explain how actors at the local level are ‘governed’. Through this, it is believed that a more comprehensive understanding can be gained of how evaluation is related to governance.

The Quality Turn—Political and Methodological Challenges in Contemporary Educational Evaluation and Assessment 1

In December 1972 a group of scholars engaged in educational evaluation and curriculum reform assembled, in what was later to be called the Cambridge conference, to challenge what they viewed as the then “traditional style of evaluation” (MacDonald & Parlett 1973:74). Their aim was to develop guidelines for the future of educational evaluation, and to challenge the traditional evaluation style. In the present policy context, it is instructive to revisit the manifesto that summarised this conference MacDonald & Parlett 1973) to see what these scholars wanted to challenge, what they viewed as problematic and what they wanted to promote.

Governance through Institutionalized Evaluation Recentralization and Influences at Local Levels in Higher Education in Sweden

Public sectors in Europe and elsewhere are the subject of regular, recurrent and systematic evaluations. Evaluations have become institutionalized. This article examines the influence of institutionalized evaluation in higher education in Sweden. In this decentralized education system several kinds of effects of evaluation are detected locally, i.e. at whole-university and at department levels. Through an evaluation process characterized by self-evaluation, external reviews and public reports produced by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education, all universities are examined. Governance operates by making universities visible, and thereby promoting comparison and competition, control and self-control. Centrally defined criteria are implemented in the process, via direct contact between the National Agency and university departments, leading to the recentralization of power. Strategies to deal with these evaluations at departmental level are developed and unintended influences, like learning resistance strategies, are highlighted.