Edwin Keiner

Education between Academic Discipline and Profession in Germany after World War II

This article analyses the development of the science of education in Germany between 1947 and 1990, focusing on the relationship between discipline and profession. First, it describes the shifts from a unity concept to a concept of difference between discipline and profession. The second part outlines an analytical concept of discipline based on communication and publication, and describes sources and methods used for an empirical investigation based on educational journals. Part three presents the findings. In view of the occupational profiles of authors, it shows the process of ‘academisation’ of educational communication and the exclusion of ‘profession’. In view of the cognitive texture of science of education, it finds a stable continuity over time. The results support the thesis of a decoupling of the development of the social structure of disciplinary communication and the theoretical concepts.

EERA and its European Conferences on Educational Research: A Patchwork of Research on European Educational Research

The process of Europeanisation is closely linked to the process of an emerging European Educational Research Area and an education research identity. The European Conferences on Educational Research (ECER), European Educational Research Association (EERA) and its networks are involved in new directions and strands of educational research in particular European nations as well as in processes to construct a common European Educational Research Area. ECER to a large extent contributes to such developments both as observer and actor. Against the background of diverse functions and contexts of ECER for communication on and development of educational research in Europe, the authors describe some small-scale research studies about ECER that have been carried out during the past ten years dealing with attendance motives and assessments of ECER, and provide content analyses of proposal abstracts of ECER. In doing so, they would like to present a mirror to EERA at its 20th anniversary that could contribute to further systematic self-observation and self-governance of EERA and ECERs as vivid, inspiring, powerful, discursive, democratic and scholarly high-standing conferences in the future.

Book Review: Globalisation, Educational Transformation and Societies in Transition, Operation Blackboard: Policy Implementation in Indian Elementary Education, Education in Germany since Unification, State of Transition: Post-Apartheid Educational Reform in South Africa

This volume examines the processes of globalisation in education, particularly as this affects societies in transition. It takes the broad concept of ‘transition’ as being concerned with countries that have experienced rapid transformation in their educational system following a political shift from authoritarian to democratic government. The book is the outcome of a conference at Bristol on the theme of Educational Reconstruction and Transformation, and there are fourteen contributions ranging from international overviews to specific country analyses. The introductory chapter discusses the themes of the book, followed by two overviews by Hallak and Watson. Eight chapters on different countries follow: Elsner on Poland, Streitweiser on East Germany, Märja and Jögi on Estonia, N’zimande and Mathieson on South Africa, Hailemariam on Eritrea, Thompson and Crossley on Belize, Grove and Johnson on Brazil and Bray on Hong Kong/Macau. There are three final chapters by Kiernan, Smith and Allsop relating to policy-oriented studies. In such a wide-ranging book, different readers will inevitably get different things from different chapters, depending on their interest; this review can present only a personal judgement. I would have put Mike Kiernan’s chapter on the Role of Donors first. This is one of the most hardhitting and realistic analyses of the impact of aid that I have read, tracing the different ideologies and emphases of aid and the doubtful effect of all of them. Here is the flavour: