Jean-Louis Derouet

French Universities at a Crossroads between Crisis and Radical Reform: Toward a New Academic Regime?.

While universities are one of the oldest public institutions in Europe, the universal principles they originally claimed in the Middle Ages have since faced tremendous social and political changes (Anderson 2004). The Reformation and Counter-Reformation created a classic humanism based on a body of knowledge inherited from Aristotle and medieval scholasticism and anticipated the world of letters which transcended national and religious frontiers. Universities, then, became corporations under the supervision of the church and the state; they had a high degree of autonomy and the privilege of delivering degrees to open access to regulated occupations. In Germany, the principle cuius regio, eius religio enabled each sovereign to impose a state religion, while the British monarchy ensured that Oxford and Cambridge universities strictly complied with Anglican orthodoxy. Catholic universities

Crise do projeto de democratização da educação e da formação ou crise de um modelo de democratização? Algumas reflexões a partir do caso francês (1980-2010)

This paper takes up again the analysis of the difficulties faced by the attempts to democratize education led by international organizations since the end of the Second World War. Is it a crisis of the very political project (democratization would be a utopia that does not stand the test of reality) or a crisis of the apparatus (comprehensive schools [college unique], lengthening of compulsory schooling, etc.) on which the project implementation was built? This analysis stresses a parallel recomposition of the forms of Justice and State. The conceptions of Justice have become diversified and equality is just a definition among others. Other references have emerged: obligation of results, acknowledgement of differences, etc.. The main argument is that the State did not back down before the market but changed its form. It passed from a welfare State promising equal chances to a managerial State warranting the obligation of results. The text concludes with some clues to resume benefit sharing policies in the field of education.

Introduction to the EERJ dossier

After the Second World War, the OECD promoted the idea – which had begun to emerge between the wars in various European countries – that the creation of a comprehensive school system, bringing together all children from age 6 to 15 or 16, was the precondition for the democratisation of society and economic progress. This model was implemented very differently from one country to another. The ideal has now ended in disenchantment. Almost everywhere, the schooling of 11 to 15-year-olds is seen as the weak link in educational systems, a site of violence and suffering for pupils and teachers. A new system is being put in place, which some call post-comprehensive. Without abandoning the concern for equality, the international organisations are foregrounding a new system of reference based on performance obligations: skills standards, international comparisons through which each country’s performance can be judged in a context of competition. The debate has moved on: the American New Right places its hopes in the market; the European texts propose several readjustments of the social-democratic compromise: an equality of performances which takes the form of the definition of key skills; an attempt at compromise between the ideal of redistribution, the imperatives of performance and the creation of a collective consciousness in pluriethnic and pluricultural societies which takes the form of the idea of inclusive societies. The comprehensive school and the debates surrounding it are liable to be overtaken before being analysed. A retrospective analysis seems necessary to do justice to the efforts that have been made. The way societies organise their educational system is a key element in the production and transformation of the social. This special double issue of the European Educational Research Journal examines the current state of the comprehensive model in Europe and formulates the hypothesis of a post-comprehensive era; in so doing, it addresses the fundamental problem area of the relationship between education and society(ies). It was this aim of retrospective analysis that inspired the organisation, at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in Porto in 2014, of a symposium on “The emergence of a post-comprehensive school in Europe? The role of social science journals in constructing a reflexive and critical analysis”. This was followed by a call for contributions for this EERJ dossier, “Re-examining the comprehensive school project in Europe.” The aim of that invitation and of this ensuing double issue is to offer a European perspective on the question of the comprehensive school. There were 21 responses to the call; ten articles were selected after review. Together they provide a wide-ranging view of the situation.

La modernización del sistema educativo en Francia: la nueva gestión pública entre la afirmación del Estado y la gobernanza descentralizada

La historia de la administracion publica francesa en educacion se encuentra solidamente vinculada al legado napoleonico y al nacimiento de la Tercera Republica. La importancia del legalismo presenta un impacto en la accion de los disenadores de politicas, inspectores y directores de los diferentes niveles jerarquicos, situandoles en posiciones de mando, autoridad y subordinacion. Debido al peso de los servicios publicos y del funcionariado en Francia, es principalmente el Estado quien se esta viendo transformado con algunos efectos sobre el sector de la educacion. Este orden burocratico es hoy dia desafiado por la implementacion de la nueva gestion publica o new public management (NPM). La ley para la modernizacion de las finanzas publicas ha reorganizado el gasto publico en educacion de acuerdo a amplios programas que implementan los 3 principios del NPM: economia, eficiencia, efectividad. Sin embargo, Francia ha desarrollado una rendicion de cuentas carente de mercado educativo. Se trata ademas de un NPM sin demasiada descentralizacion y flexibilidad. Mientras otros sectores implicados en las politicas publicas, como el sanitario, han conocido ya importantes cambios en su organizacion y condiciones de trabajo, el educativo parece adentrarse en una nueva etapa marcada por la reestructuracion de las profesiones relacionadas con la ensenanza. La mejora de la comprension del proyecto de modernizacion y NPM en el sector de la educacion pasa por observar su relacion con algunas transformaciones importantes y globales dentro del Estado central. La politizacion de disenadores de politicas de alto rango, diversificacion de servicios y responsabilidades, individualizacion y movilidad, o pago por actividad puesta en practica, son algunos de los principales componentes de la desregulacion del Estado que presenta impacto sobre los profesionales desde formas mas sutiles e invisibles.