Linda Greveling

Crossing borders in educational innovation: Framing foreign examples in discussing comprehensive education in the Netherlands, 1969–1979

In the Netherlands, crossing borders to study comprehensive schools was an important strategy in the 1970s, a decisive period for the start and the end of the innovation. According to policy-borrowing theory, actors that engage in debating educational issues are framing foreign examples of comprehensive schooling to convince their audiences. Framing therefore became the leading concept behind our study of the intellectual debate, examined through the leading Dutch scientific journal Pedagogische Studiën (Educational Studies), and the public debate, examined through recordings of television programmes. Assuming that those debates were influential in the political middle school process, our analyses show that foreign examples indeed functioned as a framing device in the form of legitimisation, glorification, sensationalisation and caution. However, the impact of framing differed. In the phase of cross-national attraction, the reform-minded perspective in the scholarly debate had a stimulating effect on the development of the plans, but little influence on the governmental decision-making process. This contrasts with the frames that were brought forward by television programmes. Although the negative frames, such as “a factory-made sausage”, were rejected by the programmes, such frames could linger in people’s minds as a means to interpret ideas about middle schools. At the end of the 1970s, the middle school was reduced to a minor feature of educational policy and, eventually, the middle school experiments were brought to a close. As a result, the foreign solution of introducing comprehensive education was never transferred to the Netherlands.

The struggle for comprehensive education in the Netherlands: the representation of secondary school innovation in Dutch newspaper articles in the 1970s

This article focuses on how Dutch newspapers represented the debate in the Netherlands in the 1970s on comprehensive education and thus influenced the Dutch Middle School experiment. Wiborg’s identification of key factors of success in Scandinavia was used as a point of reference. The article shows that these key factors did not exist in the Netherlands because of the polarisation of liberals and social democrats. Furthermore, the article shows how newspapers played different roles, varying from disseminators of new ideas to sparking debate and from communicators of political views to a barometer, consequently influencing the political strategies chosen.

Het Pedagogisch quotiënt.

We kennen sinds vele jaren het intelligentiequotient (IQ) als maat voor intelligentie. Dit is een weinig omstreden maat, omdat er in de wetenschap en praktijk veel overeenstemming bestaat over theorieen rond intelligentie. Van recentere datum is het EQ – het emotioneel quotient –, een begrip dat veel minder is uitgewerkt dan het IQ. En dan nu het PQ, het pedagogisch quotient. Het idee achter dit boek is om, vanuit verschillende invalshoeken, historische en theoretische achtergronden van en praktische kennis over, het begrip pedagogische kwaliteit te beschrijven. Dit moet leiden tot een antwoord op de vraag of het mogelijk is een index voor pedagogische kwaliteit te ontwikkelen. Genoemde invalshoeken hebben betrekking op vier domeinen: opvoeding, hulpverlening, onderwijs en educatie. Deze vier domeinen vormen de structuur van het boek. In deze vier domeinen komen verschillende perspectieven op het vraagstuk van pedagogische kwaliteit aan bod, namelijk een algemeen pedagogisch perspectief, een orthopedagogisch perspectief, een onderwijskundig perspectief en een andragogisch perspectief.

Rise and fall of the comprehensive school idea in the Netherlands.: Political and educational debates on the Middle School project (1969-1993)

Dutch comprehensive education eventually failed on a political level, despite support from many politicians, labour unions and branches in the educational practice. In the early 1970s denominational political parties strove for a Middle School to provide equal opportunities of all children by postponing school choice. From 1973 onwards, however, the Middle School was given a socialist appeal, which led to strong critique from both the right-wing Liberal Party and teachers in higher secondary education united in The Dutch Association of Teachers. By resisting, the right-wing Liberals struck a chord with the denominational parties over their fear of indoctrination and the threatening of the constitutional freedom of education. The many proponents, including those from the field of education, tried to influence the political debate by publishing their ideas on the Middle School, but their efforts were to no avail. The outcome, therefore, was that in 1993 there were to be no Middle Schools, only the realisation of a common curriculum for the first phase of secondary education.