Romuald Normand

NUEVA GESTIÓN PÚBLICA Y EDUCACIÓN: ELEMENTOS TEÓRICOS Y CONCEPTUALES PARA EL ESTUDIO DE UN MODELO DE REFORMA EDUCATIVA GLOBAL

En las ultimas decadas, la Nueva Gestion Publica (NGP) ha penetrado con fuerza en la agenda educativa global. Muchos gobiernos, tanto de paises industrializados como en vias de desarrollo, han introducido medidas de NGP en uno o mas sectores, incluyendo el educativo. En aquellos lugares donde la NGP ha influido de forma mas marcada los procesos de reforma educativa, principios como la autonomia escolar, la rendicion de cuentas, la gestion basada en resultados o la libertad de eleccion de escuela han condicionado como se regulan, proveen y financian los servicios educativos. En este articulo reflexionamos sobre la relacion entre la NGP y la politica educativa y, en concreto, aportamos elementos teoricos y conceptuales para el estudio de dicha tematica desde la perspectiva de la difusion internacional y la re-contextualizacion. Concretamente, las preguntas que estructuran y orientan los contenidos de este articulo son: ?Por que los gobiernos y los policy-makers de diferentes paises adoptan politicas de NGP en el marco de procesos de reforma educativa? ?Que elementos institucionales y politicos median en la transposicion y la re-contextualizacion de las politicas de NGP en el sector educativo? ?Que obstaculos y otras dificultades se asocian a la promulgacion y aplicacion de las ideas de NGP en realidades educativas concretas? Parte de los argumentos presentados en este articulo se basan en los estudios de caso que conforman este monografico sobre NGP y politica educativa y que cubren paises y territorios tan diversos como son la provincia de Buenos Aires, Brasil, Cataluna, Chile, Inglaterra, Francia, Italia, Noruega y Quebec.

Analyse textuelle et analyse de Réseaux: Exemple du traitement d'une base de données bibliographiques à l'aide des logiciels Alceste et Pajek

In this paper, we demonstrate how textual analysis and network analysis are complementary in displaying various groups from a bibliographic data bank, then in building the corresponding networks of co-publication. The Alceste software and Pajek, used on the same ‘‘set’’ of data including 5,000 references, allowed us to objectify the existence of various epistemic communities, as well as the links within and between communities related to the issue of ‘‘measurement’’ in education. Dans cet article, nous montrons en quoi l’analyse textuelle et l’analyse de réseaux sont complémentaires s’agissant de mettre en évidence différents groupes issus d’une base de données bibliographiques, puis de construire les réseaux de co-publications correspondants. Les logiciels Alceste et Pajek, utilisés sur un même « jeu » de données contenant 5.000 références, ont permis d’objectiver ainsi l’existence de différentes communautés épistémiques ainsi que les liens intra- et inter-communautés sur la question de la « mesure » en éducation.

France: Between Civil Service and Republican Ethics – The Statist Vision of Leadership Among French Principals

This chapter describes the new missions of French principals regarding the current transformations of French education policy. French principals are considered by their hierarchy as administrators more than managers, as representatives of the State more than members of the local community, and as civil servants more than entrepreneurs. The role of “pedagogue” officially devoted to them is firmly framed by official regulations which limit their power and autonomy. It explains why the notion of management is hardly compatible with their vision and practice while there is no specific research field on school management and leadership. The chapter explores the dominant literature in professional journals and official documents in reviewing some main topics regarding the changing conditions of principals at work. It characterizes some institutional and cultural differences, comparatively to other European countries, and the maintenance of a tradition of civil service and republican ethics in this professional group. The attachment to the democratization and equality of opportunities is also a major component of its professional and shared values.

Leadership and New Public Management: The Forgotten Professional Dimension of School Organizations

The notion of school leadership is far from being stabilized and, beyond its global dissemination, its realization varies according to policies and local contexts. There is a large agreement for assuming that this English-speaking paradigm, carried by International Organizations, faces different cultural and institutional traditions in Europe as well as in Latin America, and that leading school organizations cannot be reduced to neo-managerial perspectives. However, leadership remains a heuristic concept to reflect on the emergence of new roles and responsibilities between principals and teachers at school level.

The French Republic and the Decline of Napoleon’s Bureaucracy. Towards New Public Management in Education

According to Max Weber’s categorization (2008), the French education system is governed by legal-rational bureaucracy. The Ancient Regime and Napoleon’s legacy shaped professional bodies like the “agreges” (high skilled teachers) and the General Inspectorate maintaining a strong corporatism and defending their privileges against each minister’s reform (Lehning 2001). A professional bureaucracy in which civil servants apply rules edited by the Official Bulletin of National Education is often the description offered to lay people and foreigners who keep in mind the image of the mammoth popularized by a former minister of education, Claude Allegre.

The Multiple Worlds of Expertise

‘The Multiple Worlds of Expertise’ describes different modalities of expertise the academic work is required to produce through a utilitarian and short-term knowledge for decision-making. From a position of insider–researcher, different modes of policy learning linking experts and policymakers have been studied. Far from being a direct and linear process, expertise provided by academics in different European networks is defined through multiple interactions, while knowledge production is related to different socialising experiences. Types of encounters between expertise and policy have different features, while expert content itself influences more or less decision-making. However, while the worlds of expertise are plural, they produce and legitimise sciences of government which compete with knowledge produced by the academic world, while other institutions like think tanks and agencies become more influent.

The New Spirit of Managerialism

This chapter ‘The New Spirit of Managerialism’ focuses on the effects of European governance technologies on the academic profession. These technologies, whether they concern knowledge production, quality standards or evidence, support the development of a new spirit of academic capitalism which penetrates the academic world through New Public Management. This new managerial regime shifts the trials instituted by the academic tradition by drawing the figures of a new professionalism and promoting two ideal types: the expert and the entrepreneur. These new academic work conventions, elaborated from the criticism addressed to the profession, give rise to trends which undermine the collegial and corporatist model considered as unadjusted to a global world.

The Making of a New Homo Academicus

This chapter shows how the defences of the academic community have been weakened by the development of capitalism and the implementation of governmental and managerial technologies. The dismantlement/restructuration of academic community and work has generated a diversity of trials fostered by New Public Management. However, academics have been differently committed in accordance with different principles of justice in which they believe. Far from being univocal, the response of academics to managerialism reveals various arrangements and compromises. Consequently, the criticism addressed to the new spirit of academic capitalism is used to claim new reformist proposals considered as necessary or radical transformations to rebalance power between academics and managers.

The Politics of Standards and Quality

This chapter is focusing on standardisation and its consequences, describes the developments of quality politics narrowly linked to the Europeanisation process which articulate flows, tools and networks through a new mediation between different actors. The building of big data and indicators, as well as standards, serves to enhance the knowledge-based economy and lifelong learning area in Europe. It also reconfigures education systems despite national or local hybridisations and adaptations. The chapter studies the manner those standards and metrics shape new technologies in quality governance which impact on higher education as well as on other European strategy’s areas. It questioned the type of human agency created by these standardisation and normalisation processes as well as its limitations or shortcomings.

‘What Works?’ The Shaping of the European Politics of Evidence

This chapter explores the way evidence-based policy (EBP) progressively transforms modes of assessment in educational research. It focuses on the genesis of this policy at the global level, its technologies’ dissemination and circulation and also its transfer mechanisms from health to education. This regime of evidence is related to the mode 2 of knowledge production, while it legitimises a new experimentalism in welfare policies. In studying this policy’s main international actors, and its takeover by the European Commission, it is possible to demonstrate that evidence-based political technologies, despite debates and controversies they have created, are imposed as the gold standard for assessment in public policies. Evidently, it has consequences for the conception for educational research required to produce ‘objective’, ‘useful’ and ‘rigorous’ knowledge for policymakers and practitioners.