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Abstract
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.
Notes
1 Bregt Henkens, “The rise and decline of comprehensive education: Key factors in the history of reformed secondary education in Belgium, 1969–1989”, Paedagogica Historica 40 (2004): 194–195; Susanne Wiborg, Education and Social Integration: Comprehensive Schooling in Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 8.
2 Jeremy Rappleye, “Reimagining attraction and ‘borrowing’ in education: Introducing a political production model”, in Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Florian Waldow, eds., Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education (London: Routledge, 2012), 125, 137.
3 David Phillips and Kimberley Ochs, eds., Educational Policy Borrowing: Historical Perspectives (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2004); Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, Policy Borrowing and Lending.
4 Jeremy Rappleye, “Theorizing educational transfer: Toward a conceptual map in the context of cross-national attraction”, Research in Comparative and International Education 1 (2006): 236; Kimberley Ochs and David Phillips, “Processes of educational borrowing in historical context”, in Educational Policy Borrowing, 10–11.
5 Gita Steiner-Khamsi, “Understanding policy borrowing and lending: Building comparative policy studies”, in Policy Borrowing and Lending, 11; Rappleye, “Reimagining attraction and ‘borrowing’ in education”, 125, 137.
6 Raymond Kuhn, Media and Politics in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); James W. Dearing and Everett M. Rogers, Agenda-setting (London: Sage, 1996).
7 Rappleye, “Reimagining attraction and ‘borrowing’ in education”, 125; Rappleye, “Theorizing educational transfer”, 229, 233.
8 Henk Tromp, Het Nederlands Genootschap van Leraren en de strijd om de middenschool (Leiden: Centrum voor Onderzoek van Maatschappelijke Tegenstellingen, 1981), 244.
9 Nelleke Bakker and Hilda T.A. Amsing, “Discovering social inequality: Dutch educational research in the post-war era”, Paedagogica Historica 48 (2012): 315–333.
10 Ivo van Hilvoorde, Grenswachters van de pedagogiek. Demarcatie en disciplinevorming in de ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse academische pedagogiek (Amsterdam: HB uitgevers, 2002), 99.
11 Kees Schuyt and Ed Taverne, 1950: Prosperity and Welfare (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 2004), 254–255.
12 Sonja de Leeuw et al., “TV nations or global medium? Television between national institution and window on the world”, in Jonathan Bignell and Andres Fickers, eds., A European Television History (Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 139, 141.
13 Schuyt and Taverne, 1950: Prosperity and Welfare, 254.
14 Friso Wielenga, Die Niederlande. Politik und politische Kultur im 20. Jahrhundert (Münster, Germany: Waxmann Verlag, 2008), 328–329.
15 Rappleye, “Theorizing educational transfer”, 237.
16 Bakker and Amsing, “Discovering social inequality”.
17 P.N. Karstanje, Beleidsevaluatie bij controversiële onderwijsvernieuwing (Amsterdam: SCO Stichting Kohnstamm Fonds voor Onderwijsresearch, 1988), PhD thesis, University of Utrecht, 78–118.
18 For an elaborate description of the political situation, see Hilda T.A. Amsing, Linda Greveling and Jeroen J.H. Dekker, “The struggle for comprehensive education in the Netherlands: The representation of secondary school innovation in Dutch newspaper articles in the 1970s”, History of Education 42, no. 4 (2013): 460–485.
19 Amsing et al., “Struggle for comprehensive education”.
20 P.N. Karstanje, “Voortgezet onderwijs”, in J.A. van Kemenade et al., eds., Onderwijs: Bestel en beleid 3 (Groningen, Netherlands: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1987), 285–366.
21 Wiardi Beckman Stichting, Uitgangspunten voor onderwijsbeleid (Deventer, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1973); Ed Schüssler, Weg van de middenschool. Dertig jaar na de start van het middenschoolexperiment (Antwerp, Belgium: Garant, 2006), 24.
22 J.A. van Kemenade, G. Klein and A. Veerman, Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel (’s Gravenhage, Netherlands: Staatsuitgeverij, 1975), 53.
23 Susanne Wiborg, “Education and social integration: A comparative study of the comprehensive school system in Scandinavia”, London Review of Education 2 (2004): 84.
24 Alan C. Kerckhoff et al., Going Comprehensive in England and Wales (London: Woburn Press, 1996), 242.
25 Achim Leschinsky and Karl Ulrich Mayer, “Comprehensive schools and inequality of opportunity in the Federal Republic of Germany”, in Achim Leschinsky and Karl Ulrich Mayer, eds., The Comprehensive School Experiment Revisited: Evidence from Western Europe (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 17, 20.
26 Susanne Wiborg, “Why is there no comprehensive education in Germany? A historical explanation”, History of Education 39 (2010): 541.
27 Leschinsky and Mayer, “Comprehensive schools and inequality of opportunity in the Federal Republic of Germany”, 16.
28 Van Kemenade et al., Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel, 54.
29 Wiardi Beckman Stichting, Uitgangspunten voor onderwijsbeleid, 54–55.
30 J.A. van Kemenade, G. Klein and K. de Jong Ozn., Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel 2 (’s Gravenhage, Netherlands: Staatsuitgeverij, 1977), 5, 99–106.
31 Karstanje, Beleidsevaluatie.
32 Petra Boezerooy and Jeroen Huisman, “From secondary to tertiary education in the Netherlands”, Journal of Institutional Research in Australasia 9, no. 1 (2000), http://www.aair.org.au/journal/volume-9-no-1.
33 Hilda T.A. Amsing, “De Middenschool: over een ideaal van een icoon. Van Gelders ideeën over de organisatie en inrichting van de onderbouw van het voortgezet onderwijs”, in Doret J. de Ruyter, Gerdien D. Bertram-Troost and Stijn M.A. Sieckelinck, eds., Idealen, idolen en iconen van de pedagogiek: bijdragen aan de Twaalfde Landelijke Pedagogendag (Amsterdam: SWP, 2005), 74–85.
34 Leon Van Gelder and Jaap F. Vos, “Misverstanden rondom de middenschool”, Pedagogische Studiën 48 (1971): 311–327.
35 D. Jansz, “De problematiek van de middenschool”, Pedagogische Studiën 49 (1972): 215–218.
36 Ch. Van Veen, Nota over het onderwijsbeleid. 12 000. Bijlage IV, Memorie van Toelichting, no. 6, Rijksbegroting voor het dienstjaar 1973 (September, 1972), 10–12.
37 Henkens, “Rise and decline of comprehensive education”, 195.
38 Anthony Heath and Sheila Jacobs, “Comprehensive reform in Britain”, in Comprehensive School Experiment Revisited, 102.
39 F.J. Willy Wielemans, “Italiaanse middenschool van 11 tot 14 jaar”, Pedagogische Studiën 48 (1971): 176.
40 Ibid., 182–183.
41 G. van Horebeek, “Het Vernieuwd Secundair Onderwijs in België”, Pedagogische Studiën 52 (1975): 458.
42 L. Lycke, “Het vernieuwd secundair onderwijs in België”, Pedagogische Studiën 49 (1972): 85.
43 Van Horebeek, “Het Vernieuwd Secundair Onderwijs in België”, 461.
44 J. de Reus, “De comprehensive school en de toets der kritiek”, Pedagogische Studiën 51 (1974): 435-41.
45 Günter Brinkmann, “Differentiatie in ‘integrierte Gesamtschulen’”, Pedagogische Studiën 49 (1972): 485–499.
46 Rappleye, “Theorizing educational transfer”, 236.
47 Van Kemenade et al., Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel.
48 M.J.W. Stuart, “Achtergronden van de Bielefeldse schoolexperimenten. Middenschool – Nieuw onderwijs?”, Pedagogische Studiën 52 (1975): 433 (italics in original).
49 Ibid.
50 Van Kemenade et al., Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel.
51 N. Hazewindus, “Toepasbaarheid van een computer-managed instructiesysteem in geïntegreerde vormen van voortgezet onderwijs”, Pedagogische Studiën 53 (1976): 57–59.
52 Paul Saettler, The Evolution of American Educational Technology (Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 2004), 296297, 306.
53 Hazewindus, “Toepasbaarheid computer-managed instructiesysteem”, 57–59.
54 Frank B. Baker. Computer Managed Instruction: Theory and Practice (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1978), 231
55 Hazewindus, “Toepasbaarheid computer-managed instructiesysteem”, 59–60.
56 J. de Reus, “Het Zweedse onderwijs-anno 1977”, Pedagogische Studiën 54 (1977): 450.
57 P. de Koning, “Functies van afsluitingen: een opsomming”, Pedagogische Studiën 55 (1978): 438.
58 Ibid., 433.
59 Ibid., 438, 445, 448.
60 Leon van Gelder, Deelname en distantie (Groningen, Netherlands: J.B. Wolters, 1964), 6; van Gelder and Jaap F. Vos, Wetenschapsbeleid, Onderwijsbeleid en Onderwijskunde. Interne Nota Instituut voor Onderwijskunde der Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen (Groningen, Netherlands: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1971), 2.
61 The scholarly debate on middle schools did not end here. A few years after the decisive period (1969–1979), Pedagogische Studiën started to evaluate the experiments. See Pedagogische Studiën 58 (1981): 357–405.
62 Twenty were found in the central Dutch archive for television programmes and one in the personal archive of Hans Knot (University of Groningen, media historian).
63 “‘Kijken naar kinderen’ over middenschool”, Leeuwarder Courant, 19 February 1975, 2; “Meindert Leerling gaat in ‘Nader bekeken’ vragen stellen over de middenschool”, Leidsche Courant, 9 October 1975, 2; “De Middenschool, eenheidsworst?”, Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 17 November 1975, 8.
64 “Schooling – sense or nonsense?” (Onderwijs, wijs of onwijs?), broadcast by the right-wing, conservative broadcasting agency AVRO, on channel Nederland 1, 20.40–21.30pm, 5 March 1979.
65 Broadcasting context: duration 24 minutes; the last minute of the film is missing. Broadcast by the general broadcasting company NOS, on channel Nederland 1, 22.05–22.30pm, 2 April 1975.
66 Van Kemenade et al., Contouren van een toekomstig onderwijsbestel.
67 Broadcasting context: duration 20 minutes; in some parts the screen turns black. Broadcast by the Evangelical broadcasting company EO, on channel Nederland 1, 21.50–22.15pm, 9 October 1975.
68 Karstanje, Beleidsevaluatie, 100; Eerste Kamer, Zitting 1973–1974, 5de vergadering, 20 November 1973, 78; Tweede Kamer, Zitting 19731974, 52ste vergadering, 26 February 1974, 2712.
69 Amsing et al., “Struggle for comprehensive education”.
70 Ibid.
71 Wiborg, “Education and social integration”, 8.
72 Tromp, Nederlands Genootschap van Leraren.
73 Broadcasting context: duration 53 minutes; broadcastd by AVRO, on channel Nederland 1, 21.50–22.40pm, 17 November 1975.
74 Jos van Kemenade, “Karikaturen van de Middenschool” in Weg van de Middenschool, 55–66.