The Turn and the Paths

Abstract

Based on a comparison of school external evaluation processes in three countries (England, France and Switzerland), this article questions the possible quality turn in the governance of European educational systems. Using materials collected through qualitative methods (91 interviews, surveys of literature and observations) during a sociological and exploratory research, it shows that a relatively similar shift to a new set of policies and regulation tools may have a very different political meaning and give birth to very different policy configurations from one educational system to another. It also reveals that in each country references to foreign evidence are relatively rare and highly selective, depending on the domestic political circumstances, interests and frames of analysis of policy actors. Instead of invalidating the theory of a quality turn, the article concludes that the paths taken by each educational system strongly predetermine the forms, stakes and scope of this quality turn and that the main scientific challenge is to think about these two phenomena together.

Key Words:

• school evaluation
• inspection
• governance
• regulation