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Abstract
The article argues that there is no single globalisation of education systems, but rather multiple globalisations of each system taken in its individual context. We propose three explanatory factors to account for these vernacular globalisation processes, that is, for individual policy trajectories in each national context: path dependence on earlier policy choices and institutions, education policy-making through bricolage, and finally the translation by national actors of international-level ideas or tools as a function of the debate, institutions or national power dynamics in question. The research design is based on the study of a most-likely case: accountability policy in two school systems – France and Quebec – which show strong variations. Document analyses and semi-structured interviews were conducted in both cases. In the two countries, distinct vernacular globalisations are at work leading to different neo-statist accountability policies. In Quebec, the reinforcement of state power through a growing vertical accountability and the systematic development of regulation tools between policy actors and levels lead to a ‘centralisation by institutional linkage’. In France, we rather witness a ‘globalisation by discursive internalisation’ in which transnational imperatives are integrated in official discourses on the regulation of the education system, but without radically questioning the mainstays of this regulation.
Notes
1. See for example Issue 2, Volume 4 of the journal Globalisation, Societies and Education (July 2006).
2. The ‘shift’ to a ‘performance evaluation nexus’ (Clarke Citation2004), the ‘move’ from ‘regulative’ to ‘inquisitive’ and ‘meditative’ practices (Jacobsson Citation2006), the ‘comparative turn’ (Martens Citation2007), the ‘quality turn’ (Segerholm Citation2012), the ‘topological turn’ (Lury, Parisi, and Terranova Citation2012) etc.
3. Following Arjun Appadurai (Citation1996), we adopt the definition of vernacular globalisation proposed by Bob Lingard: the ways in which local sites and their histories, cultures, politics and pedagogies mediated to greater or lesser extent the effects of top-down globalisation. This is the outcome of relations and tensions between the context productive and context generative effects of globalisation; some local sites are more able to be context generative and mediate global effects. (Lingard Citation2006, 290) Defined as such, vernacular globalisation cannot be understood from an analytical standpoint as mere ‘counter-globalisation’ or ‘bottom-up globalisation’, signs of resistance to dominant top-down globalisation, even if, empirically, they may sometimes appear in this form.
4. Appadurai (Citation1996) stresses the cognitive factors at the origin of this vernacular globalisation (new uses of the collective imagination, creation of original collective identities, localised reinventions of traditions), Thanh Minh Ngo, Bob Lingard and Jane Mitchell (Citation2006) rather stress the micro-politics of implementation, with the following explanatory variables: size, intra-organisational relations, commitment of actors, capacity and institutional complexity. Bob Lingard, Wayne Martino and Goli Rezai-Rashti (Citation2013) stress the importance of existing policy structures.
5. NPM may be considered as ‘a set of heterogeneous axioms derived from economic theories, prescriptions related to managerial sciences, descriptions of practices put in place by reforms (particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries) and doctrinal rationalisations made by transnational organisations such as the OECD and the World Bank’ (Bezès Citation2005, 28, our translation). NPM reforms are often characterised by changes of Public Service into corporatized units organised by products; contract-based and competitive provision of public service; emphasis on private-sector like styles of management practices; importance given to discipline and frugality in resource use; visible hands-on top management ; measurable standards and measures of performance and success; greater emphasis on output controls (Hood Citation1995, 96).
6. ‘This categorization between two broad types of programmatic response to public service change and innovation (…) rests upon more fine-grained distinctions between the different streams of NPM ideas that influence public service reformers (…). Of particular importance in this respect is the distinction between generic management, which imports into public bureaucracies the techniques, values and practices of private sector organisations, and public choice theory. The latter draws from principal–agent theory in micro-economics and focuses on the principles of contestability and competition in public service delivery and the need to reassert political control over the state apparatus, with respect to both budgets and policy’ (Clark Citation2002, 773).
7. NewAge (New Accountability and Governance in Education, 2012–2015) is financed by the National Agency for French Research (ANR- 11-FRQU-001 01) and by the Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture du Québec (2012-QF-163746).
8. Based on its PISA study, the OECD holds that the most efficient education systems are those which associate school autonomy and accountability (OECD Citation2011).
9. In Canada, education is under provincial jurisdiction. A comparison of the French case and another Canadian province would have introduced variation on some of the dimensions that structures the comparative design. For instance, in comparison to Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia promoted parental choice and privatisation as key regulatory modes (Davidson-Harden and Majhanovich Citation2006). As a consequence, we expect that the empirical identification of policy trajectories would vary in the Canadian case. Yet, we expect the explanatory factors to hold, and the main claim about vernacular globalisations to be verified in others contexts.
10. From the moment it incorporates external elements, bricolage implies a complementary process of translation: ‘(…) new ideas are combined with already existing institutional practices, and therefore, are translated into local practice in varying degrees and in ways that involve a process very similar to bricolage. The difference is that translation involves the combination of new externally given elements received through diffusion as well as old locally given ones inherited from the past’ (Campbell Citation2004, 80).
11. These processes and mechanisms with transnational influence, to a greater or lesser degree suffered, voluntary and conscious, range from imposition (for example, conditions placed upon the World Bank’s financial interventions) to ‘soft’ harmonisation (via accepted convergences and via adhesion to a political process such as the Bologna Process), and including the diffusion/dissemination of institutions that are ‘institutional scripts’ for certain Western values and models from the Enlightenment, spread via mimicry and the search for isomorphism (Meyer et al. Citation1997). Still yet there may be a process of cognitive framing of certain tools such as analytical or statistical categories, indicators and conceptual definitions (Dale Citation2005) or the formally ‘argumented’, ‘objective’ promotion of a political agenda and the definition of problems to confront which an ‘expert’ international organisation such as the OECD is capable of producing, particularly in making known its comparative analyses of school system results. PISA is an example of this (Rizvi and Lingard Citation2006).
12. The somewhat arbitrary year 1988 was chosen because it coincides with the beginning of a social demand for Estates General on Education (États généraux sur l’éducation), which became a reality in 1995–1996. These Estates General were the key element in several of Quebec’s policy actions (namely the development of a ‘success for all’ goal and decentralisation policy).
13. (1) Corpus: samples from 15 mémoires, samples from parliamentary debates based on speakers, for each bill: (a) Ministry of Education; (b) parliamentary leaders from the opposition party on education issues, (c) if there was no opposition party, a deputy discussing the question. (2) Method: content analysis using the Nvivo software, coding based on an analysis of the causal narrative structure used by the actors (issues/problems identified; recognised consequences; actions and solutions proposed or rejected).
14. The articles came from the following publications: L’éducation nationale (1945–1968), L’éducation (1968–1980), Les amis de Sèvres (1949–1988). Courrier de l’éducation (1975–1981), Administration et éducation (1979–2012), L’éducation Hebdo (1980–1982), Cahiers de l’Éducation nationale (1982–1986), Éducation et pédagogies (1989–1993), Éducation et mangement (1989–2009), Nouveaux regards (1994–2012) and the Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres (1994–2012).
15. France’s education system is made up of ‘academies’. These are regional territories (though not the same as the Regions of France as territorial units) with, as leaders, representatives from the central state and ministry, rectors, and, within the region, Academic directors for National education services.
16. Law on Public administration modernisation, 2001, L.R.Q. c.-A-6.01.
17. ‘RBM is a management approach based on measurable results responding to goals and targets defined in advance, depending on the services being provided. It is practiced in a context of transparency, accountability and flexibility with regards to the means used to achieve the targeted objectives.’ Secrétariat du Conseil du Trésor (2002, 9).
18. The other priorities were ‘education quality, accessibility, mobility, needs-based responses’. The CMEC was to manage the Canadian participation in the PISA programme, and would collect statistical data on the results of the educational systems in the different Canadian provinces (Lessard Citation2006).
19. Law to amend the Law on the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation and the Loi sur l’instruction publique, 2002, L.R.Q., c.-I-13.3.
20. Law to amend the Loi sur l’instruction publique et d’autres dispositions législatives, 2008, L.R.Q., c.-I-13.3.
21. There are only ‘moderate stakes’ of RBM in Quebec: 1) in case of SB’s recurrent poor performance (related to the targets), the ministry might impose some actions to the SB (no example reported) 2) due to its hierarchical power, the SB might also take into account the school performance to evaluate and manage the school’s principals career, while there are no direct and explicit sanctions possible for teachers who are protected by collective agreements. Since 1999 schools’ reports and rankings are published by the media, that is, even before the enactment of the laws 124 and 88), and parents could thus make a pressure on ‘bad’ public schools and SB by choosing the private sector (Desjardins, Lessard, and Blais Citation2011).
22. In Quebec, political parties are to be distinguished based on their stance on socio-economic issues, but also on the national question. The Parti québecois is a centre left wing party in favor of the independance of Quebec, just like the Alliance démocratique du Québec which is right leaning in terms of economics. The liberal party (PLQ) is ‘federalist’ and centre-right wing on socio-economic issues.
23. Campbell (Citation2004) describes them as ideas that are behind debates and political decisions. They concern ‘the elite assumptions that constrain the cognitive range of useful programmes available to politicians, corporate leaders and other decision makers’ (94), and are ‘outcome-oriented’ in the sense that they are oriented towards the means necessary to achieve a certain result.
24. However, choice (and competition) between public and private (tuition-based) schools had existed since the Quiet Revolution and partially (since 1998) between public schools. Parents’ ‘choice’ (limited by financial capacity) between schools is nevertheless not explicitly featured as market-oriented policy. The different governments have in fact tolerated this ‘clandestine market’ and the inequality of its consequences.
25. Brassard (Citation2008) points to the particular climate in 2008, which authorised the Liberal Party – though a minority party – to propose more managerial solutions, accepted with only a limited number of amendments by the second opposition party (Parti québécois). It would have been difficult to get these solutions adopted at another time. The Parti québécois would not have wanted to oppose the government because, among other reasons, the Liberal Party’s rejection may have led to Assembly dissolution. The ADQ had become the official opposition party since the 2007 elections (41 deputies). By the end of 2008 (the period of Law 88’s adoption process), elections were probable in the near future.
26. Some of these convergence points are explicit elsewhere. For example, unions explicitly stressed the importance of the school boards several months beforehand, during the Forum sur la démocratie et la gouvernance des commissions scolaires (2008).
27. The generic expression ‘priority education’ designates both the policies of compensation which have been implemented in education since 1981 and the zones, networks and schools which were targeted by these policies and which progressively constituted a differentiated system within the entire school system.
28. The so-called Lisbon strategy starts at the Lisbon European Council meeting in March 2000, where the EU member states agreed on a new strategic goal ‘ to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion ’ (European Parliament (2000), Lisbon European Council 23 and 24 March 2000, Presidency Conclusions, retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_en.htm). This strategy will lead to various measures to modernise economy, social security, and also education and training. Through a ‘new open method of coordination’, common European benchmarks and monitoring mechanisms have also been defined and regularly updated through various work programmes like Education and Training 2010 and 2020 (Ozga et al. Citation2011; Grek and Lawn Citation2012).
29. The Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) was created in 1976 by Jacques Chirac, but broke up in 2002 into the the Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) and, earlier this year, into Les républicains.
30. Fédération des Parents d'Elèves de l'Enseignement Public, close to the right-wing movement.
31. Fédération des conseils de parents d’élèves.
32. Chirac declared: ‘Let us engage ourselves, here and everywhere, in this culture of goals and contracts, with results and evaluations worthy of their name’.
33. We also note similar declarations close to Ministers Gilles de Robien and Dominique de Villepin made to Ministry officials during the summer of 2006, such as at that of Pierre-André Périssol (UMP), during the UMP programme presentation during the 2007 Presidential elections.
34. Bulletin n°2003-050 from 28 March 2003.
35. Bulletin n°2004-015 from 27 January 2004.
36. Law n°89-486, 10 July 1989.
37. Law n°2005-380, 23 April 2005.
38. On 11 May 2010, France adhered to the conclusions made by the Conseil des ministres de l'Éducation européens à Bruxelles according to which schools must be held more accountable to society.
39. This neologism, inspired by that of ‘comittology’, often used to describe the functioning of some European policies, is used here to mean an organised succession of public reports intended to prepare scheduled reforms. In France, it is a question of parliamentary and inspection reports from the Finance Ministry, the Court of Auditors, and audit reports (see the Révision générale des politiques publiques begun in July 2007), etc.
40. The new government policy (government active since spring 2012) clearly breaks with the former in terms of discourse (there is weak governmental communication on the subject of results evaluation; the 2013 and 2014 bulletins use much less managerial discourse) and in terms of managing means; the new government is apparently placing more weight on savings in other sectors.
41. Actors supporting the idea were cross-ministerial actors (Court of Auditors, Strategic analysis council, Economic and social council, think tanks generally situated on the political right such as the Fondation pour l’innovation politique and the Institut Montaigne, international entities such as the OECD or supranational organisms such as the European Commission. Also included were certain actors from within the school systems (the main student-teacher associations), some scholars (François Dubet and Denis Meuret), high central councils or an association called Créer son école (Creating one’s school).
42. After a brief introduction by the academy and the central administration, the document we analysed is split into two parts. The first includes a number of indicators for characterising the academic situation from socio-economic and academic perspectives. These indicators are ‘performance radars’ which, represented graphically, show the value of several indicators compared to the national average. For example, for success indicators: the percentage of students having repeated a grade level, the rate of secondary school entry into different programmes, the proportion of students having left the system without a sufficient diploma or the rate of bachelors pursuing their education at the university level. The second part presents the academy’s strategy and the central administration’s observations on the subject.
43. Government-based accountability corresponds to ‘government efforts to measure the outcomes of students and schools, especially on the basis of student test scores, and to provide explicit rewards and punishments based on these measures’ (Harris and Herrington Citation2006, 217). Secondly, market-based accountability corresponds to policies providing parents with greater school choice.