Search

Drawing on the European framework for youth policy, the paper initially explores an idealized model of what governments at their best can do regarding youth policy in Europe, including its objective, core, and means. A critical analysis of the European framework yields a new dimension – internal/external Political Efficacy – which plays a pivotal role as a connector between the core and the means of youth policy. The model of youth policy proposed here is fundamentally underpinned by two means: Civic Learning and Civic Engagement. Lastly, the paper proposes the model of managing a holistic feature of the youth policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which has become a major and influential component of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) educational work. This measure of comparative performance of educational systems of member and other nations is based on tests commissioned by the OECD. The paper discusses the role of the OECD in establishing the 'comparative' turn and also describes PISA, its management and effects. It provides three examples of the impact of PISA in Finland, Germany and the UK before moving the focus to its impacts at the transnational level, through an examination of how key European policy actors see PISA and its effects. The paper concludes that PISA, through its direct impact on national education systems in Europe and beyond, has become an indirect, but nonetheless influential tool of the new political technology of governing the European education space by numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One area where the financial crisis has shown the limitation of neo-liberal thinking is the area of educational reform. By studying the different ranges of national responses and by understanding the differing contexts for educational change in historical periods, we can begin to think differently about educational restructuring. In this paper I report on some of the findings from a four-year study of educational reforms in seven European countries undertaken for the European Commission. The countries covered are: England and Wales, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Greece and the research was conducted from 2004 to 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the presence of US institutions of higher education in Eastern Europe as one facet of the neoliberal global environment. It draws on policy documents, institutional statistics, materials produced by interest groups and NGOs, official mission statements, press releases and media coverage, and personal narratives. The American University in Bulgaria is examined as a case of this wider phenomenon. Exclusively structuralist, critical analyses of such institutions can easily lead to conclusions of homogenization and dominance through the hegemony of 'exporter' education institutions and programs. Post-structural analysis-attuned to multiplicities of meanings, nuances of context, and complex interplays of power and knowledge claims-allow for more attention to the local dynamics, while human interpretation and agency may point the way to more hopeful roles for US institutions of higher education abroad. In turn, these roles may challenge the one-way deterministic flow of influence suggested by structuralist analyses. Este articulo indaga la presencia de las instituciones de E.E.U.U. de educacion superior en Europa oriental, como una faceta del medioambiente neoliberal global. Se sirve de documentos de politica, estadistica institucional, materiales producidos bajo grupos de interes y ONGs, declaraciones de emisiones oficiales sobre los objetivos, comunicados de prensa y cobertura de los medios y testimonios personales. Se ha examinado a la Universidad Americana en Bulgaria como un caso de este amplio fenomeno. Los analisis criticos de tales instituciones exclusivamente estructuralistas, pueden conducir facilmente a unas conclusiones de homogenizacion y dominio a traves de la hegemonia de instituciones de educacion y programas 'exportados'. Un analisis estructural a posteriori-adaptado a una multiplicidad de significados y matices de contexto, y las interacciones complejas de afirmaciones de poder y conocimiento-permite mayor atencion a la dinamica local, mientras que la interpretacion y la actividad humana pueden senalar el camino para que las instituciones de educacion superior de los E.E.U.U., logren papeles mas esperanzadores en el extranjero. A su vez, estos papeles pueden desafiar la corriente determinista de influencia de una sola via, como lo sugiere el analisis estructural. 本文探讨了美国高等教育机构作为全球新自由主义环境的一个侧面在东欧的存在。本文根据政策文件、机构统计数据、利益团体和非政府组织提供的资料、正式使命声明、新闻稿和媒体报道，以及个人记述写成，以位于保加利亚的美利坚大学作为这一更广泛现象的个案进行了考察。作为一种完全的结构主义，对这些机构的批判性分析很容易得出通过'出口'教育机构和各种项目的霸权实现同质化、获取支配力的结论。后结构主义分析--切合多重意义，语境的微妙变化，以及权力与知识的宣称之间复杂的相互作用--使人们更多地关注当地的动力学，而人的解释及动因可能为海外美国高等教育机构发挥更加充满希望的作用指明方向。反过来，这些角色可能挑战结构主义分析所提出的影响流的单向决定性。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]