The (de-)construction of national education systems: transforming education for economic growth and post-national identity?

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

During the past two and a half centuries, the modernization of societies shaped strong relationships between (public) education and nation states. States conventionally took a leading role in the organization of education and also in the idea of educated citizenship, linking public education to diverse economic, social, cultural, and political goals and rationales.
In contrast, more recent research in the field of education policy indicates profound shifts in the relationships between the nation state and education (cf. Verger & Fontdevila & Zancajo 2016). These are seen as stemming from profound global transformations on the one hand and from significant changes in formerly state-centered images of citizenship and national identity. Against this background, the panel thematizes the discursive framing of the legitimation of public education, which, we argued, has gradually shifted from social, political, and cultural validations to the dominance of instrumental and economic rationales as an international trend in education (cf. Dale & Robertson 2014; Wiseman 2010). While debates globally – in the post-Second World War era as much as during nation’s fight for independence – positioned education as a right and powerful tool for international understanding, individual empowerment and socio-economic wellbeing, emerging global discourses in nowadays rather de-construct public education as an inefficient and cost-intensive service, while increasingly turning towards means of privatization and competition (cf. Macpherson, Robertson & Walford 2014). At the same time, it can be observed that alongside the increasing global migration processes, questions arise as to competing forms of (national) identity and as to how this affects the national education systems. In this way the panel will raise crucial questions for international education.
A related facet of these transformations pertains questions as to the modes of delivery as well as of monitoring of national education in the wake of the datafication and digitalization of the public sphere. Questions arise – amongst others – as to the governance of education as well as to different forms of provision, both public and private (cf. Parreira do Amaral, Steiner-Khamsi & Thompson 2018). On the one hand, the digitalization of (public) education has become a core activity of a Global Education Industry (GEI), including consultancy and policy brokering in education reforms, but also tailored business models for the provision of education technology (cf. Verger, Lubienski & Steiner-Khamsi 2016). The argument here is that the datafication and digitalization of education is deeply transforming the (nation) state and modes of public governance itself, which particularly concerns the dynamics of newly implemented data infrastructures or digital spaces to (better) govern education (Hartong 2016).
The panel addresses these new, yet complex governmental arrangements, while particularly focusing on new topological and cultural spaces brought into existence through these new (global, private and digital) relations.
The panel consists of four presentations that are introduced by preliminary remarks by the organizers. All four contributions are built on existing work and empirical findings from own research activities. They cover current developments in Europe, in North and South America and will be framed by theoretical considerations of global governance issues. Therefore the contributions are based on conceptual and theoretical research as much as on empirical findings.
The panel will discuss in four dimensions how the current situation of migration processes, digitization and (financial) competition between the private and the state has an impact on the construction of national education (systems) by trying to argue from a geographical diverse background. They will be contribute to crucial developments worldwide and have implications for further research, but touch political as much as practical issues.
First, Marcelo Parreira do Amaral and Sigrid Hartong introduce the topic and provide conceptual and methodological considerations, thus setting the scene for the other presentations. Second, the presentation by Sieglinde Jornitz and Susanne Timm discusses the dilemmatic structure of citizenship and identity in the construction of national education. Third, the presentation by Wivian Weller and João Luiz Horta focuses on the Brazilian case of creating a national identity through a national curriculum. Finally, fourth, the presentation by Paul Fossum provides a case in which the population’s mobility has an impact on the national response of teacher shortage in the US education system.

Taken together, the proposed panel takes notice of the conference theme of sustainability by focusing of the education systems as the main institution of the state. The idea of forming national education system seems under pressure by various global developments and seems to lose a homogeneous identity. The contributions will share theirs insights that are based on existing work and contribute to questions of theory, policy and practice.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Marcelo Parreira Do Amaral, University of Münster

Individual Presentations

• National Education Systems in the Post-national Era: The topological (de-)construction of national education - Marcelo Parreira Do Amaral, University of Münster; Sigrid Hartong, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg

• National education systems between citizenship and (national) identity - Sieglinde Jornitz, German Institute for International Educational Research - DIPF; Susanne Timm, University of Bamberg

• Brazilian educational system and the project of a national identity through a common national curricular basis - Wivian Weller, Universidade de Brasilia - UnB; Joao Luiz Horta Neto, INEP

• A (post-)National Response to the Teacher Shortage in the US - Paul R. Fossum, Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn