Schooling in Western Europe

Education in Europe is being transformed by a new policy orthodoxy, affecting all aspects of the school. Private sector involvement, decentralisation and curriculum reform are everywhere part of a reshaping of the school in the name of the competitiveness of a European knowledge economy. But these changes are accompanied by controversy. New policies challenge ideas about the value and purpose of education that have deep roots in the systems created by reforming movements in the post-war decades. Drawing from the experience of researchers and activists from six Western European countries, this book analyses the terms of the new orthodoxy, as developed by bodies such as the European Union and the OECD. It explores the remaking of teaching and learning, management and governance and looks at new patterns of access and inequality. It is appreciative of reform's political successes, and critical of the narrowness of its educational vision. Finally, it argues that the conflicts that surround policy change are not yet settled; the opposition encountered by national governments, and by the EU itself, may yet take schooling in new directions.