| 1. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, et al.
(författare)
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Deflecting European Union Influence on National Education Policy-Making : The Case of the United Kingdom
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of European Integration. - : Routledge. - 0703-6337 .- 1477-2280. ; 35:1, s. 37-52
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines how education policies developed in the European Union (EU) through the open method of co-ordination (OMC) are received at the member state level of the United Kingdom (UK). We argue that the UK’s response to the education OMC can be understood mainly in terms of deflecting EU influence on the process and in particular content of national education policy-making. We focus on three manifestations of deflecting EU influence on national education policies. On a level of institutional structures, first, few organizational resources are made available for responding to the education OMC. Second, there is limited communication between domestic policy teams and UK civil servants involved in international work. Third, on a level of discourse UK education policy makers have retained a commitment to the continued sovereignty of the UK over education policy and its role as a potential leader of education policy agendas in the EU. Deflecting the education OMC involves here constructing images of ‘fit’ between UK and EU OMC education policies.
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| 2. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, et al.
(författare)
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Developing the educated citizen : changing frameworks for the roles of Universities in Europe and England
- 2014
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Ingår i: Annales, Series Historia et Sociologia. - Slovenia. - 1408-5348. ; 24:3, s. 371-382
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores questions of citizenship and the role of universities in the context of the policy changes in the UK and in Europe over the last two decades. Twenty five years after the political transitions in Eastern Europe, and 70 years since the end of the Second World War, Europe is more united than ever before. New political, social and economic configurations across the continent are bringing expectations and pressures to its citizens and institutions, with universities at the front of many economic and social projects. What do these new conditions mean for citizenship in the context of European universities, and how do member states respond to this changing context? The article will use England as a national case study within the EU to illustrate the tensions between the humanistic visions still carried out by many universities, although interpreted differently across the sector, and the pressures for the creation of the ‘knowledge economy’ that are shared at the national and transnational levels.
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| 3. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Early childhood education and care policy change : Comparing goals, governance and ideas in Nordic contexts
- 2024
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Ingår i: Compare. - : Routledge. - 0305-7925 .- 1469-3623. ; 54:2, s. 185-202
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is changing across Europe, reflecting multiple policy intentions and assumptions about education in early years, and the role of the state in supporting, funding and regulating its institutions. In this article, we examine the evolution of ECEC comparatively in Finland and Sweden, and we explore the shifts in goals, governance mechanisms and policy ideas that have characterised reforms in the sector. We draw on an analysis of policy documents, and argue that the incremental changes achieved over the last 50 years have been in response to changing goals assigned to ECEC and ideas about its roles and functions as part of the welfare and education sectors. The power of ideas in effecting policy change is tempered by established institutional framings, yet is visible in the early dominance of child-centred ideas, and the later controversies over the emergent labour-market and education-driven rationales of the post-2010s.
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| 4. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Early childhood education research in Europe : Contexts, policies, and ideas
- 2020
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 2000-4508. ; 11:2, s. 89-93
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From the very north to the south of Europe, the national examples of early childhood education research reported here address remarkably similar issues around the definition of core values in early childhood education, and their impact on pedagogical work in preschools. Policy histories and frameworks matter, since they define the parameters within which these definitions take place and they determine resources given to preschool provision. Our collection demonstrates the significance of ideas and cultural frames as factors that often act independently to develop professional practice in different directions (see also, Löfdahl Hultman & Margrain, 2019; White, 2002). Education policy and policy reforms are formed often without the participation of professional educators, but they are mediated by practitioners who exercise significant discretion in how they implement them in their everyday work. Since education policy reforms are the result of a social negotiation process, the reforms reflect ideal, but also traditional and normative views on ECE. In this respect, the approaches in the European countries presented here do not show great divergence. Where we do observe stronger differences, is in the ideas of educators around professional autonomy, practice, as well as certain social values. We find that, the success or failure of reforms in early childhood education depends on the extent to which the policy process accounts for not just administrative new requirements, but also the features of the institutional contexts of ECE, their historical evolution in different national contexts, and the role of ideas around the goals and purposes of the sector. Second, no new policy can be effectively applied, with positive transformative effects for young children’s lives, without the active participation of preschool educators in the process. As all the cases in this special issue illustrate, education change aimed to achieve any preschool policy goal (new assessment, inclusive classrooms, gender equality, children’s agency) is a social process that requires professional engagement and learning, and in some cases a transformation of the attitudes of the educators themselves.
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| 5. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Education policy convergence through the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) : Theoretical reflections and implementation in ‘old’ and ‘new’ national contexts
- 2010
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Ingår i: European Educational Research Journal. - Oxford, UK : Symposium Journals, Ltd. - 1474-9041. ; 9:3, s. 346-359
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses two key questions about the convergence of education policies in the European Union (EU). How does the open method of coordination (OMC), a new governance instrument for the Europeanisation of education policies, change existing national education policy making and how can the OMC and national responses to it be researched? The authors argue that the OMC brings to national policy making a particular set of ideas about education, such as an emphasis on the contribution of education to building competitive economies and a new public management approach. The authors further suggest that the significance of such policy ideas in national education policy making can be best analysed through a combination of sociological institutionalism and discourse analysis. Hence, ‘implementation’ of EU education measures – which have been developed through policy learning – should be understood as a combination of a ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ policy-making process that links EU and national levels. Finally, the article suggests – on the basis of a preliminary exploration of the implementation of education OMC measures in the United Kingdom and Slovenia – that education OMC policy ideas resonate to varying degrees in ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states.
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| 6. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Education policy governance and the power of ideas in constructing the new European Education Area
- 2023
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Ingår i: European Educational Research Journal. - : Sage Publications. - 1474-9041. ; 22:6, s. 852-869
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Twenty years after the Lisbon strategy, education policy in the European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture, with a new set of strategic goals endorsed for the 2021–2030 decade. This article examines the complex interplay of ideas, institutions and actors, in articulating education policy priorities in the new European Education Area (EEA). Drawing on documentary reviews and interviews with policy actors in the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, we trace the rise and fall of policy ideas in the new framework. The negotiations over the definition of EEA reveal new tensions between and within European institutions over specific policy ideas, with “lifelong learning” and “gender” as the most controversial ones. Continuing, longstanding tensions between the education and employment fields remain, and present adifficulty for the construction of a comprehensive and cohesive education policy program.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika
(författare)
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Equality and education policy in the European Union : an example from the case of Roma
- 2017
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Ingår i: Policy and inequality in education. - Singapore : Springer. - 9789811040375 - 9789811040399 ; , s. 111-131
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The European Union represents a transnational level of polity where education policies are constructed in parallel to those of nation states, and where equality is framed both in legal frameworks and in policies around citizenship and inclusion. This chapter focuses attention on the interplay between the legal and the policy landscapes around equality and their relation to education policy, and explores these ideas in relation to the Roma minority, and the efforts of the EU to address their experience of multiple inequalities across the continent. The process of developing an education and social policy, and the refinement of equality and anti-discrimination legislation, contribute to a reframing of equality beyond the borders of national policies, and open up new opportunities for their negotiation. The case of Roma EU policies suggests that a combination of legal and policy processes is necessary to address issues of inequalities in education. But there are political risks with the EU taking over such policy work especially when the equality definitions used are narrow in their remit, and when national governments lack the political will to implement EU policies.
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| 9. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-
(författare)
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Europeanisation and education policy
- 2005
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Ingår i: World Yearbook of Education 2005. - London : Falmer Routledge. - 0415348587 ; , s. 128-146
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 10. |
- Alexiadou, Nafsika, et al.
(författare)
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Europeanizing the National Education Space? : adjusting to the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the UK
- 2015
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Ingår i: International Journal of Public Administration. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0190-0692 .- 1532-4265. ; 38:3, s. 157-166
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the reception of the education Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the UK as an aspect of Europeanization of national administrations. It addresses relationships between political and administrative actors in the process of responding to the education OMC. We argue that despite progress with institutionalization of the education OMC at the EU level, there is limited institutionalization of the education OMC at the national level. Against the backdrop of UK skepticism about engaging with the EU integration project, the interesting finding is the administrative strategies employed for deflecting EU influence on the national education space.
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