A European Politics of Education : Perspectives from sociology, policy studies and politics

A European Politics of Education proposes a sociology of education establishing connections between empirical data coming from European-scale comparative surveys, normative assumptions structuring actors’ representations and interpretative judgements, and a specific focus on Lifelong Learning policy areas. It invites readers to think about the place of standards, expertise and calculations in the European space from a common perspective, supported by a tradition of critical sociology and European political studies.

A European Politics of Education proposes a sociology of education establishing connections between empirical data coming from European-scale comparative surveys, normative assumptions structuring actors’ representations and interpretative judgements, and a specific focus on Lifelong Learning policy areas. It invites readers to think about the place of standards, expertise and calculations in the European space from a common perspective, supported by a tradition of critical sociology and European political studies.

The book:

• Addresses an important agenda: how the policies and politics of supranational Europe are making a European educational space
• Contains a response to the emergence of new epistemic governance and instruments at European level
• Contains contributions from the EU and the UK which give a comprehensive selection of perspectives and analysis of the field as it concerns Europe

The complexity of the contemporary European education policy space is addressed here with new lines of inquiry as well as a reflexive outlook, on standardization, policy-making and actor engagement. Students and researchers of European policy studies, education policy analysts and theorists will all be particularly interested readers.