Abstract

LIMA, Jorge Ávila de. Networks in education: political and conceptual issues. Rev. Port. de Educação [online]. 2007, vol.20, n.2, pp.151-181. ISSN 0871-9187.

Today, educational practitioners, school leaders and policymakers confront themselves with the need to develop their action in a context increasingly framed by the absence of a single central regulating entity, and by the collective and interorganisational dimension of their activity. This article lists the reasons behind the failure of the centralised government of education, points to the alternatives that were developed to face its demise (especially, the New Public Management framework) and analyses the network organisation as a model proposed to ensure the more effective governance of educational matters. The article proposes a typology of networks based on three vectors (genesis, composition, and structure) that aims to enable and nourish a critique of normative views currently held about these entities in education.

Keywords : Networks in education; Social network analysis; Educational governance/regulation; New public management.

        · abstract in Portuguese | French     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )