Abstract

Constructing Europe through Constructing a European Education Space. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2008, n.11, pp.13-30. ISSN 1645-7250.

This paper considers the relationship between the construction of a European education space and the construction of ‘Europe’ as an entity. It argues that the construction of ‘Europe’ as an entity is at least as important an aim of the attempts to construct a European education policy as its effects on Member States’ education policies. It focuses particularly on both the external and internal contexts of this construction. The external context is seen as comprising changes in the political economic context, in the ‘architecture of education systems, in their mandates and capacities, and in the ways that their contributions are appraised. The internal context comprises the mechanisms of soft governance through which the European education space was brought into being. The paper suggests that it is possible to identify three stages of this construction, respectively, establishing ‘quality’, soft governance (the Open Method of Coordination), and the Lifelong Learning agenda, which are shaped by changes in global contexts and their interpretations at the European level.

Keywords : European education space; soft governance; architecture of education systems; lifelong learning; quality education; mechanisms.

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