Romuald Normand
Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Strasbourg. He works on comparative education policies and politics, Europeanisation, and lifelong learning. Romuald is convenor of Network 28 “Sociologies of European Education” at the European Educational Research Association. He is head of the Chinese-French Centre for Innovation in Education at the Beijing Normal University, China and member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Sociology of Education.
The French education policy between PISA and school self-evaluation: a strong republican state absorbing external influences
Since the early 2000s, the French education policy has taken a transnational turn in participating increasingly in the PISA consortium, OECD activities, and the European Open Method of Coordination with some effects in the development of national programs on basic skills, early school leaving, school climate and dropouts, but also national assessments of students' kills and school self-evaluation approach. However, due to republican heritage and civic nationalism, the influence of neo-liberalism is limited, and the development of school market and school choice have been resisted until now. The French republican vision is combined with reform proposals and implementations in which national interest groups and the ministerial technostructure play an important role in buffering international influences. The French education policy is also subject to a strong (and sometimes authoritarian) statism that conveys imaginaries of education and entrenched ideologies hiding policy borrowing and leading. However, recent years show a strong alignment with the international and neo-liberal agenda through new developments in accountability, evidence-based education, digitalization, and Human Resource Management restructuring the public education service.