The European Union and its educational agenda : a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Abstract

Debates about the relationship between education and power can be loeoted within analyses which work either at the macro-I meso- or at the microlevel, and the best of these debates look at the interaction between all three levels. connecting, as in the work of Michael Apple (19S2, 19S6), the relationships of power that develop within and between classrooms, schools and larger institutional structures. The focus of this chapter is on the macro-level, namely on the way a political, economic and cultural movement such as the integration of Europe has important implications for the field of education. Because of the brevity with which such complex processes have to be described in this context, the relationship between the macro·, meso- and micro-levels are only hinted at. The emphasis is placed instead on examining the macro dimensions of a particular area of study that has been largely left unattended: the critical analysis of the European Union's agenda for education. The title of this chapter has been carefully chosen. It has to be established, from the outset, that the European Union does have an influential educational agenda. That this is the case is not often acknowledged, as the general impression is that education and schooling are peripheral to the European project. Those who are of this persuasion have only to point to the official documents of the Community: education is excluded from the sphere of Influence of the Treaty of Rome, and while explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Maastricht, member states are allowed much leeway to exercise their autonomy in matters educational. Increasingly, however, the Commission of the European Communities' is echoing the words of Jean Monnet who in his reflections on his attempts to get the EEC going, is supposed to have said 'In had to do it again, I would start with education'. 'Education' and a broad understanding of 'vocational education' have featured higher and higher on the priorities of the EU as its awareness of the need to create a 'people's Europe' grew deeper, As Coulby (1994, p. 4) notes, 'there is a political reason for the EU being prepared to spend such generous sums on [Europeanization). The more the children of Europe learn with a Europeanised curriculum, the more they are likely to grow up to endorse European Union and the political and bureaucratic institutions which support it... The Europeanisation of the school and university curricula is a political intervention on the culture of the continent: Not only has the number of interventions in the field of education on the part of the Commission of the European Communities increased, but the quality of these interventions has changed. Experts on the legal aspects of education have noted an important shift in Community action that deserves to be underlined. Thus, since 1963 such action in education took place at an intergovernmental level and largely resulted in 'soft law' in the form of non-legally binding Resolutions Or Conclusions of the Council and Ministers of Education meeting within the Council, Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a shift to 'hard law', that is autonomous and enforceable Community action in the contribution of education to positive integration (Lonbay, 1989; Shaw, 1991; Barnard, 1992). The same authors note that, quite contrary to the generally held assumptions regarding the Community's forays into the educational arena, the European Court has given, since the 1970s, 'consistently broad interpretations to the legislative powers of the Community' [Shaw, 1991, p. 15). 'Vocational training', that area of education where the Commission has been most active, has been considered to include almost all post-secondary education, with the exception of courses pursued for general scholarly interest' [Shaw, 1991, p. 13), so that the European Court has been 'responsible for dramatically altering the face of European education law' (Barnard, 1992, p. 123). The Maastricht Treaty has legitimized and consolidated the influence on educational matters that the Treaty of Rome had developed, extending that influence to the most sensitive area of schooling, compulsory education, and to what should be taught in schools (Barnard, 1992). The influence exerted by the Ell on education can be explained by the fact that an intensification of the dynamics of unification requires mechanisms and structures supportive of that process. As Ross (1992, p. 51) has observed, the trade and economic issues of tile European Community, 'however narrowly defined initially ... ultimately connect to a wide range of other matters and initiate a snowball effect towards greater supranationality.' A kind of synergy has been created whereby financial and prestige incentives attract governments, researchers, education associations and societies and educators at all levels to focus on European themes at international meetings. in setting up resp-arch projects and in devising courses with a European dimension at the compulsory school level and beyond. While the Community emphasizes the autonomy of member states in most matters related to education, increaSingly European ministers of education meet to discuss the same situations and preoccupations, aim at the same goals, follow similar directions and adopt similar policies (Leclercq and Raul!, 1990, p. 147; Bouchez and de Peretti, 1990; Vonk, 1991). These trends and processes permeate the policy-making practices of different countries at different speeds and with variable degrees of effectiveness. Indeed, as Ryba (1992) has shown in his analysis of the curricular initiatives regarding the European dimension, the declared intentions that appear on policy papers do not necessarily filter down that successfully to the level of classroom practice. Ryba therefore reminds us that an analysis of power relations requires more than just u reading of official documents.' He nevertheless agrees that of the different European international organizations that have an influence on education, the EU is 'by far the strongest and most interventionist' (Ryba, 1994, p. 1). Having established that the EU does have teeth, we of course still need to ask whether what we have here is a sheep or a wolf. That is, we used to ask a fundamental question consonant with any analysis of power relations, namely: In whose interests does the EU's activity in the field of education work? This crucial question, reflected as it is by the interrogation mark in the tail end of the title of this chapter, serves further to open up a currently fashionable field of study to critical enquiry and problematization.