Professional Knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe
Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding
But the restructuring of systems is not only achieved by the enunciation of policy discourse; restructuring only works if it is in some way harmonised and orchestrated (to use a musical analogy) with teachers’ and nurses’ work life narratives.
In Section 1 we have shown how restructuring is a world movement and Beach delineates above some of the key characteristics of the world movement in the current conjuncture. This conjuncture was discerned in Section 2 when we looked at historical periodisation. With growing force in the seven countries in the 1980’s this became a generalised movement in our seven countries in the mid 1990’s.
Crucially however, we saw how the restructuring of educational systems in European nation states builds on different trajectorial foundations and historical periodisation. There turn out to be critical zones of refraction in understanding how restructuring initiatives are translated and diffused in a specific milieu.
We have been able to discern a range of responses when juxtaposing systems narratives and work life narratives. In the next section we provide examples from most of our case study countries. But this should not be taken to mean countries react monolithically to restructuring initiatives. There are a variety of points of refraction or milieu membranes through which restructuring policies must pass: national systems, regional systems, school board systems – right through to individual schools and individual classrooms and teachers. This means that a wide range of responses are possible even if certain national characteristics of response can be evidenced.
