Policy Learning Across the EU: The Politics of Education Reform in Germany and France

During the last fifteen years, there has been increasing commentary about a ‘fifth freedom’ in the European Union – the circulation of knowledge. While much of the analysis of this burgeoning European education space has focussed on higher education and research, national policies for compulsory schooling have also been undergoing profound transformation. This has resulted in a growing tension between pressures to adapt to current best practice, established at the European or international level, and the resilience of national education systems, especially in member states with strong national traditions and well-entrenched educational bureaucracies, such as Germany and France. These EU member states have been reforming their compulsory education systems, yet surprisingly, the political system with many formal veto players, Germany, has had more revolutionary policy change. This paper uses historical institutionalism and process-tracing to assess the degree of national policy change in Germany and France in the context of internationalization and Europeanization of education. Rather than focus on transnational actors, I evaluate how national policy-makers translate European ideas and international models into innovative policy bricolages, vis-à-vis the opportunities and constraints presented by domestic political institutions, policy legacies, and bureaucratic capacity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the mechanisms of policy change, mechanisms conditioned by political and bureaucratic institutions which can facilitate an adaptation of cognitive ideas to credit-claiming behaviour.