Educational Research in Europe

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title: Educational Research in Europe. Vol. 9 BERA Dialoguesauthor: Calderhead, James.

publisher: Multilingual Mattersisbn10 | asin: 1853592552

print isbn13: 9781853592553ebook isbn13: 9780585126012

language: Englishsubject Education--Research--Europe, Education--Research--

Europe--Cross-cultural studies.publication date: 1994

lcc: LB1028.25.E85E38ebddc: 370/.78/094

subject: Education--Research--Europe, Education--Research--Europe--Cross-cultural studies.

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BERA Dialogues 9 Series Editor: Donald McIntyre

Educational Research in Europe

Edited by James Calderhead

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon Philadelphia Adelaide

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Educational Research in Europe/Edited by James Calderhead BERA Dialogues: 9 1. Education-Research-Europe. 2. Education-Research-Europe-Cross-cultural studies. I. Calderhead, James. II. Series. LB1028.25.E85E38 1994 370'.78'094-dc20 94-30160

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1-85359-256-0 (hbk) ISBN 1-85359-255-2 (pbk)

Multilingual Matters Ltd

UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, Avon BS21 7SJ. USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA. Australia: P.O. Box 6025, 83 Gilles Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.Copyright 1994 James Calderhead and the authors of individual chapters.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission inwriting from the publisher.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Ltd, Bridgend.

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ContentsNotes on Contributors iv1IntroductionJames Calderhead

1

2Educational Research in FranceRaymond Bourdoncle

9

3Educational Research in United GermanyVolker Lenhart

14

4Educational Research in ItalyMarco Todeschini

21

5Educational Research in the NetherlandsGellof Kanselaar

29

6Educational Research in the Nordic CountriesMats Ekholm

33

7Educational Research in RomaniaCesar Birzea

41

8Educational Research in SloveniaDarja Piciga and Cveta Razdevsek-Pucko

44

9Educational Research in SpainCarlos Marcelo

55

10Educational Research in the United KingdomMichael Bassey

60

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Notes on Contributors

MichaelBassey was formerly Professor of Education at Nottingham Trent University

and was President of BERA in 1991-92.CesarBirzea

is the Director of the Institute for Educational Sciences in Bucharest,Romania.

RaymondBourdoncle

was formerly Director of Research at the Department de Politiques,Pratiques et Acteurs de L'education within the Institut National deRecherche Pedagogique in Paris, but has recently been appointed to aChair in educational sciences at the Universit Charles de Gaulle inLille.

JamesCalderhead

is Professor of Education at the University of Bath in England, and acouncil member of the British Educational Research Association.

MatsEkholm

is Professor of Education of the University of Goteborg and theUniversity College of Karlstad, and is President of the NordiskForening for Pedogigisk Forskning, the Nordic Society for EducationalResearch.

GellofKanselaar

is Professor of Education at the University of Utrecht in theNetherlands, and also President of the Dutch Educational ResearchAssociation (VOR).

VolkerLenhart

is Professor of Education at the Ruprecht-Karls Universitat inHeidelberg, and chairs a German association for educational research.Carlos Marcelo is the Director of the Grupo Investigacion Didactica atthe University of Seville.

DarjaPiciga

is a researcher at the Educational Research Institute in Ljubljana.

CvetaRazdevsek-Pucko

is Vice Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University ofLjubljana in Slovenia.

MarcoTodeschini

is a researcher and teacher educator at the Institute of Education inMilan.

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1Introduction

James Calderhead

Educational systems vary widely throughout Europe, reflecting a diversity of social and political traditions.Different countries hold forth alternative ideals about how children are to be brought up and prepared for theiradult lives, and societies contain different values, constraints and expectations that shape the development ofeducational institutions, their scope, organisation and functions. There is, for example, considerable varianceacross Europe in such features as the nature and extent of preschool provision, the extent to which the curriculumfor compulsory schooling is centrally or locally constructed, the provision of vocational education and training,opportunities for higher education, and the extent to which education is viewed in terms of relatively narrowacademic goals or inclusive of broader moral and social goals relating to the whole life development of childrenand adults.

Not surprisingly, educational research also varies across Europe. This can be partly explained by differencesamongst educational systems themselves which dictate what counts as the significant educational questions to beresearched, but it is also partly attributable to different political systems which attach differential status andimportance to the role of independent inquiry, and also to academic traditions within each country which providealternative repertoires of theories and research methods that inform the research process. Hence, there are severaldistinguishing features of educational research in different countries, such as the tradition of research in didacticsin France and Germany, for example, or the influence of psychological measurement in the large-scaleScandinavian studies of the educational attainment of different social groups. The intertwined influences of theeducational, political and academic systems on the nature and scale of educational research are especially apparentin recent developments in Eastern European countries, where democratisation has led to the decentralising ofeducational management, increased experimentation in educational practice, and a recognition of the need to drawmore fully on educational research for evaluation and further development.

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Perhaps because of differing educational systems, theoretical and methodological differences and languagedifferences as well, educational researchers in Europe, and perhaps especially in Britain, have tended to look littlebeyond their own country, and even their own circle of academic colleagues, in defining their educational researchcommunity. Yet Europe provides a rich source of studies in education, and the perspectives, data and findings thatcome from alternative approaches to research could well challenge and develop further the research work withinindividual research areas.

Several of the papers in this volume were originally presented at a symposium on Educational Research in Europeat the BERA conference in Stirling in 1992. The function of that symposium was to explore how educationalresearch was structured and funded in different European countries and to consider the relationships betweenresearch and policy and practice. Each of the participants represented a major educational research organisationwithin Europe and could talk authoritatively about research activities within their own country. This publicationhas grown out of that symposium, and has been extended to include a total of nine countries, including the UK.Each contributor was asked to provide an overview of educational research in their country, but in particular toinclude an account of how educational research was structured and funded, the nature of major organisations orprofessional associations for educational research, an account of who pursued this research (academics inuniversities, for instance, or civil servants in government departments), to consider 'who decides the researchagendas?', to outline current research priorities in their country or topics of widespread interest, to consider theinter-relationships between research, policy and practice in education and the extent to which channels exist forone to inform another, and finally to comment on the nature and potential of European collaboration in educationalresearchto what extent does it presently occur, what is the potential for future development and what consequencesmight ensue from such collaboration?

Each chapter provides a brief summary and overview of the state of educational research in each country andhighlights major characteristics of the research enterprise. There are many similarities, but also some interestingcontrasts, particularly in the way research is pursued, the status and value attributed to educational research andthe extent to which it is seen as a valuable contribution to educational policy and planning.

The European Contributions

The chapter from France is written by Raymond Bourdoncle, who points out that a large proportion of Frencheducational research occurs within



one National Institute which is centrally funded, and whose research agenda seems to be influenced by acombination of policy and academic concerns. There are many French universities with departments of educationwith substantial numbers of students pursuing research degrees, though France has in the past tended to fund itsown central Institute rather than universities to conduct research programmes. However, education in France isundergoing radical change. Due to government policy to increase the number of students in the 16-19 age groupand in higher education, there is a demand for improvements in the status and quality of teachers and for reformsin teacher education. Teacher training institutions have been radically reorganised and given university status, andalthough they do not at present pursue research, Raymond Bourdoncle speculates that social changes within Franceitself and an increase in the power and status of universities may well lead in this direction within the foreseeablefuture.

In the following chapter, Volker Lenhart explains how the reunification of Germany has led to some restructuringof academic research institutions, with the resulting loss of many educational research posts from the former EastGermany. Whilst East Germany had developed research expertise in some areas of education, such as technologyeducation and the teaching of mixed ability groups, West German university departments were clearly moreproductive in research and more efficient in terms of staffing. Reunification has therefore, not surprisingly, led tothe former West German universities and their staff dominating the new educational research scene. VolkerLenhart, however, explains that there is considerable awareness of this fact and determined attempts to involvecolleagues from Eastern European countries generally in collaborative research ventures. Germany, like severalEuropean countries, however, experiences a shortage of funding for substantial educational research programmes.Whilst German educational research takes a number of different approaches and is funded in diverse ways, theimpact of research on policy and practice appears to be relatively indirect, through the dissemination of researchfindings and the involvement of practitioners in university degree courses. Volker Lenhart draws attention to thedifferent areas in which some countries have built up educational research and development activities, andsuggests that the experiences of Germany in reconciling research from the east and west may also have someimplications for Europe generally. He suggests that a wider exchange of information on research activities isparticularly important because Europe has become quite language bound in the parameters within whicheducational research is conducted. This may be particularly relevant to British researchers and researchers whoseown language is a minority one. As the author points out, whilst German researchers may have some familiaritywith research in their field that is being conducted in Britain, it



is extremely rare to find British researchers who have the same familiarity with German research.

Education within Italy, as discussed in Chapter 4, has a complex administrative structure and involves researchers,in a broad sense, at different levels of administration in a variety of evaluation, development and support activities.Marco Todeschini, however, points out the lack of any coordinating mechanism for educational researchers. Muchof the research activity in Italy seems to be linked to practice or policy objectives and is pursued in variousgovernmental or private agencies, although several universities also have well developed education departmentswith staff who are funded to pursue research activity. Marco Todeschini identifies several particular areas linked tocurrent educational changes where research needs have been identified, including educational management,curriculum development and teacher education. It is suggested that Italy has been slower than many Europeancountries to take advantage of European exchanges and the hope is raised that greater levels of Europeancooperation could help to enhance the quality and contribution of educational research within the country.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, has a large and well known educational research association to which mosteducational researchers in the Netherlands belong. It also has a well organised national structure for supporting andcoordinating research and development activity. One of the characteristics of research in the Netherlands is thehigh priority given to application, much of this activity occurring in the context of school support. GellofKanselaar suggests that this leads to quite close relationships between researchers and practitioners and policy-makers, but also leads to research providing short-term gains, rather than fundamental research of a theoretical ormethodological nature. The importance of educational research as an academic study seems at present to be largelyunrecognised by Dutch funding bodies.

Mats Ekholm writes about research in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) allof which have a similar educational system in common. These countries, and in particular Sweden, have a longtradition of educational research, especially in the area of evaluating schooling and curricula, with several wellknown examples of longitudinal studies of children throughout their school careers. Educational research is viewedas an important part of monitoring and improving the educational system and researchers are commonly appointedby central government to policy-making committees. Mats Ekholm suggests that although this is an importantmeans by which research has an impact upon policy and practice, educational research is still not widelycommunicated within each



country. This is partly attributed to the researchers' inclination to disseminate their research amongst fellowresearchers and an academic audience, and also to the fact that research is published in the several Nordic researchjournals using the native language. Although educational research in several of the Nordic countries iscomparatively well funded, the author draws attention to the fact that this is still a very small proportion of thetotal education budget across the five countries. The NFPF (Nordisk Forening for Pedagogisk Forskning) is a wellestablished research organisation, whose management is rotated around the participating countries, and whichdraws together a wide range of researchers from different backgrounds.

In Romania, there is an interesting relationship between current social conditions and educational research. CesarBirzea describes how the reestablishment of the Institute of Educational Sciences after the abolition of theCeaucescu regime is viewed as an important aspect of educational reform. The Institute, the major Romanianagency for educational research, seems to have both a direct and indirect effect on educational policy and practice:direct, through the involvement of researchers in educational planning and policy-making; and indirect, throughthe organisation of conferences and the dissemination of research findings. In a society where, up until recently,educational research was proscribed, research is regarded with optimism as a source of guidance and evaluation.Nevertheless, as Cesar Birzea points out, the relationship between researchers and administrators is not alwayscomfortable, and there are fundamental differences in the values, purposes and conditions surrounding the work ofresearchers and policy-makers that make communication difficult between the two interest groups.

Formerly a state of Yugoslavia before gaining its independence in 1990, Slovenia, like Romania and EastGermany, has experienced a period of rapid social and educational change. Greater experimentation with thecurriculum and teaching methods, a growing concern for catering for individual needs, and a determination todevelop an educational system that will compare with that of other European countries are some of the factors thatDarja Piciga and Cveta Razdevsek-Pucko suggest have stimulated considerable interest in educational research.Slovenia has a detailed national research programme in which the educational field of enquiry is 'Education andSport'. A variety of academic and research organisations are funded for research and development work in thisarea. Research is viewed as contributing to the direction of education in a newly evolving country, and emphasis isalso given to international cooperation in research so that the quality of research can be maintained and thecomparability of research findings can itself be useful. Interestingly, given the change occur-



ring within schools themselves, teachers have become much more receptive to research and the contribution that itmight make to education. Furthermore there is a burgeoning action research movement in which teachersthemselves are engaged in evaluation and development within their own classrooms and schools.

Over the past two decades, Spain has also undergone some radical social and educational changes and these havereflected on both the growth of interest in educational research and on its nature and organisation, as CarlosMarcelo describes. In the democratisation of the educational system, new university departments of education haveemerged with a research function. Research topics have developed out of educational policy changes. Now that themanagement of schools has been devolved to the school level, the need for curriculum evaluation research, andresearch on school leadership, teacher education and on mainstreaming have, for example, become evident.Research is still a small-scale activity in Spain, and there are few professional associations or well organisedstructures for supporting and co-ordinating research activity, though vigorous attempts are being made to developyoung researchers and to promote international links.

Britain, in contrast, has a relatively well organised and well funded educational research system, but, like othercountries, attitudes towards educational research and the impact and take-up of educational research findings areproblem areas. Furthermore, the UK lacks the integration into policy-making and evaluation that is characteristicof some Scandinavian countries. This has become especially so over the past decade in the UK, where substantialchanges have occurred in the curriculum and organisation of schools. As Michael Bassey points out, these changeshave been largely ideologically motivated and have had little reliance upon research evidence as a means ofdirecting or managing the change. There has been an encouragement of an educational market-place, in whichschools are responsible for administering their own funds, in which competition amongst schools is sought after,and in which standards are monitored through external examinations, inspections and the publication of leaguetables. Unlike our European counterparts, control of education has become increasingly centralised, and the role ofeducational research somewhat marginalised. One of the current features of educational research in the UK thatMichael Bassey highlights is that research agendas are often individually constructed and pursued and, inconsequence, there is often a lack of overall coherence in research efforts, a feature that might be rectified by moreteam-working and greater levels of collaboration.



The Development of Educational Research in Europe.

Looking across the different contributions to this book, it is clear that there are several areas of commonality aswell as some distinctive differences in the nature of educational research in Europe and how it is pursued. One ofits common distinguishing features seems to be its relatively low levels of funding which contrasts with the factthat education itself, within all European countries, is a major area of public spending. The need to understand,evaluate and develop educational processes and systems, and the contribution that research can play within this,seems not to be widely recognised or defended. Interestingly, particular importance seems to be attached toeducational research in those countries that are, or have recently, undergone some substantial social change andwhere educational reform is in progress, and research is seen as offering a potential source of direction. In somecountries, such as the Nordic countries, there also seems to be a stronger tradition of educational researchersworking more closely with policy-makers and practitioners. Overall, however, the general picture of educationalresearch within Europe that is created by the contributors is one of some fragmentation, and with generally weakassociations with policy and practice. Educational research occurs within a variety of different kinds of universitiesand institutes. In some cases the focus of research is very much on short-term evaluation and development,whereas in countries where research is more generously funded, there may be more concern with theoreticaldevelopment. The relationship between research, policymaking and practice will never be a simple andunproblematic one. Policymakers, researchers and practitioners have different priorities and concerns and there isno easy translation of research into policy and practice matters. Furthermore, evaluation and development are notconducted within a theoretical or methodological vacuum and research of quality needs substantial investment tomake it truly informative rather than merely instrumental in existing policy and practice. There is clearly much tobe done, however, in several European countries in convincing policy-makers in particular that educationalresearch has an important role to play.

Several of the contributors draw attention to the fact that a good deal of educational research is not disseminatedbeyond its country of origin, and, although there are a number of European associations that foster links amongsteducational researchers, there appears to be relatively little collaboration, or attempts to coordinate Europeanresearch efforts. While different European countries may be regarded in terms of different stages of developmentof their educational research infrastructure, most of the contributors emphasise the benefits to be gained byimproved communication amongst educational researchers in Europe. Clearly one of the



priorities for developing educational research is to improve the communications amongst researchers themselves.Exchanges amongst educational researchers, European conferences and the establishment of a EuropeanEducational Research Association or of other specialised networks of researchers might help to establisheducational research more fully and to lead to a greater sense of a European educational research community. Suchmoves are certainly viewed by the authors of this book as positive steps towards improving the quality, status andcontribution of educational research within the whole of Europe.



2 Educational Research in France

Raymond Bourdoncle

Let me begin with a warning: in France, educational research is entering a time of turmoil. Due to new educationalpolicy, 80% of school students are now entering the French baccalaureat, which is the equivalent of the English 'Alevel'. Because of this, teacher education has been reorganised, and so will educational research in the near future.Perhaps some of the things I am writing about here today will be changed within a few months.

How is Educational Research Organised in France?

First what institutions pursue educational research? There are three kinds of institutions: research institutions,universities and a new institution: the university institutes for teacher-training (Institut Universitaire de Formationdes Matres).

Research InstitutionsINRP: National Institute for Educational Research

This is the largest educational research institution with 107 researchers and five departments:

the department of educational history with a National Museum of History, one of the best research teams inthe history of education and one of the largest European libraries on education, with about one million books;

the department of didactics, focusing on how subjects are taught;

the department of educational technology;

the department for the study of 'educational practices, actors and politics'this is equivalent to research in thesociology and psychology of education;

the department for research resources (data bases, computer centre, research library).



The characteristic of this institution is to work with practising teachers (more than 2000) and to emphasise actionresearch.

CNRS: National Centre for Scientific Research

This is the largest French research institution: 17,000 researchers, 12,000 research assistants. However, it sponsorsalmost no research on education. The CNRS is organised around academic subjects such as mathematics, physics,psychology, sociology and not around applied domains like medicine, engineering or education.

As a consequence, there is no educational research laboratory belonging exclusively to the CNRS. But one canfind four associate laboratories, which are orientated towards academic subjects, which have some educationalinvolvement:

History of Education (which is an INRP team)

Economy

Sociology

Cognitive Psychology

Other Research Institutions with Some Involvement in Education.

Many research institutions have some connections with education, for example:

CEREQ: Centre for the Study and Research on Employment and Qualifications, with 87 researchers;

INETOP: National Institute for the Study of Work and Careers Counselling, with 21 researchers;

INSEP: National Institute for the Sports and Physical Education, with 33 researchers.

UniversitiesThere are 77 public universities in France. Nineteen of them have a specific Department of Educational Sciencesand this area of study is also present in 20 other universities. Moreover educational research is conducted in otherdepartments, such as sociology or psychology.

The Departments of Educational Sciences are young. They were created in 1967. They deliver bachelor, mastersand doctoral degrees. For example in 1983 they delivered 1,250 bachelor degrees, 400 masters degrees and around100 doctoral degrees. Since their beginning, 1,600 doctoral theses have been completed.

The Departments of Educational Sciences have a total of 250 academic members. In France, they are known asteacher-researchers. Seventy-two



of them are professors, and the others 'matres de conference', the equivalent of lecturers and senior lecturers.

If we add to these people the other department staff working on education and full-time educational researchers,they would amount to around 1,000 persons.

The University Institute for Teacher Training (IUFM)These are new institutions, rather like the former Colleges of Education in England. There are 27 of them. Createdin October 1991, they come from the merging of the former Teacher Training Institutions (Normal Schools forPrimary Teachers, the Special Normal Schools for Vocational Education and the Pedagogical Centres forSecondary School Teachers).

This process was said to be a 'universitisation' of teacher education. Three hundred faculty members wereappointed in these new institutions, but they were joined by more than 2,500 teachers from the former teachertraining institutions. Most of these teachers have no experience of research. They teach academic knowledge,knowledge that was created by other scientists and is recognised in the community of scientists in that subject. Soit is more an academisation of teacher education than a universitisation. This may be comparable in some respectsto the changes occurring in England after the Robbins Report in 1963, when some members of the college ofeducation staff taught the sociology, philosophy, history and psychology of education, which were researched atthe London Institute of Education and in some other universities, but not in the colleges themselves.

What are the Major Professional Organisations for Educational Researchers?

AECSE: Association des enseignants et chercheurs en sciences de l'ducation (Association of Faculty Membersand Researchers in Education Sciences).

This association has more than 300 members. Most of them are members of the Educational Science faculty.Like BERA, AECSE organises a conference every year.

AFIRSE: Association francophone internationale de recherche scientifique de l'ducation (International French-speaking Association for the Scientific Study of Education).

This organisation has 170 members in the French section, but with other members from other French-speaking countries.



How is Educational Research Funded?

There are two ways:

(1) Ordinary grants given each year: significant funding comes through this means for research institutions, whichare very few, but there is work for any of the numerous university laboratories and research departments. Researchin the latter is self-supported, although some reform of this situation is on the way.

(2) Special grants and commissioned research. Some of these are requests to a specific research team, on a specifictopic and for a specified amount of money. Most of them come from two Departments: Education and ScientificResearch. Some others are 'appel d'offre', appeals for proposals on a large theme. Any research team can apply,and the best proposals are granted. This approach is becoming more common and is seen as having manyadvantages: it stimulates competition amongst the researchers, and it helps research administrators to directresearch towards priority themes and to evaluate research teams.

As an example, one of the most recent 'appel d'offre' indicates the present research priorities of the Department ofEducation:

(1) the study of the process and problems of learning drawing upon the cognitive sciences, and neuropsychology;

(2) the analysis of the teacher's and pupils' classroom behaviour from a sociopsychological and a didacticsperspective (didactics concerns the teaching and learning of particular subject matter);

(3) the analysis of school practices outside the classroom;

(4) the new roles and partnerships between schools, parents, local and regional authorities;

(5) comparative research on the minimal knowledge base, the criteria of examination and the levels of qualificationfor people with low level diplomas.

Conclusion: Towards European Collaboration

These few simple details on educational research in France, or even a more detailed picture, may unfortunately notbe enough for us to be able understand each other. Words and history separate us. Let me conclude with ananecdote: when our Science of Education Research Association met German educational scientists, weimmediately had a problem: we did not mean exactly the same thing when we said 'Bildung' in German and'formation' in French. And 'training', the English equivalent, is again subtly different. As we build the world withour words, we are not living in an exactly similar world, even if we are in the same European Community. We



have to work on that too, if we want to understand each other. There is a lot of work to do together.

The second impediment to our common understanding lies in forgetting the specific history of each of ourcountries. For instance, in France, the state is strong. A strong state often does not like decentralised agenciesbecause they tend to preserve their own power and reduce the influence of the state. In France, universities areviewed in this way by the state. When France needed more research in a domain like nuclear physics, or other partsof sciences or even pedagogy, it preferred the creation of state research institutions (CEA, CNRS, INRP, . . .)rather than to entrust this work to universities. As a consequence, research is weak in universities and Frenchuniversities are weak, compared with those in several other European countries.

But to be in the same European Community means that some impediments of history to our mutual understandingare perhaps becoming weaker. Within the liberal orientation of the European Community, the French state acceptsthat it will become weaker, that it cannot organise all of society and that it must let the universities becomestronger. Although we have not the same past, perhaps we have a common future.



3Educational Research in United Germany.

Volker Lenhart

The Institutionalisation of Education as an Academic and Research Discipline and the Repercussions ofUnification

The institutionalisation of education as an academic and research discipline in the western part of Germany hasbeen the topic of several studies in the late 1980s. Connected with the general expansion of institutions of highereducation since 1960 (university students 1960: 250,000; 1988: 1,100,000) and following a rapid growth of teachertraining between 19601975, education as an academic discipline has grown substantially. Professorial positionsmultiplied from 196 in 1966 to 825 in 1977 and 1100 in 1980. In the 1980s, however, 10% of professorialpositions were abolished. In 1990 the discipline had approximately 1150 academic positions in non-professorialranks.

Education as a research and academic discipline in the former GDR was institutionalised in two quantitativelynearly equal segments: in institutions of higher education, especially universities, and in central research institutes,of which the largest was the Academy of Educational Sciences. The overall number of academic personnel wasabout 1400.

The reunification of Germany in October 1990 meant a dramatic change for the academic institutionalisation ofeducation in East Germany. The discipline was considered like law, history, economics, and philosophy as beingvery seriously affected by communist ideology leading to the 'pedagogics by commanding' thatas many observersbelievedprevailed in eastern schools. On the other hand some research results (e.g. concerning technologyeducation, the teaching of mixed ability groups, and in some areas of the history of education) had beeninternationally recognised.

The last (democratically elected) government of GDR insisted that the Academy of Educational Science was not tobe treated like other central research institutions. The Academy was closed December 31, 1991. Of its



then still about 630 employees only some 20 were given non-tenured employment in the western Frankfurt-basedGerman Institute for International Educational Research.

The five new Lnder (states) of the Federal Republic of Germany started a concentration process of academicinstitutions. The GDR had maintained 54 institutions of higher education, ranging from traditional largeuniversities to small specialised colleges. These are to be concentrated into a dozen universities, the small collegesbeing transformed mainly into Fachhochschulen (not fully academic institutions of higher education). According towestern standards eastern departments of education were greatly overstaffed. While we have five professorsrunning our Heidelberg department with six lecturers and research assistants, the Humboldt University departmentat Berlin had in July 1992 seventy staff members of these ranks on the pay-roll, the numbers of students ineducational programmes being not very much different. The budget plan for the new department at Humboldtcontains 31 positions in non professorial ranks; the restructuring process for the professorial positions at Humboldtis already overin 22 professorial jobs 20 people come from western and only two from eastern Germany. Theselection committee administered strict criteria of research quality, with some allowance made for the limitedresearch facilities of eastern candidates.

For other eastern departments currently in the process of restructuring the results may not be as dramatic as atBerlin, but an informed estimate indicates that in 1993 only some 30% of the eastern academic educationalpersonnel of 1989 will in the near future hold positions in the academic system. Unlike other disciplines, the East-West migration is very limited in education. It is higher for younger research assistants, lecturers (we atHeidelberg employ two people from the new Lnder) but I know only one case where a western professorial chairwas given to an eastern researcher.

Funding of Research

There are three main types of financing for research:

(1) Self-supported research activities; i.e. individuals or research groups use the funds of their institutions,especially their own salaries, to do research. Most published research results have been generated through thismechanism. This is also true for most research activities of the two large-scale educational research institutesoutside universities in Germany, that is the Frankfurt German Institute of International Educational Research andthe Berlin Max Planck Institute for Educational Research and Human Development.



(2) Commissioned research; government institutions, non governmental agencies and private companiescommission researchers, mainly from universities, to do a certain research project. A lot of research funding fromfederal agencies is currently available for research on the retraining of the unemployed, especially women, in thefive new Lnder. As more and more private research and consulting firms jump into the market, competition forthis commissioned research becomes stronger.

(3) Free externally financed research; the main donor agency of this type of research funding is the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft (German agency for research funding)this is an institution collecting research funds fromindustry and government; it is self-administered, with a system of elected referees to judge proposals. In the so-called 'ordinary programme' in 1991 for education 137 research projects were sent in of which 80 were accepted(58%). The total amount of money given to these was 7.7 million DM, forming an average of 96000 DM for eachproject.

Relationship to Policy and Practice

With the exception of governmentally commissioned research and research conducted in state research institutes,the linkage between research and the political sphere is more indirect than direct. Research results get through topolitical decision makers via intermediate stations, especially the bureaucracy in ministries. The influence is moreon small-scale policies than on large-scale ones, and is more through researchers than research itselfthat is,researchers sitting on advisory committees and being involved in formulating policy papers etc. Well knownresearchers are relatively active in these contexts.

As everywhere, the main influence of educational research on practitioners is through teaching in universities andcolleges. The professional knowledge of teachers, social workers, adult educators, and vocational trainers is anamalgamation of scientific theories including research results, subjective constructs, and implicit theories formedby practical experience. Research data are only one input to this type of knowledge.

The German Educational Research Association maintains established contacts with the teachers' unions and thetwo nationwide associations of MA and Diploma Degree holders in education.

Paradigms and Topics

Since the end of the 1960s, there have been five paradigms that could be found in West German educationaltheory:



(1) a normative approach (e.g. conservative value position);

(2) a historic-philosophical position (geisteswissenschaftliche Pdagogik);

(3) a critical rationalist approach (following K. Popper);

(4) a critical theory (e.g. Habermas);

(5) a Marxist position.

In the 1980s new approaches were tried out:

(1) systems theory (following Luhmann in the tradition of Parsons);

(2) evolutionist perspective;

(3) feminist perspective.

At the end of the 1980s the sharp conflicts between proponents of different paradigms were mitigated bycompromises at different levels of explanation.

The official paradigm in East Germany was specifically Marxist-Leninist. Without leaving the officiallyprescribed cover of this position in the 1980s some researchers dared to borrow partial explanatory theories thathad been developed in the West within other paradigms. However, the collapse of communism affected thesupport for Marxist theory in the West. In the educational theory of United Germany, Marxism is in a moremarginal position than it used to be in old West Germany.

A look at the themes of recent doctoral theses and post doctoral dissertations (Habitilationsschriften) gives a roughoverview of research topics. Table 3.1 shows West Germany alone up until 1989, in which period most researchhas been done in the foundations of education, in 'schooling' (including school as a social institution, curriculumand instruction, teacher training) and in social work (which is considered to be an educational subdiscipline inGermany). The relative growth of 'schooling' in the 1990s reflects the emphasis given to this field in East Germaneducational research.

European Cooperation

As far as our discipline follows the pattern of a 'normal science', international cooperation exists but does not workas well as it might. When planning a new research project, researchers usually look around at what has been donein the field elsewhere. In Western Europe this process is biased by language barriers and an affiliated informalpower structure. A German educationist will usually check what has been done on his/her research topic in theEnglish-speaking world, but he/she will not equally, unless a comparative specialist, look at the French or Spanishresearch literature.



Table 3.1 Breakdown of doctoral and post-doctoral dissertations by subject area

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990% % % % % % % % % % %

1Foundations of Education 19.9 22.6 13.8 27.3 19.0 21.1 25.7 27.1 27.4 20.5 14.9

2 Vocational Training 8.8 5.0 4.6 4.9 2.6 6.3 7.2 8.2 9.8 5.8 10.6

3Adult Education/ Continuing Education 5.1 5.9 13.4 4.9 4.8 4.2 2.4 3.5 2.8 8.2 2.9

4Womens' Studies in Education 1.4 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.5 1.7 1.2 2.0 1.1 4.4 4.5

5 Leisure Time Education 0 0.5 1.4 0.4 1.1 1.3 0.8 0.8 0 0 06 Peace Education 0.5 0.9 2.3 0.4 0 0 0 0.8 0 0 07 History of Education 9.7 7.2 8.8 12.5 9.5 5.1 5.2 5.9 9.5 7.5 7.7

8Education in Early Childhood 1.9 2.7 1.4 1.1 0.5 1.3 1.2 2.0 1.1 0 0

9 Special Education 5.6 5.9 3.2 3.8 7.4 6.3 5.2 4.7 3.9 10.6 6.110 Physical Education 1.9 1.8 1.8 2.3 2.6 1.7 3.2 3.5 0.7 2.3 4.511 Social Work 10.2 13.6 13.4 14.8 23.8 21.5 23.3 21.6 23.2 11.6 11.212 Schooling 21.3 27.6 26.7 20.1 18.5 23.6 16.9 12.5 14.7 20.1 26.613 Comparative Education 9.3 4.5 5.1 4.2 4.8 3.4 5.2 5.5 4.2 6.8 9.614 Other Categories 4.6 0.9 3.2 2.7 4.8 2.5 2.4 2.0 1.1 1.4 0

German input to British debates in education tends to be minimal. Some amelioration of this situation might occurthrough strengthening the input and the user capacity of the European educational data banks, EUDISED andEURYDICE. When young German research students, for example, begin to carry out a EUDISED search as anormal procedure just as he/she may already do an ERIC search, this will be noticeable progress.

As far as bi- or multi-lateral research projects are concerned the main difficulty among researchers is not contactbut funding. The programmes of the EC, especially ERASMUS and PETRA, are used already, but the networkingcould be stronger.

The main problem these days is how to integrate the educational research communities of the Eastern part ofCentral and Eastern Europe. During the past year, our Heidelberg department received requests for cooperationfrom Schools of Education in Estonia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Our University entered a partnershipprogramme with the University of St Petersburg in Russia. Partnerships between departments may be a feasibleway of bringing our eastern European colleagues into the debates. For the time being this means some financialcommitment from



the western partners. The TEMPUS programme of the EC is a useful instrument for this purpose.

Some Concluding Remarks from a Comparative Perspective.

Common Segments of Research DiscussionsGerman researchers share with their British colleagues many practical problems in the field of education with arange of research findings and discussions on these practical issues. But the overlap in the research literature isone-sided. While many German educationists have at least selective knowledge of what has been done on theirspecific topic in the English-speaking world (e.g. knowing authors and their research publications) our Britishcolleagues only very seldom, unless they are comparative specialists, look at German publications. Britishcolleagues' knowledge of the German literature is probably greater for major background theories, such as thetheories of Weber or Habermas.

Assessing the 'State of the Art'In most areas our respective research debates are at the same level, but there are occasions where one or othercountry's debates are at a different stage of development. For example: my impression is that British colleagues aremore experienced and 'fluent' in applying qualitative methods, but that we are equal in the elaboration of thismethodology, and that Germans are more concerned with the epistemological basis of this type of research. To citea further example, the education of children with special needs is more advanced in England than in Germanywhich adheres to a rigid categorisation of handicapped learners into types of schools. Following this advancedpractice, British research on the topic appears to be very elaborate. On the other hand vocational training foradolescents and young adults with physical, sensory or severe learning difficulties, is better institutionalised inGermany and research on that type of vocational education is well developed.

Sharing Research (and Practice) ExperiencesLooking at what has been done elsewhere, outside one's own, language-bound research community, maycontribute to making our discipline more a 'normal science' like other well established research areas. But it mayeven do more. In a symposium examining career progression and teacher education in the UK, I was reminded ofsome contrasting problems German



teacher educators experienced in the 1980s because of massive teacher unemployment, leaving thousands of youngtrained teachers without any coherent professional progression. We have some at least tentative research findingson how to cope with this situation which our British colleagues might wish to look at should teacherunemployment become a serious topic in the UK.

To secure at least Europe-wide checks of existing research findings on one's own research topic, the capacity ofinputs to European educational data banks EUDISED and EURYDICE should be strengthened and researchers''user skills' of these data banks be improved (as well as researchers encouraged to utilise them).



4 Educational Research in Italy

Marco Todeschini

Terminology

A preliminary discussion would be necessary, or at least very useful, to identify a clear and straightforwarddefinition of educational research which could be commonly shared. Should we recognise and accept aseducational research only a kind of work that strictly follows the most rigorous patterns of scientific rules ofhypothesis formulation, data collecting and data analysis? If so, it should be stated immediately that very little ofthis kind of research takes place in Italy.

The question 'what is research?' immediately prompts another question 'who is a researcher?' In this connection itshould also be noted that, apart from universities and research institutions in both the public and private sector,there are quite a lot of organisations in the service industries, with staff members whose function is not clearlydetermined as technical, administrative or clerical, and who are called (and they recognise themselves as)'ricercatore' or, literally, researcher. Since their job is often only loosely connected with the classical paradigm ofscientific research, it can be said that their function is closer to the one frequently referred to, in English, as that ofan 'analyst'.

Now, if we take the broadest and loosest definition of research concerning education, we find that a wide variety ofagencies deal with education lato sensu. It should be noted, however, that the distinction, so clear in English,between 'Education' and 'Training', or in German between 'Erziehung' and 'Bildung', is not as sharp and clear inItaly; this means that the equivalent of DFE, i.e. MPI (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione) covers what in the UKamounts to further education, including vocational training, both on the public (governmental) and on the non-governmental side. Most of these agencies include, to some extent, some educational research activity.



The Public Sector.

State Administration, All LevelsA central (national) institution of the same kind as the French INRP (Institut National de Recherche Pdagogique)has never existed in Italy, in spite of efforts to create one as a section of the CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delleRicercheNational Council for Research). Among the many research institutes within the framework of CNR thereis a National Institute of Psychology, but nothing similar could ever emerge in Education. Neither of the Ministriesdirectly dealing with education, i.e. MPI, already mentioned, and MURST (Ministero dell'Universit e dellaRicerca Scientifica e Tecnologica) has a comparable unit for educational research. MLPS (Ministero del Lavoro edella Previdenza SocialeMinistry of Labour and Social Security) supports ISFOL (IStituto per la FOrmazione deiLavoratoriInstitute for Training) whose structure is tripartite as that of ILO, or the French AFPA (Agence pour laFormation Professionnelle des Adultes).

On the governmental side, research activity in the area of education and training is undertaken at each one of thefour levels: (a) national, (b) regional, (c) provincial (county level), and (d) municipal, to the extent that each one ofthese levels has responsibilities in the area of education and training.

(1) MPI has an Ufficio studi, progammazione e metodi (Inquiry, planning and methods bureau) whose influence onministerial policies is as limited as its size. While it should be the 'think-tank' of the Ministry and support itspolicy-making, in actual fact each one of the powerful Directorates General acts autonomously and the bureau'swork is mostly consultative. More important and influential is CEDE (Centro Europeo Dell'EducazioneEuropeanCentre for Education) whose name shows its main orientation: most of its work is comparative, in cooperationwith several countries. IEA studies, for instance, are based there. Still a part of the ministerial structure, but actingat regional level in each one of the twenty regions are IRRSAE (Istituti Regionali di Ricerca, Sperimentazione eAggiornamento Educativi Regional Institutes for Educational Research, Experimentation and INSET). EachProvveditorato agli studi, the authority for education, representing MPI at the county level, has a study and inquiryunit.

(2) Regional governments have specific competencies in sectors of what in the UK would be further education,ranging from vocational training to post-secondary non-university education. Moreover, guidance is irrationallysplit between orientamento scolastico (school guidance), a responsibility of the central school structure(specifically through the



school districts), and orientamento professionale (job guidance), the latter being a responsibility of the regionalgovernments. As a consequence, most regional governments have set up their own study and research unit tosupport their policy- and decision-making.

(3) Provincial (county level) governments have several planning and managerial responsibilities in secondaryeducation, in connection with central government and the local structure of the Ministry (Provvedi-torati aglistudii). According to regional legislation, some regions have delegated functions to provincial government that arenormally undertaken at the regional level. To support their policies, especially the planning function, severalprovincial governments have set up and run study and research centres. To take just one example, the Province ofMilan, whose overall school population accounts for 8% of the total nationwide, has been financing for more thantwenty years CISEM (Centro per l'Innovazione e la Sperimentazione Educativa, Milano) to support its policy- anddecision-making in deciding locations and technical features of new school buildings, and other matters within theresponsibility of the provincial government.

(4) The same applies to municipal governments, whose responsibilities in connection with the Ministry concerncompulsory education (primary and lower secondary) plus a sector of upper secondary, whilein connection withthe regional governmentsin some regions they have been delegated managerial responsibilities. Moreover, mostpre-school provision within the state sector is run by municipalities. This explains the widespread presence ofstudy units at the municipal level. Once again taking the case of Milan, its municipal government has had for morethan twenty-five years CIE (Centro per l'Innovazione Educativa) to stimulate and coordinate studies in the specificfields of competency: most of the activities of the Centre deal with infant schools, since most of these schools, inMilan as elsewhere in Italy, are run by the municipality.

At all levels the actual 'research' activity is done both by permanent staff, i.e. by civil servants, and by consultants;some of the latter are occasional, selected and contacted ad hoc for specific projects, while some are in fact a partof the permanent staff, although they do not belong to the formal structure as civil servants.

The funding for all these institutions and study/research units comes essentially from the state budget, starting withthe allocations set annually by a national act of Parliament, down to specific allocations of resources decided uponby the relevant decision-maker (councils for the general guidelines, cabinets for the actual decisions). Some ofthese bodies may also



act as consultative agencies for others. Major towns or provinces, whose resources allow the support of moreactive centres, may run specific inquiries on behalf of smaller towns and provinces whose resources would make itimpossible to do so directly: this obviously means they can receive financial resources from sources other thantheir regular operational budget.

Academic StructuresAs has been said before, no section of the National Council for Research could ever be set up to deal specificallywith educational research. Some school-oriented research, however, is done within the National Institute ofPsychology.

Among the sixty existing universities (mostly public, with few exceptions), twenty-five host the degreeprogramme in pedagogia. Courses in the educational area are provided in eight universities with departments ofeducation, thirteen with institutes (contrary to the British practice, an institute is in Italy smaller than adepartment), while eleven have chairs and courses in education within wider departments and/or institutes. Theresearch activity of each unit varies in size and influence according to the size of the unit itself. Some departmentsare similar in size to, for instance, the Institute of Education, University of London, while others are very smalland have to cope with so few students that resources available for research, in terms of time and money, are verylimited. Financial support for research activities comes mainly from state (central) sources:

(1) From MURST (the Ministry for universities) through the so-called 60% and 40%. The overall budget,available at the national level, is allocated by the ministry to each individual university up to 60% and it is thenallocated within each university according to its own criteria and under its own control, while 40% supports inter-university research and is allocated by a range of national committees: there is no specific committee foreducation, consequently proposals can be considered by the historical-philosophical or the social sciencescommittees.

(2) From CNR, to which the same applies, in that no specific committee exists for education.

(3) From MPL, if and when its Ufficio studi asks a university to do research on its behalf, and when IRRSAEs takeon academics as consultants, project-leaders, or in some other related role.

Apart from state sources, universities can be requested to do research on behalf of agencies or enterprises to whichthey sell their services, getting additional financial support.



While most higher education institutions are state institutions and get their resources from the Ministry, evenprivate ones get a substantial part of their financial resources from the national treasury, as their action is taken tobe subsidiary to that of the Ministry, and tuition fees can only partially cover the actual costs.

The Non-governmental Sector

Coming to the non-governmental side, we can find quite a variety of agencies, whose activities include in variousforms educational matters lato sensu, i.e. regarding educational policies, school issues, training, etc., and thereforehaving implications for educational research. Without trying to give a complete inventory, we can mention:

several cultural foundations supported by the major private or state-supported corporations, such as FIAT, IRI,Pirelli and others;

specialised agencies such as CENSIS (CENtro Studi Investimenti SocialiResearch Agency on SocialInvestments: housing, health, transportation, school, etc.)formally private but working mainly for the variousgovernmental levels, IARD (Associazione per lo studio sperimentale dei problemi dei giovani), CNITE (CentroNazionale Italiano per le Tecnologie Educative), FORMEZ (FORmazione MEZzogiorno) and others;

churches, mainly the Roman Catholic, but also reformed (which are in Italy very tiny minorities);

political parties with their cultural institutions and study centres, as well as trade unions with their own specificinstitutions (e.g. ECAP, IAL, ENFAP etc.) acting in the area of education and training;

non-state agencies whose main responsibility is to run further education activities on behalf of the regionalgovernments (called Enti gestori, such as CNOS, ENAIP, and others); when acting nationwide, they can have theirown study/research institutions.

Financial support for inquiries, studies or fully fledged educational research is part of the operational budget ofthese various agencies, and/or comes from selling services, both on the market and to governmental agencies at alllevels, from municipal to national (this is specifically, as mentioned before, the case of CENSIS, producing,amongst other things, a yearly report on the state of social affairs, on behalf of CNEL, Consiglio Nazionaledell'Economia e del Laboro, a constitutional body at national level).

'Researchers' can be, as it has been said in the preliminary remarks about current terminology, at very differentlevels of expertise and training. While in most cases they are in fact doing clerical work whose distinctiveness is



simply that of being oriented towards information, in some cases they can compete quite effectively withuniversity researchers, and in fact they do.

Current Priorities

The topmost priority, as can be easily inferred from the pattern sketched so far, should be stated in organisationalterms rather than in terms of aims, goals and topics. The size of the overall investment of resources in studiesconcerning education and training can be considered adequate. Yet it does not result in fully satisfactory results interms of output. Hence it is not unreasonable to state that coordination and cooperation are the most urgentpriorities. In spite of this, however, it would be hard to detect signs of reliable attempts at coordination.

Now coming to content, and starting from the formal educational structures, i.e. the school system:

thorough empirical studies ought to be carried out, concerning the governance of the system, from the centralministerial structure to the individual school, to support a badly needed structural reform;

as access to the teaching profession does not follow, at present, a specific training (all secondary school teachers,with minor exceptions, are required to hold a university degree, but this is subject-matter oriented and no trainingfor the teaching function is provided), studies in this field are another urgent priority;

better links of pre-school with primary, and of primary with junior high (scuola media) should be planned andimplemented, to strengthen basic education and give a more reliable background to upper secondary education,both in its academic lines (Liceo classico, liceo scientifico, liceo linguistico, liceo artistico, istituto magistrale) andin its technical lines (industrial, commercial, agricultural, etc.);

all tertiary education is awaiting deep changes concerning structure, content, teaching, organisation andmanagement, to increase the overall productivity and performance: the need for extensive research in this field isvery high;

more generally promoting and strengthening research on educational planning at all levels, but especially inpostcompulsory education, could give a substantial background and support to policy-making.

When considering education in a broader sense, a need for research can be felt in other areas, such as, to give afew examples:

educational fallout (or side-effects) of mass communication by electronic media, mainly TV;

more specifically, feasibility and cost-benefit assessment of distance education by conventional means andbroadcasting;



design and implementation of educational programmes tailored and aimed at special target groups (youngadults/dropouts, jobless and unemployed, immigrants, 'third age', etc.);

credit or voucher systems as forms of recurrent education for industrial retraining, cultural enhancement etc.

Educational Research, Policy-making, Educational Practice

If we were to consider educational research according to the most exacting paradigms, it would be hard to provethat its results have an immediate and direct effect on policy-making and decision-making at government level.However, if we agree to taking a broader definition, as suggested in the opening of this analysis, there is no doubtthat government and administrative bodies make systematic use of the results of inquiries and studies concerningeducational issues. It would be a difficult task, however, to try and evaluate the effectiveness of these study-based,decision-making procedures, as it may be that empirical surveys concerning the same topic result in contradictoryreports by different branches of the same service and/or external consultants, as a consequence of minor or majorchanges in the description of the task by the officials concerned and other red tape bottlenecks and shortcomings.

When looking to educational practices, it is apparent that they are in fact influenced by results of empirical studieswhen these are made available to teaching and administrative staff. The evaluation of their effect, however, canonly be speculative.

European Collaboration in Educational Research.

There is no doubt that Italy would profit from increased collaboration with other countries, both European andnon-European. This prompts the following observations:

on the one hand, it is well known that Italy is comparatively slower than the other EC countries in promotingand supporting exchanges within the framework of EC programmes such as COMETT, ERASMUS, LINGUA,TEMPUS, etc.;

on the other hand the ERASMUS IPC in education involving a large number of institutions of higher educationhas been promoted by the University of Florence, and

it has been within that ICP that NICOPED, the Network of International Cooperation in Education, originatedwhose foundation conference was held in Florence, November 1992.



While this happened quite recently and it is too early to try and assess the results of such a network, it should notbe forgotten that Italy has long been an active partner for several IEA studies, and that many Italian academicresearchers are active members of international organisations such as EARLI.

Let us express the wish that international cooperation in this field could soon find effective ways to be increasedand improved, if anything, as a consequence of an exchange of researchers, a practice that has thrived in severalcountries.



5 Educational Research in the Netherlands

Gellof Kanselaar

Introduction

This review is focused firstly on the Dutch Educational Research Association and on the education supportstructure in the Netherlands, and secondly on the way in which research is organised in the Netherlands.

The Dutch Educational Research Association (VOR)

The Dutch Educational Research Association (VOR) was founded in 1975. It has about 450 members and consistsof seven divisions:

(1) Curriculum Studies and Organisation;

(2) Learning and Instruction;

(3) Education and Society;

(4) Methodology and Evaluation;

(5) Teacher Training and Teacher Behaviour;

(6) Human Resource Development: vocational training and in-company training;

(7) Higher Education and Adult Education.

The activities of the VOR include organisation of an annual conference on educational research. About 600 peopleattend this conference which is organised at a different university each year. VOR also publishes a bimonthlyjournalthe Journal of Educational Research (TOR).

The Education Support Structure in the Netherlands

Several agencies for educational research, development, dissemination and guidance in the Netherlands togetherconstitute the national support structure for education. It was recognised at an early stage that the different supportinstitutions would have to function within a coherent structure in order to offer the most effective guidance for thedevelopment of schools



and schooling. This need for a coherent structure became a phenomenon in its own right and was one of theprinciples on which legislation concerning the support structure was based. The Education Support Structure Actwas the result of discussions over many years between school organisations and the government about howcoherence in the activities of the support agencies could best be realised.

The education support structure in the Netherlands is made up of two types of institutes: those that provide generaleducational support and those that have a specific mission. Among the general educational support institutes aresome 65 school counselling services (SBDs), which operate at a local or regional level. Services offered by theSBDs range from individual psychological testing and advice to helping schools develop remedial teachingprogrammes and local instructional materials. In general SBDs are of a 'neutral' character in the sense that they arenot affiliated to, or represent any of the religious denominations (Catholic, Protestant, non-denominational) thatplay an important role in many aspects of Dutch education. In addition, there are three national educationaladvisory centres (LPCs) Unlike the SBDs, these offer their services (throughout the country) only to schools of theparticular denominations they represent. The services offered by these centres focus on secondary education andon structural and organisational problems.

The second type of educational support system has a more specific mission. It consists of three national instituteswhich focus on the development and improvement of the education system through research, measurement ofeducational achievement, and curriculum development. These institutes are, respectively, the National Institute forEducational Research (SVO), the National Institute for Educational Measurement (CITO) and the NationalInstitute for Curriculum Development (SLO).

CITO develops and administers tests for national examinations and for individual schools. It processes test resultsand reports the outcomes to schools, parents and pupils. For two years CITO, together with SVO, has also beenengaged in the national assessment of educational achievement. CITO is responsible for developing andadministering the assessment instruments and for reporting the results, while SVO conducts the research whichaids the interpretation and use of the findings of the assessment programmes.

SLO's task is the development of general curricula for the schools. The adjective 'general' should be stressed here,because, due to the constitutionally anchored principle of freedom of education in the Netherlands, a national andpublicly financed institute like SLO cannot prescribe in detail the form and content of school curricula. Therefore,SLO develops a broad



curricular framework for almost every subject area in primary and secondary education in such a way thatindividual schools can implement the curricula in accordance with their own educational philosophy.

Organisation of Research in the Netherlands

The research carried out in the Netherlands falls into four categories, according to the sources through which it isfinanced.

Research Financed by Universities.The primary financial source is called the 'Conditionally Funded Research Program' (VFO). It covers the right toresearch time granted to university lecturers who are on the permanent staff and participate in a researchprogramme. About 40% of their time is available for carrying out research if they are a member of an officiallyapproved research programme. These research programmes are evaluated every five years. Criteria for evaluationare output (publications) and coherence of the programme. There are about 16 conditionally funded researchprogrammes in educational sciences in the Netherlands.

Research Funded by the Institute for Educational Research (SVO)The Institute for Educational Research was instituted in 1965 by the Dutch Ministry of Education and Science asthe Foundation for Educational Research (SVO, after its Dutch initials). As a result of the Education Support Act(WOV) in January 1987, SVO became part of the Education Support Structure under its present name.

The Education Support Structure and SVO

SVO can be compared to a national Science Council on the one hand, and to a research contracting agency on theother. The leading principle in SVO's activities is that of the customer-contractor relationship. The main customersare the nation's four Schools Councils, on which both school practitioners and the national government arerepresented. Both parties are entitled to 40% of SVO's annual budget of approximately 7 million ECUs. Theremaining 20% is used for 'fundamental strategic research' on SVO's own initiative. This latter type of research isoriented toward theory development and evaluation.

Most policy and practice oriented research is carried out by five university-based educational research institutes.About 75% of all educational research in the Netherlands is channelled via SVO. However, it is part of SVO's taskto coordinate all educational research. Decision-making takes place through SVO's Board of Directors, on whicheducational practitioners, the government



and the research community are all represented. It is SVO's explicit responsibility to establish researchprogrammes for policy and practice oriented research.

Documentary Support

Apart from programming, coordinating, assessing and funding research, SVO offers documentary assistance. SVOcoordinates all documentation activities for educational research within the national education support structure.The Documentation Department enters research findings in the national Dutch database DION. SVO alsoparticipates at several levels in the European Documentation and Information Service (EUDISED) of the Councilof Europe.

The Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)NWO is the organisation for fundamental research. NWO consists of 34 foundations, one of which is thefoundation for pedagogical research. One of the five divisions of this foundation concerns research in education.About 5% of the total budget is spent on research in the social sciences (9 million ECU) but only about 100,000ECU is spent on educational research. Individual researchers may submit a research proposal on their owninitiative through a university department or a research institute. This will normally concern research that is of afundamental character. The proposal is judged by peers.

Miscellaneous OrganisationsThe fourth source constitutes a variety of funding agents, including government grants from the Ministry ofEducation and Science and other Ministries, but also local authorities and industry. In the last few years anincreasing number of research projects have fallen into this category due to government policy for decentralisation.

Discussion.

One of the main problems for educational researchers in the Netherlands is that it is very hard to obtain fundingfor basic research, because researchers cannot submit a research proposal on their own initiative to the SVO. Mostof the educational research funding is spent on applied research. The consequences of this are less theory buildingand more short-term solutions for educational problems. A second urgent problem is the decrease in fundingprovided to educational research by the Ministry of Education and Science.



6 Educational Research in the Nordic Countries

Mats Ekholm

The five Nordic statesDenmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Swedenhave altogether about 23 millioninhabitants. About 4.5 million inhabitants of these five countries are students of comprehensive and secondaryschools. The school systems are rather similar in the five countries. All of them have a simple structure. Mostchildren start school the year when they become seven years old, but a school start at six years of age is acceptablein more than one of the countries. Pre-school systems are developed in all five of the countries, as the proportionof parents that have their work outside the home is comparatively high. In 1990 87% of 25-54 year old males inDenmark were employed. The figures for women in the same age group were 80% in Denmark, 84% in Finland,76% in Norway and 90% in Sweden. At the base of the school systems there is a comprehensive school for allchildren that runs for nine or ten years. The differentiation of the students begins when the students are more thanfifteen years old, when they attend secondary schools. Secondary schools are seen as important parts of the schoolsystem and are open to all students who are leaving the comprehensive schools in most of the countries. A largemajority of each year-group of young people go to the secondary school level for two or three years of study afterthe comprehensive school.

Comprehensive and secondary education costs about 50 billion US$ per year in the five countries. By comparison,research funding that is given to support the understanding of the school processes and to stimulate educationalinnovation is extremely small. In Sweden, where the largest investment in research on education occurs, a total ofabout 30 million SEK were spent in 1990 on research in the school area where about 2000 times that figure wasused for school services.



Approaches to Educational Research

The aim of research in education is to explain what happens when people participate in educational processes. In abroad sense the explanations are found by researchers using three different means. In one case, explanations arefound as a result of predictions. The researcher uses the existing body of knowledge and presents his prediction ofwhat will happen. If the prediction is proved right it supports the existing knowledge. In another case, theresearcher is concerned with understanding the educational processes as they are. Participating and observing aswell as questioning the actors in the educational process is the usual basis for this type of research activity. Thethird approach to finding explanations is to make changes in the present situation. By helping new actions to occurthe researcher may be able to detect what forces were maintaining the status quo or to find out the relativestrengths of different forces that were working at the same time.

Looking at the scene of educational research in the Nordic countries the three approaches seem to be differentiallyused. The most common means of advancing knowledge is to combine the understanding and predictive traditions.Judging from the last three years' annual meetings of the NFPF (Nordic Society of Educational Researchers)researchers in this part of the world conduct numerous studies in which they report on their understanding ofeducational and schooling processes on the basis of theoretical and empirical studies, where many of these studiesare based on data from interviews and from questionnaires. Reports from research along action research lines aremuch less frequent. The topics of the research reflect to a great extent what is going on in the schools. Research ontraditional didactics, philosophy of education, educational psychology and educational sociology appears in all theNordic countries, although the research that is done in Iceland is small-scale research and often carried out in othercountries by Icelandic researchers. Didactics of different subjects, curriculum studies, new technology andeducation, democracy and education, education in early childhood, school management, school improvement,evaluation in schools, education and society, historical perspectives on education and on schools are examples oftopics that have rallied numerous Nordic researchers during recent annual meetings.

Critical Research Tradition

Research on education linked to the processes of schooling is mainly done in universities or university-basedresearch centres. During recent decades researchers in the Nordic countries have been interested in criticalperspectives on the field of education. Inspired by the writings of Habermas and Ziehe, the thinking of parts of theresearch body have been charac-



terised by materialistically based analysis of the structures of society, dominant ideologies and socialisation inrelation to educational organisations and curricula. More sociologically inspired research (a long line of suchresearchers includes Bauer & Borg, 1974, in Denmark and Gesser, 1976, in Sweden) clarified the functions ofschools in a capitalist country and found that the reproduction of societal patterns between classes was still quitepotent. Several studies have been carried out in this tradition during recent years. Repeated studies of the pattern ofdifferences between socioeconomic groups (for instance Arnman and Jnssons studies in Sweden of socialsegregation) show that very few changes have occurred over the decades. Today the body of knowledge that thecritical school has developed since the fifties is embedded in a common language as a base for understanding thepresent situation, but very little is done to attack the roots of the very stable patterns.

This line of research has in a way worked hand in hand with research on other social injustices like the inequalitybetween the sexes. This kind of 'misery research' (see for instance Bjerrum-Nielsen & Larsen, 1985) in genderresearch and research about socio-economic patterns has been perceived as research with a somewhat pessimistictone. This research has mainly used research methods that have helped the researcher to understand and describethe situation. A more optimistic line of research that came out of the same basic ideas on society and education,based its actions on the assumption 'that a society characterised by social, economic and political tensions andcontradictions cannot determinate its institutions. In educational institutions there is the possibility of establishingemancipatory pedagogic practice' (Reisby, 1991: 8).

Within the 'optimistic' group of researchers the Dane, Illeris (1981) used challenging and inspiring developmentwork on the theme of project work learning methods, also described as problem-oriented learning methods, as hisresearch tools. Illeris showed that alternative ways of organising time, students and teachers are possible inordinary school settings. In the project work method there is also strong emphasis placed on internal democracy.Illeris (1973) participated as a researcher in the improvement of a teachers' college, where the early use of largegroup democracy was studied intensively. Several other studies have followed in the same tradition where thedevelopment of school improvement projects are described from the point of view of the participants (see e.g.Bjerg, 1976; Skyum-Nielsen, 1985; Vasstrm, 1985; Ekholm, 1990). Like other studies in the same tradition, thestrong involvement of the researchers in the change process has led to de-emphasising data collection strategies.The research examines the firsthand experience of an ongoing change and offers a critical analysis of the processitself. The data reported in these studies usually is drawn from



interviews and fieldnotes of observations in schools during a period of one or two years.

Action research strategies have been used in many fields other than school improvement. One of the mostimportant studies made by educational researchers was Trankell's (1973) study of the complex processes of onelocal society. In Sweden, Gustafsson et al. (1985) have made an interesting study of the action research processitself. Two groups of action researchers were studied and care was taken to note the way in which people at theschools reacted to the strategies being used by each group. The primary data source was interviewing. One of thegroups began their action research by offering well structured work tasks to the teachers. In the early stages of thisprocess, the group used a rather formal kind of leadership. Agreements were made and steps were formalised. Theother group started from tasks that were less structured and the researchers employed an informal mode ofleadership. Analysis of the interviews showed that both strategies were successful, but only when they fitted theculture of the local school. Where there was a lack of fit, only temporary results were achieved.

Constructive School Improvement Studies

Some Norwegian studies belong to the same action research tradition. Hgmo et al. (1981) were involved in thecreation of a curriculum and school organisation that fitted the local situation in an arctic area of Norway. Theydescribe the improvement process from the inside. Their studies have helped people in schools to understand howschools have successfully dealt with the problem of alienation and low motivation of the students. Raaen (1984)who evaluated this research approach describes how schools improved their organisationa

Educational Research in Europe

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