Neo-Nationalism and Universities. Populists, Autocrats, and the Future of Higher Education

in European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology (2022)

Towards a European model of collective skill formation? Analysing the European Alliance for Apprenticeships

in Journal of Education Policy (2021)

Research governance through public funding instruments: Institutional change of educational research in the European Union and England, 1984-2014

Doctoral thesis (2018)

Supranational and national public research funding instruments have been recognizing considerable attention from the political agenda in the last decades. Either as forms to target specific themes and ... [more ▼]

Supranational and national public research funding instruments have been recognizing considerable attention from the political agenda in the last decades. Either as forms to target specific themes and priorities for disciplinary fields or to better allocate public funding, they are essential instruments in the contemporary research governance. While most research literature has been focused on studying either the political choice related to the implementation and evolution of a specific research funding instrument or the impact of single forms on the behavior of organizations and individuals, less attention has been paid to the overall funding arrangements that have been shaping, not only higher education and research systems, but also disciplinary fields, as for the case of educational research. Using a multilevel standpoint, I study the creation and development of three of the most critical contemporary public research funding instruments in two different settings, the European Union and England, and their impact in the field of European and English educational research. At the European Union level, I analyze the creation and evolution of the European's Union Framework Programme (EUFP) (1984-2013), in particular from the moment educational research started to be funded (1994), and look at its impact in the cognitive development and structural organization of the European educational research. At the English level, I analyze the creation and evolution of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) (2000-2011) and the Research Assessment Exercise/Research Excellence Framework (RAE/REF) (1986-2014) and look at their impact in the political, disciplinary and organizational levels of educational research. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is twofold: to analyze the creation and evolution of the supranational and national public research funding instruments, directly or indirectly targeted to the field of educational research, and to analyze the impact of the research funding instruments at the political, disciplinary and organizational levels of European and English educational research. Due to the continued institutionalization of these public research funding instruments I expect to find a gradual transformative change in educational research. Theoretically anchored in the new-institutional thinking – historical, sociological and Scandinavian institutionalism - and in the political sociology of policy instruments and instrumentation approach, I conceptualize public research funding instruments as institutions with cultural-cognitive (ideas), normative (norms and values), and regulative (formal and informal rules) dimensions. Moreover, I apply the most recent contributions of the new-institutional thinking to the field of higher education and explore the concepts of nested organizational fields and the concept of the university as a strategic actor in order to understand the way research organizations engage and react to public research funding instruments. Methodologically, I use a mixed-method sequential explanatory research design. The first phase of the study aimed to understand the creation and development of the three funding instruments, taking into consideration the available data related to the instrument itself and the data related to educational research. In order to do this, I have used both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Qualitatively, I analyzed policy documents related to the EUFP, TLRP and RAE/REF and developed a content analysis from a sample of EUFP funded research projects for the field of educational research (N=99) and from a sample of TLRP funded research projects (N=54), in order to examine the creation and development of the funding instruments and their impact ar the European and English disciplinary level. Quantitatively, I use social network analysis and applied centrality measures to the participating research organizations in the European educational research (N=500) to explore the interconnections between research organizations in their regional, national, and organizational diversity across Europe. Furthermore, I locate the multidisciplinary field of educational research in the RAE/REF and analyze the submission behavior (staff, outputs, funding) of Schools of Education over time (N=239). The second phase of the study was dedicated to interviewing 22 experts in the field of English educational research. Overall, the results show a gradual transformative change in the cultural-cognitive and normative dimensions (EUFP, TLRP, RAE/REF), while maintaining continuous stability (EUFP, TLRP) in the regulative dimension of the public research funding instruments. In specific, I show how the ideas of knowledge-society, internationalization, and Europeanization (EUFP), evidence-based policy and practice (TLRP), and quality, excellence and impact (RAE/REF) have been gradually transforming the development of the research funding instruments. Additionally, I show how the funding instruments have enacted the norms and values of international collaboration, competition, relevance, capacity, usefulness, evaluation, and performativity to the field of European and English educational research. Because research funding instruments are incentive-based forms, their regulative and legislative basis is rather weak, displaying signs of continuous stability, except for the RAE/REF due to its continuous formalization, standardization, transparency, and growing concentration of funding policy, framed as a robust research evaluation system. When exploring the effects of the public research funding instruments I delve into the disciplinary and organizational levels to find a gradual transformative institutional change in the field of educational research mediated by both intended and unintended consequences of the policy instruments. At the European level, I find a strong relationship between the themes and priorities of the EUFP and the funded research projects in educational research, showing the role of the EUFP in the creation of the broader political project of the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area. Moreover, the social network analysis shows that while the size of the countries helps to explain the number of research organizations that participate in the EUFP, the capacity to become central and influential is linked connected to organizational factors. Indeed, universities from medium and small countries are relatively more influential, albeit with stratification manifest across the EUFPs. Exploring the position of the English Schools of Education, while England is the country with the largest number of participating research organizations, almost none of them are central or influential in the network, showing the role of England as an exporter of internationalization. At the English level, I show how the disciplinary dynamics of educational research interact and mediate the impact of the TLRP. For the case of the RAE/REF, I find decreases in the number of academic staff whose research was submitted for peer review assessment; the research article as the preferred publication format, and the rise of quantitative analysis and applied research. The policy instrument invoked a highly strategic behavior amongst the Schools of Education, with such reactivity demonstrated (1) by the increasing submission selectivity in the number of staff whose publications were submitted for peer review as a form of reverse engineering, and (2) by the rise of the research article as the preferred output as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In conclusion, I discuss how the institutionalization of the public research funding instruments represent a case of epistemic governance; contribute to the Matthew effect in science; confer actorhood to research organizations and trigger highly strategic forms of behavior and unintended consequences, resulting in a gradual transformative change of European and English educational research. Because they interact and are mediated by different levels, the study shows the multi-composite character of educational research governance. [less ▲]

European Educational Research (Re)Constructed

Book published by Symposium Books - First Edition (2018)

This book examines contemporary educational research and its governance, addressing key questions via a multidisciplinary theoretical framework of comparative institutional analysis with original data and ... [more ▼]

This book examines contemporary educational research and its governance, addressing key questions via a multidisciplinary theoretical framework of comparative institutional analysis with original data and applying multiple methods. The authors explore and explain important changes in the governance of educational research and the contents of scholarship in education and related disciplines across Europe since the 1990s. This volume synthesizes findings from a multi-year comparative research project, including in-depth empirical case studies of three distinct educational research cultures evolving in Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The authors reconstruct and compare changing conceptualizations of educational research, embedded in increasingly internationalized contexts of research, and examine shifts in its governance, including patterns of funding, publication, and evaluation. They examine the producers of European educational research and the distinct role of the European Union in constructing a European Educational Research Area, in establishing cross-border networks, and in (re)shaping educational research agendas. Through innovative empirical analysis of programs of research on various levels and education researchers’ collaborations in scientific networks, they provide insights into (supra)national dynamics in education-related scholarship. Theory-guided content analysis of research projects funded by leading national funding agencies and by the most highly developed supranational research funding instrument – the EU Framework Programme – enables the authors to embed findings on Germany, the United Kingdom, and Norway in a broader European perspective. [less ▲]

How does research evaluation impact educational research? Exploring intended and unintended consequences of research assessment in the United Kingdom, 1986–2014

in European Educational Research Journal (2017), 16(6), 820-842

Research evaluation systems in many countries aim to improve the quality of higher education. Among the first such systems, the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) from 1986 is now the Research ... [more ▼]

Research evaluation systems in many countries aim to improve the quality of higher education. Among the first such systems, the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) from 1986 is now the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Highly-institutionalized, it holds research(ers) accountable. While studies describe the effects at different levels, this longitudinal analysis examines the gradual institutionalization and (un)intended consequences from 1986 to 2014. First, we analyze historically RAE/REF's rational, formalization, standardization, and transparency, framing it as a strong research evaluation system. Second, we locate the multidisciplinary field of education, analyzing submission behavior (staff, outputs, funding) of Departments of Education over time. We find: decreases in submitted staff; the research article as preferred publication format; the rise of quantitative analysis; and high and stable concentration of funding among few Departments. Policy instruments invoke varied responses, wit such reactivity shown by the increasing selectivity of submitted staff as a form of reverse engineering and the research article as the preferred output as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The funding concentration manifests an intended consequence, facilitating greater disparities between Departments of Education. These findings emphasize how research assessment impacts the structural organization and cognitive development of educational research in the UK. [less ▲]

Book Review - Higher Education Governance and Policy Change in Western Europe. International challenges to historical institutions

in Journal of Education Policy (2015), 31(1), 2016

Educação de Jovens e Adultos em Portugal e no Brasil: Políticas, Práticas e Atores

Book published by IEUL (2014)

Is Adult Education and Training Policy (1999-2011) in Portugal based on a Dilemma? The Critical Construction of the Employable Learner

in Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences (2014)

The concepts of competences and employability have been oftenly used in educational policy discourses. They have been based on a category, the employable learner both in the European Union and Portugal ... [more ▼]

The concepts of competences and employability have been oftenly used in educational policy discourses. They have been based on a category, the employable learner both in the European Union and Portugal. This paper set out to discuss how is the adult learner constructed within adult education and training policy, that is, under two programmes launched since 1999 in Portugal within the European Union's lifelong learning guidelines. A qualitative and interpretative approach was preferred for this paper. Two national policy discourses were subjected to content analysis. The conclusions state an ambiguous understanding of the employable learner. [less ▲]

Higher Education in Portugal in the Last Decades: Old Trends, Recent Challenges

in SGEM2014 Conference Proceedings (2014)

In this paper we analyze the evolution of Higher Education in the last three decades and the effects of the recent Portuguese economic crisis, officially started at 2011 with the intervention of ... [more ▼]

In this paper we analyze the evolution of Higher Education in the last three decades and the effects of the recent Portuguese economic crisis, officially started at 2011 with the intervention of International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. Based on the statistical data produced by national and international organizations we show that the process of “massification” of higher education in Portugal is late compared with other European countries – it only started in the middle eighties - and it did not question the elitist character of this educational level. We also argue that the present economic crisis may contribute to strengthen it elitist character. [less ▲]

Strangers in the Classroom? Learning ways of being and teaching in Education and Training Courses in Portugal

in SGEM2014 Conference on Psychology and Psychiatry, Sociology and Healthcare, Education, Volume: Vol. 2 (2014)

This paper discusses the social representation and the teacher identity in Education and Training Courses, one of the most discredit and stigmatized educational provision in Portugal which aims to combat ... [more ▼]

This paper discusses the social representation and the teacher identity in Education and Training Courses, one of the most discredit and stigmatized educational provision in Portugal which aims to combat school failure and dropout. For this purpose we interviewed 10 teachers of Education and Training Courses on three public schools in Lisbon. The findings show that teachers shared a positive social representation despite raised major problems on the functioning and on the attributes of student population. This positive view of Education and Training Courses is due to the emotional linkage that re-shapes the teacher identity and challenges the professional role and practices on a daily basis. [less ▲]