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Editor's Notes

• #3: Restructuring as NPM strategies. Decentralization means in many cases the administrative decentralization of finance from the state to municipalities. Ear-marked money for education from the state gets abolished. Deregulation means control of actions gets replaced by control of results and target setting. Managerialism : school principales as responsible for their school to municipalities. Competition markets: choice of parents between schools Performativity : high-stakes testing and publishing of results. The literature (PISA, Education at a Glance, etc.) speaks of an overall trend towards the introduction of accountability mechanisms in Europe and OECD countries in general as one NPM strategy among others to streamline an apparently oversized and inefficient bureaucratic public sector and to contain costs. Main result, conclusion of my talk: However, there are many more accountability mechanisms in place combined with a huge variety of teachers experiences. The same measures can be valued quite differently by teachers. Despite this variety, what emerges as a common theme among teachers, that accountability no matter of which type is not really an effective means to solver their problems and concerns.
• #4: Main aim of the case studies was to facilitate our understanding of how teachers have experienced different waves of educational reform and how they cope with new social demands. The case studies were therefore not geared towards drawing generalizations about the overall situation of teachers in each country but rather to gain insights into how teachers' worklifes are affected by socio-demographic shifts and policy reform. Interest in comparison consists in mapping the space of possible teachers' experiences and reactions to welfare restructuring. In which ways do teachers feel accountable and how do they experienced different forms of accountability mechanisms? The qualitative case studies are therefore not representative of each country in question. When speaking of English, Irish, Portuguese teachers, this is done to identify each case but not to be representative for the national situation.
• #5: Comparing welfare regimes in Europe the literature speaks of a certain convergence towards stalled social protection spending. However, taking into account the historical trajectories it gets apparent that behind this supposedly global and homogeneous neoliberal restructuring trends there lurks a certain variety of welfare and educational agendas, reforms, schedules. Restructuring measures England: 88 Education Act, Ofsted, League tables, National Curr. 97/98 Lit.; 99 PRP Sweden: 89 Munici. Teachers; 90-4 Quasi-markets independent schools, 92 voucher system, 93 state subsidies as lump sums. Welfare and education system buildup: Dictatorship until: Spain (1975), Greece (1974), Portugal (1974) Modern education system: Spain (1990 LOGSE), Portugal (1986 Edu Act), Greece (democratization, welfare buildup 81-85: abolish school inspectorate, new textbooks, teacher edu in university)‏ This de-synchronizity has also consequences for research : not to import concepts from the English-speaking, northern countries assuming that the southern welfare states are northern types in an inferior stage of development. E.g. decentralization.
• #6: Case of Ireland: recent reforms 2000 Education Welfare Act, 2003 SEN bill, 2004 Nat. Council SEN. Teachers have to familiarize themselves with assessment and diagnostic procedures, with providing for a wide range of special needs or the needs of children who are learning through a second language. They have to document that a child persistently fails despite intervention before they can claim additional support. They have to detect all sorts of abuses or child neglect.
• #11: Finland: introduction of the Framework Curriculum in 1994 which abolished external evaluation enforces and strengthens teachers working morale. Teachers autonomy results in strong professional culture of collaboration and mutual control between peers. Sweden: also stuck out a more collaborative approach to education, class work, the new requirements of dealing with the municipalities and voucher system. Ireland: specially assigned senior staff to guide and introduce junior teachers. Specially assigned collaboration meetings and planning. The profound reforms of the education system is only possible by fostering team-spirit and collaboration between teachers. Spain: observation of how staff resists attempts of the principal to document and open up what teachers do in their class (teachers diary). School principals elected by staff which grants them little “authority” when dealing with their colleagues.