The three ages of education policy

This text published by the CNAM is part of a series of reports published by the Centre national d'étude des systèmes scolaires (Cnesco) on the theme of Governance of educational policies.

Since the Liberation, France's education policies have gone through three distinct phases, with three specific models of policy-making emerging in succession.

1. The age of the public policy community

• Education policies are essentially shaped by a closed, homogeneous and relatively stable network of players, organized around a clearly identified sector of public action (national education): the public policy community is made up of ministerial players, trade unions, parents' associations and a constellation of specialized associations.
  
  
• Education is governed according to a corporatist and bureaucratic logic: the same rules are negotiated between the ministry and its national professional interlocutors, and are supposed to apply in the same way throughout the country.

2. The age of "decommunization

• As a result of major structural transformations since the 1970s (internationalization, Europeanization, territorialization, etc.), we are witnessing a gradual deconstruction of the previous model through various processes.
  
  
• This deconstruction involves the desectorization, denationalization, deregulation, desetatization and even dematerialization of education policy-making.
  
  
• Contested, it is a source of great tension among those involved in the reforms.

3. The age of fast-politics

• This age already exists in other countries, but there has been no research on the subject in France. There are many indications, however, that France is no exception.
  
  
• Fast-politics refers to a way of making public policy within ever-shorter timeframes. The government of education is accelerated, even carried out on an emergency basis.
  
  
• Education policy focuses on certain reforms (of teaching content, teachers and management) in a more neoliberal perspective.
  
  
• It relies on networks of global players who put forward miracle solutions drawn from international comparisons.

The dominant mode of production, or the one particularly emphasized by those in power, plays an important framing role in the implementation of a reform. This framing concerns :

• The positioning and room for manoeuvre left to the various players.
• The power relationships at work in the public action system as a whole.
• how the players are coordinated.

For the full report: Pons, X. (2022). Les trois âges des politiques d'éducation. Contexte, fabrique et mise en oeuvre des réformes. Paris: Cnesco-Cnam.