(New) Accountability and Governance in Education – (New)AGE

In contrast with studies conducted by English-speaking researchers who have frequently focused on countries where accountability policies have been massively introduced, the (New)AGE study is based on a comparison focusing on the widely contrasting cases of France and Quebec. These two countries exhibit crucial differences with respect to 1) mode of governance (with a French system more centralised and less fragmented than the Canadian/Quebec system) 2) degree of development of accountability policies (more formalised at Quebec) 3) degree of influence of Anglo-Saxon-dominated transnational discourses (higher and earlier at Quebec).

This choice has allowed us not only to extend this topic of research to other countries but also to be able to document in greater detail than previous studies the variety of ways in which educational systems interpret and enact transnational discourses.

We used different qualitative methods to collect appropriate data: analyses of different types of documents (official texts, institutional documents, press releases, journal articles), observations in schools and school administrations and interviews with actors at different institutional positions within the educational system.

The research produced several results. The analysis of long-term trajectories of accountability policies shows, instead of the introduction of a neoliberal logic in the education systems due to the impact of New Public Management, a reinforcement of the power of the state. The analysis of mediations shows the significant co-construction of accountability policies by intermediate local authorities in each of the two systems. However, this co-construction has had contrasting effects in the two countries. While at Quebec, it has led to the development of new forms of pedagogical management by the local school boards, in France the policies developed by Academies at the regional level sometimes dilute national policies and other times reinforce them. The “enlisting” power of accountability instruments is also very different from one system to the other: they have little impact on teachers and their pedagogical practices in France while the opposite is true in Quebec.

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11 articles in peer-reviewed scientifif journals.
1 collective book.
31 communications and conferences.
1 article in a professionnal review
Organisation of 7 international meetings

The aim of the (New)AGE project is to compare the various forms of governance of education based on policies of accountability that have been implemented in France and Quebec for the last fifteen years. The global purpose is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the processes and conditions that influence the institutionalization and enactment of these new forms of governance and to propose a theoretical model to account for their expected or unexpected effects. In order to do this we will analyse the dynamics of policies of accountability in each educational system and the various national and local translations of international doctrines such as Accountability and New Public Management.
 
The research has three main objectives.
1.Understanding and comparing the trajectory of policies of accountability in each society and the forms of governance implemented in each educational system beyond the diffusion of the transnational models that inspired them.
2.Analysing and comparing at various levels (national, regional, local) the role of actors and organisations in the reception, the recontextualisation and the appropriation of these policies. This objective is related to our hypothesis concerning the fact that the legitimacy and concrete configurations of accountability policies are strongly dependant on these processes of mediation.
3.Analysing and comparing the effects of the various policy tools and instruments (indicators, plans, contracts) used for implementation and of the ways in which they are used on the effectiveness and the legitimacy of these new policies.
 
These objectives require a specific and pluralist theoretical framework -that of a sociology of public action in education- which borrows theories and concepts from sociology (sociology of education, of regulation, of organisations, of professions and of knowledge), policy analysis in political science (research on policy tools, governance theories, State theory) and education (testing, evaluation and measurement in education, teachers' professional identities).
 
The research is based on qualitative methods of analysis: semi-directive interviews with about 200 actors of the educational systems of the two countries, analysis of official documents and professional literature, exploitation of the dispatches from a press agency that specialises in the education sector (for France) and analysis of internal documents from various organisations. Some common tools will be defined to conduct the research such as common grids for interviews.
 
The research will address several levels of analysis: international (through a literature review), national, regional and local. In each system, three areas have been selected for our field investigations (three “commissions scolaires” in Quebec and three “académies” in France) according to various criteria (institutional design, results and performances, degree of involvement in a policy of accountability, accessibility and feasibility of the research) to allow us to analyze different significant situations. In each area, a more in-depth analysis of a small number of schools will be conducted.
 
The research will be conducted by five French and five Quebecois researchers from the CRIFPE (University of Montréal) and the OSC (CNRS, Sciences Po). Two technical assistants will also participate in the study conducted by the French team.