ceps Journal
Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal
Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij
Vol.2 | No2 | Year 2012
Editor in chief / Glavna in odgovorna urednica	Igor Radeka - Odjel za pedagogiju,
Milena Valencic Zuljan - Pedagoška fakulteta,	Sveučilište u Zadru, Zadar, Croatia
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	Pasi Sahlberg - Director General of Center for
	International Mobility and Cooperation, Helsinki,
editorial Board / uredniški odbor	Finland
Michael W. Apple - Department of Educational	Igor Saksida - Pedagoška fakulteta,
Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin- Madison,	Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Madison, Wisconsin, USA	Michael Schratz - Faculty of Education,
Cesar Birzea - Faculty of Philosophy,	University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania	Keith S. Taber - Faculty of Education,
Branka Čagran - Pedagoška fakulteta,	University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Univerza v Mariboru, Maribor, Slovenija	Shunji Tanabe - Faculty of Education,
Iztok Devetak - Pedagoška fakulteta,	Kanazawa University, Kakuma, Kanazawa, Japan
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	Beatriz Gabriela Tomšič Čerkez - Pedagoška
Slavko Gaber - Pedagoška fakulteta,	fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	Jon Torei Jonasson - School of Education,
Grozdanka Gojkov - Filozofski fakultet,	University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Novi Sad, Srbija	Teresa Torres Eca - International Society for
Jan De Grooe - Professor at the College of	Education Through Art (member); collaborates
Europe, Bruges, Belgium and at the University	with Centre for Research in Education (CIED),
of Tilburg, the Netherlands; Government	University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Commissioner for Universities, Belgium,	Zoran Velkovski - Faculty of Philosophy, SS.
Flemish Community; President of the „European	Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje,
Association for Education Law and Policy"	Macedonia
Andy Hargreaves - Lynch School of Education,	Janez Vogrinc - Pedagoška fakulteta,
Boston College, Boston, USA	Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Jana Kalin - Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v	Robert Waagenar - Faculty of Arts,
Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Alenka Kobolt - Pedagoška fakulteta,	Pavel Zgaga - Pedagoška fakulteta,
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Bruno Losito - Facolta di Scienze della	
Formazione, Universita' degli Studi Roma Tre,	Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij
Roma, Italy	Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal
Ljubica Marjanovic Umek - Filozofska fakulteta,	issn 2232-2647 (online edition)
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	issn 1855-9719 (printed edition)
Wolegang Mitter - Fachbereich	Publication frequency: 4 issues per year
Erziehungswissenschaften, Johann Wolfgang	subject: Teacher Education, Educational Science
Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main,	Publisher: Faculty of Education,
Deutschland	University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Hannele Niemi - Faculty of Behavioural Sciences,	
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland	Managing editors: Mira Metljak and Romina
Mojca Pecek Čuk - Pedagoška fakulteta,	Plešec Gasparič / cover and layout design: Roman
Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija	Ražman / Typeset: Igor Cerar / Print: Littera Picta
Ana Pešikan-Avramovic- Filozofski fakultet,	© 2012 Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana
Univerzitet u Beogradu, Beograd, Srbija	
ceps Journal
Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij
The CEPS Journal is an open-access, peer-reviewed Journal devoted to publishing research papers in different fields of education, including scientific.
Aims & Scope
The CEPS Journal is an international peer-reviewed Journal with an international board. It publishes original empirical and theoretical studies from a wide variety of academic disciplines related to the field of Teacher Education and Educational Sciences; in particular, it will support comparative studies in the field. Regional context is stressed but the Journal remains open to researchers and contributors across all European countries and worldwide. There are four issues per year, two in English and two in Slovenian (with English abstracts). Issues are focused on specific areas but there is also space for non-focused articles and book reviews.
About the Publisher
The University of Ljubljana is one of the largest universities in the region (see www.uni-lJ.si) and its Faculty of Education (see www.pef.uni-lj.si), established in 1947, has the leading role in teacher education and education sciences in Slovenia. It is well positioned in regional and European cooperation programmes in teaching and research. A publishing unit oversees the dissemination of research results and informs the interested public about new trends in the broad area of teacher education and education sciences; to date, numerous monographs and publications have been published, not Just in Slovenian but also in English.
In 2001, the Centre for Educational Policy Studies (CEPS; see http://ceps.pef.uni-lj.si) was established within the Faculty of Education to build upon experience acquired in the broad reform of the national educational system during the period of social
transition in the 1990s, to upgrade expertise and to strengthen international cooperation. CEPS has established a number of fruitful contacts, both in the region - particularly with similar institutions in the countries of the Western Balkans - and with interested partners in Eu member states and worldwide.
Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij Je mednarodno recenzirana revija, z mednarodnim uredniškim odborom in s prostim dostopom. Namenjena je objavljanju člankov s področja izobraževanja učiteljev in edukacijskih ved.
Cilji in namen
Revija je namenjena obravnavanju naslednjih področij: poučevanje, učenje, vzgoja in izobraževanje, socialna pedagogika, specialna in rehabilitacijska pedagogika, predšolska pedagogika, edukacijske politike, supervizija, poučevanje slovenskega jezika in književnosti, poučevanje matematike, računalništva, naravoslovja in tehnike, poučevanje družboslovja in humanistike, poučevanje na področju umetnosti, visokošolsko izobraževanje in izobraževanje odraslih. Poseben poudarek bo namenjen izobraževanju učiteljev in spodbujanju njihovega profesionalnega razvoja.
V reviji so objavljeni znanstveni prispevki, in sicer teoretični prispevki in prispevki, v katerih so predstavljeni rezultati kvantitavnih in kvalitativnih empiričnih raziskav. Še posebej poudarjen je pomen komparativnih raziskav.
Revija izide štirikrat letno. Dve številki sta v angleškem jeziku, dve v slovenskem. Prispevki v slovenskem jeziku imajo angleški povzetek. Številke so tematsko opredeljene, v njih pa je prostor tudi za netematske prispevke in predstavitve ter recenzije novih publikacij.
Contents
5 Editorial
— Slavko Gaber, Ljubica Marjanovic Umek, Pavel Zgaga AND Živa Kos Kecojevic
Focus
9 Policy Reform Efforts and Equal Opportunity -An Evidence-Based Link? An Analysis of Current Sector Reforms in the Austrian School System
Prizadevanja na področju zakonodajnih reform in enake možnosti - povezava, ki je dokazljiva? Analiza trenutnih področnih reform v avstrijskem šolskem sistemu
—	CoRINNA GeFFERT, SoNJA BaUER-HoEMANN AND StEEAN Thomas Hofmann
31 Education System Reforms in an Unstable Political Situation: The Case of Serbia in the First Decade of the 21st Century
Sistemske reforme na področju vzgoje in izobraževanja v politično nestabilnem času: Primer Srbije v prvem desetletju 21. stoletja
—	IvAN Ivic AND Ana Pesikan
55 A Forgotten Moment in Education Policy: A
Hungarian-Swedish Case Study from the Early 1970s
Pozabljen trenutek v edukacijskih politikah: Madžarsko-švedska študija primera iz zgodnjih 70. let prejšnjega stoletja
—	TaMAS KoZMA AND ZoLTAN ToZSER
71 The Curricular Reform of Art Education in Primary School in Slovenia in Terms of Certain Components of the European Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression
91 Kurikularna prenova slovenske likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin evropske kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja (prevod prispevka)
—	Rajka Bračun SovA AND Metoda Kemferl
109 Positions, Dispositions and Practices in Education Policy in Central and South East Europe (research in progress)
Položaji, dispozicije in prakse edukacijskih politik v osrednji in jugovzhodni Evropi (raziskava v teku) — ŽivA Kos Kecojeyic and Slavko Gaber
Varia
125 Planning and Evaluating Educational Work in Slovene Preschools
Načrtovanje in evalviranje vzgojnega dela v slovenskih vrtcih — Marcela Batistič Zorec and Andreja Hočevar
Reviews
145 Scheerens, J., Luyten, H. and Van Ravens, J. (Eds.), Perspectives on Educational Quality: Illustrative Outcomes on Primary and Secondary Schooling in the Netherlands
—	2ivA Kos KecojEvic
149 Haines, S. and Ruebain, D. (Eds.), Education, Disability and Social Policy
—	NlkA SuSTERIC
Editorial
In line with the aims of the CEPS journal, in the present edition we establish the twofold task of gaining insight into the formation of education politics, policy and research in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the reasoning behind it. We invited experts to interview former ministers of education in an effort to shed light on the structuring and practices behind important decisions, especially in countries that were, at the time when the ministers held office, facing transitional changes in political orientation, economy and society as a whole. In parallel, other authors from the region were invited to contribute papers on specific issues, drawing on national experience disclosing gaps between policy and practice.
As a result, we present five articles, the first four of which provide unique insights into national practices from the field.
In the first article, entitled "Policy Reform Efforts and Equal Opportunity - An Evidence-Based Link? An analysis of current sector reforms in the Austrian school system", Corinna Geppert, Sonja Bauer-Hofmann and Stefan Thomas Hopmann, all experts from Austria, undertake an evaluative discussion on the link between politics, policy and research in the context of the current political ambitions of Austrian political parties related to the realisation of equal opportunities in the national school system. Analysing statements by political parties and comparing them in the light of research, the authors ask whether reform efforts undertaken sustain the current state of research and what the consequences of these efforts are, while trying to understand the reasoning behind education reforms. Seventy different statements were taken and divided into eight core areas, of which the article examines four: the school structure of comprehensive schooling, all-day schooling, autonomy, and the standardisation of student achievements. Discussing each topic, the authors firstly conclude that isolated change in school structure is not sufficient to improve equality of opportunity in education, and they suggest placing the emphasis on the prevailing conditions in individual schools, instructional quality, the existence of non-school resources and further educational options. The same applies to all-day schooling, as the extended period of time alone only has a small effect and usually does not fulfil expectations. The results of research on the impact of intra-curricular and extra-curricular conditions (social and educational capital) favour the latter. On the subject of autonomy in the heavily regulated and hierarchical school system in Austria, the authors' conclusion favours greater autonomy and highlights the need to encourage individual schools to practise a client-related and need-based pedagogical process. The
last core area discussed is the standardisation of student achievements, mainly through centralised exit examinations. Research and practice offer no evidence of sustained performance improvement or improved social equality of opportunity in this area. What such standardisation does tend to do, however, is to transform negative effects of autonomy into positive effects.
In the second paper, Ivan Ivic and Ana Pesikan present education reform in the Republic of Serbia since 2000. The focus is on the two major reform waves: 2000-2003 and 2004-2005. The authors analyse why those broad educational interventions failed. From 2005 to 2010, there was a period with no major changes. The paper then presents the new phase in improving education policy in Serbia, which commenced with the adoption of the Trends in Development and Upgrading of the Quality of Education and Upbringing 2010-2020 in 2010, and with the conception and proposal of the Strategy of Education Development in Serbia to 2020+ in 2011/12. Finally, the authors outline the basic innovations in approach and conception in the new "epoch".
In their paper "A Forgotten Moment in Education Policy: A Hungarian-Swedish Case Study from the Early 1970s", Hungarian experts Tamas Kozma and Zoltan Tôzsér uniquely present the roots of important initiatives of education policy in Hungary. The presented study is based on personal memories and knowledge, primarily aiming to contribute to the understanding of the historical period of the late 1960s and early 1970s in Hungary. As part of the symbolic value of the Swedish socio-democratic movement and as an interposer between East and West, the summer university of 1971 was the only window on Western Europe for Central European countries, specifically Poland and Hungary. The salient issues at the time included the measurement of student achievements and the assessment of student results. The authors emphasise the contributions of the summer university to the improvement and development of education policy, and its undisputed impact on establishing some of the central Hungarian institutions in the field of education policy and research, such as the Hungarian Educational Research Association, the National Pedagogical Institute and the Didactics Department, as well as mentioning the role of some of important individuals in the process.
In their paper "The Curricular Reform of Art Education in Primary School in Slovenia in Terms of Certain Components of the European Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression", Rajka Bracun Sova and Metoda Kemperl offer a critical analysis of the curricular reform of art education from the perspective of curriculum theories rather than art or pedagogical theories. The authors claim that, despite the reform, the curriculum for art education does not realise selected competences of cultural awareness and expression, as
it neglects artistic literacy as well as authentic experience of art. No concrete recommendations exist on encouraging the experience and understanding of art works. This is also a fundamental difference when comparing curricula in the field of aesthetic education, specifically those of music and literature, which include a knowledge of artworks from different periods and their placement in the historical context, whereas the art class does not. Furthermore, integration is not possible due to conceptual differences and the structure of the curriculum.
The last of the focus papers presents, as an interim report, an initial analysis of interviews with former education ministers, as well as a possible methodological instrument (one of many, but relatively rarely applied) for understanding structuring in the field of education politics and policy. The article entitled "Positions, Dispositions and Practices in Education Policy in Central and South East Europe (research in progress)" aims at providing an insight into research on top decision making. The authors, Slavko Gaber and Živa Kos Kecojevic, present some of the material that has been gathered as part of an ongoing research process of understanding the structure and dynamics in the field of education, focusing especially on the level of the system. In line with these efforts, the interviews were conceptualised in collaboration with the participating experts primarily following the Bourdieuian approach in La missere du mond. With the interviews, the authors have tried to understand the conceptualisation of education policy and politics in South East Europe in the last twenty years by attempting to disclose the effects of the positions and dispositions of the participating ministers, who were all members of governments from the period after 1989 but have not held office in the last four years. The authors believe that this will help us, among other things, to reach beyond the logic of binary oppositions between policy and politics, between corrupt and heroic politicians, liberal and social reasoning, etc. At the present time, only parts of four (out of five to eight) interviews that have already taken place are presented, with the remaining interviews being scheduled to take place by the end of 2012. Ministers, as key decision makers in the field, were asked to talk about their social and political background, as well as their professional and educational experience, in the hope of disclosing their type of rationality and their reasoning regarding the conceptualisation of education politics in the last twenty years. The interviews with former ministers from Austria, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, as well a short preliminary analysis, aim to offer some insight and seek to provide ground for the further research that is to take place. At this point, the analysis is focused mainly on presenting snapshots of their positions and dispositions: family cultural capital as a background for their own cultural capital, positions
(employment positions and functions) as dispositions for education policy making (from prior employment (position) to the post of minister), positions and dispositions in practice (the main reforms during the time of the ministers' mandates). The material gathered, as well as the material yet to be collected, should serve as part of ongoing efforts to undertake a structured analysis of education policy in the region in the times of transition, transformation and metamorphoses in education.
In the present edition, the Varia section of the CEPS Journal offers a paper by two Slovene authors, Marcela Batistič Zorec and Andreja Hočevar, with the title "Planning and Evaluating Educational Work in Slovene Preschools". In the paper, the authors examine the changes in Slovene preschools after Slovenia's independence in 1991. They determine that in the socialist period the national educational programme for preschools was highly structured, goal-and content-oriented and subject to schoolization. In 1999, the Curriculum for Preschools brought conceptual changes towards education "based on the child" and the process approach, as well as giving more autonomy to preschool teachers and their assistants. In the empirical study, the authors examine changes in planning and evaluating educational work compared to the past. The results of the study show that the majority of professional workers have reduced the high level of structure and rigidity in planning. The authors also acknowledge that there is better cooperation between preschool teachers and teachers' assistants. Unlike in the past, they find that most professional workers regularly evaluate their educational work. The authors gathered the data in two phases (before and after the training) while training professional workers on the Reggio Emilia concept, and therefore also investigated the (probably indirect) influences of this training. They conclude that after the training the participation of children in planning and evaluating educational work was higher.
In the third section, there are reviews of two monographs. The first reviewed by Živa Kos Kecojevič is Perspectives on Educational Quality: Illustrative Outcomes on Primary and Secondary Schooling in the Netherlands, edited by Scheerens, J., Luyten, H. and Van Ravens, J. (2011, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: SpringerBriefs in Education. ISBN: 978-94-007-0925-6); and the second reviewed by Nika Šušterič is Education, Disability and Social Policy (first published in 2011, Bristol: Policy Press) edited by Haines, S. and Ruebain, D..
Slavko Gaber, Ljubica Marianovič Umek, Pavel Zgaga AND Živa Kos Kecojevič
Policy Reform Efforts and Equal Opportunity - An Evidence-Based Link?
An Analysis of Current Sector Reforms in the Austrian School System
CORINNA GEFFERT*1, SONJA BAUER-HOEMANN2 AND Steean Thomas Hofmann3
The main focus of the present paper is to answer two different questions: From the perspective of Austrian education policy, which core areas of schooling are linked to the demand for equal opportunity? Can these reform efforts sustain the current state of research, and what are the consequences for schooling? The paper draws on an analysis by Hopmann, Geppert & Bauer (2010). Fifteen official self-presentations (political programmes) of Austrian political parties were analysed for statements concerning the improvement of the education system. This resulted in about seventy different statements, which were aggregated into eight core areas. We conducted a systematic analysis of four of these core areas, dealing with the topics of equal opportunity: comprehensive school, all-day schooling, school autonomy and standardisation of students' achievements. The aim was not to judge the legitimacy or the political content of the claims made. In line with evaluative discourse, we asked whether the combination of political demands and their associated expectations met the current state of research. In many policy programmes, it is assumed that comprehensive schooling, all-day schooling, education standards, standardised general certification for university attendance, school autonomy or language surveys go hand in hand with more equality of opportunity, justice and quality in education, but an analysis of the current state of research could not confirm this. The analysis showed that, with regard to education policy demands, statements having empirically little or nothing to do with each other are often linked.
Keywords: Equal opportunity, Inner framework of schooling, Policy impact assessment, Reform efforts, School structure
1	*Corresponding author. Department of Education, University of Vienna corinna.geppert@univie.ac.at
2	Department of Education, University of Vienna
3	Department of Education, University of Vienna
Prizadevanja na področju zakonodajnih reform in enake možnosti - povezava, ki je dokazljiva?
Analiza trenutnih področnih reform v avstrijskem šolskem sistemu
CORINNA GeFFERT*, SONJA BaUER-HoFMANN IN StEFAN ThOMAS HoPMANN
^^ Osrednji namen prispevka je odgovoriti na dve različni vprašanji: Katera temeljna področja avstrijskih edukacijskih politik so povezana z zahtevo po enakih možnostih? Ali lahko prizadevanja za reforme vzdržijo trenutne ugotovitve raziskav in kakšne so posledice za izobraževanje? Prispevek temelji na analizi, ki so jo opravili Hopmann, Geppert in Bauer (2010). V uradnih samopredstavitvah (političnih programih) 15 avstrijskih političnih strank so analizirali trditve, povezane z izboljševanjem izobraževalnega sistema. Rezultat je okoli sedemdeset različnih trditev, ki so bile uvrščene v osem osnovnih področij. Opravljena je bila sistematična analiza štirih izmed teh področij, ki so povezana s temami enakih možnosti: skupna srednja šola, celodnevna šola, šolska avtonomija in standardizacija dosežkov učencev. Namen ni bil presojati o legitimnosti ali političnem konceptu postavljenih trditev. V luči evolucijskega diskurza je bil narejen pregled, ali so politične zahteve in s tem povezana pričakovanja skladna s trenutnimi ugotovitvami raziskav. V veliko političnih programih predvidevajo, da so skupna srednja šola, celodnevno šolanje, izobrazbeni standardi, standardizirana enotna potrdila za vpis na univerzo, šolska avtonomija ali jezikovne raziskave povezani z višjo stopnjo enakosti možnosti, večjo pravičnostjo in s kakovostjo v izobraževanju, a analiza trenutnih ugotovitev raziskav tega ni mogla potrditi. Analiza, opravljena glede na zahteve edukaci-jskih politik, je pokazala, da trditve, ki so povezane med seboj, pogosto nimajo nič skupnega.
Ključne besede: enake možnosti, notranji okvir šolanja/izobraževanja, ocena političnega učinka, prizadevanja za reforme, šolska struktura
Introduction and research questions
Social change and societal developments over the last 20 years have had many consequences for the Austrian school system. During this period, many education reforms concerning the primary and secondary school levels, as well as higher education, have been initiated. Today, the Austrian school system is also exposed to many international influences. Current debate on education reform in the Austrian school system was triggered by the results of PISA 2000 (Programme for International Student Assessment), which again showed substantial problems with student participation in education. When the school system is selective, weaker students often lose. Hence, Austrian education policy is faced with counteracting these inequalities in education.
Current political debate focuses on the question of the extent to which equal opportunity is realised in the Austrian school system. Embedded in the tension between the constitutional right to education and predominantly so-ciocultural and socioeconomic disparities in participation in education, the demand for equal opportunity is a guiding principle in these debates and, at the same time, provides the reasoning behind education reformist initiatives. These initiatives attempt to reduce the influence of differing student backgrounds.
In the present paper, we analyse initiatives by education policymakers on equal opportunities in education. The paper deals with two questions: firstly, it enquires as to the kind of contexts within which equal opportunity is approached, a question that is concerned with concrete courses of action. The paper also formulates empirical assumptions on these constructs and their consequences, namely: Can the reform efforts undertaken sustain the current state of research and what are the consequences?
Methods
Fifteen official current self-presentations (political programmes) of political parties in Austria (SPÖ, ÖVP, Die Grüne) serve as the data basis for this analysis. The analysis was performed in three steps: Analysis step 1, the extraction of claims that have equal opportunity as an education goal, based on the Austrian education programme, is followed by analysis step 2, the synthesising of these statements into eight core areas. In a last step, the statements were evaluated with reference to international research literature.
Analysis step 1: The extraction of claims that have equal opportunity as an education goal
Programmes of political parties in Austria were systematically analysed with respect to the question: Which core areas of schooling are linked to the demand for equality of opportunity?
The definition of "equal opportunity" in the present paper is based only on how this term is used in the programmes analysed, and it transpired that the term is used in a very undifferentiated manner. The following statements give an overview of how reform efforts are linked to the term "equal opportunity" in political programmes. One statement by the ÖVP, for example, was: "We argue for a uniform national education plan for kindergartens in order to ensure equal opportunities for all children regardless of their social and cultural backgrounds when entering school (education plan for an Austrian federal legal framework)" (ÖVP, 2010). "The current system of primary, general lower secondary and special schools, as well as academic lower secondary schools, should be replaced by a comprehensive school for all six- to fourteen-year-olds. It should be structured as a differentiated comprehensive school with individual support and all-day activities. Only such a system can guarantee truly free access to education and, therefore, equal opportunity" (Die Grünen, 2009). However, what "equal opportunity" actually means is not defined any further by the political parties. These statements arise from the current trend of "evidence-based policy making", and the aim of the present paper is to analyse the premises on which these statements are built.
Analysis step 2: The synthesising of these statements into eight core areas
Approximately seventy different statements were aggregated into eight core areas: pre-schooling and primary schooling, school structure-comprehensive schooling, all-day schooling, upper secondary level, autonomy, heterogeneity and standardisation of students' achievements, and teacher education. We proceeded to take a closer look at four of these areas: school structure-comprehensive schooling, all-day schooling, autonomy, and standardisation of students' achievements. For a more detailed definition, it is important to understand the fundamentals of the Austrian school system.
In Austria, school is compulsory for nine years. It is dominated by four major ports: the transition from primary to secondary school, the transition from lower secondary to upper secondary school, the end of compulsory
schooling, and the transition to post-secondary and tertiary levels. The Austrian school system differentiates for all children after four common school years, which, from an international perspective, is very early. The first distinction is made between general secondary school (Hauptschule) and academic lower-cycle secondary school (Allgemeinbildende höhere Schule-Unterstufe).
The core area of school structure - comprehensive school - is situated in this context. In many cases, this early subdivision is seen as an instigator of social and regional inequalities. This core area focuses on the question of joint or separate schools for ten- to fourteen-year-olds, a seemingly insolvable question, which cannot be answered uniformly in education policy. The retention of the articulated system (general secondary school and academic lower-cycle secondary school) is confronted with the demand for replacing it with an integrated system - namely, comprehensive schooling for ten- to fourteen-year-olds - in order to achieve equal opportunity. In contrast to many other countries, schools in Austria are not all-day schools. Curricular afternoon activities are voluntary and mostly incur charges. It is in this context that the second core area, all-day schooling, arises. The analysis shows that all-day schooling is required to be non-partisan and is seen as an adequate way of dealing with equal opportunity because all students can be supported in the same way.
The upper secondary level in the Austrian school system has a very broad structure. In addition to the academic higher-cycle secondary school (Allgemeinbildende höhere Schule-Oberstufe), the Austrian school system has a very strong component of vocational education, which, like the academic higher-cycle secondary school, leads to higher education but also offers vocational training. The whole vocational sector is highly differentiated by type, grade and length of training. "According to the School Organisation Act, the acquisition of higher education and the transition to another school type should be possible for all qualified pupils/students" (cf. SchOG § 3 Section 1).
In general, the Austrian school system is dominated by a federal, bureaucratic, heavily regulated and hierarchical system of school administration. In the core area "autonomy", demands for greater school autonomy are included. Greater autonomy should increase equal opportunity by enabling schools to be more responsive to their clients' needs. The desire for increasing school autonomy is almost always closely linked to greater accountability, which means that a specific level of achievement has to be reached. This leads us to the next core area, standardisation of students' achievements. In this section, political statements deal with the question as to whether the homogenisation of students' achievements can improve the quality of the school system. Centralised exit examinations and education standards should guarantee the quality of the
school system and equal opportunity for students.
Analysis step 3: The evaluation of statements with reference to international research
Core areas, such as questions concerning school structure (comprehensive schooling, all-day schooling) or questions concerning the inner school framework (autonomy, standardisation) are discussed with respect to the question as to whether there is evidence that supports the political claims. Where Austrian research was insufficient, international studies were discussed. The aim is not to judge the legitimacy or the political content of such claims, but to undertake an evaluative discussion on the matter.
School structure - comprehensive schooling
International comparisons show that the duration of common schooling for all students is extremely varied. In many cases, early subdivision - such as in the Austrian school system - is seen as an instigator of social and regional inequalities, but also as a hub for future opportunities in life (see also Laux, 2010). Theoretically, the performance of students governs their allocation to the various types of secondary school; however, in practice, there are significant social and regional aspects involved in this allocation. Therefore, the decision to transfer to an academic lower-cycle secondary school mainly concerns children who come from families with a high socioeconomic status, living in urban centres." (Eder, 2009, p. 50). Analyses of education programmes have shown that a school structure debate set against these problems discusses mainly the pros and cons of a differentiated or integrated school system. Thus, Austrian education policy is faced with the question of determining the right time for the first school career decision, without causing social or regional disparities.
The requirement regarding the retention of the articulated system is confronted with the demand for replacing that system with an integrated system; namely, comprehensive schooling for ten- to fourteen-year-olds. This demand stems especially from the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ, 2010) and the Green Party (Die Grünen, 2010).
Concrete efforts to postpone the first decision have existed in Austria since the beginning of the last century. Established on two main pillars of service and support (www.neuemittelschule.at), the "new middle school" (Neue Mittelschule) was introduced in 2008/2009 in order to again counteract the problems of social and regional disparities. Analysis showed that the surface
structure of the school in particular is under pressure to change when it comes to the question of how to fight injustices in education.
According to Friehs (2004), the arguments of those who advocate comprehensive schools can be summarised as follows:
a.	The comprehensive school could provide common social experiences for children from different social classes.
b.	The comprehensive school could ensure the basic democratic right of equal education and could offer the same school careers at all locations by postponing school career decisions until the end of compulsory school attendance.
c.	The comprehensive school could enable the capture and promotion of all abilities and talents and could mobilise social education reserves of society.
d.	The comprehensive school could ensure a science-oriented basic education for all students.
e.	The comprehensive school could help more students qualify for degrees, especially students from populations disadvantaged for social and regional reasons.
f.	The comprehensive school could counteract school career decisions based on problematic and uncertain talent diagnoses, and could offer students more participation.
Research shows that the problem with these expectations is that, except for the first (a. common social experience), they are either empirically doubtful (b. and c.), or not necessarily linked to the different types of school structure. The basic presupposition defining the school structure debate is that the social distribution of school performance and educational careers could be decided through the surface structure of schools. However, research shows the opposite.
Interesting findings are provided by the Life Study of Fend (2009). The objective of this research was to study education courses and life career paths. The investigation focused in particular on the question as to whether it is possible to overcome, or at least reduce, social selectivity through integrated school forms (comprehensive schools) (Fend, 2009). The results showed, however, that school structures have no lasting effects in terms of equal opportunities in life. Research has shown that the extension of common school education postpones problems of selectivity but does not solve them (Tillmann, 2009).
"With appropriate institutional opportunities (permeability beyond lower secondary) education career decisions in favor of higher education and
vocational qualifications are made by those families with greater cultural, social and economic resources." (Fend, 2009, p. 63)
Furthermore, there is another problem: no one school is like another school, not even within the same school type. Effective performance levels in schools of the same type are also very different, suggesting a correlation between achieved levels of performance and the social composition of the school (Ditton, 2007). There are countries where integrated education systems have a significantly greater equality of opportunity, but there are others where this is not so; for example, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or the United States (Fend, 2009). In the Norwegian comprehensive school system, for example, there are growing social differences with advancing schooling (Bakken, 2010). The debate on school structures omits the fact that every school system has some form of selection (Oelkers, 2006); for example, differentiation by sponsorship, by school programmes, by social geography, by investing in the next higher educational qualifications or private educational activities such as tutoring, review sessions or cram schools (Hopmann & Bauer, 2011). These examples illustrate the strong influence of non-school resources - mostly financial resources - on the academic success of children. "Modern school systems are porous when it comes to family resource effects even though such systems value meritocratic processes^" (Baker, 2006, pp. 172-173). This unequal distribution of resources proves to be significant for generating differences in a largely homogeneous school (e.g., Baker, 2006).
Nevertheless, it has to be said that although the first school career decision in the Austrian school system is made very early, it is not a decision that determines the future school career. The Austrian school system has a very strong component of vocational education, which can be followed after general secondary school and which also leads to higher education. In this context, empirical comparative international research forewarns that a dismemberment of the school system could have negative effects on other pathways, particularly that of vocational education (Brunello & Checchi, 2007).
In summary, an isolated change in school structure is not sufficient to improve equality of opportunity in education (see also Fend, 2009). This, however, does not lead to the conclusion that the question, "Joint or separate school for ten- to fourteen-year-olds?" becomes obsolete, because there might be other reasons for wanting one or the other type of school. There are thus a number of arguments (Friehs, 2004) and empirical studies (e.g., Fend, 2009) showing positive effects of comprehensive schooling, but the analysis revealed that demands for equal opportunity cannot be met through this school structure.
The starting point probably lies with each individual school, depending on the prevailing conditions of the school and the instruction quality, the existence of non-school resources and further educational options.
The same applies to the area of all-day schooling, where we analysed statements and asked whether there was any evidence to support the claims.
All-day schooling
The analysis of education programmes showed that all-day schools are currently en vogue. All-day schooling must be non-partisan, and attendance at all-day schools should be voluntary. The demands of the political parties presented in the programmes analysed show that all-day schooling is seen as an adequate way of accommodating single-parent, patchwork families, one-child families or migrant children (MKV, 2010). Other motives, however, such as more flexible instructional design or individual support, could be more effective. All-day schools should not only keep students in school, but should regard teacher support as a pedagogical concept, with curricular content being processed, extended and supplemented. Moreover, the motives for equal opportunities for all students are in conjunction with the desire to introduce all-day schools. The all-day school will offer all students a fair and equal opportunity for development, and will be responsive to their individual strengths and weaknesses (SPO, 2004). However, this is as far as the political programmes go.
According to McKinsey (2010), all-day schools (through more time) allow better individual support for students and a flexible exchange between heterogeneous learning groups. They also facilitate the active practice of educational partnership with parents, thus contributing to better support for weaker students. Furthermore, the current state of research shows that all-day schooling is seen as a necessary response to social and societal change, structural change in the family, social inequality and unequal education opportunities. Behind the debate on all-day schooling also lies the claim that increased efforts in public education can relieve families under time pressure and reduce resource-related social differences (Rauschenbach, 2007).
However, the benefits of all-day schooling, especially for students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, cannot be clearly demonstrated empirically (Arnoldt et al., 2007; Beher & Prein, 2007; Black et al., 2009) because there are many different types of all-day schooling or extended school days. The models of all-day school range from fully bonded systems (all students are required to participate) to open models (participation is voluntary). Our research illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of all of the models,
while previous research indicates that we cannot give preference to a particular type. "By paying for education programmes in the public school system processes of social selection which ought to be reduced are instead reinforced through the introduction of all-day schools." (Beher & Prein, 2007, p. 16). However, even for paid offers, research shows that children and adolescents from families with no academic background participate less and more irregularly in full-day operation than children with such a background (Steiner, 2009). Students whose parents both do not work have less chance of receiving full-day services (Steiner, 2009).
In the discussion of the consequences of all-day schooling, it should be noted that school performance is not solely the result of school education. As shown above, learning and performance success is also the result of extra-curricular learning resources. School success depends on the dynamic interplay between intra- and extra-curricular learning resources. Moreover, research shows that extra-curricular conditions (such as social and educational capital) are more powerful than intra-curricular conditions (Baumert et al., 2006; Becker & Lauterbach, 2006). Thus there are different problems for different reference groups. For example, those with a wealth of extra-curricular learning resources will hardly accept a full-time education that is of poorer quality than that which they can already attain on their own. Therefore, the offer must also be acceptable to education-conscious parents, so as to avoid renewing social disparities (Rademacker, 2007). Only then will all-day packages no longer be seen as emergency care, and only then will those who can afford it refrain from turning to private providers for afternoon support (Rademacker, 2007). However, those who do not have out-of-school resources will have to meet the requirements of all-day schooling programmes (Steiner, 2009; Heinrich et al., 2010).
An important lesson arising from recent studies is that an extended period of time alone only has a very small effect. Research also shows that all-day school programmes usually do not fulfil expectations. Preliminary results of a Germany-wide longitudinal study suggest (similarly to U.S. evaluations), that effects depend strongly on the quality of the offers (Holtappels & Rollet, 2009; Radisch et al., 2008).
The trend seems to be to set up such services for each specific target group and their specific learning needs. Locally different (different local infrastructure) and flexible solutions are very important, and will depend on what is intended to be achieved for the target group and under which conditions.
School autonomy
In Europe, the policy of school autonomy is already widespread. Autonomy of educational institutions is one of the major issues in contemporary educational policy (Berka, 2003). In the 1990s, there were already increased demands regarding heightened school autonomy (Altrichter & Rurup, 2010).
In the international context, Austria is dominated by a federal, bureaucratic, heavily regulated and hierarchical system of school administration associated with relatively little school autonomy (IBW, 2009; Lassnigg et al., 2009). The individual school is seen as the "last link" in an administrative chain controlled by a central organ administering education policy (Altrichter & Rurup, 2010). From an international comparative perspective, Austria belongs to those countries where decision making in education is shaped by many actors with often overlapping and not infrequently ambiguous tasks. In particular, since the 1990s, the centralised management system has been increasingly strongly criticised (Schratz & Hartmann, 2010). National and international studies indicate that the current form of Austrian "school governance" has a sub-optimal structure (IBW, 2009). In recent years, consensus has emerged that incentives are absent in the performance of this kind of organisation, and it therefore has limited dynamics (Prisching, 2010). Critics of the current system say that average performance is only reached with great effort. Even in this area, PISA results have prompted new discussions on autonomy in education policy. Studies clearly indicate that the school governance structures of most of the "PISA Top Performers" have "leaner systems", as well as a higher degree of school autonomy (IBW, 2004; Falch & Fischer, 2010).
Analysis indicates that the intention to enhance the ability of individual schools to design their own options places greater emphasis on the political agenda, especially as a means of increasing and improving the quality of education. More concretely, the strengthening of school autonomy is desired, often being seen as interaction between state-regulated educational goals and outcomes, and an autonomously chosen path of achievement within individual schools. Thus, the request for increased school autonomy corresponds to the assumption of Altrichter and Rurup, who believe that an increase in school autonomy should not be understood as the detachment of individual schools from national politics, but rather as a control policy distinguished by decision rights of, and coordinating relations between, the various actors and levels of agency in the school system (Altrichter & Rurup, 2010). Similarly, the National Education Report for Austria sees the creation of an efficient incentive structure, with clear definitions of objectives, as necessary for quality improvement.
This incentive structure should be in conjunction with regular monitoring of the input-output relations (Lassnigg & Vogtenhuber, 2009).
Programme analysis shows that there is a need to encourage individual schools to build up profiles, which also falls within the context of school autonomy. Location-based profiling within a flexible framework should help schools to use client-related and need-based pedagogical processes on site more efficiently. Location-based profiling brings development dynamics to the school system, but may also have negative side effects, since profiling is always combined with a competitive situation. Increasingly, the Austrian school system includes an element of competition focused specifically on the recruitment of positively selected and powerful students. Eder and Altrichter, for example, demonstrate that higher quality of curricular and social processes, as well as better performance in music classes, are almost exclusively due to the selection of able students. Compared to regular classes, these classes thus have significantly fewer students from immigrant backgrounds and more children with significantly better cognitive performance due to fully competent and supportive families. It is apparent that schools with specific profiles have competitive considerations aimed at attracting better students. This may result in an increased number of students with poor learning conditions being in residual classes, both within individual schools and in schools within certain regions (Eder & Altrichter, 2009). Similar effects are well known in international research (see Ooghe & Schokkaert, 2009). In England, for example, massive social disparities in individual schools arise due to competition-driven approaches (Schwier, 2005).
Each concept of autonomy, therefore, has to take account of the question of resource allocation. Voucher concepts (with budget grants for each student) thus have not produced any convincing results because the overall composition of the respective Students' Union and other side effects have not adequately been considered. Instead, models of "student-weighted budgeting" are discussed in which a budget is allocated not only on the basis of student numbers, but on that of selected social statistics and other features. This discussion has now also reached Austria (see Altrichter & Nagy, 2010). Experiences with such measures in the Netherlands and the United States are mixed (see Baker 2009, 2010; Ladd & Fiske, 2009; Rolle, 2008; Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2008) and would seem to focus mainly on the level of budget distribution (district or individual schools), the indicators involved, and ultimately not on how talented schools benefit from a given budget.
The desire to increase school autonomy is almost always closely linked to greater accountability, which means that a specific level of achievement has to be reached.
Standardisation of students' achievements
International benchmarking extends the equality of opportunity issue to a question of individual student performance distribution. Increasing international focus on cross-sectional comparisons of student performance over specific interfaces of the education system constructs social disparities as individual characteristics of students, and school differences as quality differences between school locations, school types, or even school systems. "Educational standards for the 4th and 8th grades will be Austria's guarantee of quality and performance in our schools. The semi-structured, competency-based exit examination will secure the value of graduation" (SPÖ, 2010, p. 2).
Thus, international educational standards and, increasingly, centralised exit examinations are used to ensure the homogenisation of achievements. Driven by results from international assessments, education policies are established that are intended to push students to higher achievements and hence increase equality of opportunity (see Die Grünen, 2009; ÖVP, 2010; SPÖ, 2010).
The establishment of centralised exit examinations in Austria is still relatively new. On 17 November 2009, a law was created to introduce "standardised competency-based high school graduation" in the main school subjects: German, mathematics and English (or French).
The status of international research offers little empirical reason to believe that a centralised control mechanism can enable an increase in the general level of performance, or reduce social inequalities (for a summary, see Bracey, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Elstad et al., 2008; Eurydice, 2009; Hopmann et al., 2008; Mons, 2009).
"Because we cannot know, or precisely measure, the true intellectual abilities of students, we attempt to approach equality of opportunity by using proxy measures of achievement on high-stakes tests. However, equating equity and test scores has been fraught with problems" (Jordan, 2010, p. 195).
Klein et al. (2009) concluded from an analysis of internationally recognised rules for centralised graduation examinations that the handling of centralised tests differs greatly from one state or country to another. Research also reveals no clear and definitive findings on the effects of centralised audit procedures for academic, instructional and individual work processes and outcomes. Few meaningful research findings exist on the effects of different standardisation levels in centralised exit examinations. The premise that continued standardisation of the testing organisation supports the actual integrity of performance standards can be neither proven nor disproven.
On the basis of a PISA and TIMSS reanalysis of the positive effects of centralised exit examinations, Wössmann (2009) reported that these are associated
with better student performance. Centralised exit examinations would also tend to transform the negative effects of increased school autonomy into positive effects. However, in countries with the longest experience with standards and testing systems (such as USA and the United Kingdom), there is no evidence of sustained performance improvement or improved social equality of opportunity when applying similar procedures (for a summary, see Bracey, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Hopmann et al., 2008; Mathis, 2010; Mons, 2009).
Yet there are undeniable sustainable curricular effects. Analyses of the first year of implementation of the Central High School Diploma in Germany (Maag Merki et al., 2009), similarly to earlier implementation in other countries (for a summary, see Hopmannet al., 2008; Mons, 2009), show that teachers in centrally approved courses limited their class topics to a significantly stronger degree. Caring less about students' interests or everyday news than teachers in decentralised audited courses, they practiced "teaching-to-the-test" (Maag Merki et al., 2009). At-risk students in particular need specific preparation for such performance reviews. How and whether such standards - and centralised exit examinations are such standards - can be achieved by at-risk students at all, unless they are specifically trained, is not clear (Hermann, 2007; Stamm, 2008).
Empirical evidence from the United States does not paint a positive picture of national tests, suggesting an increase in stress experience for students, in drop-out rates, in segregation effects, and a significantly greater feeling of anxiety and fatigue amongst students (see Clarke et al., 2000; Nichols & Berliner, 2007; Pedulla et al., 2003; Warren et al., 2006; for a summary, see Darling-Hammond, 2010; Hopmann et al., 2008; Stamm, 2008). When schools achieve high scores, this does not mean that they are effective in producing low drop-out rates. Students can be "given advice to go to another school" (Stamm, 2008). Furthermore, performance in national tests and examinations in the United States has serious consequences for the future of all participants (teachers, principals, students) -such as no advancement to the next level or staff redundancies - which in turn continue to foster negative effects. Numerous empirical findings provide a relatively complex picture of the impact of standards-based test procedures in the context of a consequences-afflicted monitoring system. In addition to some positive effects, significant "collateral damage", as shown above (Bracey, 2009; Mathis, 2010; Nichols & Berliner, 2007) also can be observed.
Conclusion
In the context of policy impact assessment, the main focus of the present paper is to answer two different questions: From the perspective of Austrian
education policy, which core areas of schooling are linked to the demand for equal opportunity? Can these reform efforts sustain the current state of research, and what are the consequences?
The analysis of fifteen official self-presentations by political parties in Austria clearly showed that political statements include means and ends that do not harmonise. From the viewpoint of evidence-based policy making, education requirements perpetuate the trend of expressing intentions as an end to justify the means. To do A in order to achieve B, regardless of any historical and comparative research, shows that the reasons for arriving at A are possibly different to those for arriving at B, or that A could have quite different, even contradictory, outcomes to B.
Empirically questionable causal claims are nowadays on the agenda because policy statements are often linked to the demand for equal opportunity. This link goes too far, as the analysis of the four core areas linked to school structure and the inner school framework has shown.
It was not the aim of this analysis to cast doubt on the legitimacy of these core areas for future discussion, but the argument linking each of these areas to equal opportunity goes too far and cannot fulfil the high expectations. There could be other valid reasons for implementing these reform efforts.
The decisive factors for research are not major organisational formats, but rather formats such as learning resources or location, which have more impact on equality of opportunity and achievements. According to research, the types of differentiated teaching, school quality and transition options offered are more important. Special pedagogical programmes should be orientated towards those students needing additional support, and should take the individual backgrounds and out-of-school-learning resources of the students into account. Current research indicates that there is a need to encourage individual schools to have more autonomy within a flexible framework, so as to help schools use client-related and need-based pedagogical processes on site more efficiently.
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Biographical note
Corinna Geppert, since 2010 a PhD student and research assistant in the Department of Education at the University of Vienna. Her doctoral thesis is on Patterns of Lower Austrian students at the educational transition from primary school to secondary school, and her research work focuses on educational transitions, conditions of successful educational trajectories, empirical research and longitudinal research, as well as on educational policymaking. She is currently part of a Government-funded project on education evaluation research in Lower Austria (NOESIS: 2010-2014) and is also a contributor to International Ed News. PK-12 Education News from Around the World.
Sonja Bauer-Hofmann, since 2010 a PhD student and research assistant in the Department of Education at the University of Vienna. Her doctoral thesis concerns theories of schooling and her research work focuses on the history of comprehensive schooling, theories of education, international comparative research, conditions of successful educational trajectories, as well as on educational policymaking. She is currently a part of a Government-funded project on education evaluation research in Lower Austria (NOESIS: 2010-2014).
Stefan Thomas Hopmann, since 2005 Professor of Comparative Education and History of Education at the University of Vienna, following similar appointments in Germany and Norway. General editor of the international Journal of Curriculum Studies. Since a doctoral dissertation on Curriculum Making as Administrative Action (Lehrplanarbeit als Verwaltungshandeln; Kiel 1988) involved in historical and comparative curriculum research, including comparative studies (Didaktik meets Curriculum; 1995ff.) as well as empirical research and national case studies. Currently leading a longitudinal project on policy based curriculum change in Lower Austria (NOESIS: 2010-2014).
Education System Reforms in an Unstable Political Situation: The Case of Serbia in the First Decade of the 21st Century
IvAN IvIC1 AND Ana Pesikan*2
^^ In the present paper, education reform in the Republic of Serbia since 2000 is presented. The focus is on two major reform waves: 2000-2003 and 2004-2005. We analyse why these broad educational interventions failed. After 2005, there was a lull in the reform process, a period with no major changes (2005-2010). A new phase of improving education policy in Serbia commenced with the adoption of Trends in the Development and Upgrading of the Quality of Education and Upbringing 2010-2020 (2010) and the conception and proposal of the Strategy of Education Development in Serbia to 2020+ (2012). The basic innovations in approach and conception in the new "epoch" is outlined.
Keywords: Education policy, Education reform, Serbia, Strategy of education development
1	Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Serbia
2	*Corresponding author. Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Serbia
apesikan@gmail.com
Sistemske reforme na področju vzgoje in izobraževanja v politično nestabilnem času: Primer Srbije v prvem desetletju 21. stoletja
IvAN Ivic IN Ana Pesikan*
^^ V prispevku so predstavljene reforme na področju vzgoje in izobraževanja v Republiki Srbiji od leta 2000 naprej. V ospredju sta dva večja reformna vala: 2000-2003 in 2004-2005. Analizirani so razlogi, zakaj ta posega v izobraževanje nista bila uspešna. Po tem je sledilo obdobje, v katerem ni bilo večjih sprememb (2005-2010). Leta 2010 je sledilo novo obdobje v prizadevanjih za izboljšanje edukacijskih politik v Srbiji - sprejeti so bili Trendi za razvoj in izboljšanje kakovosti v vzgoji in izobraževanju 2010-2020 (2010) ter koncept in predlog Strategije razvoja izobraževanja v Srbiji do 2020+ (2012). Poudarjene so temeljne novosti pristopa in koncepta novega obdobja.
Ključne besede: edukacijske politike, reforme na področju izobraževanja, Srbija, strategija razvoja izobraževanja
Introduction
In October 2000, huge political changes took place in the Republic of Serbia. Essentially, these changes initiated processes that were very similar to the processes in other ex-socialist countries in regard to transition processes in economic, social and political life. In the period between 2000 and 2005, many changes occurred in the field of education. Due to political instability and the change of government, many radical changes, declarations of intended changes and actual implementation of changes with various political connotations occurred during this period.
In the following text, an analysis of education reform endeavours at the beginning of 21st century in Serbia is presented. In the last decade, two relevant reform waves can be recognised: the first, the changes in the period just after the country's major political changes, was in 2000, while the second wave is represented by the changes in the period 2004-05. In the present text, the main characteristics of these two waves will be outlined along with the reasons for their success or failure in practice. The third, qualitatively new "wave" is the conception and realisation of the proposal of the Strategy of Education Development in Serbia to 2020+ (2012) and the activities that preceded it.
Education reform steps: Major characteristics of the changes introduced in 2001-2003
As noted above, the transition ("reform") of the education system in Serbia began after the political changes that took place in October 2000 - the "October Democratic Revolution". This "revolution" initiated a transition process (economic, social, political) very similar to the transition processes in other ex-socialist countries. The climate for introducing changes in the education system was therefore favourable. The political changes came about as a result of joint actions of a galvanised citizenry, the atmosphere in the country was positive, and the reforms were much awaited. The new democratic government created at the beginning of 2001 declared itself to be "radically reformist" (Ivic, 2005).
The field of education was already distinguished by great strengths and potential for positive changes.
•	Since the mid 1990s, significant numbers of teachers and other education staff had been participating in numerous in-service training programmes. Almost all of these training programmes were realised with the help of international donors.
•	Most of these programmes were oriented towards the democratisation
of the education system and schools. Some programmes attempted to achieve this goal through the content of the training (civic education, child rights programmes), but all of them did so through the introduction of the methods used during the training (interactive/active methods), resulting in the mobilisation of teachers and creating a readiness for the expected changes.
There were, however, a certain number of drawbacks:
•	The political parties that took power lacked guiding principles for the education reform. As a result, the Ministry of Education and Sport (MES) had a dual responsibility: firstly, to define its strategy and, secondly, to implement the reforms. This gives a clear picture of the overall context in which the theoretical framework for reforms was contextuali-sed, and of the practical changes that were implemented.
•	Consequent analysis of MES documents from that period (e.g. 2002, 2004) did not allow for easy identification of the general concept on which the reforms were based.
The concept was declaratively and broadly based on "quality education for all", "reconstruction of the education system", "modernisation", "Europe-anisation", etc. Knezevic, the Minister of Education at the time, exhorted that "those who partook in the creation of the new education policies" are certain that their efforts will be sustainable because "^their idea of modern European education has already survived all of the turbulence in this region" (MES, 2004, p. 9). Apparently, the reforms were based on the introduction of "modern European education" into one specific region of Europe (Serbia). The idea of "modern European education" is not very clear and requires further explanation. Although there are education systems of individual EU member states, there is no single model of "European education". Post factum analysis of what the MES actually did leaves us with the impression that there really was not a single, clear and coherent idea of what "modern European education" meant. Clearly, the reform appeared to be an ad hoc compilation of separate measures borrowed from the education systems of other European countries. For example, why would it be more "European" to divide elementary school into 3 three-year cycles, instead of 2 four-year cycles, with a "zero" (Kindergarten) grade, or to change the duration of high school education to three instead of four years?
The declared "European" orientation meant two things. Firstly, it was clearly a "top-down" reform, which, first and foremost, meant that the reformists had an idea about what kind of education system they wanted and they
built the reform around this idea. Secondly, just like the education reforms in many other countries in transition in this region (except Slovenia, perhaps), the reform was obviously conceptualised in the spirit of an "Etic" rather than an "Emic" approach. Any system in a given culture can be changed only by following the inner logic of the system itself, its characteristics and potentials, focusing on the spontaneous growth of change, using the strengths within system (Emic approach). The second approach is to try to introduce the changes that fit some theoretical model or to take an outside example as a starting point and to impose changes on the system (Etic approach). To borrow these terms from cultural anthropology is quite appropriate in the present context, since the education system of every country greatly depends upon the cultural characteristics of that country. What happened in Serbia during the initial reforms clearly indicates that the reforms were conducted following the second, Etic approach (Ivic, 2001). This claim can be supported by the fact that within the policy documents of the previous Ministry we could not find any serious assessment of the existing problems of the time (problems that still exist) in Serbian education. Such an assessment could serve as a basis for finding solutions and resources in the existing system. Instead, the solutions were conceptualised theoretically and then tried out within the system.
The attempt to reform education during 2001-2003 was quite comprehensive. All previously attempted reforms of the education system in Serbia focused almost exclusively on changing school programmes (i.e., the content of what is being taught), but the concept of the 2001-2003 reforms was very different. The reform concept (not the results, however) addressed all relevant aspects of education, almost at the same time: the structure of the education system, the system of financing, the management of the entire system, the information system, school programmes, textbooks, the professional development of education staff, the mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating student achievement, the development of educational institutions, the system of lifelong learning, etc. Changes in this period included:
•	Legislature (the adoption of a general law on education, i.e., the "Umbrella 1 Law");
•	Building new independent professional institutions (The National Council for Education, The Centre for Curricula and Textbooks, The Centre for Professional Teacher Development, The Centre for Evaluation);
•	The structure of the education system (primary education length - nine instead of eight years divided into three cycles; secondary school - three instead of four years);
•	Curricula that are more flexible (individual schools could create part of
the curriculum by themselves); • VET (adaptation of the structure of the VET to changes in the economic
structure).
These changes took place in the spirit of an "etic approach", and were close to the concept of top-down reforms. However, most of the changes were implemented near the end of the three-year mandate of the MES, and were therefore unlikely to be sustainable.
The concept of the reforms developed by the MES (in power 2001-2003) was operationalised in the Law on the Foundations of Education (referred to here as the "Umbrella 1 Law"), adopted by Parliament in June 2003. The content of this "Umbrella 1 Law" is evident from particular solutions presented in following section.
Main components of the 2001-2003 education reforms
The main characteristics of the 2001-03 education reforms and the impacts of these reforms can be best seen if we summarise the theoretical ideas and planned activities behind them and then look at the concrete achievements, which will, inevitably, once again confirm that the reform was comprised of many individual measures without a clearly defined and coherent conceptual framework.
a. Legislature. During the 2001-03 reforms, there were very few changes in the legal regulative related to education. In 2002, some necessary amendments to the existing Law on Primary and Secondary Education were adopted: the appointment process for school principals was modified, school board membership was changed so as to increase the number of parents and representatives of the local community, the control function of school inspections was reduced, and a professional advancement system for teachers was introduced (upon which salary increases and bonuses were to be contingent - an important motivating factor to instigate changes in behaviour). The most important achievement, however, was the adoption by Parliament of the Law on the Foundations of the Education System (an "umbrella" school act) in June 2003. This law incorporated many of the reform ideas that will be discussed later. Unfortunately, due to political reasons, it was passed hastily, without serious discussion and debate.
The implementation of this "Umbrella Law" began rapidly, on 1 September, without allowing enough time for schools to prepare. The existing Laws on Primary and Secondary Education and the Law on Textbooks were still in
effect, containing clauses that were at least partially in contradiction with the new "Umbrella Law", while new Laws on Preschool Education and Adult Education were not passed, and the same textbooks remained in use - all contributing to great difficulties in the implementation of the new "Umbrella Law".
b.	Independent Institutions. In order to effectively implement the reforms, it was necessary to create certain independent expert institutions that had not previously existed in Serbia. The "Umbrella Law" provided the possibility of creating several such institutions: The Centre for School Programmes and Textbooks, The Centre for the Professional Development of Teachers, The Centre for Vocational Educational Training (VET), The Centre for Evaluation, The National Council for Education, The National Council for VET, etc.
The National Council for Education, as the highest independent body on the national level with a responsibility to direct and define long-term education policy, was instituted at the very end of the 2001-03 Ministry's mandate. Its members were appointed by the same Ministry and all of the policy documents were already adopted by the Ministry.
The Centre for Evaluation, funded by a World Bank loan, began its work at the end of 2003. Its personnel were well trained, and they developed the necessary organisational and management procedures, conducted a national assessment of student achievement at the end of the 3rd grade, and analysed the results (some of these activities took place after the political power change, i.e., after the fall of the 2001-03 Ministry from power). The Centre, now called the Institute for Evaluation of Quality in Education, continues its work.
The Centre for School Programmes and Textbooks and the Centre for the Professional Development of Teachers also continued their work under the new Ministry, with changed work organisation and somewhat different responsibilities and competencies.
c.	System of Financing. Many changes were planned (decentralisation of financing and a new formula for financing individual schools based on payment per student with some correction mechanisms), but none of these changes were ever realised. The salaries of teachers increased. If the index (100%) represents the average salary in January 2002, then salaries in December 2002 did, indeed, increase to around 175%; however, this was not part of the education reform, but rather reflected an overall state-wide real increase in salaries in the public sector.
In the state budget, there were no supplementary financial sources to support the education reform, as there was no interest in doing so, not in the
government or the Parliament, nor amongst the general public. The percentage of GDP allocated to education during the 2001-03 reforms was even lower than previously: in 1997 - 4.5%, in 1998 - 3.79%, and in 2002 - 3.2%, and 2003 - 3.4% (Ivic, 2005). The only sources of financing the costs of the reform were a modest loan from the World Bank and individual donations received from the governments of other countries and international organisations.
d.	Decentralisation of the Management System. This was one part of the loudly propagated 3D formula: depoliticisation, decentralisation and democratisation of the system. According to the new law, instead of having the exclusive power to appoint school principals, the Ministry now only had the jurisdiction to approve the choice made by school boards, which were now comprised of three school representatives, three parents and three local community representatives. Part of the WB loan was used for decentralisation. Even under the new "Umbrella Law", the Ministry retained key decision-making power - political parties running the local municipalities appointed the majority of school board members from their echelons (local community representatives as well as school representatives) therefore, it can hardly be assumed that any real de-politicisation and democratisation occurred. The audit results of how the portion of the WB credit was used for decentralisation are still awaited.
e.	Education System. The structure of the education system was changed significantly: one more grade was added to compulsory primary education, and this new 9-year primary education system (ISCED 1 and 2) was then sectioned into three 3-year cycles. Furthermore, it was suggested that the duration of all secondary schools be reduced to three years (including lyceums or college prep schools). These major structural changes were never the subject of public discussion, and the reformers themselves were never able to present any meaningful arguments related to the benefits and effects of such major perturbations in the education system.
The possible consequences (financial, organisational, and personnel-related) of such major changes were never considered: what to do with the surplus of teachers in high schools when three-year schools came into existence (before they had been four-year schools); how to handle the deficit of teachers in primary education when it was extended by another year; the surplus or shortage of physical space in schools; the possible increase in drop-out rates in primary education caused by the extension of compulsory education and the introduction of more demanding general programmes; the problems that would befall rural elementary schools; and similar headache issues.
None of these enforced changes proved sustainable. The new Ministry that assumed power in 2004 immediately annulled all of these initiatives because they were unachievable within the planned time frame, and their consequences were unpredictable.
f. Curricular Reform. In this domain, too, some major changes were planned. New courses were introduced, exclusively for political reasons (one of the two - either Civic Education or Religious Education - became a compulsory course). The second foreign language was introduced as early as in the 1st grade - again, without any serious assessment of the capacities and abilities of schools to respond to such a demand (e.g., the availability of properly trained teachers). Furthermore, a number of elective courses were introduced - hastily and without enough time for schools to prepare, and without assessment of schools' capacities to realise them. Instead of separate courses for various science disciplines (Physics, Biology and Chemistry courses) a new Science course was introduced at the beginning of the second primary school cycle, with total disregard for the need of teachers to suddenly prepare to switch to teaching this new subject (for which they had not been trained at their faculties). The number of instructional hours for maths, chemistry and physical sciences was reduced.
Furthermore, a major change was planned in relation to the structure of curricula. Instead of prescribed and mandatory curricular content for each subject, only a framework was to be defined, allowing each individual school, directed just by these general guidelines, to design their own Operational Programmes. School programmes were not defined by the mandatory curricular content, but rather by learning outcomes defined through benchmark goals and objectives. Only some required courses were mandatory - schools were given the freedom to independently design and implement about 10-30% of the programmes during the second and third primary education cycle. The curricu-lar documents aimed at the first generation of students under the "reformed" education system (1st and 7th grades) were presented for public discussion in April, and were to be implemented by September (it was assumed that the new textbooks could be printed and teachers trained within a four month period).
A portion of the WB loan was used for the so-called School Development Project (SDP), through which individual schools were funded for projects relevant to the issues prioritised by the schools themselves and related to local community needs. Schools had problems defining their SDP even after completing preparatory SDP training for several reasons: initiative behaviour had not been practiced for 50 years in Serbia (due to the one-party system and a highly centralised decision- making processes in the country), the overall
climate was not supportive, and there was a mismatch between schools taking responsibility for their own development and the quality of work and real support for doing so in the MES and the local community.
The Ministry of Education that assumed power in 2004 annulled the majority of these initiatives, especially those aimed at changing the structure of school programmes. School programmes are again defined through curricular content and are compulsory - they must be implemented by all schools in Serbia. Our opinion is that the originally envisioned changes were neither well conceptualised nor properly implemented. Moreover, they were implemented hastily, and it was impossible to predict the results they would achieve once implemented.
The idea of defining the standards of knowledge for certain academic areas (benchmark educational outcomes) has not been entirely rejected, and the process of defining the learning standards to be achieved at the end of primary education in various academic areas is currently underway. The majority of financial resources allocated to the Evaluation Project by the WB loan has been rerouted towards achieving this goal.
The Science course was eliminated, and the study of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology as separate courses was reinstated. Some elective courses were retained, but their number and instructional time were decreased. Instructional time for mathematics and sciences was returned to the level prior to the reform (because it was not possible both to reach the intended outcomes and to match the programmes and outcomes).
SDP continued because it was considered to be important for the development of school autonomy and the professional growth of educators. However, the amount of financial assistance to each individual school for this project was very modest from the very beginning.
g. School Textbooks. The new Law on School Textbooks was not passed (the old law gave exclusive rights and a complete monopoly to just one public publisher). The 2001-03 Ministry requested that quality standards for school textbooks be developed, but even before this task was completed the Ministry liberalised and opened up the textbook market, allowing schools/teachers to independently select textbooks for various subjects. However, this was done without any accompanying legal regulative, and could have resulted in corruption and in a decrease in the quality of school textbooks.
Quality standards for textbooks were completed in November 2004, but they were not "officially" adopted - they had to be adopted by The National Council for Education that was not yet operational. The new Ministry that was instituted in 2004 prepared a draft of the Law on Textbooks. However,
since new school programmes are still prepared in a rush, textbooks are being published in the same manner - hastily. The accreditation of school textbooks remains a weak point due to inappropriate standards that the Institute for Improvement in Education implemented as a criterion (adopted by the National Council for Education in 2010).
h. Professional Development of Teachers. The 2001-03 education reform profited greatly from the knowledge and skills of teachers and other school personnel who had been acquiring new skills since the mid 1990s, long before the "reform" began, through attending various training seminars and workshops. During the 2001-03 reform, in-service teacher training continued even more intensely and frequently. This was possible due to generous donations from foreign donors (UNICEF, WB, the governments of Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Greece, the Soros Fund, and others).
After the "Umbrella Law" was passed, the Centre for the Professional Development of Teachers was instituted (with Swiss support). Similar regional centres were envisioned (but not defined their mutual relationship) and a number of in-service programmes for additional teacher training received accreditation from the Ministry. Two catalogues listing these accredited programmes were printed, the second of which contained 335 in-service programmes (MES, 2003a), so that schools could select those they were interested in. However, only about 20 of the programmes were put into practice; most of them were pure improvisation (prepared just for the Catalog). The new catalogues (2010/11, 2011/12) have the same structural problems as the old ones; the number of programmes has increased to 840, of which only 0.5% are evaluated in some way, with only one programme being subjected to international evaluation (Pesikan, Antic, & Marinkovic, 2010a, 2010b).
The question of who should finance in-service teacher training was never resolved; the Ministry assumed that municipalities should provide funding, but they simply had no means to do so. Work commenced on by-law regulations defining the details of the professional advancement process and upgrading criteria for teachers (the teacher career ladder) based on the attendance of training seminars mentioned in the "Umbrella Law", but this work was never completed and the system of teacher professional advancement never took root.
The Centre for the Professional Development of Teachers continues its work as part of the Institute for Improvement in Education. The Rulebook for Accreditation of Programmes for Professional Development was being compiled. It emphasized professional development directed at specific subject content areas, rather than teaching methods. The problem of financing these
programmes remains; neither the Ministry nor local municipalities have inservice teacher training on their budget line. The professional advancement system for teachers has not been implemented because the problem of financing the increase of salaries for teachers who fulfil the professional advancement requirements has not been solved yet.
i. The Information System in Education. With WB financial support, activities aimed at the creation of a single unified information education network was initiated (enabling the Ministry, creating regional centres, electronically linking every individual school with the regional and central level, delivery of hardware). Creation of a unified information network has never been completed. The main problems, especially data gathering and assuring the quality of data, have remained up to the present day (Pesikan, 2012). The precise results produced in this area with the moneys from the WB loan have never been publicly announced. There are still great overlaps and disparities in data gathering methods and analysis schemes between the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia and the MES. Information is not accessible to the general public and reporting on the collected data is irregular.
j. Vocational Education and Training (VET). The Strategy for Vocational Training Development was created during the 2001-03 reforms. Only in this area was some inter-sector cooperation and collaboration noticeable (the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Chamber of Commerce, the Ministry of the Economy, National Employment Agencies, Labour Unions, etc.). A detailed assessment of the VET schools network was made and an analysis of the effects of the predicted changes on the country's economy was conducted jointly by all of the above-mentioned stakeholders. Consequently, some new vocational training programmes were introduced and teachers were trained to teach them. Support and collaboration was realised with the GTZ, ETF, EU CARDS programme, etc. The Strategy for Vocational Training Development was adopted at the highest level - the government of the Republic of Serbia. The Ministry of Education that took power in 2004 continued all activities on the reconstruction and modernisation of VET programs.
k. Early Childhood Care and Education. In this area, only a couple of strategic policy papers were created. The Law on Preschool Education, complementary to the new "Umbrella Law", was created in 2010. Accreditation criteria and procedures have not been adopted yet and the quality of preschool education control mechanisms has never been defined. Since 1992, it has been possible
to open a private preschool institution legally, but there are no accreditation and quality control mechanisms. No concrete measures related to changing the current state of affairs in early preschool education have ever been adopted. Moreover, a decrease in preschool enrolment has been noted lately.
l. Adult Education/Lifelong Education. In this domain, a number of strategic and policy papers were created and a survey of the current situation was conducted. However, no new legal regulative was passed until 2012. Since January 2012, the Draft Law on Adult Education has been in parliamentary procedure. Adult schools are rare, and no concrete measures related to changing the current state of affairs in adult education have ever been adopted.
m. Education of Children with Disabilities. Some strategic and policy papers were created but no necessary legal regulative was passed. The system of segregated, dilapidating special schools with a watered-down school curriculum and ill-prepared staff still exists in Serbia, parallel to the general education system. A small number of children attend these schools. UNICEF and Save the Children have piloted some inclusive projects, but with limited success. The Guide for Work with Children with Disabilities was created. The Ministry of Social Affairs created a Protocol for the Assessment of the Special Needs of Children with Disabilities (replacing the so-called Categorisation Guidelines). In 2009, new inclusive education commenced in practice, but without sufficient preparation of all participants in the process and with numerous obstacles that had not been solved in advance (Rado, 2009; Rado & Lazetic, 2010).
Education reform steps: Changes introduced in 2004-2005
After the parliamentary elections, a new government was created from the opposing political option (spring 2004). This government supported certain changes in the area of education, but these were not nearly as radical as the previous changes. The new Ministry of Education and Sports did not explicitly conceptualise their own vision of the education system; instead, it seemed to be focused on certain concrete, direct, practical measures, and it only sporadically issued statements by high-ranking Ministry officials. One of the measures the new Ministry undertook was to annul and abolish some of the innovations introduced by the previous Ministry.
One of the most significant changes introduced by the new Ministry was the Amendments and Additions to the Law on the Foundations of the
Education System in Serbia (the new "Umbrella Law" is referred to here as the "Umbrella 2 Law"). The narrative of the new "Umbrella 2 Law" indicates some of the general ideas guiding the new Ministry. The Ministry stood for "^systematic, rational and incremental changes to the educational system^", "^constant assessment, analysis and modification of the implemented school programmes and curricula" (MES, 2005, p. 25). The Ministry clearly articulated that '"^one of the main goals of the child's education and socialisation should be to develop an awareness about one's own national being and statehood, to cherish and appreciate Serbian culture and traditions, as well as traditions and cultures of other ethnic and national minorities, and to develop an interest in and openness towards the cultures of various other traditional religions" (MES, 2005, p. 26). It is clear that the new Ministry held a significantly less radical and more conservative orientation in reforming education.
The "Umbrella 2 Law" annulled all of the structural changes in the education system introduced previously, since they caused too much turbulence within the system. Structural changes in curricula (curricula conceived as general and specific outcomes and objectives, more flexible curricula, some freedom for schools to partially build their own curricula) were annulled. Traditional school programmes were reinstated - serious and academically exigent curricular content was returned, complemented by learning standards defined for each course at the end of the learning process.
The new Ministry instituted a greater quantity of general curricular content as required and mandatory for all students. Another important change introduced was the National Council for Education as autonomous professional body in charge of making all education policy decisions (members were selected by the Parliament). It should be pointed out, however, that some political criteria did affect, albeit slightly, the selection of members of this important body. The new Ministry also introduced some changes in the organisation, responsibilities and jurisdiction of the independent professional institutions formed by the previous Ministry (there are now two professional institutions -the Institute for the Improvement of Education and the Institute for the Evaluation of Quality in Education).
In May/June 2005, the Ministry of Education posted two important policy documents on its website (there was no public discussion about these documents), the first entitled "The National Strategy for Education from 2005 to 2010" and the second "Strategy of the Ministry of Education and Sport for the Period from 2005 to 2010". It is difficult to comment on these documents. The first document is too brief, and issues for discussion remain scant as there is a lack of information. The second document (124 pages) is difficult to comment
on because the issues discussed lack clarity and the development of education in Serbia is neither well discussed nor sufficiently elaborated. With the exception of VET, very little is clarified.
If this document is viewed as a strategy for the development/improvement of education in Serbia, then several things seem self-evident: a) it is not possible to reconstruct the overall framework of the document (the sections pertaining to various sectors in education are disconnected); b) the defined scope of work attributed to various Ministry departments is even broader and more ambitious than that defined by the previous Ministry; c) not one of the listed activities/jobs defines any responsible implementing agency other than the Ministry itself, and the resources are not planned; d) all projects, initiatives and actions related to education with a source other than the Ministry are completely overlooked (there is no mention of the Institute for the Improvement of Education and the Institute for the Evaluation of Quality in Education, which, according to the "Umbrella 2 Law", should closely cooperate with the Ministry); e) if this is the strategy for the development/improvement of education, it is surprising that The National Council for Education - whose basic duty, according to "Umbrella 2 Law", is to develop policies in education - is barely mentioned in the document.
Conclusions on the changes in 2001-05
The first category of conclusions pertains to education policy itself in an unstable political environment. The reformists from the 2001-2003 period understood the importance of the political context very well: "The major precondition for the adequate functioning of the education system, and for the success of the changes aimed to improve education, is the very existence of a stable legal and political environment." (MES, 2004, p. 9). They also knew that there was no such stability at the time in Serbia; yet, for some strange reason, they decided to completely ignore this fact. They spent two and a half years of their three-year mandate on "theorising" and construing their perfect education model, producing loads of "conceptions", "strategies", and "foundations". During these long two and a half years there were few concrete, practical actions and measures that were implemented and eventually became sustainable. Only during the last six months of their mandate did they start actually transferring some of their broad, general ideas into tangible results (passing the "Umbrella 1 Law", constituting certain independent professional institutions, creating school programmes/curricula). All of this, however, even if it could have been proven useful (which is highly doubtful), never had the time to take root, and was very
easy to simply eradicate.
Besides the striking imbalance between long-term targets and practical
actions, there were a number of other factors that caused the 2001-2003 reform
to produce modest results:
•	It was a top-down reform based on the Etic approach rather than Emic approach;
•	Serious reforms require significant financial investments;
•	The reform was not based on a solid analysis and assessment of the situation at the time in Serbian education (this analysis did exist, but the top-down approach simply ignored it, using it only sporadically);
•	The problems and dilemmas faced in reality were never discussed in the policy and reform documents of the 2001-03 Ministry. Instead, these documents just presented general concepts, flaunting them during large convention-type gatherings, and simply assuming and demanding that they be accepted;
•	Outlining the concept of the reform and its consequent implementation did not involve the existing national institutions, who wanted to participate autonomously in policy creation and decision making. Instead, the reformers arbitrarily and subjectively selected the experts and professionals who would implement the reforms;
•	Over a three-year period, no independent national institution was created to participate in conceptualising and implementing the reforms;
•	The reformers refused to accept initiatives from other stakeholders (the Serbian Lyceum/Gymnasium Association, for example, developed in detail its own concept of how to reform all college prep high schools, but the Ministry simply ignored its suggestions), and were very touchy about any kind of criticism and unable to develop any kind of communication with their critics;
•	The reformers simply failed to implement many concrete measures under the conditions and within the given timeframe that was originally planned;
•	In the period 2004-05, the new "Umbrella Law" annulled all of the structural changes in the education system introduced previously that had caused too much turbulence and confusion within the system;
•	In May/June 2005, the Ministry of Education presented two important policy documents/strategies, but both texts have serious drawbacks.
In the Republic of Serbia, during the entire period between 2001 and
2005, regardless of the reforms introduced by the Ministry of Education, some
initiatives, projects and actions important for improving the quality of education in Serbia began to be realised (The National Plan of Action for Children, The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, The Strategy for the Improvement of Education of the Roma Population, etc). Based on these changes, which took place in a politically unstable country during the period 2001-2005, two types of conclusions can be made:
•	Regarding the relationship between education policy and politics: when education reforms are taking place within the context of political instability, the sustainability of these changes can only be ensured by creating reforms that rely not only on changes directly dependent on the education authorities but also on independent factors (e.g. independent professional institutions; individual schools that have commenced reforms; associations of teachers; university and research institutions that have started implementing reforms, etc;
•	Besides the political instability during this period, some changes that enhance quality and equity in education did occur (the creation of a system for the professional development of teachers, the creation of institutions that conduct the assessment of student achievement, the beginnings of the creation of VET that is adapted to the economic situation).
In spite of all of the turbulence and inconsistencies, some sustainable changes that occurred in Serbia could serve as a basis for the improvement of the entire nation with regard to tackling and resolving some problems related to ensuring the quality of education. Below we summarise and present the possible contributions of the reform initiatives and changes implemented hitherto:
•	Improving access and equity. An important contribution to this goal could be the creation of the NPA and the LPA, the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Strategy for the Improvement of Roma Education, etc.
•	Improving the quality of education. Achieving this goal could be greatly assisted by the creation of the Centre for the Evaluation of Quality in Education (now the Institute for the Evaluation of Quality in Education) and the continuation of its work, such as the national assessment of student achievement and participation in international programmes for the assessment of student achievement. Furthermore, the work of the Centre for the Professional Development of Teachers and its in-service teacher training could contribute to the achievement of this goal; and also, the establishment of the "teacher career ladder" mechanisms already defined in legal documents. The quality of education could also be strongly supported by the preservation of highly serious and challenging academic
programmes, and by the liberalisation of the school textbook market, on the condition that the already established standards for textbook quality are genuinely implemented.
•	Improving enrolment in and quality of preschool education programmes. This will surely be improved by the introduction of the "zero" grade, if developmentally appropriate programmes for this grade are developed. Introducing the obligatory Preparatory Preschool Programme in 2007 for children aged 5.5-6 years is an important measure in achieving this goal.
•	Young people and adult education and training. This goal will be greatly affected by the reconstruction and revitalisation of the entire VET education system.
Looking forward: The Strategy of Education Development in Serbia to 2020+
The aim of the analyses in the present text is to show what the basic, conceptual problems and weaknesses were in education changes in Serbia in the period 2001-05. Some observers have thought that the main problem was the interruption in the changes with the arrival of the new political garniture after 2005, but we hope that it is obvious from our analyses that the main problems were actually: conceptual (the approach to changes) and procedural (how the innovations were introduced in the system). Primarily, it is the lack of following: a comprehensive theoretical approach; a reliance on the strengths of the system itself; a reliance on positive experiences in practice; a holistic approach to reforming the education system, resulting in the introduction of certain solutions with no consideration of their relationship to other measures and to other parts of the system; viewing education as part of wider social context, with links to other sectors in society; critical analyses of borrowed solutions and their appropriateness for our sociocultural context; a broad, transparent and consultative approach, with numerous different and relevant aspects, from professional circles to citizens' circles; taking into account reality, the real conditions for implementing noble ideas,etc.
One could say that the period 2005-2009 was a kind of "lull". The "third" wave of education changes in Serbia is characterised by the development of the Strategy of Education Development in Serbia to 2020+ (Ministry of Education and Science of Serbia, 2012). In August 2009, a new "Umbrella Law" was adopted, and in July 2011 the Parliament adopted certain changes to this law: Amendments and Additions to the Law on the Foundations of the Education System in Serbia. However, the main precursor to the Strategy was the document Education in Serbia: How to achieve better results. Trends in the development and upgrading
of the quality of preschool, primary, general secondary and art education and upbringing 2010-2020 (2011, hereinafter Trends). The document Trends is a strategic document focused on pre-university education, and it is complementary to the Strategy of Education Development in Serbia (SDES). The SDES is a proposal by an expert group that has passed through broad professional and public consultative processes and entered in official procedure for acceptance. In addition, this wave of reform tries to answer serious questions regarding quality and equity in education. In Trends and the SDES there are four main parameters: access, quality, relevance and efficacy of the system, but the key criterion is quality, and no measure can be accepted if it jeopardises quality.
In comparison with the changes in the period 2001-05, the SDES is different both in terms of conception and procedure of preparation, as well as in some concrete solutions. Below are some key specificities of the SDES:
•	It incorporates a comprehensive and detailed analysis of all levels of the education system. In the public hearings on the proposal of the SDES, particular emphasis was placed on its representing a very good and precise picture of the state of the system. Unlike the reforms of 2001-05, in the SDES a serious assessment of current issues in Serbian education has been created as a basis for finding solutions and for finding resources within the system for its improvement (SED, 2012);
•	In the preparation of the SDES, three approaches were combined: research findings, relevant national and international documents (analyses, trends, assessments, reports, etc) and the rich practical experience with schools and teachers in Serbia;
•	The SDES recognises the strong sides of education in Serbia, and the changes are based on these sides (Emic approach) as well as on all possible supports outside the system;
•	The SDES is a holistic approach in two senses: firstly, it treats education in close connection with other sectors (it is not a reform dealing with itself rather than with the relationship of education to other important sectors of the society); and, secondly, the changes cover all education levels from preschool to lifelong learning. This further means that all of the proposed solutions must be compliant and compatible with one another, forming a logically consistent system;
•	Particular solutions in the SDES are developed from the mission of each education level (preschool, primary, secondary, tertiary, doctorial studies and LLL). The solutions were analysed in relation to one another, so together they constitute a logical whole;
•	At each level in the SDES, the strategic measures for fulfilling expected
outcomes have been developed in such way that it is easy to transfer them to an Action Plan for their realisation. Each possible partner (institutions, organisations, particular individuals, etc.) related to Serbian education and to the planned solutions was taken into account and is expected to take responsibility for and contribute to improvement of the system;
•	The SDES is a realistic approach, i.e., the whole construction is based on preconditions that can be fulfilled in the Serbian reality by 2020. Furthermore, there is a financial dimension, which is a necessary support for education changes;
•	The proposal of the SDES has been discussed within rich consultative processes involving numerous different stakeholders (the draft of each group was discussed by the members of consultative groups, by opponents and by international experts), and when it was revised on the basis of suggestions and comments received it was presented to the public all over Serbia in several ways: formal public presentations in different towns in Serbia; on the website of the MES; in panels, round tables, discussion groups in various institutions and organisations; and at conferences and meetings related to education;
•	The SDES represents an endeavour to move education in Serbia in the right direction and enable it to go forward. In this sense, the long-term targets (the mission of the system) are translated into practical actions in future years or phases are created.
Looking back, we see that in the last decade there have been constant attempts to introduce the necessary innovation in education in Serbia (e.g., standards of student achievement, standards for the evaluation of teachers, standards of textbook quality, the professional promotion of teachers, etc.). This process is very difficult for many reasons, including: the lack of political support; the inertia of the education system; the negative influence of sociocultural and economic variables; some of the measures are not well executed professionally (e.g., standards of textbook quality); sometimes mechanisms for the implementation of measures are not ensured (e.g., the professional promotion of teachers), etc.
The SDES has provided a comprehensive and realistic way to improve education. Now the SDES is in the procedure for acceptance by the government. However, the problem of SDES implementation is, of course, open and uncertain, and depends on the political will of the future Serbian government to accept education as a one of the developmental potentials of Serbia and to turn it into concrete measures in state policy.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank UNESCO, Division of Educational Policy Analysis and Educational Evaluation and Prof. Vinayagum Chinapah for the initiative for this analysis, which is part of broader research on monitoring and evaluating progress in the implementation of the goals of Education for All in Serbia. Also, we are grateful to the Ministry of Education and Science of Serbia, as the analyses have been realised within the framework of the project Identification, measurement and development of cognitive and emotional competencies that are important for a society oriented toward European integration (No. 179018).
References
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Ivic, I. (2001). Lééducation dans les pays de l'est et du sud -est de l'Europe : destruction, reconstruction, réforme? Pensée, 326(Avril/juin), 87-94.
Ivic, I. (2005). Monitoring & Evaluation of EFA Implementation. Elaborate for Division of Educational Policy Analysis and Educational Evaluation, UNESCO.
MES (2002a). Kvalitativno obrazovanje za sve - put ka razvijenom drustvu (Quality Education for All - A Path to a Developed Society). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport. MES (2002b). Reforma srednjeg strucnog obrazovanja: od razgovora do realizacije (Reform of the VET: From Conversation to Implementation). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport. MES (2003a). Katalogprograma strucnog usavrsavanja zaposlenih u obrazovanju (Catalogue of InService Training for Employees in Education). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport. MES (2003b). Zakon o osnovama sistema obrazovanja i vaspitanja (The Law on the Foundations of the Education System). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport.
MES (2004). Kvalitetno obrazovanje za sve: Izazovi reforme obrazovanja u Srbiji (Quality Education for All: The Challenges of Education Reform in Serbia). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport. MES (2004a). Zakon o izmenama i dopunama Zakona o osnovama vaspitanja iobrazovanja (Amendments and Additions to the Law on the Foundations of the Education System). Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport.
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Pešikan, A., & Ivic, I. (2009). Obrazovanjem protiv siromaštva: Analiza uticaja uvodenja pripremnog
predškolskogprograma u Srbiji. Vlada Republike Srbije, Tim potpredsednika Vlade za implementaciju
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Biographical note
IvAN Ivic, Professor, is leading developmental psychologist and educational expert in Serbia and ex-Yugoslavia but also in the international organizations (OECD expert for education; high level expert in CERI/OECD; OMEP; UNICEF). He was the coordinator of the major project on the evaluation of the education system in FR Yugoslavia, UNICEF, Belgrade); consultant of the Georgian Ministry of Education (1998); and member of UNESCO International Peer Group Review in Educational Evaluation. He was the minister of education in ex Yugoslavia (1991). Now professor Ivic is the coordinator and main author of the Strategy of education development in Serbia 2020+.
Ana Pesikan is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her professional interests are educational and developmental psychology. The focus of her work is on the active learning methodology, the construction and analysis of the textbook and teaching/learning history in school. She is national and UNICEF expert for education. She was the minister of science in Serbian Government (2007-2008). She is one of the founder and member of Education Forum, think-tank organization for educational issues and one of the authors of the Strategy of education development in Serbia 2020+.
A Forgotten Moment in Education Policy A Hungarian-Swedish Case Study from the Early 1970s
Tamas Kozma*1 and Zoltan Tozser2
After the brutal uprising of 1956, there was a decade of gradual reform in Hungary under the Kadar regime. As part of this decade of reform, Hungary received permission to join the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements), an organisation that had been established in the late 1950s by the well known Swedish educator and researcher Torsten Husen, who played an intermediary role in education policy between the West and the East. One step in fulfilling this role was his initiation a summer school under the umbrella of the IEA in the Swedish resort area of Graenna. The Hungarians were the only delegates from behind the Iron Curtain to participate. For them, it was a unique experience to view the centralised Swedish welfare state with contributions of American liberal democracy and education. This summer school of 1971 has since been forgotten, yet most of the initiatives of education policy after the political turn of 1989/90 have their roots there. This is especially true of the work and career of the well known Hungarian educator and a follower of Husen, the late Zoltan Bathory.
Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe, Educational reform, IEA, Torsten Husen, Zoltan Bathory
1	*Corresponding author. The University of Debrecen, Egyetem ter 1, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary kozmat@ella.hu
Personal Website: http://cherd.unideb.hu/kozmatamas
2	The University of Debrecen, Egyetem ter 1, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary tozser.zoltan@arts.unideb.hu
Personal Website: https://sites.google.com/site/nevtudtozser/
Pozabljen trenutek v edukacijskih politikah Madžarsko-švedska študija primera iz zgodnjih 70. let prejšnjega stoletja
TaMAS KoZMA* IN ZoLTAN TOZSER
^^ Po brutalni vstaji leta 1956 se je na Madžarskem v času Kadarje-vega režima začelo desetletje postopnih reform. V tem desetletju je Madžarska dobila tudi dovoljenje, da se pridruži lEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements), organizaciji, ki jo je v poznih petdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja ustanovil znani švedski pedagog in raziskovalec Torsten Husen, posrednik med zahodnimi in vzhodnimi edukacijskimi politikami. Eden od korakov k doseganju tega poslanstva je bil tudi pobuda za poletno šolo, ki je potekala v okviru lEA, in sicer na območju Graenna na Švedskem. Madžari so bili edini udeleženci, ki so prihajali iz držav za železno zaveso. Za njih je bila to edinstvena priložnost, da so spoznali centraliziran švedski primer socialne države, nastale po vzoru ameriške liberalne demokracije in z izobraževanjem. Poletna šola iz leta 1971 je bila pozneje sicer pozabljena, a večina pobud v edukacijskih politikah po političnem preobratu leta 1989/1990 izvira prav od tam. To še posebej velja za delo in kariero dobro znanega madžarskega pedagoga in privrženca Husena, pokojnega Zoltana Bathorya.
Ključne besede: Edukacijske reforme, osrednja in vzhodna Evropa, lEA, Torsten Husen, Zoltan Bathory
In Memory of Zoltan Bathory and those Hungarians who participated in the 1971 summer school
Introduction
A "new era of Hungarian education policy" started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Kadar regime, doing away with the severe international isolation of the late 1950s and early 1960s (after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution), undertook its most intensive period of reform, the peak of which was in the 1968 economic reform. Even though the reforms of the 1960s ended at the turn of the decade, in certain fields of public administration, such as education policy, the spirit of reform survived the fall of the reform period. This reform period came to an end with the acceptance of the 1972 Education Policy Act, which was, however, considered by the participants as a continuation of the reform period (see Pukanszky & Nemeth, 1997, pp. 673-675). This period of education reform is an unexplored area of research. However, for the generations of those who are no longer creators of education policy, this period was one of the most relevant experiences of education policy (the other one being the political changeover in 1989/1990).
This early reform generation, which consisted of young scholars, experts and education policymakers, contributed to the intensive development of the education policy and education reform of the Kadar regime, actually surpassing similar reforms in neighbouring countries. At the same time, this development contributed to the unique political environment of the Kadar regime, that is, to the illusion of "liveable socialism". An historical examination of this period of education reform - the late 1960s and early 1970s - has not yet been undertaken. Therefore, the present study, based on personal memories and knowledge, aims to contribute to the understanding of this period, and to illustrate the research with personal examples. Moreover, the aim is to perpetuate the role and activities of two outstanding figures of this education reform, Arpad Kiss and Zoltan Bathory. The topic of the study is a unique summer university. Similar summer universities were organised in other disciplines at the end of the 1960s, but in the field of educational research it was quite unusual.
This summer university of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) was organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). However, it was not directly in line with the mainstream of Hungarian educational research because it was a foreign initiative. The summer school not only had a long term impact on the participants' lives, but also laid the groundwork for a flourishing
period of educational assessment in Hungary. In fact, its effects are still evident in educational assessment today. The first part of the present study focuses on the preparations for the summer seminar. The second part elaborates on the events of the seminar, while the last part is an evaluation of the direct and indirect effects, as well as long term effects, of the seminar. During the preparation of the study, only the most essential research was carried out; the study is primarily based on personal experience aimed at preparing an educational history research project.
Preparations
The summer seminar, in which Hungarian scholars and researchers took part for the first time since the 1956 revolution, was organised by UNESCO's lEA programme. Its long history dates back to Hungary's role in the lEA programme. The lEA programme was initiated by Torsten Husén at the beginning of the 1960s (Walker, 1976). Husén not only became the emblematic figure of Swedish, and later international, educational research but, more importantly for the present study, he also became a symbolic figure of Swedish social democratic movements and an interposer between East and West. Olof Palme might be considered the leading figure of the Swedish social democrats in the history of international politics. In fact, Olof Palme, as a young education minister, and Torsten Husén, as his older advisor, contributed significantly to the establishment of this unusual Eastern European educational cooperation.
The IEA programme was based on a particular scholarly interest initiated by applied psychologists interested in students' school results. Education statisticians made an attempt to use these data for international comparisons. Here we highlight only two figures who established and stimulated this scholarly interest. The first was sociologist James Coleman, who, supported by the American Congress, prepared a well known report in 1966 about social injustice in America (Coleman, 1966). In his report, Coleman not only used the results of IQ tests (as had his predecessors, such as Jensen, 1969), but also the results of student assessments that at that time were widespread in US education policies and educational research. It seemed to be logical to use the results of these student assessments not only for social science research (international mobility research), but also for education comparisons.
The second outstanding figure was Philip Coombs, who joined Kennedy's group of reform economists, launching and propagating international educational planning. This initiative did not become very popular in the USA; however, UNESCO supported the idea and regarded it as its main activity in
the 1960s. In his renowned work (Coombs, 1968), Coombs reported on the "world crisis of education". He intended to solve this through educational planning (today known as "strategic management"). All of this occurred at a time when former colonial countries were gaining "independence", and it became a well known fact that the education system, or more precisely literacy, was at a desperately low level in these countries. For UNESCO, this was a stimulus for supporting educational planning as a miraculous remedy, for emphasising the importance of educational planning, for establishing organisations and for launching training on the international level, as well as on the level of developing countries. The background to this movement was the international political situation of the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War and the youth movement associated with it. The movement of the 1960s peaked in Europe in the student riots of 1968, and it is well known that this influenced socialist countries behind the Iron Curtain. Although it is not usual to find a direct link between these movements, the peak was definitely the Prague Spring of 1968, surrounded by several retainer countries and police autocracy, as well as the first generation of youth bands, amongst other phenomena.
Torsten Husen's initiative to measure and collect student achievement in the 1960s both on the European and international levels was part of this movement, or, more precisely, it signified an increased appreciation of the role of youth and of education policy. Husen's first research, later called a pilot study, was a comparative study on student mathematical achievement in twelve countries between 1963 and 1967 (Husen, 1969). The success of this research and the positive evaluation of the results of education policy motivated Husen and his colleagues - particularly his young British colleague Neville Postlethwaite - to continue their research on the international level, and the lEA survey was therefore organised. This survey included 19 countries, with the only communist country being Hungary. The data of the Six Subject Study were gathered in the period 1970-71, and the analysis was published two years later (see Comber & Keeves, 1973).
Signs of a New Political Era
The 5th Educational Congress was one of the outcomes of the changes in education policy in the 1960s, at least so practitioners and educational leaders thought (Kiss, 1970). Some of the institutions of Hungarian education science (the Hungarian Pedagogical Society and the journal Hungarian Pedagogy) that had been shut down, or at least "cancelled", in 1949 reopened and started operating again (under the supervision of the Teachers' Trade Union). The National
Pedagogical Institute, which was established in 1962 as a background institute of the Education Ministry and its Didactics Department (the director was Pal Bakonyi, and later Arpad Kiss) proved to be an appropriate institute to join in the international student assessment programme. The Didactics Department seemed to be a good fit for this purpose, because the Department's colleagues expressed their willingness to be leaders of the Institute. They were representatives of a didactics that could be used by methodology departments (developers of school subjects) in their taught subjects. Amongst the issues and the applications of this coordination role was the measurement of student achievements and assessment of student results.
This was stimulated mainly by the commitment of Arpad Kiss (Kiss, 1969), a commitment that was raised to an international level by participating in the IEA. From the very beginning, the role of the Didactics Department -generally the testing of student achievement - was looked upon with suspicion within the Institute, and even more so outside the Institute. The role of experimental psychology and psychologists was judged and prejudiced in the light of the general professional opinion; they only started to return to public educational life in the 1960s (Pleh, 1992). Several partners of the Didactics Department - university and college departments - did not like the idea of measuring student achievement only using tests. Instead, they supported a new approach to educational research, that of cybernetics. Members of the Didactics Department did not reject this idea, but they were rather sceptical about it. This was especially true of teachers of methodology, whereas teachers of the sciences (such as physics) were more open to the idea.
The only exception was the Education Department of the University of Szeged. Due to his knowledge of foreign languages, its leader Gyorgy Agos-ton was a member of the board of directors of UNESCO's Hamburg Institute, and was therefore informed about IEA projects. He represented Hungary's participation, and made every attempt to represent his department in the IEA project. His colleagues in the department were more open to the renewal of didactics than those in Budapest or Debrecen. For more than three decades, the main representative of this openness was Jozsef Nagy. He founded the so-called School of Szeged, which focused on educational research (Nagy, 1966). Zoltan Bathory, who was a promising and ambitious colleague of the Hungarian Pedagogical Institute (OPI), gained his doctorate under Nagy's supervision. After Arpad Kiss succeeded in arranging the Hungarian Pedagogical Institute's involvement in the IEA project, Zoltan Bathory was charged with overseeing Hungary's participation in the project.
The Summer School in Graenna
Torsten Husén and his colleague Neville Postlethwaite visited Budapest several times to prepare Hungary's inclusion in the IEA project (Kozma, 1969). Later, these visits were reciprocated, with the OPI group travelling to the summer university of Graenna, Sweden. It took years for the colleagues at OPI to prepare this participation in the IEA project; however, the present writer has no written documentation about this. Arpâd Kiss and Zoltan Bathory made careful preparations when selecting the representatives of Hungarian educational research, negotiating this with both Budapest and Stockholm.
They intended to find those Hungarian educational researchers, preferably methodologists, who were prepared, mainly through their language knowledge and skills, to meet the requirements of an international summer seminar. They all had to represent the subjects in which they could carry out research in their later academic carriers. Last but not least, they all had to meet the requirements of Hungarian politics. The members of the Hungarian team were selected by the beginning of 1971. It was led by Zoltan Bathory, who always remained a committed member of the IEA and later became a representative of student assessment both on an international and national level. Endre Ballér originally conducted research in the field of education history and later, in the 1960s, worked for the Education Ministry of Hungary. He was responsible for developing curriculum theory and curriculum planning (mainly because of his knowledge of languages).
Jozsef Horvath was a member of OPI's foreign languages department and was well known as an English teacher. The team not only used his knowledge of language teaching but also his ability to use language. Péter Szebenyi represented the humanities (social sciences), while Lajos Varga represented the sciences (such as physics). Tamas Kozma represented primary school education, partly because of his studies and experience in the field and partly because of his connections with the media. At the beginning of 1971, it seemed impossible, at least within the field of educational research, to send six educational researchers to an international seminar in the West lasting several weeks without any observers from the Ministry, although it is true that their family members stayed in Hungary. With his influence and connections, Arpad Kiss was considered to be the key person to undertaken this very significant achievement. After some meetings and networking events, the team set off on their journey to Sweden in the first days of July 1971.
Graenna was selected as the place for the summer university because of its ideal location. Participants of the summer seminar arrived from 18
countries. The Graenna Summer University was organised by UNESCO, who supported the lEA and its events for delegates of developing countries not only on a professional basis but also on a political basis. For East-Central European countries, namely Poland and Hungary, the 1971 summer university was the only "window" on Western Europe under UNESCO. The 1971 summery university in Graenna, however, was originally organised by Torsten Husén, who used his East-West connections and cultural diplomacy skills. Husén originally graduated from a German university, which is why he interpreted education from this point of view; however, later in his academic carrier he showed an interest in applied educational research. Husén became a well known educational researcher (Husén & Postlethwaite, 1988). Even though Husén and his institute initiated and organised the summer university in Graenna, the seminar was actually sponsored by the School of Education of the University of Chicago; the Graenna Summer University was advertised as a summer course of the School of Education of the University of Chicago. The summer course covered several topics, but the main focus was on how to measure student achievement and how this could contribute to improving education policy. The course focused on applied educational research and how the results of such an approach might contribute to developing education policy.
The education professionals visiting Sweden at that time might have noticed some differences and specific characteristics in the Swedish education system and in its educational research. Firstly, Sweden did not have a central education system such as Budapest, Moscow or Paris. There were several educational research projects in progress, carried out by universities and above all by teacher training colleges. The majority of these projects involved contract-based research. The Swedish Royal Office, that is, the Education Ministry, was the contractor, organiser and supporter of Swedish educational research. The Education Ministry was the owner of curricula and "education plans", at least as far as the content was concerned, as well as the concept of curricula and planning. Research conducted by Swedish educational researchers was totally different from that in Hungary. Not only were the history and philosophy of education completely omitted, but "best practices" in education were also excluded. Instead, Swedish educational research focused mainly on psychological and social science research. The data gained from this research seemed to be directly applicable to education policy.
Leaders of Swedish education policy also participated in the summer seminar in Graenna, with one of the most outstanding figures being Olof Palme. The Graenna Summer University was a combination of American and Swedish approaches to educational research and educational planning. Swedish
educational researchers had an opportunity to become acquainted not only with American educational research but also with the educational research of developing countries, as most of the participants in the 1971 Graenna Summer University were from developing countries, that is, from post-colonial countries. This was one of the greatest achievements of Swedish cultural diplomacy. Only two countries from East-Central Europe - Poland and Hungary - participated in the Graenna Summer University. Politics was avoided at the Graenna seminar not only for defensive reasons, but also because of professional beliefs. Student achievement could be related to education policy, not to politics. The focus was instead on educational research; more precisely, on cognitive psychology (Kagan & Havemann, 1968) and on psychological statistics (Hajt-man, 1971).
Life and Work at the Summer School
At the Graenna seminar, Plenary sessions were held in the mornings, at which professors and educational researchers presented their own books and studies for discussion purposes. These academic sessions were perfect opportunities to become acquainted with the educational research approaches of the "Chicago School". Torsten Husen's lectures focused on the problems of educational research and policymaking in the Swedish education system. The book he presented (Husen & Boalt, 1967) was an educational case study of Sweden. Although it was not this book that gained Husen his reputation, but rather the book entitled Talent, Opportunity and Career (Husen, 1969), on this occasion the latter was not appropriate for the seminar because it reflected the author's beliefs on education rather than his concepts on education policy. The book he presented was a co-authored collection of studies that concentrated on Swedish education reform. Husen firmly believed, and made his audience also believe, that if educational research is conducted in an excellent way, and if the results of such research are presented properly, it can have an influence on education policy. Havighurst, who was well known for his publications (Havighurst, 1962, 1966), represented the sociological approach in the Chicago team, stressing the importance of education in the social context. He had elaborated his thoughts in his book entitled Education and Society (Havighurst & Neugarten, 1962). Combining cultural anthropology and social psychology, his approach focused on education as one of the key forms of the socialisation process, and on its influencing factors, such as the family, school, the work place and leisure activities. During the sessions of the summer seminar, Havighurst argued that the sociology of education is in fact the sociology of human development.
Ralph Tyler summarised the main points of his book entitled Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler, 1970). Tyler, however, did not interpret the curriculum as a "central education document", as Hungarians did, but rather as a document that is based on "student needs". This interpretation of curriculum seemed quite unusual to the Hungarians, who were used to socialist curricula (where the curriculum was the "law"), and curricula based on principles and values, not on student needs. However, as it later turned out, the message of the summer seminar could only be interpreted and later applied in Hungary by using Tyler's approach to the curriculum. The philosophy and techniques of measuring student achievement could not be understood without this radically new interpretation of the curriculum and education.
Benjamin Bloom, who was one of the most influential figures of the seminar, presented different ways of measuring student achievement (Bloom et al., 1971). Bloom's lectures and the ensuing discussions not only elaborated the origins of measuring student achievement but also gave a detailed account of this approach with regard to the activities of the School of Education of the University of Chicago. Bloom commenced his career as a psychologist and later worked for the university's Centre for Assessment. He was responsible for undertaking numerous student assessments, and therefore began to implement new ways of analysing curricula, namely formative and summative assessments, an approach that gained him an international reputation. His approach can be used in classrooms as well as for school assessments. Benjamin Bloom definitely contributed to the success of the "Chicago School". There were two plenary sessions in the mornings and seminars in the afternoons. In addition to teachers, "the faculty" also had evening meetings every week to evaluate their own achievements during the seminar.
The schedules of the afternoon seminars were different from the morning plenary sessions. "Delegates" of the participating countries formed teams according to their professions and functions in the afternoon seminars. Zoltan Bathory joined the so-called scholarly team, which was led by Postlethwaite. Bathory and Postlethwaite became friends, and Bathory was therefore one of the leading researchers of their team. Endre Ballér became a member of an administrative group that was responsible for developing curricula using the results of IEA surveys and international comparisons. Péter Szebenyi and Lajos Varga took part in subject groups, while Tamas Kozma participated in a group of primary school researchers.
The Impact of that Summer
Even though the Hungarian educational research team participated in Graenna with the official consent of the ruling political party of Hungary, the initial effects of the seminar were few. However, members of the Hungarian team reached agreement on how they would publish what they had learned at the seminar in Graenna. In truth, this was not just a voluntary undertaking but also a formal obligation on their part. To meet this demand, the Hungarian scholars published several reviews in the official journal of the Hungarian Pedagogical Institute (The Pedagogical Review) about the books that had been presented at the seminar in Graenna (Kozma, 1972). However, the participants of the summer seminar faced two challenges: the first emerged from language differences, while the second was derived from the different concepts and ideas about education. It was not always possible to express and discuss the meanings of education terms in Hungarian, terms that otherwise sounded natural in English. This was not only because of linguistic differences, but mainly because of conceptual differences. For instance, the terms curriculum or formative and summative assessment had different meanings and connotations in Graenna than in Budapest. Moreover, assessment had a different meaning, resembling measurement.
The second challenge was the interpretation of education policy. Although the 1960s was a great decade for educational research, pedagogical knowledge and beliefs from the 1950s remained quite influential in public opinion about education. Members of the Graenna team, all but one of them colleagues at the Hungarian Pedagogical Institute, not only published book reviews about Graenna, but also critiques. Even if all of the reviews had been critiques, the team could not have made a significant impact on Hungarian educational research and education policy; Graenna was a forbidden issue for several years, and it was not possible to discuss the knowledge and experiences gained at the summer seminar in Graenna.
The seminar did, however, prove to be very influential in the long term, which was inevitable given the case of the IEA. The Graenna seminar was the first influential conference of the IEA, and was followed by several other important events. The Graenna team was only one episode in the history of the IEA, and even though the IEA was later closed down, it still continues to influence educational research. PISA research, as well as Hungarian Higher Education Student Achievement Research, can be regarded as direct descendants of the IEA, and of the 1971 Graenna summer seminar. Participation in the IEA Gra-enna seminar influenced the academic careers of all Hungarian educational
researchers, because at the time it appeared to be the mainstream of international educational research (an assumption that later proved to be false). Zol-tan Bathory's academic carrier was fundamentally influenced by the Graenna seminar and his connection to the IEA. He not only extended his professional knowledge and academic relations but also strengthened his position in the Hungarian Pedagogical Institute and in the Hungarian educational research community in general.
Bathory was strongly influenced by the IEA to become not only an educational researcher but also an education policymaker. He was well known and respected both on the international and national levels. The model of measuring student achievement and assessment, and of educational research in general, that was first presented in Graenna influenced Zoltan Bathory's former education school, as well as having an impact on student assessment at the University of Szeged. This model is known today as the "behavioural science paradigm" (Kozma, 2001). Moreover, the Graenna seminar also had an impact on the establishment of the Hungarian Educational Research Association (HERA) in 1989. Endre Ballér (1929-2007), who took part in the curriculum development group, did not commence his career at the Education Ministry, nor did he plan curricula there. However, he did manage to establish influential UNESCO and IEA relations, and had an opportunity to travel to developing countries as a curriculum developer. Endre Ballér's contribution to the creation of the first version of National Curriculum (NAT) was inevitable.
Needless to say, all of the participants of the Graenna seminar supported Ballér in carrying out this curriculum development. The creation of the first version of NAT was inevitably influenced by the Graenna seminar and Tyler's concept of the curriculum (Ballér, 1994, p. 358). However, it had another intention as well, and the first version was published in the academic White Paper (1977). The White Paper had an impact on NAT disputes and on educational thinking. Péter Szebenyi (1933-2001), who also contributed to the development of the National Curriculum (NAT), was influenced by the Graenna seminar too (Szebenyi, 1992).
Tamas Kozma was mainly influenced by Havighurst's sociology of education (Havighurst & Neugarten, 1962). This interpretation of the sociology of education differed from those Hungarian and Eastern European sociological concepts that stressed the importance of social mobility when attempting to research education. Havighurst had a different concept of the sociology of education because he was mainly influenced by Margaret Mead (Mead, 1970), as he interpreted education in the border context of the socialisation process. This approach to the sociology of education stressed the importance of the social
background variables of student achievement, whereas Hungarian education sociology research mainly focused on official statistics when carrying out social mobility research. For this reason, researching the effects of school districts became part of such research. This variable summarises all of the social influence factors that might have an impact on student achievement, and gives a more detailed explanation of differences in student achievement (Kozma, 1979). Ta-mas Kozma's continued interest in the sociocultural differences of Hungarian territorial units dates back to this time.
Members of the Hungarian team at the Graenna seminar encountered the lEA's interpretation of education, which was somewhere between basic research and applied education policy research, for the first time. The organisers of the Graenna seminar were successful educational researchers who had experienced how education policy might be influenced and how education reforms might be initiated. A successful education reform, supported by the notions of social democracy, had been carried out in Sweden after the second World War. Those who initiated the lEA and the Graenna seminar gained confidence from this success. The purpose of educational research - which is preferably independent of education policy (the Ministry of Education) - should not only be applied in school practice but also with regard to the education policy that influences school practice. The Hungarian team was influenced by this idea of applied education policy research.
Zoltan Bathory was a good example of someone who started his career as a researcher and ended up as an education policymaker. His role model was Torsten Husén, who worked as a professor all his life. Although Arpâd Kiss played a role in influencing education policy and education policymakers, he only managed to reach his goal in the informal context. On the other hand, Zoltan Bathory became a leading education policymaker, and he always managed to associate his name with his education reforms. Endre Ballér's interest in education policy was applied in the preparation of NAT. The NAT disputes also influenced Péter Szebenyi's career, however, as he instead concentrated on different aspects of education policy (such as education advisory). Tamas Kozma was influenced by this commitment to education policymaking when he contributed to educational planning on different levels and on different terms. All in all, the Graenna seminar was extremely influential in all of the participants' academic careers. It was just one moment of the new era of 1960s education policy, but what a moment!
References
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Coleman, J. S. (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Comber, L. C., & Keeves, J. P. (1973). Science Education in Nineteen Countries. Stockholm: Almqvist, Wiksell.
Coombs, Ph. H. (1968). Az oktatds vildgvdlsdga [The World Crisis in Education: The View from the Eighties]. Budapest: Tankonyvkiado.
Hajtman, B. (1971). Bevezetes a matematikai statisztikdba [Introduction to Mathematical Statistics]. Budapest: Akademiai.
Havighurst, R. J. (1962). Growing Up in River City. New York: Wiley. Havighurst, R. J. (1966). Education in Metropolitan Areas. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Havighurst, R. J., & Neugarten, B. L. (1962). Society and Education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Husen, T., & Boalt, G. (1967). Educational Research and Educational Change. Stockholm: Almqvist, Wiksell.
Husen, T., & Postlethwaite, N. T. (1988). International Encyclopaedia of Education: Research and Studies. Oxford: Pergamon Press (Elsevier).
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Biographical note
Tamas Kozma is emeritus professor (sociology of education) at the Institute of Educational Sciences and president of the Center for Higher Education Research and Development, both at The University of Debrecen (Hungary). He has studied theology, history and education in Budapest, Szeged (Hungary) and Cluj (Romania). He has received his PhD from The University of Szeged, his C.Sc (Candidate of Sciences) and D.Sc (Doctor of Sciences) from The Hungarian Academy of the Sciences, and his habilitation from his present university. He was the director of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research (Budapest) between 1990-2000 which he still serves as a scientific adviser.
Zoltan Tôzsér received Master's degrees with honors in history and in education. He has teacher certifications in both subjects. Later he studied in the Educational Doctoral Program of the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. He has been the researcher and manager of the Center for Higher Education Research and Development (CHERD-Hun-gary). He has published studies and book reviews in Hungarian and in English and has given presentations in international and Hungarian conferences. He was granted the ECER scholarship of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) three times and the British Educational Scholarship (BERA) in 2012. Zoltan has considerable international experience because he studied at the Danish School of Education at Âarhus University. In 2012 he was granted an American scholarship at Indiana University Bloomington, USA as a visiting scholar.
The Curricular Reform of Art Education in Primary School in Slovenia in Terms of Certain Components of the European Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression
Rajka Bracun Sova1 and Metoda Kemperl*2
One of the important positions of the last curricular reform in Slovenia, which included systemic issues of education (White Paper on Education, 2011) and curricula for compulsory subjects in primary school, is the fact that Slovenia has been integrated into Europe, and thus education should also include the development of core European competences. One such competence is cultural awareness and expression, which until now has been an issue more in the context of cultural policies than school policies in Slovenia. The purpose of the present article is to critically analyse the curricular reform of art education (i.e., visual art education), through which, in terms of certain components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression, it is foreseen that the student will gain a knowledge of art, develop an ability to experience works of art and develop a creative attitude towards art and heritage. Because the starting point and goal of curricular change is the curriculum, our analysis is derived from curriculum theories, and not from the art theories and pedagogical theories that have predominantly framed previous attempts at curriculum analysis. Critical consideration of the curricular reform of art education in primary school in terms of certain components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression was undertaken by comparing curricula in the field of aesthetic education. We compared art education with music education and literature within the Slovenian language curriculum. Qualitative analysis showed that, despite the reform, the curriculum for arts education does not realise selected components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression, largely due to the curriculum's conceptual structure. Art education is centred principally on art-making activities, with an obvious neglect of appreciation. The integration of arts subjects at school, as
1	Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana
2	*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana metoda.kemperl@pef.uni-lj.si
proposed by the White Paper, is therefore not possible, due to the existing model of art education. From a practical point of view, the analysis also raised the question of the knowledge and competences of teachers.
Keywords: Curricular reform, Curriculum analysis, The art education curriculum, Cultural awareness and expression, The model of art education
Introduction
The last curricular reform was completed in 2011. It included conceptual and systemic changes in education included in the White Paper on Education in the Republic Slovenia, as well as updates of curricula for compulsory subjects in primary school. Updating curricula subsequent to Slovenia becoming part of the European Union and a member of the Council of Europe meant, among other things, the integration of fundamental European competences for lifelong learning. One of these is cultural awareness and expression.
In the years since Slovenia was integrated into Europe, the competence of cultural awareness and expression has been an issue more in the context of cultural policy than school policy. Cultural education was placed in the core strategic document on cultural policy (The National Programme for Culture 2004-2008; 2008-2011; 2012-2015), a few studies were undertaken, and, in 2009, special national guidelines for cultural education were created, which were confirmed by expert councils in education. Based on the White Paper, the Ministry of Culture made a number of remarks that referred to cultural education.
The White Paper is a fundamental document for the development of Slovenian education. With principles, objectives, strategic challenges and conceptual solutions, it frames the whole system as well as the various areas of education within it. We could say that the issues of cultural education are integrated into the general principles of education, the general objectives of education and the strategic challenges and directions of the education system, since everywhere the emphasis is on the common European heritage of political, cultural and moral values.
In the field of elementary education, the White Paper includes many principles on the importance of cultural and art education (Bela knjiga, 2011, pp. 114-117). The principle of providing universal education, and quality and sustainability of knowledge assumes that general education, in addition to linguistic, mathematical, scientific, social science, technical, physical and informational literacy, also includes artistic literacy.3 The principle of a school's cooperation with the environment explicitly foresees the cooperation of the school with museums and galleries, if we emphasise this authentic space of experiencing art. The principle of the creation and dissemination of national
The White Paper does not include definitions of individual literacies, thus to understand the concept of literacy we refer to the definition of reading literacy in the National Strategy for the Development of Literacy (Nacionalna strategija, 2006, p. 6): "Literacy is the constantly developing ability of an individual to use socially agreed systems of symbols for accepting, understanding, creating and using texts for life in the family, the school, at work and in society. Acquired knowledge and skills, and developed skills, enable an individual successful and creative personal growth and accountability in business and social life."
culture and the promotion of intercultural understanding involves knowledge and creation of culture, a sense of the importance of culture and promoting in-terculturalism. In accordance with this principle, among other things, students need to acquire a knowledge of the history of Slovenia and its culture. This is connected with the next principle, the principle of creating an awareness of knowing one's own identity and active involvement in the creation of heritage communities. All of these and other principles are part of a wider programme of education - the curriculum.
In the present article, we critically analyse the curricular reform of art education in primary school in terms of certain competences of cultural awareness and expression. This was done by comparing curricula in the field of arts or aesthetic education, taking curriculum theories as a point of departure rather than art theories and pedagogical theories, which have mainly framed previous attempts at curriculum analysis (Zupančič, 2008; Herzog, Batič, & Duh, 2009).
Curriculum theoretical frameworks
The curriculum is the focus concept of curriculum theory and is very wide in its definition. In the International Encyclopedia of Curriculum (Lewy, 1991), the concept includes conceptual and terminological aspects of the curriculum, influences of different theories, science disciplines, policies and ideologies on the creation, development and shaping of the curriculum, components of the curriculum (from curricula to the textbook), different models, approaches or concepts of the curriculum, curriculum planning (defining and conceiving curricula, content and methods), transfer of the curriculum to pedagogical practice, and evaluation of the curriculum. From the first definition of the curriculum as a programme of teaching and learning, which dates from the end of the 1940s, until now, the fundamental conception of the curriculum has not essentially changed. With four basic components - learning goals, content, methods and evaluation of learning accomplishments - the curriculum means the plan of the educational process (Tyler, 1949). That which changes with the development of curriculum theories is what we could call a shift from discussion of the curriculum as a product to process perspectives, where various issues associated with the planning, implementation, changing and controlling of the curriculum (who plans, what is planned, how is it planned, etc.) are in the foreground. The fact that we value and perceive goals, content and methods of education differently led researchers to discussions on systemic, ideological or philosophical concepts of the curriculum (e.g., Kelly, 1999; Marsh, 1992; Posner, 1995), as well as to discussions on the curriculum in terms of concrete
political, economic, technological, demographic and other circumstances (e.g., Ornstein, Pajak, & Ornstein, 2011). As Kroflic says in a discussion on theoretical approaches to planning the curriculum, planning educational activity has a "very interdisciplinary nature" (1992, p. 10).
At the core of curricular reform should be consideration of the planning and structure of the curriculum in connection with models of education (cf. Pevec Semec, 2007, 2009). Since curricular planning and implementation is a very complex process, a wide conception of the curriculum is very important, the basic question being what we want to achieve with a specific curriculum. Kelly says that we have to have a critical view of the curriculum, we have to doubt the appropriateness of our discussion on the curriculum and our views on it, and that we also need to consider and mainly fundamental values included in the curricular studies. "The concern is not with mere methodology, with the how of educational practice, but much more with questions of the justification of such practice, with the why as well as how." (Kelly, 1999, p. 20)
General curricular issues are also transferred to specific educational fields. In connection with the educational field of arts and visual art, Gluck (1991), in the aforementioned encyclopaedia of curriculum, introduces the reader to various curricular issues: the question of the role and meaning of art for the development of the student, the lack of definition of didactic recommendations and standards in the field of art education, and the question of the relevance (or irrelevance) of educational programmes in this field. In the encyclopaedia, we also find historical and conceptual reviews of aesthetic education (Otto, 1991) and programmes (models) of education in the field of art (Efland, 1991), a special discussion on museum education (Lee & Solender, 1991), with the curriculum in the field of art connected to the issue of the human relationship to art (acknowledgment of art as a personal and social value) (Morris, 1991), as well as other curricular topics in the field of art education. The diversity of these topics confirms the fact that the curriculum not only represents learning content, the implementation plan of the lesson, but also its context, the basis for it (cf. Kroflic, 2002).
According to the above, we could summarise the discussion on the primary school curriculum in the field of art in a few basic questions: Which learning goals we are trying to achieve? What are the selection, scope and succession of learning content? Which teaching methods aid the achievement of the planned and expected goals? Are learning goals, content and methods synchronised? And finally: Which model of art education do we have? Such discussion on the curriculum should include the curriculum in connection with manuals, textbooks and other learning aids, and should also include the wider
context.
The purpose and method of the research
The article focuses on the curricular reform of art education in primary school in regard to certain components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression. This competence is written explicitly in the art education curriculum (the subject of discussion is the art education curriculum from 2011, which is an update of the 2004 curriculum).4
The competence of cultural awareness and expression is defined as: "Appreciation of the importance of the creative expression of ideas, experiences and emotions in a range of media, including music, performing arts, literature, and the visual arts". Regarding the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes related to this competence, the Official Journal of the European Union states: "Cultural knowledge includes an awareness of local, national and European cultural heritage and their place in the world. It covers a basic knowledge of major cultural works, including popular contemporary culture. It is essential to understand the cultural and linguistic diversity in Europe and other regions of the world, the need to preserve it and the importance of aesthetic factors in daily life. Skills relate to both appreciation and expression: the appreciation and enjoyment of works of art and performances as well as self-expression through a variety of media using one's innate capacities. Skills include also the ability to relate one's own creative and expressive points of view to the opinions of others and to identify and realise social and economic opportunities in cultural activity. Cultural expression is essential to the development of creative skills, which can be transferred to a variety of professional contexts. A solid understanding of one's own culture and a sense of identity can be the basis for an open attitude towards and respect for diversity of cultural expression. A positive attitude also covers creativity, and the willingness to cultivate aesthetic capacity through artistic self-expression and participation in cultural life" (Official Journal of the European Union, 2006).
In terms of art education, we assume in regard to certain components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression that the student acquires a knowledge of art, develops an ability to experience works of art, and a develops creative relationship to art and heritage. The emphasis is on the understanding of culture (to understand a specific culture, we have to know it) and the feeling of identity (to understand it, we have to develop it) in order to live and work in an intercultural environment. The competence, a new concept
4 The competence is written inaccurately, as cultural awareness and art expression.
in education, is understood as knowledge and skill or ability.5 "The concept of competence warned about the complexity of knowledge, on its intertwinement with the dispositions of an individual and on the urgency of teaching the use of knowledge" (Bela knjiga, 2011, p. 23).
The methodology is qualitative. We have included updated curricula in the research, but the analysis itself does not include textbooks and other teaching aids, as they do not (yet) exist. We have undertaken content analysis of the curriculum for art education, and for comparison have included content analysis of other curricula in the field of art-music education and literature within Slovene language curricula (the latter also including elements of drama and film education). We classify these three subjects in the area of aesthetic education - education for experiencing - which derives from direct contact with visual, music and literary art (Otto, 1991). The comparison refers to the clarity, precision, direction and coordination of learning goals, content and methods. All of the curricula have the same basic structure: first we have the definition of the subject, second are the basic goals of the subject, followed by operative goals and content by educational periods, after which we have standards of knowledge, while the curriculum is concluded with didactic recommendations.
Analysis of the curriculum for art education
An initial reading of the curriculum (Učni načrt: program osnovna šola: likovna vzgoja, 2011) first shows the use of many terms (also coinages) for art or an artwork as the focus concept of art education: "Artistic and visual culture", "object of visual and art culture", "art and visual culture", "heritage of art", "cultural heritage", "art cultural heritage", "artwork", "artwork of an artist", "visual artwork", "cultural monument", "art creation" and "artistic creation". Direct contact with the artwork and attitude towards art is expressed with phrases such as: "to value" (art and visual culture), "to have an ear for" (artworks of artists), "to learn, experience, value" (heritage of art) and "to develop sensitivity towards" (art cultural heritage and cultural diversity). In connection with understanding a culture, the term "visual space" (also "visual environment" and "visual world") is used, which is supposed to mean the natural, personal, social and cultural space. The basic task of art education is "development of the student's art ability (competence), which derives from an understanding of the visual
"Some conceptions of competence include the ability of practical use of knowledge and skills in ever new circumstances, as well as beliefs, values, personal features (creativity, initiative, ability to solve problems, manageability, ability to adapt, conducting obligations, ability to learn), etc., which are a necessary condition for the successful implementation of a specific action." (Bela knjiga, 2011, pp. 22-23).
(natural, personal, social and cultural) space and is expressed with the active transformation of this space into an art space". Among general learning objectives derived from the definition of the subject, objectives connected with art expression or creation prevail. The general usefulness of the subject is defined with the development of spatial representations and the ability to visualise.
The curriculum is substantively divided into the areas of art creation: designing on a plane (drawing, painting and graphics, in the second and third educational periods also graphic design) and designing in three-dimensional space (sculpture and architecture). In the first educational period, the areas are separated and there are five substantive parts (drawing, painting, graphics, sculpturing and architecture), while in the second and third educational periods, the fields are joined into two substantive parts (drawing, painting, graphics and graphic design in the part of designing on a plane, and sculpture and architecture in the part of designing in three-dimensional space). The teacher defines and deals with the content based on operative goals and concepts. Derived from the field of art creation, these are directed towards learning about art techniques, materials, tools and shape-forming concepts. The function of art is basically didactic; an artwork is "a means for showing and learning concepts", and in this role is equal to "the artwork of students", "nature" and "the environment".
In the first educational period, for example, in the area of drawing, students: "test different drawing materials and accessories, develop creative drawing abilities and maintain individual drawing expression, draw shapes with different drawing materials and accessories on different sized bases, observe and compare examples of lines in nature, the environment and artworks with works, art products of students and examples from nature and the environment; they learn about art concepts connected to drawing, develop a sense for the use of different types of lines, freehand drawing and with a ruler, draw shapes and fill with lines and points; in drawing they also use simple computer tools, develop a sense for the logical integration of motif in the selected format, draw shapes by observation, memory and imagination, become accustomed to the independent selection of shapes, colours, sizes and the purpose of drawing bases; they develop a sense for organising shapes in a drawing, develop a sense for the construction of a drawing from the whole to the parts, develop a sense for expanding a drawing with textures (linear, point), learn about the features of different drawing materials and accessories, and develop motoric ability for handling different drawing materials and accessories". The concepts that they learn in this area are: "Point-dot, line, drawing, drawing base, drawing materials, drawing accessories, shape, types of lines (straight, curved, polyline, short, long, horizontal, perpendicular, oblique), size of shapes, shapes of drawing
base, size of drawing base, drawing materials and accessories, different base for different art techniques, incomplete line, complete line, texture of shapes, shape filled with linear and point textures, organising shapes in the drawing, format, purpose of drawing base, hard drawing material, fluid material for drawing".
In the second educational period, where drawing, painting, graphics and graphic design are combined in the substantive part of designing on the plane, and sculpture and architecture are joined in the part of designing in a three-dimensional space, objectives directed towards art expression are joined with "learning important artworks within the different design areas of domestic and world heritage". The curriculum does not provide answers to the question as to which works these are and why they are important. Concepts are still connected to art techniques, while some formal (design) aspects of artworks become more complex (e.g., whereas before we had lines, now we have "a sparse string of lines - light plane (raster)", "a dense string of lines - dark plane (raster)", "organisation of light and dark hatched planes", etc.). One new concept is the "art motif": in the fourth grade students learn about the portrait, self-portrait, landscape and still life, in the fifth grade they learn about the family and group portrait, and in the sixth grade they learn about genre (they do not learn about other motifs.) They learn about these motifs in drawing, painting and graphics; they do not learn about the sculpture portrait, but they do, for example, learn about the sculpture monument (from further reading of the curriculum we see that the art motif also refers to the content, theme and message of the artwork, which is a professional mistake that we will not discuss here).
In the third educational period, we continue to learn about the concepts connected to different ways of expressing on the plane and in space. In this period, students should demonstrate an ability to analyse and evaluate artworks, thus objectives also include "learning about artworks of national and international art and cultural heritage". However, the concepts do not include discussion of which art we study and what we learn through it. In terms of drawing, painting, graphics and graphic design, the student learns about composition, the relationship of the parts to the whole in composition, ratio, types of compositions, shot, succession, the illusion of space, space keys and plans, drawing by observing, different perspectives, saturation of colours, colour opposites, colour dimensions, colour harmony, tone painting, art graphics, industrial graphics, high and deep print, small graphics and animation. On the basis of these concepts, however, the student is not able to analyse and evaluate, for example, graphic papers and series from the 16th century, and, with this art, expressed concepts, ideas and values (e.g., Protestantism). We see some of these concepts only in sculpture (e.g., "abstraction in sculpture").
Among didactic recommendations on fulfilling the objectives of the subject, despite the reference that "in art education, the teacher constantly educates the students culturally", there are no concrete recommendations on encouraging the experiencing and understanding art works. The emphasis is on methodical views of art expression, on "conducting art tasks", while the curriculum does not include connections between art making and learning about artworks, so-called art creation according to artworks. It is recommended that the teacher "include examples of artworks, reproductions or originals of art creations in the individual steps of the learning process in a logical way"; the artwork has a function of "depiction (teaching aid)", so that the students better understand the art technique or motif. Among the recommendations is a visit to a museum or a discussion with an artist (at least once a year), which is intended to be for "in-depth learning" about artworks, an activity that is not appropriately captured in the learning objectives and content; recommendations in regard to these activities do not exist. Didactic recommendations do not differ substantially during the various educational periods; in the third educational period, when students "are losing spontaneity in art expression" and it is "the time of depiction", and when the student should know how to explain the meaning of cultural heritage for Slovenia and the world, the task of the teacher remains the same: he/she creates opportunities for art expression and tries to "nurture individual art expression" among students. The teacher is expected to still be "attentive to experiencing and expressing emotions, to the social development of the student (his/her relation with others), to emotions that emerge with this and to the student's interest in art creation and ways of expression, as well as his/her relationship to items: experiencing the beautiful and developing abilities to create beautiful things". There are no recommendations, however, regarding how to encourage the student's interest in art, nor are there recommendations on how to evaluate knowledge and competences (which is true for all three educational periods); from the first to the ninth grade, the teacher can only evaluate art products.
The analysis of curricula for literary education, integrated in the Slovenian language curricula, and music education
The curriculum for Slovene language (Učni načrt: program osnovna šola: slovenščina, 2011) has two areas: language and the literature class. The purpose of the literature class is clear, and is defined as follows: "In the literature class, students are faced with artistic/literary texts and, in addition to communicative
competence, develop experiential, imaginative, creative, evaluative and intellectual ability. With the perception of cultural, ethical, spiritual and other dimensions - which literary art possesses as one of the most universal achievements of civilization, and which are especially important for the existence of Slovene culture - there is a strengthening of cultural, patriotic and national education, as well as intercultural and wider social ability". The objective of the literature class is that students critically accept artistic/literary texts by Slovenian and other authors, that reading becomes their need and value (that they read texts, visit libraries and attend film and theatre performances as well as literary events in their free time), that they shape their identity with reading, broaden their horizons, learn about their culture and other cultures, etc. The curriculum emphasises literary and aesthetic experience: when accepting artistic/literary texts, students develop communication ability and gain literary knowledge. Placing texts in a temporal and cultural context and acquiring literary knowledge enables students a deeper experience, understanding and appreciation of artistic texts. Literary and aesthetic experience, supported by literary knowledge, enables in-depth learning about literature and aesthetic expressive possibilities, enhances pleasure during reading and helps to develop a positive attitude towards literature (reading), creativity and (self)expression in various media.
The literature class has two main operational objectives: (1) development of the reception ability by reading, listening and watching performances of art text and speaking, and by writing about them, and (2) development of the reception ability by (re)creating artistic texts (writing, interpretative reading, speaking). Each objective is analysed into specific objectives and content or areas related to developing reception ability. Reception ability is defined as the ability to experience, understand and appreciate literary texts of different genres and types (poetry, prose, drama), and as the ability to experience, understand and appreciate theatre/puppet shows, radio dramas and movies. Students are expected to experience, understand and appreciate specific literary elements in terms of literary class; to identify literary people, perceive and experience literary space and time, understand events, theme and message, distinguish author and narrator, identify literary perspective, etc. The curriculum defines the literary knowledge that students acquire in the individual educational period and suggests literary texts (authors and titles of works) for discussion in the particular educational period. In the third educational period, specific writers and their works, of which students have to have a good knowledge, are also listed; it is expected that the student be able to indicate the main characteristics of literary periods and movements and of selected representatives and their works, as well as to classify authors into literary periods.
Didactic recommendations on the development of reception ability include the definition of the communication model of the literature class, in the centre of which are the literary text and the student of literature, as well as models of school interpretation of the art text, including introduction motivation, announcement of the text, placement and interpretative reading, pause after reading, expression of experiences and analysis, synthesis, evaluation and re-reading, and assignments. Recommendations also include the relationship between reception activities (reading, listening) and formation activities (speaking, writing). For each educational period, the proportion of the Slovenian language class represented by the literature class is defined, as are methods of work (e.g., discussion, directed silent reading, reading aloud, role play, dramatisation, drawing), recommendations on the selection of texts and other recommendations on achieving the goals of the subject. The curriculum places particular emphasis on cultural education, in terms of intersubject connections. The method of assessing and evaluating the student's reception and literary reading abilities is also precisely defined.
In the definition of the subject, the curriculum for music education (Učni načrt: program osnovna šola: glasbena vzgoja, 2011) emphasises that music is a human need and value. Music as art is defined as musical production (creativity), reproduction (recreation) and reception (creative reception). Music education includes activities of implementation, creation and listening to music, which lead the student to adopt different forms of music and its assessment and evaluation. There is also an emphasis on school and extracurricular music activities (listening to music, participating in music groups) for the student's development and lifelong learning. The objectives of music education - e.g., "promoting experience and expression of music with music activities (listening, conducting, creating) and other means and media of expression", "provoking curiosity and developing an interest in, and an active attitude towards, music", "participating in different forms of music activities", "creating a positive attitude towards the national and world music heritage", "developing sensitivity and tolerance towards different music cultures and towards those who perform this music", "a knowledge of music literature, artists and performers, and of the laws of musical language", "developing critical judgment and evaluating music", "encouraging aesthetic development with the activities of musical conducting, listening and creating" - also have the important function of developing the competence of cultural awareness and expression among students.
At the operational level, the music education class is divided into three areas: conducting, creating and listening. Although these areas are complementary and connected, for the purposes of our analysis we will hereinafter
focus on listening, since this area is primarily focused on the development of the student's ability to apprehend aesthetic experience. Listening to music is defined in each of the educational periods, as the music class is gradually designed/planned. From initial listening to the sounds of nature and the early music concepts that students acquire in the first educational period, e.g., song, composer, choir, orchestra, etc., the curriculum in the third educational period includes listening (identifying, comparing, defining, evaluating) to prehistoric music, ancient and Medieval music, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic music, as well as music of the 20th and 21st centuries. While listening, students acquire concepts such as (to take the example of music of the 20*^ and 21" century in the 9'^ grade): Impressionism - the whole-tone scale, dissonance, Expressionism - twelve-tone composition, serialism, Neoclassicism, neo-Baroque, folklore, ethnomusicology, new music, avant-garde, tonal music, atonal music, sound clusters, electronic (electroacoustic) music, experimental music, improvised music, jazz, popular music, dance music and folk music. Listening to music includes activities such as: active listening, re-listening, expressing one's experience while listening, and deepening of one's experience while listening. Through listening, students identify, distinguish, compare, regulate, establish and evaluate individual components or characteristics of music. At the end of primary school, students are expected to know music periods, genres, and important artists and musical works, as well as knowing how to place music (prehistoric music, ancient and Medieval music, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic music, as well as music of the 20th and 21st century) into the historical context. The curriculum also contains several recommendations on how to examine and evaluate (examination and evaluation is oral, through written products, diaries, records and other products, and through solving practical problems, while the implementation and process of creation is also examined and evaluated) knowledge, skills and abilities in the course of music education.
The comparison of art education with literary education and music education
In terms of cultural awareness and expression, and the definition of aesthetic education as the education of experience derived from direct contact with art, music and literary work, the comparison primarily shows terminological confusions. The curriculum for art education does not include uniform and entirely appropriate terminology for art, the artwork, culture and heritage. Comparison with literary and music education also shows that in the context of art education there is no basic name for the direct contact (interaction) with the
artwork; books are read, music is listened to, artworks are looked at (Otto, 1991). Consequently, there are not even the most appropriate activities in this area.
Literary education includes reading, listening, watching performances of art texts, speaking and writing about literary texts and the (re)creation of art texts. In addition to conducting and creating, music education also includes listening to music. All of these activities lead to experiencing, understanding and evaluating literary and musical works of art; in short, they lead to the development of the student's ability to accept, evaluate and appreciate. It is about the affective area of learning and development, which is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Education (Wallance, 2008, pp. 11-12) as the area of learning whose objective is embodied by the aesthetic appreciation in the area of visual art, literature and music, as well as in spiritual and moral education. Within art education, curricular learning content or activities relate to the field of artistic creation (creation on the plane and design in three-dimensional space) and lead to practical art expression (art making), which especially emphasises spontaneity and individuality, while the work of art has the function of a teaching tool to learn concepts related to art design (cf. Podobnik, 2011; Tacol, 2011). In accordance with contemporary curriculum theories that emphasise process and development planning (cf. Kroflic, 1992, 2002), we would classify such art education among older, behaviourist models, because it does not enable appropriate effects in the field of moral and social development (we should remember that the general usefulness of the subject is defined by the development of spatial representations and the ability to visualise). "The process and developmental model of education assumes the transfer of specific knowledge and experience, but emphasises the beneficial character of content and methods of teaching that contribute to the development of the student's personal abilities, whether this is the development of cognition, which is a fundamental condition of critical thinking, the development of those cognitive and affective features that enable the gradual creation of the value orientation of an individual and autonomous morality, or the assimilation of such knowledge, skills and habits that enable the quality professional socialisation of an individual." (Pevec Semec, 2007, p. 136)
Although the goals of art education include goals related to the development of the abilities to experience art works and an attitude towards art, unlike in literary and music education these objectives are not aligned with content and methods. The fundamental difference is that literature and music education include a knowledge of artworks from different periods and their placement in the historical context, whereas the art class does not. Similar can be said of didactic recommendations on the teaching of literature and music: included are recommendations regarding the selection of artworks, reading
and listening strategies, as well as methods enabling the student to arrive at his/ her own experiences of the artwork. The knowledge and abilities that students acquire or develop are also examined and assessed (both curricula include the methodology of examination and assessment). The comparison also shows that literature and music classes are planned gradually, which means that the steps of acquiring receptive abilities are precisely defined from the first educational period, through the second to the third.
In terms of the competence of cultural awareness and expression, the comparison also shows that in both curricula, for literary and music education, the art (literature and music), or its perception (reading, listening), is defined as a human need and value. The emphasis is on an active and creative attitude towards literature and music: reading texts, listening to music, going to film shows, theatre performances, literary events and concerts also in the student's free time. As Morris (1991) says, an active attitude towards art has to be learned, while it is not just about the student's attitude towards art, but about the teacher's attitude towards art, the status of the subject in school, and the human attitude towards art in general (ibid., pp. 684-685).
Conclusions
European policy is trying to introduce more artistic content into school curricula (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010). Knowing and understanding art, critical evaluation, understanding the importance of cultural heritage, understanding cultural diversity, abilities to express and develop one's own identity through art and creativity - these are the fundamental objectives of cultural and art education. The purpose of art education is not only acquiring a knowledge of an artistic language and artistic expression, but also identifying the influence of culture on the formation of personal, local and national identity (recognising the importance of the cultural heritage), learning about and accepting different cultures, and aesthetic appreciation. A comparative analysis of curricula in the field of aesthetic education shows that visual art education does not realise these objectives, the reason primarily being the inadequate conceptual structure of the curriculum, which is organised according to areas of art creation, with goals oriented towards art making that has to be spontaneous and free, and has to enable individuality and subjectivity. It is basically an expressionist model of art education (Efland, 1990), regarding which one could say that it is not just one of the approaches to art education, but that it has for a long time been the dominant and official model
of communicating art content in Slovenia.6 In this sense, adding "missing" modern art practices, which is where Slovenian researchers see the reform of art education (Vrlič, 2002; Zupančič, 2008; Herzog, Batič, & Duh, 2009), would only maintain the same concept. Our analysis has shown that art education is a completely different issue (which we have to consider in the context of what Kelly calls support of educational practice); namely, the issue of developing aesthetic ability that derives from interaction with the artwork - both historical and contemporary.
In terms of selected components of the competence of cultural awareness and expression, it is assumed that in regard to art education the student acquires knowledge about art, develops the ability to experience artworks, and develops a creative relationship towards art and heritage. This requires from the teacher a knowledge of art and methods of encouraging experience and understanding art. The Eurydice survey (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010) has shown that in some European countries generalist teachers have also studied the area of art history - an area of study that is undertaken by specialist art teachers in almost every European country - while both generalist and art specialist teachers acquire knowledge on art pedagogy (other areas of study are child development in the arts, the arts curriculum and personal arts skills) (ibid., pp. 68-69). Our analysis has shown the importance of appropriate knowledge and competences of teachers, as they are expected to develop the competence of cultural awareness and expression among students within art education. A question arises regarding the extent to which primary school teachers (generalist teachers and visual art teachers) are familiar with the natural processes of the perception, experience and understanding of artworks, and methods of encouraging the ability to apprehend aesthetic experience. It would be especially
This is confirmed by the title of the basic and current textbooks for art education itself - Likovno izražanje (Artistic Expression) (we list first issues of selected textbooks from the first Slovenian curricular reform in 1995 on; to aid comprehension, the titles and subtitles are translated into English): Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the sth Grade (author Tonka Tacol, 1995), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 6"" Grade (author Tonka Tacol, 1995), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 7"' Grade (author Tonka Tacol, 1995), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 8"' Grade (author Tonka Tacol, 1995), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 7" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih, & Jožef Muhovlč, 2002), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 8" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih, & Jožef Muhovič, 2002), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for the 9" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih, & Jožef Muhovič, 2004), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for Art Education for the 4" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol & Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2005), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for Art Education for the 5" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol
& Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2007), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for Art Education for the 6" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol & Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2005), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for Art Education for the 8" Grade Of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol & Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2006), Artistic Expression: A Textbook for Art Education for the 9" Grade of Primary School (authors Tonka Tacol & Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2006).
6
useful to include a historical overview of fine art in the education of primary school teachers. A part of the art profession, and of the didactic profession itself, has already warned about this flaw in the education of primary school teachers (Podobnik, 2011). Some time ago, a similar problem was also considered in the field of the education of preschool teachers (Jontes & Lesar, 2003).
Starting from the names (and not the content) of subjects in some European countries, which integrate art subjects into, for instance, arts education, cultural growth, art and culture, artistic and cultural education, aesthetic education and similar (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010, p. 24), the authors of the White Paper suggest that in Slovenia we should consider the integration of individual subjects into the field of arts, while ensuring the preservation of the existing goals and standards of knowledge of individual subjects (Bela knjiga, 2011, pp. 125-126). Whether or not such combinations in the field of arts would make sense is the subject of some other article, but the realisation about the possibilities of such mergers is interesting for our final discussion. The analysis of curricula for art education, literary education within the Slovenian language curriculum and music education has shown that such integration is not even possible, due to conceptual differences between art education, on the one hand, and literary and music education, on the other. There should be content analysis of these merged subjects, as well as comparative analysis of curricula in the field of art education. One such analysis (for the first primary school level) was undertaken in the time of the last curricular reform (Herzog, Batič, & Duh, 2009); one of the authors' conclusions was that Slovenian art education is geared towards developing awareness of one's own culture, learning about other cultures and developing an attitude to art (ibid., p. 26). Given that our research has shown the opposite, this would have to be verified.
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Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.
Učni načrt: programme osnovna šola: glasbena vzgoja [Curriculum: Primary School Programme: Music Education] (2011). Ljubljana: Ministry of Education and Sport, The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.
Učni načrt: programme osnovna šola: likovna vzgoja [Curriculum: Primary School Programme: Art Education] (2011). Ljubljana: Ministry of Education and Sport, The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.
Učni načrt: programme osnovna šola: slovenščina [Curriculum: Primary School Programme: Slovenian Language] (2011). Ljubljana: Ministry of Education and Sport, The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.
Vrlič, T. (2002). Problemi sodobne likovne pedagogike [Problems of Contemporary Art Pedagogy], Sodobna pedagogika, 53(2), 24-39.
Wallance, S. (Ed.) (2008). Oxford Dictionary of Education. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Zupančič, T. (2008). Likovni kurikul - primerjava konceptov v luči prenove učnega načrta za likovno vzgojo [The Art Curriculum - A Comparison of Concepts in the Light of the Curriculum for Art Education] (2008), Revija za elementarno izobraževanje, 1(3-4), 33-44.
Biographical note
Rajka Bracun Sova (b. 1975) graduated in Art History from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (2005), obtained her MA in Museum and Gallery Management from City University London (2006) and is currently a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, preparing a dissertation titled The Pedagogical Value of of the Art Museum's Interpretive Framework. Her work experiences have been focusing on museum and gallery education, teaching art history to adults and accessibility of public cultural heritage for a few years now. Since 2009 she has been self-employed educator in culture and curator. She has been collaborating with Faculty of Education to initiate Museum Education as a new area of teaching and research.
Metoda Kemperl, PhD in art-science, Assoc. Prof. of art history, worked at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education, Department of Fine Arts Education. Member of research program History of Art in Slovenia, Central Europe and the Adriatic. Co-founder of the Slovenian Society for the Study of 18th century. Winner of awards Izidor Cankar for special achievements in art history, presented by the Slovene Art history society. Co-author and coordinator of the new master level study programme Museum Education. The main areas of research: Baroque Art, Baroque Architecture, Baroque cultural history, pilgrims Churches, museum pedagogy.
Kurikulama prenova slovenske likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin evropske kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja (prevod pnspevka)
Rajka Bračun Sova1 in Metoda Kemferl*2
^^ Eno izmed pomembnih izhodišč zadnje kurikularne prenove v Sloveniji, ki je zajela sistemska vprašanja vzgoje in izobraževanja (Bela knjiga, 2011) in učne načrte za obvezne predmete v osnovni šoli, je dejstvo, da je Slovenija integrirana v Evropo, zato naj bi v vzgojo in izobraževanje vključili tudi razvijanje temeljnih evropskih kompetenc. Ena teh je kulturna zavest in izražanje, ki je bila pri nas do zdaj predmet obravnave bolj v okviru kulturne kot pa šolske politike. Namen prispevka je kritično analizirati kurikularno prenovo likovne vzgoje, v okviru katere se z vidika nekaterih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja predvideva, da učenec usvoji znanje o likovni umetnosti, razvije zmožnost doživljanja likovnih umetnin in oblikuje ustvarjalen odnos do likovne umetnosti in (umetnostne) dediščine. Ker je izhodišče in cilj kurikularnega spreminjanja kurikulum, sva pri analizi izhajali iz teorij kuri-kuluma in ne likovnopedagoških teorij, ki so pretežno okvirjale dozdajšnje poskuse analize kurikuluma. Kritičen razmislek o kurikularni prenovi likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja sva tako naredili s primerjavo učnih načrtov na področju umetnosti oziroma estetske vzgoje, in sicer sva likovno vzgojo primerjali z glasbeno vzgojo in s književnostjo v okviru slovenščine. Kvalitativna analiza je pokazala, da učni načrt za likovno vzgojo kljub prenovi ne udejanja izbranih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja, vzroke pa gre pripisati predvsem njegovi konceptualni strukturiranosti. Likovna vzgoja se osredotoča na likovno ustvarjanje, spoznavanje likovne umetnosti pa je zanemarjeno področje. Združevanje predmetov na področju umetnosti v šoli, ki ga predlaga Bela knjiga, zaradi obstoječega modela likovne vzgoje niti ni mogoče, analiza pa je s praktičnega vidika odprla tudi vprašanje znanja in kompetenc učiteljev.
Ključne besede: kurikularna prenova, analiza kurikuluma, učni načrt za likovno vzgojo, kulturna zavest in izražanje, model likovne vzgoje
1	Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani
2	Kontaktni avtor: Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani metoda.kemperl@pef.uni-lj.si
Uvod
Leta 2011 se je zaključila zadnja kurikularna prenova, ki je zajela konceptualne in sistemske spremembe vzgoje in izobraževanja, zapisane v Beli knjigi o vzgoji in izobraževanju v Republiki Sloveniji, in posodobitev učnih načrtov za obvezne predmete v osnovni šoli. Posodabljanje učnih načrtov potem, ko je Slovenija postala del Evropske unije in članica Sveta Evrope, je med drugim pomenilo vključevanje temeljnih evropskih kompetenc za vseživljenjsko izobraževanje. Ena od teh je kulturna zavest in izražanje.
Kompetenca kulturne zavesti in izražanja je bila v letih, odkar je Slovenija integrirana v Evropo, bolj predmet obravnave v okviru kulturne kot pa šolske politike. Kulturna vzgoja je bila umeščena v temeljni strateški dokument o kulturni politki (Nacionalni program za kulturo 2004-2008, 20082011, 2012-2015), opravljenih je bilo nekaj študij, leta 2009 so nastale posebne državne smernice za kulturno vzgojo, ki so jih potrdili strokovni sveti v vzgoji in izobraževanju. Na predlog Bele knjige je Ministrstvo za kulturo podalo več pripomb, ki so se nanašale na kulturno vzgojo.
Bela knjiga kot temeljni dokument za razvoj slovenske vzgoje in izobraževanja z načeli, cilji, strateškimi izzivi in konceptualnimi rešitvami okvirja celoten sistem in znotraj tega različna področja vzgoje in izobraževanja. Lahko bi rekli, da so vprašanja kulturne vzgoje integrirana v splošna načela vzgoje in izobraževanja, splošne cilje vzgoje in izobraževanja ter strateške izzive in usmeritve sistema vzgoje in izobraževanja, saj je povsod poudarek na skupni evropski dediščini političnih, kulturnih in moralnih vrednot.
Na področju osnovnošolskega izobraževanja v Beli knjigi o pomenu kulturne oziroma kulturno-umetnostne vzgoje govori več načel (Bela knjiga, 2011, str. 114-117). Načelo zagotavljanja splošne izobrazbe, kakovostnega in trajnega znanja predvideva, da splošna izobrazba poleg jezikovne, matematične, naravoslovne, družboslovne, tehniške, gibalne in informacijske pismenosti vključuje tudi umetniško pismenost.3 Načelo sodelovanja šole z okoljem eksplicitno predvideva sodelovanje šole z muzeji in galerijami, če izpostavimo ta avtentični prostor doživljanja umetnosti. Načelo oblikovanja in širjenja nacionalne kulture in spodbujanja medkulturnosti vključuje poznavanje in oblikovanje kulture, oblikovanje zavesti o pomenu kulture in spodbujanju
V Beli knjigi posamezne pismenosti niso opredeljene, zato si za razumevanje koncepta pismenosti pomagajmo z opredelitvijo bralne pismenosti v Nacionalni strategiji za razvoj pismenosti (2006, str. 6): »Pismenost je trajno razvijajoča se zmožnost posameznikov, da uporabljajo družbeno dogovorjene sisteme simbolov za sprejemanje, razumevanje, tvorjenje in uporabo besedil za življenje v družini, šoli, na delovnem mestu in v družbi. Pridobljeno znanje in spretnosti ter razvite sposobnosti posamezniku omogočajo uspešno in ustvarjalno osebnostno rast ter odgovorno delovanje v poklicnem in družbenem življenju.«
medkulturnosti. V skladu s tem načelom morajo učenci med drugim pridobiti znanje o zgodovini Slovenije in njeni kulturi, kar se povezuje tudi z naslednjim načelom, načelom oblikovanja zavesti o zavedanju lastne identitete in aktivnem vključevanju v oblikovanje dediščinskih skupnosti. Vsa ta in druga načela so del širšega programa vzgoje in izobraževanja - kurikuluma.
V prispevku podajava kritičen razmislek o kurikularni prenovi likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja, ki sva ga naredili s primerjavo učnih načrtov na področju umetnosti oziroma estetske vzgoje, pri tem pa izhajali iz kurikularnih in ne likovnopedagoških teorij, ki so pretežno okvirjale dosedanje poskuse analize kurikuluma (Zupančič, 2008; Herzog, Batič in Duh, 2009).
Kurikularna teoretična izhodišča
Kurikulum je osrednji pojem kurikularne teorije in je v svoji opredelitvi zelo širok. V Mednarodni enciklopediji kurikuluma (Lewy, 1991) pojem obsega konceptualne in terminološke vidike kurikuluma, vplive različnih teorij, znanstvenih disciplin, politik, ideologij na nastanek, razvoj in oblikovanje kuriku-luma, sestavine kurikuluma (te sežejo od učnih načrtov do učbenikov), različne modele, pristope oziroma koncepte kurikuluma, kurikularno načrtovanje (določanje in predvidevanje učnih ciljev, vsebin in metod), prenos kurikuluma v pedagoško prakso in evalvacijo kurikuluma. Od ene prvih opredelitev kurikuluma kot programa poučevanja in učenja s konca štiridesetih let 20. stoletja se do danes temeljno pojmovanje kurikuluma ni bistveno spremenilo: kurikulum s štirimi temeljnimi sestavinami - učnimi cilji, vsebinami, metodami in vrednotenjem učnih dosežkov - pomeni načrt vzgojno-izobraževalnega procesa (Tyler, 1949). Kar se z razvojem kurikularnih teorij je spremenilo, je nekaj, kar bi lahko imenovali premik od obravnave kurikuluma kot produkta k njegovim procesnim vidikom, v ospredju katerih so različna vprašanja, povezana z načrtovanjem, izvajanjem, spreminjanjem in upravljanjem kurikuluma (kdo načrtuje, kaj načrtuje, kako načrtuje ...). Dejstvo, da cilje, vsebine, metode izobraževanja vrednotimo in pojmujemo različno, je raziskovalce vodilo v razprave o sistemskih, ideoloških oziroma filozofskih koncepcijah kurikuluma (npr. Kelly, 1999; Marsh, 1992; Posner, 1995) kakor tudi v obravnavo kuriku-luma z vidika konkretnih političnih, ekonomskih, tehnoloških, demografskih in drugih okoliščin (npr. Ornstein, Pajak in Ornstein, 2011). Kot pravi Kroflič v razpravi o teoretskih pristopih k načrtovanju kurikuluma, je načrtovanje vzgojno-izobraževalne dejavnosti »izrazito interdisciplinarne narave« (1992, str. 10).
V središču kurikularne prenove naj bi tako bil premislek o načrtovanju in strukturiranosti kurikuluma v povezavi z modeli vzgoje in izobraževanja (prim. Pevec Semec, 2007, 2009). Ker je kurikularno načrtovanje in izvajanje kompleksen proces, je pomembno široko pojmovanje kurikuluma, pri tem pa je bistveno vprašanje, kaj pravzaprav želimo doseči z določenim kurikulu-mom. Kelly pravi, da moramo imeti kritičen pogled na kurikulum, da moramo dvomiti o ustreznosti svoje obravnave kurikuluma in svojega pogleda nanj, in da moramo upoštevati tudi in predvsem bistvene vrednote, zajete v kuriku-larnih študijah. »Potrebno je spoznanje, da ne gre le za metodiko, za to, kako se nekaj naredi v izobraževalni praksi, marveč, da je še bolj pomembno od navedenega posamezno izobraževalno prakso utemeljiti, pri tem pa si postaviti vprašanje zakaj, pa tudi vprašanje kako.» (Kelly, 1999, str. 20)
Splošna kurikularna vprašanja se seveda prenašajo tudi na specifična vzgojno-izobraževalna področja. Gluck (1991) v že citirani enciklopediji kuri-kuluma v povezavi z vzgojno-izobraževalnim področjem umetnosti in znotraj tega likovne umetnosti bralca tako uvede v različne kurikularne probleme: vprašanje vloge in pomena umetnosti za učenčev razvoj, pomanjkljiva opredeljenost didaktičnih priporočil in standardov na področju umetnostne vzgoje, vprašanje (ne)aktualnosti izobraževalnih programov na tem področju, idr. V enciklopediji najdemo zgodovinske in konceptualne preglede estetske vzgoje (Otto, 1991) ter programov (modelov) izobraževanja na področju umetnosti (Efland, 1991), posebno obravnavo muzejske pedagogike (Lee in Solender, 1991), s kurikulom na področju umetnosti povezano vprašanje človekovega odnosa do umetnosti (pripoznanja umetnosti kot osebne in družbene vrednote) (Morris, 1991) in druge kurikularne teme na področju umetnostne vzgoje. Razvejanost teh potrjuje dejstvo, da kurikulum ni zgolj učna vsebina, nekakšen izvedbeni načrt pouka, temveč je tudi njegov kontekst, je podlaga zanj (prim. Kroflič, 2002).
Glede na zgoraj navedeno, bi obravnavo osnovnošolskega kurikuluma na področju likovne umetnosti lahko strnili v nekaj temeljnih vprašanj, kot so: Katere učne cilje se zasleduje? Kakšen je izbor, obseg in zaporedje učnih vsebin? S katerimi metodami poučevanja se uresničujejo načrtovani in predvideni cilji? So učni cilji, vsebine in metode usklajeni? In nenazadnje: Za kakšen model likovne vzgoje gre? Takšna obravnava kurikuluma bi morala vključevati učni načrt v povezavi s priročniki, učbeniki in drugimi učili, zajeti pa bi morala tudi širši kontekst.
Namen in metoda raziskave
Prispevek se osredotoča na kurikularno prenovo likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja. V učnem načrtu za likovno vzgojo (predmet obravnave je učni načrt za likovno vzgojo iz leta 2011, ki je posodobljeni učni načrt iz leta 2004) je kompetenca zapisana eksplicitno.4
Kompetenca kulturna zavest in izražanje je opredeljena kot (v prevodu EU): »Spoštovanje pomena kreativnega izražanja zamisli, izkušenj in čustev v različnih medijih, vključno z glasbo, upodabljajočimi umetnostmi, literaturo in vizualnimi umetnostmi.« S to kompetenco je povezano določeno znanje, spretnosti in odnosi. »Kulturno znanje vključuje zavest o lokalni, nacionalni in evropski kulturni dediščini ter njenem mestu v svetu. Zajema osnovno poznavanje glavnih kulturnih del, vključno s popularno sodobno kulturo. Bistveno je razumeti kulturno in jezikovno raznovrstnost v Evropi in drugih regijah po svetu, potrebo po njeni ohranitvi ter pomen estetskih dejavnikov v vsakdanjem življenju. Spretnosti vključujejo priznavanje in izražanje: upoštevanje in uživanje v umetnostnih delih ter predstavitvah ter samoizražanje skozi različne medije z uporabo posameznikovih prirojenih sposobnosti. K spretnostim spada tudi sposobnost za povezovanje lastnih ustvarjalnih in izraznih pogledov z mnenji drugih in za prepoznavanje družbenih in gospodarskih priložnosti v kulturni dejavnosti. Kulturno izražanje je bistveno za razvoj ustvarjalnih spretnosti, ki jih je mogoče prenesti na več različnih poklicnih področij. Pravo razumevanje lastne kulture in občutek identitete sta lahko osnova za odprt odnos in spoštovanje do različnosti kulturnega izražanja. Pozitiven odnos zajema tudi ustvarjalnost, pripravljenost za negovanje estetskih možnosti z umetnostnim samoizražanjem in sodelovanje v kulturnem življenju.« (Uradni list Evropske unije, 2006).
V okviru likovne vzgoje se z vidika nekaterih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja predvideva, da učenec usvoji znanje o likovni umetnosti, razvije zmožnost doživljanja likovnih umetnin in oblikuje ustvarjalen odnos do likovne umetnosti in (umetnostne) dediščine. Poudarjeno je razumevanje kulture (da bi določeno kulturo razumeli, jo moramo najprej poznati) in občutek identitete (da bi ga imeli, ga moramo najprej razviti) za življenje in delovanje v medkulturnem okolju. Kompetenca, nov koncept v vzgoji in izobraževanju, je razumljena kot znanje in veščina oziroma kot zmožnost.5 »Koncept kompetence
4	Kompetenca je zapisana napačno in sicer kot kulturna zavest in likovno izražanje.
5	"Nekatera pojmovanja kompetenc vključujejo poleg zmožnosti praktične uporabe znanja in veščin v vedno novih okoliščinah še prepričanja, vrednote, osebnostne značilnosti (ustvarjalnost, pobuda, sposobnost reševanja problemov, vodljivost, sposobnost prilagajanja, opravljanje obveznosti, sposobnost učenja) itd., ki so nujni pogoj za uspešno izvršitev nekega dejanja." (Bela knjiga, 2011, str. 22-23).
je opozoril na kompleksnost znanja, na njegovo prepletenost z dispozicijami posameznika in na nujnost poučevanja uporabe znanja.« (Bela knjiga, 2011, str. 23)
Metodologija je kvalitativna. V raziskavo sva zajeli posodobljene učne načrte, učbenikov in drugih učil pa v samo analizo ne, ker jih (še) ni. Naredili sva vsebinsko analizo učnega načrta za likovno vzgojo in za primerjavo še analizo vsebine drugih učnih načrtov na področju umetnosti - glasbene vzgoje in književnosti v okviru slovenščine (slednja vsebuje tudi elemente dramske in filmske vzgoje). Te tri predmete uvrščamo na področje estetske vzgoje - vzgoje za doživetje, ki izvira iz neposrednega stika z likovno, glasbeno in literarno umetnino (Otto, 1991). Primerjava se nanaša na jasnost, natančnost, usmerjenost in usklajenost učnih ciljev, vsebin in metod. Vsi učni načrti imajo enako osnovno strukturo: najprej je predmet opredeljen, nato so navedeni splošni cilji predmeta, sledijo operativni cilji in vsebine po vzgojno-izobraževalnih obdobjih, za temi so navedeni standardi znanja, učni načrt pa se zaključi z didaktičnimi priporočili.
Analiza učnega načrta za likovno vzgojo
Branje učnega načrta (Učni načrt: program osnovna šola: likovna vzgoja, 2011) najprej pokaže na uporabo številnih izrazov (med njimi tudi skovank) za likovno umetnost oziroma umetnino kot osrednji pojem likovne vzgoje: »likovna in vizualna kultura«, »objekt vizualne in likovne kulture«, »likovna umetnost in vizualna kultura«, »dediščina likovne umetnosti«, »kulturna dediščina«, »likovno kulturna dediščina«, »likovno delo«, »likovno delo umetnika«, »likovnoumetniško delo«, »kulturni spomenik«, »likovna stvaritev« in »umetniška stvaritev«. Neposreden stik z likovno umetnino in odnos do likovne umetnosti izražajo besedne zveze, kot so: »vrednotiti« (likovno in vizualno kulturo), »imeti posluh za« (likovna dela umetnikov), »spoznavati, doživljati in vrednotiti« (dediščino likovne umetnosti) in »razvijati občutljivost do« (likovne kulturne dediščine in kulturne različnosti). V povezavi z razumevanjem kulture se uporablja izraz «vizualni prostor« (tudi »vizualno okolje« in »vidni svet«), ki naj bi pomenil naravni, osebni, družbeni in kulturni prostor. Temeljna naloga likovne vzgoje je »razvoj učenčeve likovne zmožnosti (kompe-tence), ki izhaja iz razumevanja vizualnega (naravnega, osebnega, družbenega in kulturnega) prostora in se izrazi v aktivnem preoblikovanju tega prostora v likovni prostor«. Med splošnimi učnimi cilji, ki izhajajo iz opredelitve predmeta, prevladujejo cilji, povezani z likovnim izražanjem oziroma ustvarjanjem. Splošna koristnost predmeta je utemeljena z razvijanjem prostorskih predstav in sposobnostjo vizualizacije.
Učni načrt je vsebinsko razdeljen na področja likovnega ustvarjanja in
sicer oblikovanje na ploskvi (risanje, slikanje in grafika, v drugem in tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju se grafiki priduži tudi grafično oblikovanje) in oblikovanje v tridimenzionalnem prostoru (kiparstvo in arhitektura). V prvem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju so področja ločena in je vsebinskih sklopov pet (risanje, slikanje, grafika, kiparstvo in arhitektura), v drugem in tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju pa so področja združena v dva vsebinska sklopa (risanje, slikanje, grafika in grafično oblikovanje v sklop oblikovanje na ploskvi ter kiparstvo in arhitektura v sklop oblikovanje v tridimenzionalnem prostoru). Učitelj vsebino določi in obravnava na podlagi operativnih ciljev in pojmov. Ti so, izhajajoč iz področij likovnega ustvarjanja, usmerjeni v spoznavanje likovnih tehnik, materialov, orodij in oblikotvornih pojmov. Funkcija likovne umetnine je v osnovi didaktična; umetnina je »sredstvo za ponazarjanje in spoznavanje pojmov« in je v tej vlogi enakovredna »likovnemu izdelku učenca«, »naravi« in »okolju«.
Npr. v prvem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju na področju risanja učenci: »preizkušajo različne risarske materiale in pripomočke, razvjajo ustvarjalne risarske zmožnosti in negujejo individualni risarski izraz, narišejo oblike z različnimi risarskimi materiali in pripomočki na podlage različnih velikosti, opazujejo in primerjajo zglede linij v naravi, okolju in v likovnih delih, ob likovnih delih, likovnih izdelkih učencev ter ob zgledih iz narave in okolja spoznavajo likovne pojme, povezane z risanjem, razvijajo občutek za uporabo različnih vrst linij, rišejo prostoročno in z ravnilom, narišejo oblike in jih izpolnijo z linijami in točkami, pri risanju uporabijo tudi preprosta računalniška orodja, razvijajo občutek za smiselno vključevanje motiva v izbranem formatu, rišejo oblike po opazovanju, spominu in domišljiji, se navajajo na samostojno izbiro oblik, barv, velikosti in namenskosti risarskih podlag: razvijajo občutek za razporejanje oblik v risbi, razvijajo občutek za gradnjo risbe od celote k delom, razvijajo občutek za bogatenje narisane oblike s teksturami (z linearnimi, točkovnimi), spoznavajo značilnosti različnih risarskih materialov in pripomočkov, razvijajo motorično spretnost in občutek za ravnanje z različnimi risarskimi materiali in pripomočki«. Pojmi, ki jih na tem področju osvojijo, so: »točka - pika, linija - črta, risanje, risba, risarska podlaga, risarski materiali, risarski pripomočki, oblika, vrste linij (ravna, ukrivljena, lomljena, kratka, dolga, vodoravna, navpična, poševna), velikost oblik, oblike risarskih podlag, velikost risarskih podlag, risarski materiali in pripomočki, različne podlage za različne likovne tehnike, nesklenjena linija, sklenjena linija, tekstura oblik, oblika, izpolnjena z linearnimi in točkovnimi teksturami, razporejanje oblik v risbi, format, namenskost risarskih podlag, trdi risarski materiali, tekoči materiali za risanje«.
V drugem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju, kjer se risanje, slikanje,
grafika in grafično oblikovanje združijo v vsebinski sklop oblikovanje na ploskvi, kiparstvo in arhitektura pa v sklop oblikovanje v tridimenzionalnem prostoru, se ciljem, usmerjenim v likovno izražanje, pridruži »spoznavanje pomembnih likovnoumetniških del z različnih oblikovalskih področij domače in svetovne dediščine«. Odgovorov na vprašanji, katera dela to so in zakaj so pomembna, učni načrt ne daje. Pojmi so namreč še vedno vezani na likovne tehnike in nekatere formalne (oblikovne) vidike umetnin ter postanejo kompleksnejši (npr. če smo prej imeli linije, imamo zdaj »redko nizanje linij - svetla ploskev (rastriranje)«, »gosto nizanje linij - temna ploskev (rastriranje)«, »razporejanje svetlih in temnih šrafiranih ploskev« itn.). Nov pojem je »likovni motiv«; v četrtem razredu učenci spoznajo portret, avtoportret, krajino in tihožitje, v petem družinski in skupinski portret, v šestem pa žanr. (Drugih motivov ne spoznajo.) Navedene motive spoznajo v risbi, sliki in grafiki, kiparskega portreta na primer ne spoznajo, spoznajo pa npr. spomenik. (Iz nadaljnjega branja učnega načrta postane razvidno, da je z likovnim motivom mišljena tudi vsebina, tema in sporočilnost likovne umetnine, kar je strokovna napaka, ki pa je tu ne bomo obravnavali.)
V tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju se nadaljuje spoznavanje pojmov, povezanih z različnimi načini izražanja na ploskvi in v prostoru. Učenec naj bi v tem obdobju tudi pokazal sposobnost analiziranja in vrednotenja likovnih del, zato je med cilji »spoznavanje likovnih del nacionalne in mednarodne likovne kulturne dediščine«. Vendar med pojmi ni navedeno, katero umetnost in kaj preko umetnosti spozna. V okviru področij risanja, slikanja, grafike in grafičnega oblikovanja učenec osvoji kompozicijo, odnos delov do celote v kompoziciji, razmerje, vrste kompozicij, kader, zaporedje, iluzijo prostora, prostorske ključe in plane, risanje po opazovanju, različne perspektive, nasičenost barv, barvna nasprotja, barvne dimenzije, barvno skladnost, tonsko slikanje, umetniško grafiko, industrijsko grafiko, visoki in globoki tisk, malo grafiko in animacijo. Na osnovi teh pojmov učenec ni zmožen analizirati in vrednotiti npr. grafičnih listov in serij 16. stoletja in s to umetnostjo izraženih konceptov, idej, vrednot (npr. protestantizem). Nekaj tovrstnih pojmov srečamo le pri kiparstvu (npr. »abstrakcija v kiparstvu«).
Med didaktičnimi priporočili za uresničevanje ciljev predmeta kljub navedbi, da »učitelj pri likovni vzgoji učence ves čas tudi kulturno vzgaja«, ni konkretnih priporočil o spodbujanju doživljanja in razumevanja likovnih umetnin. Poudarek je na metodičnih vidikih likovnega izražanja, na »izvajanju likovnih nalog«, pri čemer povezave med likovnim ustvarjanjem in spoznavanjem umetnin, t.j. likovnega (pou)stvarjanja ob umetninah, v učnem načrtu ni. Učitelju se priporoča, da »na smiseln način v posamezne korake učnega
procesa vključuje primere likovnih del, reprodukcij ali originalov likovnih stvaritev«. Umetnina je v funkciji »ponazorila (učila)«, da učenci bolje razumejo likovno tehniko ali motiv. Med priporočili je obisk muzeja ali pogovor z ustvarjalcem (vsaj enkrat letno), ki naj bi bil namenjen »poglobljenemu spoznavanju« umetniških del, dejavnosti sicer, ki v učnih ciljih in vsebinah ni ustrezno zajeta. Priporočil v zvezi s temi dejavnostmi ni. Didaktična priporočila se med vzgojno-izobraževalnimi obdobji bistveno ne razlikujejo; v tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju, ko pri učencu »spontano likovno izražanje usiha« in pride »čas upodobitev« in naj bi učenec med drugim znal pojasniti pomen kulturne dediščine za slovenski in svetovni prostor, naloga učitelja ostaja ta, da ustvarja možnosti za likovno izražanje in pri učencih »neguje individualni likovni izraz.« Od njega se pričakuje, da je »še vedno pozoren na doživljanje in izražanje emocij, učenčev socialni razvoj - njegov odnos z drugimi, na čustva, ki se pri tem porajajo, ter na učenčev interes in zanimanje za likovne stvaritve ter načine izražanja, odnos do predmetov - doživljanje lepega in razvijanje zmožosti za ustvarjanje lepega«. Tudi tukaj ni priporočil, kako učenčevo zanimanje za likovno umetnost spodbujati. Prav tako ni priporočil o tem, kako to znanje in kompetence ocenjevati (to velja za vsa tri vzgojno-izobraževalna obdobja); učitelj lahko od prvega do devetega razreda ocenjuje le likovne izdelke.
Analiza učnih načrtov za književno vzgojo v okviru slovenščine in glasbeno vzgojo
Učni načrt za slovenščino (2011) ima dve področji in sicer jezikovni in književni pouk. Namen književnega pouka je jasen in je opredeljen kot: »Pri književnem pouku se učenci srečujejo z umetnostnimi/književnimi besedili ter tudi ob njih poleg sporazumevalne zmožnosti razvijajo doživljajsko, domišljijsko, ustvarjalno, vrednotenjsko in intelektualno zmožnost. Z zaznavanjem kulturnih, etičnih, duhovnih in drugih razsežnosti, ki jih premore besedna umetnost kot eden najuniverzalnejših civilizacijskih dosežkov, ki je za obstoj slovenstva še posebno pomemben, se utrjujejo kulturna, domovinska in državljanska vzgoja ter medkulturna in širša socialna zmožnost.« Cilj književnega pouka je, da učenci razmišljujoče in kritično sprejemajo umetnostna/književna besedila slovenskih in drugih avtorjev, da je branje za njih potreba in vrednota (da berejo besedila ter obiskujejo knjižnico, filmske in gledališke predstave in literarne prireditve tudi v prostem času), da z branjem oblikujejo svojo identiteto, širijo obzorja, spoznavajo svojo kulturo in druge kulture ... V učnem načrtu je poudarjeno literarnoestetsko doživljanje: »Učenci ob sprejemanju umetnostnih/književnih besedil razvijajo sporazumevalno zmožnost
in tudi pridobivajo književno znanje. Umeščanje besedil v časovni in kulturni kontekst ter pridobivanje literarnovedskega znanja jim omogočata globlje doživljanje, razumevanje in vrednotenje umetnostnih besedil. Literarnoestet-sko doživetje, podprto z literarnovednim znanjem, omogoča poglobljeno spoznavanje besedne umetnosti in eststekih izraznih možnosti, povečuje užitek ob branju in pripomore k razvijanju pozitivnega odnosa do besedne umetnosti (branja), ustvarjalnosti in (samo)izražanja v raznih medijih.«
Književni pouk ima dva temeljna operativna cilja: (1) razvijanje re-cepcijske zmožnosti z branjem, poslušanjem, gledanjem uprizoritev umetnostnih besedil in govorjenjem, pisanjem o njih in (2) razvijanje recepcijske zmožnosti s tvorjenjem, (po)ustvarjanjem ob umetnostnih besedilih (pisanje, interpretativno branje, govorjenje). Vsak cilj je razčlenjen na specifične cilje in vsebine oziroma področja, na katerih se razvija recepcijsko zmožnost. Re-cepcijska zmožnost je opredeljena kot zmožnost doživljanja, razumevanja in vrednotenja književnih besedil različnih zvrsti in vrst (poezija, proza, dramatika) in kot zmožnost doživljanja, razumevanja in vrednotenja gledaliških/lutkovnih predstav, radijskih iger in filmov. Od učencev se pričakuje, da v okviru književnega pouka doživljajo, razumejo in vrednotijo posamezne književne prvine; prepoznajo književne osebe, zaznavajo in doživljajo književni prostor in čas, razumejo dogajanje, temo in sporočilnost, ločijo avtorja in pripovedovalca, prepoznajo književno perspektivo itn. V učnem načrtu je opredeljeno literarn-ovedno znanje, ki ga učenci pridobijo v posameznem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju, in predlagana so književna besedila (avtorji in naslovi del) za obravnavo v posameznem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju. V tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju so navedeni tudi književniki in njihova dela, ki jih morajo učenci pregledno poznati; od učencev se pričakuje, da navedejo poglavitne značilnosti literarnih obdobij in smeri ter izbrane predstavnike in njihova dela in da avtorje razvrščajo v literarna obdobja.
Didaktična priporočila za razvijanje recepcijske zmožnosti vključujejo opredelitev komunikacijskega modela književnega pouka, v središču katerega sta književno besedilo in učenec književnosti, in modela šolske interpretacije umetnostnega besedila, ki zajema uvodno motivacijo, napoved besedila, umestitev in interpretativno branje, premor po branju, izražanje doživetij ter analizo, sintezo in vrednotenje in ponovno branje in naloge. Priporočila vključujejo tudi razmerja med dejavnostmi sprejemanja (branje, poslušanje) in dejavnostmi tvorjenja (govorjenje, pisanje). Za vsako vzgojno-izobraževalno obdobje je opredeljeno, kolikšen delež pouka slovenščine predstavlja književni pouk, navedene pa so tudi metode dela (npr. pogovor, usmerjeno tiho branje, glasno branje, igra vlog, dramatizacija, risanje), priporočila glede izbire besedil
in druga priporočila za uresničevanje ciljev predmeta. V učnem načrtu je posebej poudarjena kulturna vzgoja in sicer v okviru medpredmetnih povezav. Natančno je opredeljen tudi način preverjanja in ocenjevanja učenčeve recep-cijske zmožnosti, zmožnosti književnega branja.
Učni načrt za glasbeno vzgojo (2011) v opredelitvi predmeta poudarja, da je glasba človekova potreba in vrednota. Glasba kot umetnost je opredeljena kot glasbena produkcija (ustvarjalnost), reprodukcija (poustvarjalnost) in recepcija (ustvarjalno sprejemanje). Glasbena vzgoja vključuje dejavnosti izvajanja, ustvarjanja in poslušanja glasbe, kar učenca vodi v sprejemanje različnih oblik glasbe ter njeno presojanje in vrednotenje. Poudarjene so šolske in zunajšolske glasbene dejavnosti (poslušanje glasbe, sodelovanje v glasbenih skupinah) za učenčev razvoj in vseživljenjsko izobraževanje. Cilji gasbene vzgoje, npr. »spodbujanje doživljanja in izražanja glasbe z glasbenimi dejavnostmi (poslušanje, izvajanje, ustvarjanje) ter drugih izraznih sredstev in medijev«, »vzbujanje radovednosti ter razvijanje interesa in aktivnega odnosa do glasbe«, »sodelovanje v različnih oblikah glasbenega udejstvovanja«, »oblikovanje pozitivnega odnosa do nacionalne in svetovne glasbene dediščine«, »razvijanje občutljivosti in strpnosti do različnih glasbenih kultur ter tistih, ki to glasbo tudi izvajajo«, »poznavanje glasbene literature, ustvarjalcev in poustvarjalcev ter zakonitosti glasbenega jezika«, »razvijanje kritične presoje in vrednotenja glasbe«, »razvijanje estetskega razvoja z dejavnostmi glasbenega izvajanja, poslušanja in ustvarjanja« pri učencih razvijajo tudi in predvsem kompetenco kulturne zavesti in izražanja.
Na operativni ravni je pouk glasbene vzgoje razdeljen na tri področja: izvajanje, ustvarjanje in poslušanje. Čeprav se ta področja med sabo dopolnjujejo in povezujejo, se bomo v nadaljevanju za potrebe naše analize osredotočili na poslušanje, saj je to področje v osnovi naravnano na razvijanje učenčeve zmožnosti estetskega doživljanja. Poslušanje glasbe je opredeljeno za vsako vzgojno-izobraževalno obdobje, pouk glasbe pa je stopenjsko zasnovan/ načrtovan. Od prvega poslušanja zvokov v naravi in glasbe ter prvih glasbenih pojmov, ki jih učenci usvojijo v prvem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju, npr. skladba, skladatelj, pevski zbor, orkester idr., učni načrt v tretjem vzgojno-izobraževalnem obdobju vsebuje poslušanje (prepoznavanje, primerjanje, ugotavljanje, vrednotenje) glasbe pradavnine, staro in srednjeveške glasbe, renesančne, baročne, klasicistične in romantične glasbe ter glasbe 20. in 21. stoletja. Pri tem učenci usvojijo pojme, kot so (če vzamemo za primer glasbo 20. in 21. stoletja v 9. razredu): impresionizem - celotonska lestvica, disonanca, ekspresionizem - dvanajsttonska vrsta, serija, neoklasicizem, neobarok, folk-lorizem, etnomuzikologija, nova glasba, avantgarda, tonalna glasba, atonalna
glasba, zvočni grozdi, elektronska (elektroakustična) glasba, eksperimentalna glasba, improvizirana glasba, jazz, popularna glasba, plesna glasba, narod-no-zabavna glasba. Poslušanje glasbe vključuje dejavnosti, kot so: pozorno poslušanje, vnovično poslušanje, izražanje doživetij ob poslušanju, poglabljanje doživetij ob poslušanju. Učenci s poslušanjem prepoznavajo, razlikujejo, primerjajo, urejajo, ugotavljajo, vrednotijo posamezne sestavine oziroma značilnosti glasbe. Od učencev se pričakuje, da ob koncu osnovne šole poznajo glasbena obdobja, žanre, pomembne ustvarjalce in glasbena dela ter da znajo umestiti glasbo (glasbo pradavnine, staro in srednjeveško glasbo, renesančno, baročno, klasicistično in romantično glasbo ter glasbo 20. in 21. stoletja) v zgodovinski okvir. Učni načrt vsebuje tudi več priporočil, kako znanje, spretnosti in sposobnosti pri predmetu glasbene vzgoje preverjati in ocenjevati (preverja in ocenjuje se ustno, preko pisnih izdelkov, dnevnikov in zapisov ter drugih izdelkov, z reševanjem praktičnih problemov, preverja in ocenjuje se izvajanje in proces ustvarjanja).
Primerjava likovne vzgoje s književno in glasbeno vzgojo
Z vidika kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja in opredelitve estetske vzgoje kot vzgoje za doživetje, ki izvira iz neposrednega stika z likovno, glasbeno in literarno umetnino, primerjava najprej pokaže na terminološke nejasnosti. V učnem načrtu za likovno vzgojo ni enotnega in povsem ustreznega izrazoslovja za likovno umetnost, likovno umetnino, kulturo in dediščino. Primerjava s književno in glasbeno vzgojo pokaže tudi, da v okviru likovne vzgoje ni osnovnega poimenovanja za neposreden stik z likovno umetnino; knjige namreč beremo, glasbo poslušamo, umetnine gledamo (Otto, 1991). Posledično tudi ni najbolj ustreznih dejavnosti na tem področju.
Književna vzgoja vključuje dejavnosti branja, poslušanja, gledanja uprizoritev umetnostnih besedil, govorjenja in pisanja o umetnostnih besedilih ter (po)ustvarjanja umetnostnih besedil, glasbena vzgoja pa poleg dejavnosti izvajanja in ustvarjanja vključuje tudi dejavnosti poslušanja glasbe. Vse te dejavnosti vodijo v doživljanje, razumevanje, vrednotenje literarnih in glasbenih umetnin, skratka v razvijanje učenčeve zmožnosti sprejemanja, vrednotenja, spoštovanja. Gre za afektivno področje razvoja, ki je v Oxfordovemu slovarju edukacije (Wallance, 2008, str. 11-12) opredeljeno kot tisto področje razvoja, katerega cilje udejanja prav estetska vzgoja (angl. aesthetic appreciation) na področju likovne umetnosti, književnosti in glasbe, pa tudi duhovna in moralna vzgoja. V okviru likovne vzgoje so učne vsebine oziroma dejavnosti vezane
na področja likovnega ustvarjanja (oblikovanja na ploskvi in oblikovanja v tridimenzionalnem prostoru) in vodijo v praktično likovno izražanje, pri katerem sta posebej poudarjena spontanost in individualnost, likovna umetnina pa je v funkciji ponazorila za spoznavanje na likovno oblikovanje vezanih pojmov (prim. Podobnik, 2011; Tacol, 2011). V skladu s sodobnimi kurikularnimi teorijami, ki poudarjajo procesno-razvojno načrtovanje (prim. Kroflič, 1992, 2002), bi takšno likovno vzgojo uvrstili med starejše, behavioristične modele, saj ne omogoča ustreznih učinkov na področju moralnega in socialnega razvoja. (Spomnimo, da je splošna koristnost predmeta utemeljena z razvijanjem prostorskih predstav in sposobnostjo vizualizacije.) »Procesno-razvojni model vzgoje in izobraževanja predpostavlja prenos določenega znanja, izkušenj, vendar poudarja prednostnostni značaj tistih vsebin in metod poučevanja, ki prispevajo k razvoju učenčevih osebnostnih zmožnosti, pa naj gre za razvoj kognicije, ki je temeljni pogoj kritičnega mišljenja, razvoj tistih kognitivnih in afektivnih lastnosti, ki omogočajo postopno oblikovanje vrednostne orientacije posameznika ter avtonomne morale, ali za asimilacijo tistega znanja, spretnosti in navad, ki omogočajo kakovostno profesionalno socializacijo posameznika.« (Pevec Semec, 2007, str. 136)
Čeprav med cilji likovne vzgoje zasledimo cilje, povezane z razvijanjem zmožnosti doživljanja umetnin in odnosa do umetnosti, v primerjavi s književno in glasbeno vzgojo ti cilji niso usklajeni z vsebinami in metodami. Temeljna razlika je v tem, da pouk književnosti in glasbe vključuje poznavanje umetniških del iz različnih obdobij in umeščanje le-teh v zgodovinski okvir, likovni pouk pa ne. Temu ustrezna so tudi diaktična priporočila za pouk književnosti in pouk glasbe; vključujejo priporočila glede izbire umetniških del, strategije branja in poslušanja in pa načine, kako omogočiti, da učenec pride do lastnih doživetij umetniškega dela. Znanje in zmožnosti, ki jih učenec pridobi oziroma razvije, se tudi preverja in ocenjuje (izdelana je metodologija preverjanja in ocenjevanja). Primerjava pokaže tudi, da sta pouk književnosti in pouk glasbe stopenjsko načrtovana, to pa pomeni, da so natančno opredeljeni koraki usvajanja receptivne zmožnosti od prvega, preko drugega, do tretjega vzgojno-izobraževalnega obdobja.
Z vidika kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja primerjava pokaže tudi, da je v obeh učnih načrtih, tako za književno kot glasbeno vzgojo, umetnost (književnost in glasba) oziroma njeno doživljanje (branje, poslušanje) opredeljeno kot človekova potreba in vrednota. Poudarek je na aktivnem in ustvarjalnem odnosu do knijiževnosti in glasbe; branju besedil, poslušanju glasbe, obiskovanju filmskih predstav, gledaliških predstav, literarnih prireditev in koncertov tudi v prostem času. Kot pravi Morris (1991), je aktiven odnos do
umetnosti potrebno privzgojiti, pri tem pa ne gre samo za vprašanje odnosa učenca do umetnosti, temveč tudi za vprašanje odnosa učitelja do umetnosti, status predmeta v šoli ter človekovega odnosa do umetnosti nasploh (prav tam, str. 684-685).
Sklepne ugotovitve
Evropska politika skuša vnesti v šolske kurikule več umetnostnih vsebin (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010). Poznavanje in razumevanje umetnosti, kritično vrednotenje, razumevanje pomena kulturne dediščine, razumevanje kulturne raznolikosti, zmožnost izražanja in razvijanja lastne identitete preko umetnosti in ustvarjalnost - to so temeljni cilji kultur-no-umetnostne vzgoje. Namen umetnostne vzgoje tako ni samo poznavanje umetnostnega jezika in umetniško izražanje, ampak tudi prepoznavanje vpliva kulture na oblikovanje osebne, lokalne, nacionalne identitete (prepoznan je pomen kulturne dediščine), spoznavanje in sprejemanje različnih kultur, estetsko vrednotenje. Primerjalna analiza učnih načrtov na področju estetske vzgoje je pokazala, da likovna vzgoja teh ciljev ne udejanja, razloge pa je pripisati predvsem neustrezni konceptualni strukturiranosti učnega načrta. Ta je organiziran po področjih likovnega ustvarjanja in je v ciljih usmerjen v likovno ustvarjanje, ki mora biti spontano, svobodno in mora omogočati individualnost in subjektivnost. V osnovi gre za ekspresionistični model likovne vzgoje (Efland, 1990), za katerega bi lahko rekli, da pri nas ni le eden od pristopov k likovni vzgoji, temveč že dalj časa prevladujoči, uradni model posredovanja likovnih vsebin.6 V tem smislu bi dodajanje »manjkajočih« sodobnih likovnih praks, v čemer domači raziskovalci vidijo reformo likovne vzgoje (Vrlič, 2002; Zupančič, 2008; Herzog, Batič in Duh, 2009), ohranilo enak koncept. Naša analiza je pokazala, da gre pri likovni vzgoji za povsem drugo vprašanje (ki ga moramo obravnavati
To potrjuje tudi sam naslov temeljnih veljavnih učbenikov za likovno vzgojo - Likovno izražanje (navajava prve izdaje nekaterih učbenikov od prve kurikularne prenove leta 1995 dalje): Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 5. razred (avtorica Tonka Tacol, 1995), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 6. razred (avtorica Tonka Tacol, 1995), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 7. razred (avtorica Tonka Tacol, 1995), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 8. razred (avtorica Tonka Tacol, 1995), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 7. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorji Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih in Jožef Muhovič, 2002), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 8. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorji Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih in Jožef Muhovič, 2002), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za 9. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorji Tonka Tacol, Črtomir Frelih in Jožef Muhovič, 2004), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za likovno vzgojo za 4. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorici Tonka Tacol in Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2005), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za likovno vzgojo za 5. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorici Tonka Tacol in Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2007), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za likovno vzgojo za 6. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorici Tonka Tacol in Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2005), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za likovno vzgojo za 8. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorici Tonka Tacol in Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2006), Likovno izražanje: učbenik za likovno vzgojo za 9. razred devetletne osnovne šole (avtorici Tonka Tacol in Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, 2006).
6
v kontekstu tega, kar Kelly imenuje utemeljitev izobraževalne prakse) in sicer za vprašanje razvijanja estetske zmožnosti, ki izvira iz neposrednega stika z umetnino - tako starejšo kot sodobno.
Z vidika izbranih sestavin kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja se v okviru likovne vzgoje predvideva, da učenec usvoji znanje o likovni umetnosti, razvije zmožnost doživljanja likovnih umetnin in oblikuje ustvarjalen odnos do likovne umetnosti in (umetnostne) dediščine. To od učitelja v osnovni šoli zahteva poznavanje umetnosti in metod spodbujanja doživljanja in razumevanja umetnosti. Raziskava Eurydice (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010) je pokazala, da imajo v nekaterih evropskih državah razredni učitelji tudi študijsko področje umetnostne zgodovine - področje, ki je za predmetne učitelje za likovno vzgojo prisotno v skoraj vseh evropskih državah -, tako razredni kot predmetni učitelji pa si pridobijo tudi znanje o pedagogiki umetnosti (prav tam, str. 68-69). (Ostala študijska področja so: otrokov razvoj na področju umetnosti, umetnostni učni načrt in umetnostne spretnosti.) Naša analiza je pokazala na pomen ustreznega znanja in kompetenc učiteljev, saj se od njih pričakuje, da v okviru likovne vzgoje pri učencih razvijajo kom-petenco kulturne zavesti in izražanja. Zastavlja se vprašanje, v kolikšni meri učitelji (profesorji razrednega pouka in profesorji likovne pedagogike) poznajo naravne procese zaznavanja, doživljanja in razumevanja likovnih umetnin in metode za spodbujanje zmožnosti estetskega doživljanja. V izobraževanje razrednih učiteljev bi bilo še posebej smiselno vključiti tudi zgodovinski pregled likovne umetnosti. Na to pomanjkljivost v izobraževanju učiteljev razrednega pouka je že opozoril tudi del same likovno didaktične stroke (Podobnik, 2011), o podobnem problemu pa so že pred časom razmišljali tudi na področju izobraževanja vzgojiteljev (Jontes in Lesar, 2003).
Izhajajoč iz poimenovanj (in ne vsebine) predmetov v nekaterih evropskih državah, ki umetnostne predmete združujejo npr. v umetnostno vzgojo, kulturno rast, umetnost in kulturo, umetnostno-kulturno vzgojo, estetsko vzgojo in podobno (Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi, 2010, str. 24), avtorji Bele knjige predlagajo, da se tudi v Sloveniji razmisli o združevanju posameznih predmetov na področju umetnosti, pri tem pa nujno zagotovi ohranjanje obstoječih ciljev in standardov znanja posameznih predmetov (Bela knjiga, 2011, str. 125-126). Ali bi bila takšna združitev na področju umetnosti smiselna ali ne, je predmet kakšnega drugega prispevka, za našo sklepno razpravo pa je zanimivo spoznanje o možnostih takšne združitve. Analiza učnih načrtov za likovno vzgojo, književno vzgojo v okviru slovenščine in glasbeno vzgojo je pokazala, da takšno združevanje niti ni mogoče zaradi konceptualnih razlik med likovno vzgojo na eni ter književno in glasbeno vzgojo na drugi
strani. Potrebna bi bila vsebinska analiza takšnih združenih predmetov pa tudi primerjalna analiza učnih načrtov na področju likovne vzgoje. Ena takšnih (za razredno stopnjo) je nastala v času zadnje kurikularne prenove (Herzog, Batič in Duh, 2009); njeni avtorji so med drugim prišli do sklepa, da je slovenska likovna vzgoja naravnana k razvijanju zavesti o lastni kulturi, spoznavanju drugih kultur in razvijanju odnosa do umetnosti (prav tam, str. 26). Pričujoča raziskava je pokazala nasprotno, zato bi bilo to potrebno preveriti.
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Efland, A. D. (1990). A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts. New York: Teachers College Press.
Gluck, P. G. (1991). Arts Education: Introduction. V: A. Lewy (ur.), The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum (str. 673-674). Oxford idr.: Pergamon Press.
Herzog, J., Batič, J. in Duh, M. (2009). Komparativna analiza učnih načrtov za likovno vzgojo, Revija za elementarno izobraževanje, 2(1), 19-28.
Jontes, B. in Lesar, I. (2003). Problematika izvedbenega kurikuluma predšolske vzgoje na področju likovne umetnosti. Sodobna pedagogika, 54(2), 158-170.
Kelly, A. V. [1989] (1999). The Curriculum: Theory and Practice (fourth edition). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: P. Chapman, SAGE.
Kroflič, R. (1992). Teoretski pristopi k načrtovanju kurikuluma. Ljubljana: Center za razvoj univerze. Kroflič, R. (2002). Izbrani pedagoški spisi. Vstop v kurikularne teorije. Ljubljana: Zavod RS za šolstvo. Kulturno-umetnostna vzgoja v šolah po Evropi (2010). Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za šolstvo in šport. Lee, S. E. in Solender, K. (1991). Museum Education. V: A. Lewy (ur.), The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum (str. 686-688). Oxford idr.: Pergamon Press.
Lewy, A. (ur.) (1991). The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum. Oxford idr.: Pergamon Press. Morris, J. W. (1991). Attitude Towards Art. V: A. Lewy (ur.), The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum (str. 684-685). Oxford idr.: Pergamon Press.
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Otto, G. (1991). Aesthetic Education. V: A. Lewy (ur.), The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum (str. 675-677). Oxford idr.: Pergamon Press.
Pevec Semec, K. (2007). Kurikularna teorija in posodabljanje učnih načrtov. V: A. Žakelj idr., Kurikul
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Podobnik, U. (2011). Percepcija likovne umetnine in načrtovanje likovne dejavnosti v šoli. V: Manfreda Kolar, V., Sicherl Kafol, B. in Skribe Dimec, D. (ur.), Specialne didaktike: kaj nas povezuje in kaj ločuje (str. 51-65). Ljubljana: Pedagoška fakulteta.
Tacol, T. (2011). Ustvarjalno poučevanje in učenje pri pouku likovne vzgoje. V: Manfreda Kolar, V., Sicherl Kafol, B. in Skribe Dimec, D. (ur.), Specialne didaktike: kaj nas povezuje in kaj ločuje (str. 67-81). Ljubljana: Pedagoška fakulteta.
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Biografski podatki
Rajka Bračun Sova (roj. 1975) je diplomirala iz umetnostne zgodovine na Filozofski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani (2005), magistrirala iz muzejskega in galerijskega menedžmenta na City University v Londonu (2006), trenutno pa pripravlja doktorsko disertacijo z naslovom Pedagoška vrednost interpretativne sheme umetnostnega muzeja na Pedagoški fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani. Poklicno se že več let ukvarja z vzgojo in izobraževanjem v muzejih in galerijah, poučevanjem odraslih na področju umetnostne zgodovine in javno dostopnostjo kulturne dediščine. Od leta 2009 je samozaposlena pedagoginja v kulturi in kustosinja. Sodeluje s Pedagoško fakulteto pri vzpostavljanju muzejske pedagogike kot novega področja poučevanja in raziskovanja.
Metoda Kemperl, doktorica umetnostnozgodovinskih znanosti, izr. prof. za umetnostno zgodovino, zaposlena na Univerzi v Ljubljani, Pedagoški fakulteti, oddelek za likovno pedagogiko. Članica programske skupine Slovenska umetnost in umetnost Srednje Evrope in Jadrana. Soustanoviteljica Slovenskega društva za preučevanje 18. stoletja. Dobitnica priznanja Izidorja Cankarja za posebne dosežke v umetnostni zgodovini, ki ga podeljuje Slovensko umetnostnozgodovinsko društvo. Soavtorica in koordinatorica novega 2. stopenjskega študijskega programa Muzejska pedagogika. Glavna področja raziskovanja: baročna umetnost, baročna arhitektura, baročna kulturna zgodovina, muzejska pedagogika.
Positions, Dispositions and Practices in Education Policy in Central and South East Europe (research in progress)
ŽiVA Kos KECOJEVIČ*1 AND SlAVKO GaBER2
In the article, we present the conceptualisation and selected results of ongoing research dealing with the particular area of top decision making in education in Central and South East Europe. Aiming at a Bourdieuian type of objectifi-cation of key agents of decision making in education - ministers - a group of researchers from the region is in the process of interviewing former ministers of education. The interviews should serve as a (frequently omitted) part of the material for a structured analysis of education policy in the region in the times of transition, transformation and metamorphoses in education.
Keywords: Central and South East Europe Decision making, Dispositions, Education policy, Ministers, Positions
1	*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana ziva.kos-kecojevic@guest.arnes.si
2	Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana
Položaji, dispozicije in prakse edukacijskih politik v osrednji in jugovzhodni Evropi (raziskava v teku)
ŽivA Kos Kegojevič* in Slavko Gaber
^^ V prispevku so predstavljeni konceptualizacija in izbrani izsledki raziskave, ki še poteka. Osrednja problematika je specifično področje vrhovnega odločanja na področju izobraževanja v osrednji in jugovzhodni Evropi. Z bourdiejevskim tipom argumentiranja bodo analizirani intervjuji s ključnimi akterji, ki sprejemajo odločitve na področju izobraževanja -ministri. Skupina raziskovalcev je v fazi intervjuvanja nekdanjih ministrov za izobraževanje. Intervjuje bodo uporabili kot (pogosto izpuščen) del gradiva za strukturirano analizo edukacijskih politik v regiji med tran-zicijo, transformacijo in preobrazbo v izobraževanju.
Ključne besede: dispozicije, edukacijske politike, ministri, odločanje, osrednja in jugovzhodna Evropa, položaji
One of the main focuses of the CEPS Journal, as well as of the CEPS,3 is to conceptualise education policy in Central and South East Europe (CSEE).
In line with our orientation, and in cooperation with experts4 from the region, we have launched specific and focused research on top decision making in education in the region, and we present here the first insights provided by this work in progress. For the research, we plan to cover 5-8 countries in CSEE with structured interviews with former ministers of education. The interviewees should be ministers from the period after 1989 who have not held office in the last four years.
The interviews should, if possible, be carried out by national experts from the field of education policy studies. An invitation letter was drafted in autumn 2011 and sent to identified potential collaborators in the region. In this letter to the experts, we wrote that with the interviews "we aim at:
•	Snapshots (representative - important ministers, mainly longstanding
in office, from different countries, the same region^) of socio-analyses
in policymaking and politics in education during last 20 years in the
region(s) of Central and South East Europe
•	Insights into:
-	The conceptualisation of education policy in last 20 years in the particular nation at the systemic level thorough the eyes of the top policymakers
-	Such insights should be complementary to expert insights from the same country (...)
-	Their social and political background
-	Their professional educational background
-	Their type(s) of rationality (how they perceive society and education in society, which mechanism they conceptualise and use in policymaking);
- how they perceive politics and its role in it^" (cf. Invitation, 2011)
For the methodology, we decided to primarily follow the "Bourdieu approach in La misere du mond. We would like to acquire the personal opinions of the participating ministers and combine their insights and those of experts into
Cf. CEPS homepage for research (http://ceps.pef.uni-lj.si) and the CEPS Journal mission statement (http://www.cepsj.si/doku.php?id=en:cepsj).
The first interview was made with the former Austrian minister, and was conducted by C. Gepperd and S. Bauer. The second was made with the former minister from Montenegro, and was conducted by S. Gaber. The third interview was with the former Serbian minister, and was conducted by I. Jaric, while the fourth interview, with the former Slovenian minister, was undertaken by 2. Kos Kecojevic.
3
the "social weight" involved in their conceptions of politics, policy, education and their implementation of the proposed and inaugurated changes in education in last 20 years" (cf. Invitation, 2011).
After preparing the first draft of the structure of the interview and sending it for comment and improvement to the experts interested in collaboration, we commenced the interviews in some of the CSEE countries. Interviews with former ministers from Austria, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia have already taken place, while interviews with ministers from Hungary and Croatia have been arranged for the autumn. Our plan is to compare the reflections of the former ministers with the state of the art in national education (today and at the beginning of the 1990s), investigating their conception and perception of social partner engagement in education reforms, their attitude towards international comparative studies, etc. As mentioned above, we are still in the research process, and we therefore present here only parts of the interviews that we have performed thus far with former ministers of education in Central and South East Europe.
The ministers selected were members of governments in the times of "great transformation" and/or metamorphoses in Europe (with regard to these concepts, compare Polanyi (1944) and Castel (1995)) and, in the majority of cases, also in their respective countries (Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Austria).
The interviews were conceptualised and carried out with close reference to the Bourdieuian approach to the object formation of research. In particular, we try, also in the interpretation, to follow examples of his work and the work of his group on the objectification of the "weight of the world"5 (cf. Bourdieu, 1993, 1998). Using the aforementioned research as guidance, we aim to establish the first outlines of an understanding of the positions and dispositions of particular nations in the region, and through these gain an insight into their constructed education policies (practices).
We perceive the Bourdieuian approach as productive and enabling an understanding of political moves (practices) not primarily as heroic or corrupt political acts of individuals who stand as more or less moral individuals, but more as practices of agents who acted in a particular social space (field) structured by dispositions and positions that narrowed the imagined scope of the
"But how can we offer readers the means of understanding - which means taking people as they are - except by providing the theoretical instruments that let us see these lives as necessary through a systematic search for the causes and reasons they have for being what they are?" "These benchmarks and observations recall the social conditions and conditionings of the men and women talking, along with their careers, education and work experiences - everything that is at once hidden and disclosed, ^." (Bourdieu, 1998, pp. 1-2).
free manoeuvring of each of them, without eliminating their responsibility for actions.6 With the aforementioned conceptual point of departure, and in the process of further elaboration (contextualisation) of the interviewed policymaking agents (ministers) and their politics, we hope that their perceptions and actions will become more transparent and, within the given period of time, also more intelligible (cf. Bourdieu, 1998, p. 625). We see this dynamic as dependent on the structures of different fields (from political and social to educational), as well as on the function of the embedded dispositions in the habitus of the ministers (cf. Bourdieu, 1988, 1992).
As mentioned above, experts from different countries in the region conducted interviews in which ministers presented their reflections on society, education, politics and their involvement in education policymaking in a particular period. Their reflections on society, values and fiercely discussed topics in education, as well as their deliberations on their own family and educational background, have one overall aim: to provide insights into the processes of policymaking in the field of education. The relatively rich material that we have collected thus far is ready for further research and will be supplemented with similar interviews from certain other countries in the region by the end of 2012.
We believe that the analyses that will follow next year will enable us to gain additional insights into how decisions in education policy in the countries of Central and South East Europe have been structured, conditioned and performed. Systematically searching for the context, the constellation of power relations, in the field of policymaking in a concrete nation and reflecting the objectified decision makers' "personalities" - attitudes, cultural capital, professional dispositions, family background - we add to insights into the process of education reforms in the last 20 years (cf. Bourdieu, 1988, 1992).
Such an approach enables us to avoid arriving at the study of education policy/politics through dyads of great/disastrous and heroic/corrupt politicians, and gives us an opportunity to reach beyond the opposition of neoliberal vs social welfare education policy and politics. It also invites the search for an understanding of reciprocities of dependence, repression and enabling as integral parts of political practices of the past decades. We suggest reading the presented selection of answers from the interviews as initial insights (for the time being lacking appropriate contextualisation) into the positions, dispositions, fields and habitus of the agents we have started to analyse.
6 "A greater understanding of the mechanisms which govern the world should not have the effect of releasing the individual from the embarrassing burden of moral responsibility On the contrary, it should teach him to place his responsibilities where his liberties are really situated (Bourdieu, 1988, p. 4).
I. Snapshots of positions for dispositions7
1. Family cultural capital as a background for their own cultural capital
The Austrian (AT) minister:
"l...lmy mother was a kindergarten teacher and a very good pianist and singer, my father was the director of a paper mill, and my grandfather was a painter'.'
The Montenegrin (ME) minister:
"My father graduated in philosophy - the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy l^l. For a certain period, he was a teacher in upper secondary education; for the rest of the time, he was a party official with various duties. My mother gained a lower secondary diploma. She practically took care for four kids and was for a certain period employed as a person dealing with basic finances."
The Serbian (RS) minister:
"l...lmy father graduated from the Faculty of Economics and my mother gained an upper secondary diploma. He was an economist at the Official Gazette of SFRY and my mother was a public employee in a national accountancy agency.8 She is from Belgrade and he is Hercegovac. I was born in Belgrade. My grandmother (on my mother's side) is also from Belgrade, so taking into the account this line I am a native of Belgrade."
The Slovenian (SI) minister:
"By origin, I am from a simple workers'family. My mother never worked, my father was a driver. Yet in our house knowledge was highly valued. My mother in particular wanted an education for her children, and that is why we are all educated. Two out of four gained a PhD, and I believe that the kind of family you are from is not that important; more important is the attitude of your family to knowledge, to the progress and development of the children. It is, of course, easier if the family culture is higher, but not always"
While trying to capture the "double reality of social world", Bourdieu "weaves together a 'structuralist' and 'constructivist' approach. First to construct the objective structures (spaces of positions) that define external constraints Second, we reintroduce the immediate, lived experience of agents in order to explicate the categories of perception and appreciation
(dispositions) that structure their action from inside." (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 11). National Accountant Agency, better known as SDK. In the former socialist system it was the proxy of what is today tax administration.
7
2. Education as the path to embedded and institutionalised cultural capital
The AT minister on her education:
"I was simply an elementary school teacher: elementary school, lower secondary school teacher training college. At that time, it was called teachers' training college. I...I I was always involved in teaching. I was with the boy scouts and the girl guides for 10, 20 years. I...I But I liked going to school, especially to teacher training college, and my favourite subjects were mathematics and latin. I..I I was always inclined towards music. I learned the flute and the piano, and I always felt that music education was incredibly important."
On the differences between her education and that of today:
"I think that the education system of today has become much more diverse. There wasn't the variety in my time. I...I the differences are quite enormous. There has been an upgrading in all areas. A lot of what once was normal school is now at college level and university level.I...I This strong upgrading has been accompanied by an "academisation" of various professions. I can't judge if this is positive or not. I...I Something else that has changed significantly is all the effort and the mass of books children have today. I...I The desire of parents to get their children into higher education has become very strong. Happiness today often depends on whether or not the child graduates. I...IAbility comes from practice and repetition; it doesn't come from intellectual explanations.I...I That has changed dramatically. I think today children are often overburdened at school, because they really should be practising. You have to practice your whole life."
The ME minister presenting his education:
"My primary education9 took place in Niksic10, and after that secondary education in a 'gimnazija'. I moved to Belgrade and graduated in physics there. My first job was as a teacher at a 'gimnazija' in Niksic. Then I went to the army, after which I got a research job at the Institute for Physics in Belgrade. At the same time, I was assistant at the faculties of mathematics and pharmacy. In 1976, I earned a master's degree and went to Russia, to the institute in Dubna.11I^I By chance, I was a member of a group researching collisions of particles, and in
For all the ministers from former Yugoslavia, primary education is the equivalent of comprehensive primary and lower secondary and obligatory education.
Niksic is the second largest city in Montenegro. The capital of Montenegro is Podgorica.
The Dubna Institute for Nuclear research was established in 1956 on the basis of two research institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences: the Institute for Nuclear Problems and the Electro Physical Laboratory. The Institute has seven laboratories, each with its own specialisation: theoretical physics, high energy physics (particle physics), heavy ion physics, condensed matter physics, nuclear reactions, neutron physics, and information technology. The Institute has a division for studying radiation and radiobiological research, as well as other ad hoc experimental physics experiments (more: http://www.jinr.ru/).
Russia they had developed a new technique of research using nuclear emulsions in so-called bubble chambers. So I went to Dubna on a stipend and stayed there for two and a half years. I published there - I believe I published six articles, which I combined into a logical whole in my PhD 1^1. After two years, I came back in Belgrade, where I received my PhD in 1979.After my PhD, a group of people were lobbying for a new science-maths faculty in Podgorica and they persuaded me to join."12
Concerning the differences between education in the time of his schooling and today, he states:
"Then, a strong collectivist spirit was present, solidarity existed, feeling for the other. In one word, values existed that bit by bit disappeared later. Upper secondary education was demandingI...I but after it we were ready to be successful students, and I had no problem studying in Belgrade."
The RS minister described his education as typical for a Belgrade child: "All of the schools I attended here are in a one kilometre radius, as I am more or less in the centre of the city. I went to Holland twice to undertake my specialisation at the Centre for International Studies, but that was after I graduated from university. I managed to prepare a lot of material for my masters as well as my doctorial studies there I...I. All of the rest in an educational sense is connected to Serbia, that is, Former Yugoslavia./.../ In that time, I attended V. Belgradegim-nazija - probably the best one in Belgrade" Q: "You graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Law?" "Yes, and finished my masters and doctoral studies there as well." Comparing his education and education today, he states: "This question is quite complicated, because my perception of education is better than that of a regular citizen, and so the answer could be quite comprehensive. There are a lot of differences on the systemic level that prevent an easy answer. I am not fond of generalisations that come down to "it was better in my time, my schooling was better". I don't like that because it isn't true. There is something distinctive about every time period. This is mostly due to differences on the level of the system. I...I Unfortunately, I think that there still exists relatively strong continuity in relation to the old education. Roughly speaking, it comes down to the
As one of the smallest republics in former Yugoslavia, Montenegro opened its own university (1976) with studies only in economics, law and technical studies, Joined by education and nautical academies, as well as two institutes - for agriculture and biology and medicine. The minister is thus describing his academic trajectory, which reflects the state of university education in his nation, as well as Montenegro's dependence on Serbian higher education. The first moves towards independent higher education, as part of Montenegro's path to becoming an independent state (independence was declared on 3 June 2006), were consolidated during the time that he was a minister in the newly established state.
notion of curriculum. I don't think any systemic cuts in the curriculum have been made since I was at school. I...I The second factor is human resources, which are the most difficult to shift, and the philosophy of our teachers, professors, lecturers I...Ihas remained the same. So we don't have highly developed pedagogical-psychological or methodological capacities of primary, secondary or university teachers. I...I Sadly, if I estimate whether continuity exists, my answer would be yes, but that isn't the best feature."
The SI minister on her education:
"I was very good in languages and I enrolled to study Italian and French, graduating as a teacher of both. Then I went into practice and was a teacher at a 'gimanzija'for 10 years"
After her masters, and due to the transformation of teacher academies into faculties, she decided to undertake doctoral studies in the field of education sciences, gaining her PhD in multi-linguistics. Comparing her education with the state of the art in education today, she states:
"In Slovenia, we still stress the amount of knowledge; that hasn't changed. I^I I observed the same old pattern in the time of the education of my two sons and my much younger daughter. Another characteristic is that we are still inclined towards general knowledge."
Firstly, we can observe that the ministers, all members of the post-war upward mobility generation, mainly achieved a level of education that is higher than that of their parents (three out of four even gained a PhD). Some of them perceive education today as different from education in the time of their schooling, with some seeing too much of an old approach to education in their countries. None of them attended private education and, with the exception of the Montenegrin minister, they graduated from the broad area of social sciences or humanities.
II. Cultural capital, positions (employment positions and functions) as dispositions for education policymaking
1. From prior employment (position) to the post of minister The AT minister:
"Yes, before I was a teacher, an elementary school teacher. I was always involved in teaching.I...I I was obviously very close to the whole education sector. No one could fool me. I knew how things went. I had already been in the provincial government in Vorarlberg. I had a funny portfolio: development aid, energy conservation, women."
The ME minister:
"1^11 was part of the team preparing education reforms that were to follow I...I so before becoming minister I was involved in considerations about possible and needed changes in education, which helped me I...I. It was easier to enter the cabinet and it enabled me to implement what we considered necessary. I...I In any case, I was a minister who didn't come from politics to the cabinet I...I I came as someone knowing the field, knowing what we should do. It was to my advantage that I was close to the sources of information, that I was part of the process. I...I As I had spent my whole life in education, I had an idea about education - how it works, about procedures, what to change. At the faculty, I had been in charge of the department, I had been the dean, and at the level of university also the vice rector"
The RS minister:
"It was a career cut. I...I At that moment, I was aware that I was leaving the space of law and entering the space of education, and that suited me well. My pedagogical career began in 1980. That means I had been in education for 20 years, my notion of it was beyond self-evaluation. What might be connected to the question is the fact that I entered the education system as a teacher with no prior methodological, pedagogical, sociological or psychological education about what was going to be my work.I...I Yes, I think I was a member of the main committee I...I. I also think that I was vice president of the party, but in any case a member of the party's leadership. Those are the main functions of every party."
The SI minster:
"I^II took on the ministry in a field that I was familiar with. I think that a minister who comes, let's say, from the field of law and takes over the Department of Transportation, or a minister from the field of transportation who takes over the Department of Education, is partly reasonable, because he is a politician and knows all the dangers of politics, but on the other hand, he can have serious problems due to a lack of professional knowledge. For that reason, I think, because I already passed from teacher to consultant and university teacher. I...I Basically, I relied on my strategic competences, that is, I had a feeling that in a decisive moment I would have no problems. I know how to organise myself, how to get others to tell me, help me, consult with me and then make a decision"
Related to the shift in positions, all of the ministers had had prior experience in the field of education. On the other hand, none of them had been professionally trained, educated to deal with education as a social sub-system. Two of them had also had experience in consultative and managerial positions. None of them had had prior leading political functions; one of them had never
been a member of any political party, and was not even a member during the time of his mandate.
III. Positions and dispositions in practice
1. The main reforms during the time of the ministers' mandates
The AT minister: (mandate 1995-2007) discusses important changes in her eyes:
"What was also very important for me personally, and later as a politician, was to educate people into being practical persons who can recognise their individual abilities and be proud of them, because everyone is different. I...I And secondly, you have to dare: dare to do something and dare to decide something. To decide is always to assume responsibility. I've seen this so many times.I^I That's why I always wanted to have independent schools that can decide a lot of the things themselves, just with a framework./^/ Autonomy means that I have a framework, but autonomy doesn't mean that everyone can do what they like. I^I And another important development was specialisation in technical fields, and also in the business administration sector. This means that higher educational institutions like technical and business colleges have amazing new specialised areas because of automation and computerisation. We also gave the general secondary and the academic lower secondary level the opportunity to choose priorities, like focusing on the artistic or creative side or any other direction. I^I Through the reforms, I wanted schools to have more autonomy, so as to be able to set priorities themselves and then choose. But I've noticed that this is not popular at all. I^I PISA was a big issue. Then the reduction of hours. That developed its own momentum. This momentum was cruel. Then the university reform. That was madness. Just a huge challenge. I^I I tried to implement this hundred per cent permeability, with the possibility of changing after four years of lower secondary (now it's called new middle school) directly into the senior classes (upper secondary). But to do this you have to differentiate. In the eyes of those who think that everyone has to reach the average, differentiation is the devil's handiwork. They always say segregation and exclusion. I^I I introduced tuition fees, five thousand Schillings, and for those who weren't able to pay there was an opportunity to apply for a bank loan at a zero interest rate: I paid two percent interest and the bank paid the five thousand Schillings directly to the university. I...I We didn't have a drop in student numbers. It eliminated many inactive enrolments that had be there otherwise, so I'm all for it, but with social cushioning, of course."
The ME minister: (mandate 2003-2008) presented the main changes of his mandate:
"That means changes in education programmes, that is, textbooks, different organisation of primary schools, on the level of the system - therefore the institutional formation of the system - the appearance of new institutions that deal with professional matters, external quality assessment, matura, computerisation of schools is also important, as well as drastic improvement of school infrastructure. equalisation of formal and non-formal education. "
"You have to be aware of the fact that the education system had established a unique informational base that no other system in Montenegro has. This base, unfortunately not used much these days, contains information about all employees, students, all of the infrastructure - you can get an overview of all of the grades from whichever subject for a particular student. Various analyses can be made that could help the system to improve and develop. 1^1 We in the Department of Education knew exactly how many teachers were due for retirement -when and in which subject. We were able to plan for, let's say, five years ahead how many maths teachers would be needed. I see this is not used a lot nowadays."
The RS minister: (mandate 2000-2004) about principles and changes during his mandate:13
"I can say that we spent two years convincing the system that another way exists. Then we tried to implement changes, we passed a great Systems Act, which I personally think is good. Only then did the system begin to function a bit""
"I will try to determine five reformative aspects we aimed to follow. One of them was definitely egalitarian education. Equal access to education and equal opportunity in relation to what society can offer. The second was a change in the way schools were being managed. Management on the school level aimed at making schools more open in relation to stakeholders, whom we tried to find in parents and local community. The third was the change in curriculum, the reduction of the central curriculum and the increased autonomy of schools or areas of autonomous project planning, that is, 10% for lower classes and up to 30% by the fourth year of high school. In any case, increasing autonomy of schools. Raising the question of children's rights was seen as a mechanism through which the teacher-student relationship could be shifted. This always came back to us like a boomerang, with claims that we were actually protecting the children and not the system that we needed to run. This was a consequence of our position. A balance needs to be found. An attempt to reform those subjects that hold educational
13 Compare his words with the analysis of the same period in the Pesikan & Ivic article in the present edition of CEPS Journal.
means, by this I primarily mean textbooks. Exposing publishers to competitiveness and the choice of what a textbook should be on the level of the local community. We managed to establish all of the procedures. It took a lot of time to establish the system. We established all of the procedures from nothing, all of the standards the system never had."
The SI minister: (mandate 2000-2002) about important challenges and achievements during her term in the cabinet:
"In the field of compulsory schooling, I can say we slightly regulated external examinations. External examination was sort of a problem, a kind of challenge that could not be neglected, as were school districts for primary education. There was a significant tendency towards a reduction of school districts, which escalated during our government. We fought for every single school. I visited I don't remember how many schools - the smallest, the highest compulsory school in Slovenia, in short, every boutique example - and found out how precious they were for the local community and what they offered, how committed and engaged the teachers in these schools were I...I we fought against reduction there and at the level of secondary schools as well. At the level of secondary school, in that time, it was obvious that a change of curriculum was needed, and we started to change the core curriculum to modular. The first modules were attempted in technical and vocational schools, where it was impossible to educate a whole group of cobblers, mechanics, etc., with this basic knowledge as a kind of 'stadium generale', as well as the modules. There was a lot of work invested in that.I^I In the field of higher education, it was a time that demanded consideration of whether and how to privatise the sector. This had already been initiated by my predecessor and it continued with "how many" more universities in Slovenia and "how". /^/Financing took a lot of our time, which was very interesting. We couldn't pass the Financing of Higher Education Act, which was similar to the acts that had been passed for all other levels. I^I But there was a kind of a breakthrough in the field of science, the cooperation with the Minister of the Economy was very good. We managed to pass the first modern law, which hasn't changed much since, the Research Activity Act. With it, the economy got research groups, programme groups. Young researchers'4 in the field of economics already existed, but that was not functioning well. There was another problem that still persists today: religious education in public schools. I remember the Vatican Treaty was made in that time and the Prime Minister wanted some kind of a solution. He asked me several times whether I had any kind of model enabling us to keep public schools secular and still cater for the possibility of religions being respected and the possibility of learning about them in schools."
14 More about young researchers: http://www.arrs.gov.si/en/mr/index.asp.
Conclusion
As we can see in the last section of our presentation, all of the ministers - who have different family and educational backgrounds, and their own individual previous work experience - conceptualised, and to varying degrees implemented, changes in education after taking over the post of minister. During the interviews, the experts also asked questions related to unrealised reforms, as well as their relation with stakeholders and groups supporting or opposing their intended or implemented reforms. In our base of interviews, we also have the ministers' answers concerning their attitude towards religious instruction, private vs public education, the role of parents in education, the Bologna process, the relationship between education and employment, etc. All of the answers are waiting for interpretation and further elaboration, which will take place after a few more interviews in autumn this year.
References and sources
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus. Stanford: University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P., et al. (1993). La misere du monde. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Bourdieu, P., et al. (1998). The weight of the world. Social suffering in contemporary society. Stanford: University Press.
Castel, R. (1995). Métamorphoses de la guestion social. Paris: Galimard.
CEPS homepage for research (http://ceps.pef.uni-lj.si)
CEPS Journal mission statement (http://www.cepsj.si/doku.php?id=en:cepsj)
Interviews with the ministers of Austria, Slovenia, Serbia and Monte Negro. (recordings)
Invitation (2011). Invitation to collaboration (letter conceptualised and revised by S. Gaber, P. Zgaga
and Ž. Kos Kecojevič).
Joint institute for nuclear research: http://www.jinr.ru/ (4.6.2012)
Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation. New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart.
Young researchers: http://www.arrs.gov.si/en/mr/index.asp (4.6.2012)
Biographical note
2iVA Kos KECOJEVIC is a doctorial student of Teacher education and educational studies at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana. Her research priority is Quality assessement and assurance.
Slavko Gaber is associate professor of the Sociology of Education at the University of Ljubljana. His research areas are educational policy, equity and equality and quality in education.
Planning and Evaluating Educational Work in Slovene Preschools
Marcela Batistic Zorec*1 and Andreja Hocevar2
The present article examines the changes in Slovene preschools subsequent to Slovenia's independence in 1991. In the socialist period, the national education programme for preschools was highly structured, goal-and content-oriented and subject to schoolization. The Curriculum for Preschools (1999) brought conceptual changes towards education "based on the child" and the process approach, as well as giving more autonomy to preschool teachers and their assistants. In the empirical study, we examine changes in planning and evaluating educational work compared to the past. The results show that the majority of professional workers have reduced the high level of structure and rigidity in planning, and that there is better cooperation between preschool teachers and teachers' assistants. Unlike in the past, most professional workers regularly evaluate their educational work. As the data was gathered in two phases, before and after the training of professional workers in the Reggio Emilia concept, we also search for the (probably indirect) influences of this training. We conclude that after the training the participation of children in planning and evaluating educational work is higher.
Keywords: Curriculum planning, Evaluation of educational work, The preschool curriculum, Preschool education in socialism, Slovenia
1	*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia marcela.zorec@guest.arnes.si
2	Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Art, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia andreja.hocevar1@guest.arnes.si
Načrtovanje in evalviranje vzgojnega dela v slovenskih vrtcih
Marcela batistič Zorec* in Andreja Hočevar
V prispevku so predstavljene spremembe, ki so se zgodile v Sloveniji po osamosvojitvi leta 1991. V socializmu je bil državni vzgojno-izobraževalni program za vrtce zelo strukturiran, ciljno in vsebinsko orientiran ter »pošolan«. V Kurikulumu za vrtce (1999) so vidne konceptualne spremembe v smeri izobraževanja, »osnovanega na otroku«, procesnega pristopa in večje avtonomije za predšolske vzgojitelje in njihove pomočnike. V empiričnem delu so predstavljene spremembe na področju načrtovanja in evalviranja vzgojno-izobraževalnega dela v primerjavi s preteklostjo. Izsledki kažejo, da je večina strokovnih delavcev zmanjšala visoko raven strukturiranosti in togosti pri načrtovanju. Boljše je sodelovanje med vzgojitelji in njihovimi pomočniki. V primerjavi s preteklostjo večina profesionalnih delavcev redno evalvira svoje vzgojno-izobraževalno delo. Podatki so bili zbrani v dveh fazah (pred izobraževanjem in po izobraževanju) v okviru izobraževanja profesionalnih delavcev o konceptu Reggio Emilia, zato so bili raziskani tudi vplivi - verjetno posredni - tega izobraževanja. Končna ugotovitev je, da sta bila po izobraževanju vključenost otrok v načrtovanje in evalviranje dela zastopana v večji meri.
Ključne besede: evalviranje vzgojno-izobraževalnega dela, kurikularno načrtovanje, Kurikulum za vrtce, predšolsko izobraževanje v socializmu, Slovenija
Introduction
Following Slovenia's independence in 1991, the reform of the complete educational vertical triggered the systemic and content reform of Slovene pre-schools as well. The present article examines changes in the planning and evaluating of educational work in Slovene preschools after the introduction of the Curriculum for Preschools (1999). The changes are of importance because the quality of preschool education at the process level is very closely related to the planning and evaluation of educational work in preschools (Marjanovič Umek, Fekonja, Kavčič, & Poljanšek, 2002).
The question as to what changes occurred in Slovene preschools can only be answered by showing how things used to be done in the past. In Slovenia, as part of former Yugoslavia, the system of preschool education used to be regulated relatively well. After World War II, the large increase in the employment of women initiated the establishment of a wide network of pre-schools, which provided for the day care and education of children. As early as in 1961, a unified system of early childhood education and care for all preschool aged children was established (Dolanc, Levičnik, Kolar, Smasek, & Glogovac, 1975). In 1979, the first national curriculum (The Educational Programme for the Education and Care of Preschool Children, hereafter referred to as the Educational Programme) was delivered.
We will emphasise the changes in the pedagogical concept and practice that occurred as consequences of the altered social conditions and the development of the scientific discipline of preschool education both in Slovenia and abroad. The changes led away from the previously rigid and strictly prescribed approaches to preschools, opening them up and giving preschool teachers more autonomy. They aimed at reducing the high level of structure and rigidity typical of preschools between World War II and the end of the twentieth century. The fundamental conceptual change, however, was a shift from education "based on the teacher and the programme" to education "based on the child".
The research presented in the present article was undertaken within the project The Professional Training of Professional Workers to Include Elements of the Special Pedagogical Principles of the Reggio Emilia Concept in the Area of Preschool Education (hereafter referred to as the RE project). The first phase was undertaken before a training held for about 200 professional workers from Slovene preschools, and the second phase was completed after this training. In introducing the Reggio Emilia concept, we stressed the elements that can be implemented in our practice and are not in discordance with our national curriculum. We do not assume that the training had a direct effect on the planning
and evaluation of educational work, but it might have had an indirect effect.
We suppose that changes in planning and evaluating educational work in the national curriculum and their effects on practice in Slovenia could be interesting for the international audience because similar developments have taken place, or are still taking place, in many states. There is no doubt that experts today advocate preschool education "based on the child". However, as international research carried out by Weikart, Olmsted and Montie (2003) shows, in preschool practice, education "oriented towards the adult" still predominates. We believe, as Blaise and Nuttall (2011, p. 103) say, that "a good way to start imagining how (pre)schools and classrooms might be different /.../ is by learning about education systems in other countries".
Slovene preschools between World War II
and Slovenia's independence
One of the considerable advantages of Slovene preschools after World War II was the common preschool for all preschool children between the end of the mother's maternity leave (one year) and the beginning of primary school. The quality of the work in preschools was guaranteed by the appropriate education of preschool teachers and by the national (Slovene) Educational Programme (1979). Planning of the work in preschools was goal-oriented and content-oriented (see Kelly, 1989; Kroflic, 2002). The Educational Programme (1979) clearly defined the goals, methods and content of preschool education, which were specified in some detail according to age groups and educational areas (physical, intellectual, moral, aesthetic and technical education).
Preschool teachers planned their work at various levels. Long-term planning was related to individual periods (introduction period, three terms and the summer period) and short-term planning consisted of weekly and daily plans (Batistic Zorec, 2003). The stress was on the activities planned and led by the teacher since it was thought that directed activities encourage common interests in children and help to form a collective where egotistical tendencies of individuals must give way to common benefits" (Kolar, Cilensek, Osterc, & Cerne, 1969, p. 43). Other preschool activities - simultaneous and obligatory for all children - were also defined: resting, eating and activities related to the children's personal hygiene. Rather than addressing the children's individual needs, they encouraged the adjustment and formation of the individual as a member of the collective, which was a consequence of the ideological trends of the socialist society of the day. The Educational Programme (1979) formulated the principle of the child's obligatory participation in directed activities.
Because it was highly structured and activities for children were planned in advance, the teacher was given very little opportunity to take account of the differences between environments and children. To provide the same or "equal" education was more important than catering for individual differences in children's abilities, needs and interests (see also Batistič Zorec, 2012).
There is no mention of evaluation in the Educational Programme (1979) at all, even though it was content- and goal-oriented. In a (quite limited) column at the end of their daily preparation, teachers only had to make a note on the "realisation", i.e., state whether they had attained the goals with all of the children in the class. Their notes were mostly very short, and they only indicated whether any of the children had not participated in the directed activity (Batistič Zorec, 2003).
Some researches criticised preschools at that time for their rigidity, as more or less everything happening in them had to be foreseen and planned in advance; each activity had to have goals that needed to be reached by all of the children. The Educational Programme (1979) was thus modelled on the primary school programme, which brought about the schoolization of the pre-schools. As Kaga, Bennnet and Moss (2010) argue, schoolization denotes the downward pressure of primary school approaches (classroom organisation, curriculum, etc.) on early childhood education.
We can say that preschool teachers were not autonomous; rather they were in a subordinated role of implementing the prescribed programme. The position of their aids was even worse. Teachers planned daily tasks for them and gave them direct instructions. There was a strict division of work into "educational" and "caring" tasks. The teacher primarily planned and conducted the so-called directed tasks; the aids' duties were hygiene, child minding and occasional discipline enforcement. Such a division meant that education was conceived of as a fully conscious and planned process carried out by the teacher, transmitting knowledge, values, etc. to children. On the other hand, it presupposed that children could merely be "looked after", cared for, offered toys, etc., with no educational effect on them.
Criticism in the mid 1980s brought about changes in numerous pre-schools and a greater variety in practice among different preschools and teachers. In professional articles and in preschools of that time, the urge to take into consideration children's needs, interests and wishes was highly stressed (e.g., Miljak, 1984; Vrbovšek, 1993). Preschools became more open towards parents, as well as towards various disciplines and professionals, which led to the introduction of interdisciplinarity in the field of preschool education.
The national curriculum for preschools
in the Republic of Slovenia
After Slovenia became an independent state in 1991, preschools faced certain critical points which at various levels hindered preschools from developing towards more plural preschool education, from recognizing children's rights and their systematic inclusion in the life and curriculum of the pre-schools" (Marjanovič Umek & Fekonja Peklaj, 2008, p. 26). Empirical research from the 1980s and 1990s helped to create new notions of the child and childhood and the role of the curriculum in preschools, and all of this significantly contributed to the preparation of a new conceptual basis and the Curriculum for Preschools (1999).
The conceptual basis for the Curriculum for Preschools (1999), published in the White Paper on Education in the Republic of Slovenia (1996; hereafter referred to as the White Paper) proposed an open curriculum and suggested that the curriculum should be directed towards the development of the child's achieved and potential abilities and skills, as well as towards the optimum relationship between them. The planning of educational work was defined as the planning of the whole life in the preschools" (ibid., p. 51). The preschool teacher plans educational work based on theoretical assumptions about the developmental characteristics of the child, the specifics of learning in a particular period and the characteristics of the environment. Kroflič (1999) believed that the process approach to curriculum planning was most suited to preschool education because it no longer set goals in the form of ideal images; rather, it was conceived in the form of procedural principles. When conducting educational work, the teacher ensures adaptability within the organisation in time and space, the content, the methods, the forms of educational work and the educational means. The teacher also follows the children's development, analyses her/his own procedures and evaluates the achieved results (White Paper, 1996).
These were the bases on which the Curriculum for Preschools, as a national document, was developed in 1999. It laid out the professional foundations for work in preschools (ibid., pp. 7-8). It emphasised that the notion of the curriculum had been introduced in Slovene preschools because it is broader and more comprehensive than the notion of the programme and it also implies the shift from the traditional stress on contents/subject-matter to the process of preschool education itself, to the totality of interactions and experiences on the basis of which preschools learn" (ibid., p. 7). In the introductory chapters, it lists the goals of the curriculum and the principles for its implementation. A chapter on the child in preschools talks about development and learning in
the preschool period, daily routines, relationships between children, between children and adults, social learning, the space as a curriculum element and cooperation with parents (Curriculum for Preschools, 1999, pp. 10-14). Next are chapters on various areas of preschools' activities: movement, language, art, society, nature and mathematics (ibid.). Each of the areas lists goals, examples of the activities for children aged one to three years and three to six years, and the role of adults.
The Curriculum for Preschools (1999) is open (i.e., loosely structured); it also takes account of the principles set forth in the introduction. It is based on the process approach and the principle of active learning, as "the goal of learning in the preschool period ^ is the very process of learning, the aim of which is not right or wrong answers, but encouraging children's own /.../strategies of understanding, expression, thinking, etc. that are typical of their developmental period" (ibid., p. 16). Process planning underlines the importance of the quality of interactions and relationships among children and adults in preschools. Professional workers can employ global goals, concrete goals and examples of activities as a framework of their work, within which they can autonomously select the goals, content, methods and forms of educational work. Kroflic (2001) emphasised that the official curriculum is not an educational factor, but it is, nevertheless, required by institutional education. If we define the educational process as a form of communication that aims at the transmission of specific knowledge, skills, habits and values, and, therefore, at influencing the development of the individual's personality, then planning the educational process seems to be necessary, on the one hand, and an obstacle to the pedagogical process, on the other. It is necessary because education is a goal-oriented activity that presupposes open and covert forms of expectations in relation to the set goals.
The Curriculum for Preschools (1999, p. 19) takes the view that each stage in the child's development has to be understood as important in itself, and not just as preparation for the next phase of education. Yet it also highlights the fact that preschools must not allow the schoolization of the curriculum (ibid., p. 14). Education in preschools should be based on direct activities and broadening first-hand experiences, on reflection, on forming the first generalisations, on internal motivation, solving concrete problems and gaining social experience (ibid.).
One of the principles set by the Curriculum for Preschools (1999, p. 10) is to allow individuality, choice and difference in preschool education - as opposed to the group routine that dominated the concept of preschools during the time of socialism. The principle of balance is explained by saying that the curriculum or the teacher must "ensure activities from all the areas and encourage
all the aspects of the child's development, while also actively encouraging and opening up a wide range of the rights to choice and difference (ibid., p. 13). A special section is dedicated to sleeping, eating and other everyday activities for which flexibility and respect for freedom of choice are recommended.
The evaluation of work in Slovene preschools is based on guidelines from the White Paper (1996, p. 51), which stress the importance of the evaluation (a critical analysis of the process and the achieved results) of educational work. The Curriculum for Preschools (1999) called for the development of modern concepts of establishing and ensuring quality in preschools (Hočevar & Kovač Šebart, 2010). The tools that allow preschools self-evaluation have, therefore, already been developed in Slovenia (see Marjanovič Umek, Fekonja, Kavčič, & Poljanšek, 2002; Marjanovič Umek, Fekonja, & Bajec, 2005).
If we compare the pedagogical concept evident in the Educational Programme (1979) and the concept brought by the Curriculum for Preschools (1999), for the latter we can say that:
•	it is less structured and much more open,
•	individual differences among children are taken into account,
•	it is not focused only on teacher-directed activities but rather on the whole life in preschool,
•	it gives more emphasis to the educational process and its evaluation,
•	it stimulates teachers' autonomy,
•	it stresses cooperation (instead of subordination) between the teacher and teacher's assistant.
We can say that the conception of early childhood education in the socialist period is a typical example of the empiricist (Bruce, 1997) or didactically oriented (Špoljar, 1993) approach to the curriculum, which authors relate to behaviourist psychological theory. On the other hand, the Curriculum for Preschools (1999) can be seen as an example of interactionism related to the cognitive theories of Piaget and Vygotsky (Bruce, 1997). If we analyse both pedagogical concepts according to the three curricular positions of MacNaughton (2003), preschool education in socialism represents the "cultural transmission - conforming to society" position, while the new national curriculum introduced the "cultural transmission - reforming society" position. According to MacNaughton (ibid.), such curricula are child-centred, emphasising the autonomy, individual growth and development of the child in order to achieve his or her full potential and self-government. Instead of tightly organised planning controlled by the teacher, in the second position planning is flexible, and reflects children's changing needs and daily happenings.
The national curriculum is a curriculum framework that guides teachers' planning and assessment (Blaise & Nuttall, 2011), but that does not mean that every teacher who uses the same curriculum framework has the same preschool practice. As Blaise and Nuttall (ibid.) argue, teachers are themselves curriculum theorists because they are constantly developing their own "working theory" of what the curriculum is and how it is implemented. Through the empirical data of our research presented in the next chapters, we will try to understand how the curriculum changes have influenced the planning and evaluating of educational work in the preschool practice of Slovenes.
Purpose and goals of the research
Our research within the RE project was conducted in two phases.
(1)	The first phase, in 2009, aimed at gaining an insight into the work of Slovene preschools, and the results were intended to form part of the planning for the two-year training associated with the present project. The purpose was to identify the present situation as perceived and assessed by preschool teachers and teachers' assistants.
(2)	The purpose of the second phase, in 2011, was the same, with the additional goal of determining any changes that may have occurred due to the influence of the two-year training.
In the present article, we will only present the part of the research that relates to planning and evaluating educational work in preschools from the second phase (2011). We have also obtained data about conducting educational work, but we have not included these because they would have made our article too extensive. We will first focus on the issue of whether, and to what extent, planning and evaluating educational work in preschools have changed in the twelve years since the introduction of the Curriculum for Preschools (1999) in comparison with the past. The data for the past that would allow comparison at the level of empirical analysis are, unfortunately, not available. Therefore, we will base our comparisons on documents, professional texts and the criticisms of preschool education from the recent past, as presented in the theoretical introduction above. Our second aim was a comparison with data from the first phase (2009), in order to recognise possible influences of the training in the RE project on planning and evaluating educational work.
134 planning and evaluating educational work in Slovene preschools
Method
Sample
(1)	Of the 331 respondents who took part in the empirical research, 96.4% were women. More than three quarters (76.1%) were preschool teachers and slightly less than a quarter (23.9%) were teachers' assistants. Just under half (47.1%) of the respondents surveyed had a university degree, 12.1% had completed college, 37.6% had completed secondary school and 3% had other degrees.
(2)	Of the 167 respondents, 96.4% were women. More than three quarters (76%) were preschool teachers and slightly less than a quarter (24%) were teachers' assistants. More than half (56.3%) of the respondents surveyed had a university degree, 7.8% had completed college, about a third (32.9%) had completed secondary school and 3% had other degrees.
Instruments and techniques
A questionnaire for preschool teachers and teachers' assistants was used as the instrument for our research. We prepared the questionnaire ourselves within the above-mentioned project. (1) In the first phase, all of the (26) questions, except for one, were of the closed format (multiple choice and evaluation scales). (2) In the second phase, we used the same questionnaire but omitted the last two questions (regarding their knowledge of the RE concept prior to the project and their expectations regarding the training) and added four new questions about documentation and evaluation in class.
Data collection and analysis
(1)	The first data collection took place in April and May of 2009. The questionnaires were sent to 96 preschools. Out of the 430 questionnaires distributed, 331 (77%) were returned.
(2)	The second data collection took place in March 2011, with all of the present participants of the RE training who work in preschools as teachers or teachers' assistants (167).
The data was quantitatively analysed at the level of descriptive and inferential statistics, where the frequency distribution (f, f%) of attributive variables was used. The independence hypothesis was tested with the hi-square (x2) test.
Results and interpretations
Planning educational work
The surveyed preschool teachers and teachers' assistants answered questions about how often they formally (in written form) plan their educational work (Table1) and which activities they plan in this way (Table 2).
Table 1. Frequency of the formal planning of educational work.
I plan educational work:	Number	Percentage
every day	32	19.2
weekly	38	22.8
for thematic sections or projects of varying lengths	43	25.7
other	3	1.8
I cannot answer	51	30.5
Total	167	100
The shares of answers for each of the three possibilities are distributed quite evenly. A quarter (25.7%) of the respondents said that they formally plan their educational work for thematic sections or projects of varying lengths. More than a fifth (22.8%) do so on a weekly basis and slightly fewer of the respondents (19.2%) formally plan educational work in writing every day. It is difficult to explain why the most frequent (30.5%) choice was I cannot answer. We suppose that many preschool teachers do not have a consistent way of planning. It is also possible that preschool teachers avoid formal (written) planning, which experience shows that teachers do not like. It is quite obvious that planning in various preschools and by different teachers varies considerably, especially when compared to the past, when teachers were prescribed exactly how often and in what way they were supposed to plan their educational work. We found no statistically significant difference between the first and the second phase.
Table 2. What do the professional workers usually plan in their formal/written preparations?
In my formal/written preparation I usually plan:	Number	Percentage
the areas of the activities defined by the curriculum	158	95.0
interdisciplinary activities	105	63.3
play	88	52.8
routine activities	39	23.3
transition periods	39	23.3
other	20	12.0
As Table 2 shows, almost all (95%) of the professional workers put the activities defined by the Curriculum for Preschools (1999) in their written preparations. Almost two thirds plan interdisciplinary activities (63.3%) and more than half (52.8%) plan children's play. Only about a quarter of the respondents plan routine activities (24%) and transition periods (25.1%). In the Educational Programme (1979), the emphasis was on planning directed activities and activities among which the children could choose, whereas routines and transition periods were completely excluded from planning. As can be seen here, the latter are still only planned by the minority of professional workers. It has to be emphasised that planning routine activities does not mean more rigidity, but just the opposite. Instead of following the same daily routine day after day, planning such activities gives them meaning, bringing with it consideration of the various aspects of different children's needs, as well as opportunities for social development and learning. There are no statistically significant differences between the first and the second phase of the research.
The share of the answer other for this question being quite high, we also analysed these responses. In terms of content, most of the activities belong to the first category of Table 2 (the areas of the activities defined by the national curriculum), some belong to the answer play (e.g., the organisation of play in playing corners) and daily routine (e.g., activities for children who do not sleep). The other answers are: work with parents, the morning circle and individual work with children.
Two questions referred to the cooperation between the two professional workers in the preschool class - the preschool teacher and the teacher's assistant. When asking respondents about the frequency of cooperation, the majority answered that they always (73.1%) or almost always (21.6%) plan educational work together with their co-worker in the preschool class. In order to gain a deeper insight, we asked for the most common method of their cooperation (Table 3).
Table 3. Method of cooperation between the preschool teacher and the teacher's assistant when planning educational work in the class.
What is the cooperation between the teacher and the assistant when planning educational work in the class like?	Number	Percentage
We plan all educational work together.	76	45.5
The basic plan is prepared by the preschool teacher, who then discusses it with the teacher's assistant.	70	41.9
Educational work is planned by the preschool teacher with the assistant only occasionally cooperating.	7	4.2
Other	9	5.4
Missing data	5	3.0
Total	167	100.0
However, when we examine their answers to the question about how they do the planning (Table 3), the situation turns out to be less ideal: fewer than half (45.5%) plan all educational work together. In the case of 41.9% of the respondents, the basic plan is prepared by the preschool teacher, who then discusses it with the teacher's assistant. It has to be added, though, that the majority of the answers in the Other group belong to the category we plan all educational work together, with some respondents giving a more detailed description of what the cooperation entails. We could, therefore, argue that in half of the cases (50.9%), the cooperation is in line with that presupposed by the Curriculum for Preschools (1999), and in just under half of the cases (41.9%), the preschool teacher is in charge of the planning.
Our experience - based on various discussions with professional workers - suggests the following possible reasons for why almost half of teachers' assistants do not actively participate in planning educational work:
•	some preschool teachers are used to being (or want to be) the one "in charge", that is, they take all of the responsibility for planning educational work;
•	some teachers' assistants are not willing to participate in planning; they often quote the difference in salaries between the two professional workers as the reason; and
•	bad organisation of work or lack of time for joint planning.
We found no statistically significant difference between first and second phase according to the frequency and method of cooperative planning of the two professional workers in the same class.
We were also interested in the role of children with regard to the planning of educational work.
Table 4. Method of including children in planning educational work.
	1. PHASE		2. PHASE	
In what manner do children participate In planning educational work?	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Children do not take part in planning, because they are too young.	50	15.2	19	11.4
Children do not take part in planning; that is the task of professional workers.	4	1.2	1	0.6
The teacher plans educational work on her own, taking account of the children's wishes and interests.	129	39.1	32	19.2
The teacher chooses a topic and prepares a basic plan herself, which she later discusses with the children, and then takes account of their wishes and suggestions.	172	52.1	102	61.1
Professional workers choose a topic and content, and then plan activities together with the children.	97	29.4	66	39.5
Other	41	12.4	16	9.6
More than half of the professional workers (52.3%) in the first phase, and 61.1% in the second phase, say that they choose a topic and prepare a basic plan themselves. Later, they add children's wishes and suggestions. For this answer, the difference between phases is not statistically significant. However, we can see that in the second phase there are significantly fewer (19.2% compared to 39.1% from the first phase) professional workers who plan educational work on their own, taking account of what they know of children's wishes and interests. The difference is statistically significant: X2 = 20.110, g = 1, P = 0.000. On the other hand, in the second phase there are statistically significantly (x2 = 5.160, g = 1, P = 0.023) more professional workers (39.5% compared to 29.4% from the first phase) who choose the topic and content, and then plan activities together with the children. The Reggio Emilia approach values children's participation, and we can conclude that training in the RE project influenced the professional workers to include children's participation in planning more often. A smaller share of the professional workers think that children cannot take part in planning because they are too young (15.2% in the first phase and 11.4% in the second phase), or because planning is the task of the professional worker (1.2% and 0.6%).
If we examine the Other category more closely, we can see that the majority of the responses belong to the category The teacher plans on her own, taking account of the children's wishes and interests (e.g., "depending on the children's age", "if they show an interest", "I often start from children's initiatives", "I accept their suggestions and wishes if they are within the context of the topic", etc.).
Evaluation of educational work
As for evaluation, in the first phase the respondents' answers revealed that the great majority of them (85.1%) always or almost always evaluate their work with their co-worker in class. In the second phase, the answers showed that even more professional workers (92.2%) always or almost always evaluate their work with their co-worker. The data obtained seems very encouraging, but we think that respondents may have chosen the answer they felt was expected (i.e., the answer in accordance with the Curriculum for Preschools, 1999). In the second phase we therefore added three more questions on evaluation to our questionnaire. The first additional question was about the content of evaluation. The results are shown in Table 5.
Table 5. Content of evaluation.
What do you include in your evaluation?	Number	Percentage
Realisation of the goals planned for the class.	116	69.5
Realisation of the goals planned for individual children and their particularities.	108	64.7
Analyses of the educational process (consideration of the principles, deviations, dilemmas, etc.)	107	64.1
Other:............	17	10.2
More than two thirds (64.1%-69.5%) of professional workers include all three proposed elements in their evaluations: realisation of the goals for the class and individuals, including their particularities and analyses of the educational process. Among the answers Other, there are some more concrete explanations that belong to the categories in Table 5. Few respondents added other elements of their evaluation: ideas or children's interests for future planning, self-reflection (including feelings), and collaboration of all of the participants.
Next we were interested in whether the respondents had evaluated their educational work in the previous week and which method they had used. All except two (98.8%) answered that they had made an evaluation, many of them oral and in writing. The share of oral evaluations (i.e., evaluations with a co-worker in class or with other colleagues in preschool) is slightly higher (74.7%) than the share of written evaluations (60.5%). As stated above, evaluation was not an obligation or a significant part of educational practice in preschools prior to the introduction of the Curriculum for Preschools (1999). However, almost all professional workers from our research now undertake evaluation at least once in a week, which is in accordance with the national curriculum.
The Curriculum for Preschools (1999) stresses that all of the adults in preschool have a significant role in the educational process. It also highly values collaboration in class and team work in preschool. From Table 6, we can see with whom the respondents had collaborated in the previous week when preparing the evaluation of their educational work.
Table 6. Collaborators in evaluation.
With whom have you collaborated in your evaluation of educational work in the last week?	Number	Percentage
With the co-worker in the class.	160	95.8
With colleagues in the preschool or preschool's unit.	100	59.9
With the head of the preschool.	28	16.8
With an advisor (psychologist, pedagogue, etc.) in the preschool.	11	6.6
With the children in the class.	91	54.5
With the children's parents.	38	22.8
As we expected, almost all (95.8%) teachers and teachers' assistants had evaluated educational work with their co-worker in the class in the week prior to answering the questionnaire, many of them (59.9%) had also done so with other colleagues. We find the relatively high shares of collaboration with children and parents interesting. More than half of professional workers (54.5%) regularly include children in evaluation and almost a quarter of them (22.8%) include children's parents. We suppose that this result should be seen as one of the effects of the RE project, although we do not have data to support a comparison.
Conclusion
The research attempted to discover whether Slovene preschool teachers and teachers' assistants have managed to change planning and evaluation of educational work according to curriculum changes at the end of the previous century. The empirical data obtained show that in the work of the majority of professional workers at least some degree of change has occurred in comparison with the past. We find that the planning in different preschools and by different preschool teachers varies much more than it did in the past, when the manner and frequency of planning were precisely prescribed. More spontaneous work might help to bring about less rigid educational work, but it also brings the danger of acting unsystematically and arbitrarily and, thereby, the danger of not fulfilling the goals of preschool education in preschools.
As for cooperation between preschool teachers and teachers' assistants during planning, the results show that in half of the cases the cooperation follows the Curriculum for Preschools (1999). In just under half of the cases, the preschool teacher still has a dominant role in planning educational work. There are no statistically significant differences between the first and second phase of the research.
We found that more than half of the professional workers choose a topic and prepare a basic plan by themselves. The plan is later discussed with children and takes account of their wishes and suggestions. The change that we can ascribe to the training in the RE project, however, is precisely the participation of children in planning. After the training, there are statistically significantly more (two fifths) professional workers who choose a topic and content, and then plan activities together with the children. On the other hand, there are statistically significantly fewer professional workers who plan on their own, only taking account of what they know about the children's wishes and interests.
A vast majority of the respondents always or almost always evaluate their work together with their co-workers. To avoid respondents giving the answers they felt were expected of them, we added three additional concrete questions about evaluation in the second phase of the research. About two thirds of professional workers include in their evaluations realisation of the goals for the class and individuals, children's particularities and analyses of the educational process. Almost all of them undertake oral and/or written evaluation at least once a week, which is in accordance with the national curriculum and very different from the practice before its introduction.
Besides collaboration with their co-worker and colleagues, we appreciate that more than half of the respondents include children in the evaluation of the educational process. This can also be regarded as one of the positive influences of the training in the RE project.
Slovene preschools have undoubtedly been changing since the systemic and curricular change at the end of the twentieth century, even though this might not be true for all of them and might be happening more slowly than we would want. Based on our experience from formal education courses and in-service training of professional preschool workers, we presume that the differences between preschools are even more important than the differences between individual professional workers (e.g., experience, age and motivation). Preschool management that strives for development, quality teamwork and communication within the preschool, as well as with parents and the environment, is sure to motivate professional workers in the best possible way to evaluate their own work critically and to change any fixed and routine practices
142 planning and evaluating educational work in Slovene preschools
that are out of sync with the national curriculum. In this respect, our sample is biased and - in spite of its size - it does not represent the actual situation of Slovene preschools, because the participants in our research were the pre-schools and professional workers who "want something more". After two years of training in the RE project, we can conclude that at least half of the participants strive to include children's participation in planning and evaluation of the educational process in preschools.
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Kroflič, R. (2001). Temeljne predpostavke, načela in cilji kurikula za vrtce [The Fundamental Assumptions, Principles and Goals of the Kindergarten Curriculum]. In L. Marjanovič Umek (Ed.), Otrok v vrtcu: Priročnik h kurikulu za vrtce [The Child in Kindergarten: A Handbook to the Kindergarten Curriculum], (pp. 7-24). Maribor: Založba Obzorja.
Kroflič, R. (2002). Izbrani pedagoški spisi: Vstop v kurikularne teorije [Selected Pedagogical Writings: Introduction to Curriculum Theory]. Ljubljana: The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.
MacNaughton, G. (2003) Shaping early childhood: Learners, curriculum and contexts. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.
Marjanovič Umek, L. (2009). Kakšen pomen za otrokov razvoj ima poučevanje/učenje v območju bližnjega razvoja? [What Significance does Teaching/Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development Have for Child Development?] In B. Vrbovšek (Ed.), Učenje v območju bližnjega razvoja [Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development], (pp. 10-17). Ljubljana: Supra.
Marjanovič Umek, L., & Fekonja Peklaj, U. (2008). Sodoben vrtec: možnosti za otrokov razvoj in zgodnje učenje [The Contemporary Kindergarten: Possibilities for Child Development and Early Learning]. Ljubljana: The Scientific Research Institute of the Faculty of Arts. Marjanovič Umek, L., Fekonja, U., & Bajec, K. (2005). Pogled v vrtec [A View of Kindergarten]. Ljubljana: National Examinations Centre.
Marjanovič Umek, L., Fekonja, U., Kavčič, T., & Poljanšek, A. (2002). Kakovost v vrtcih [Quality in
Kindergartens]. Ljubljana: The Scientific Institute of the Ljubljana Faculty of Arts.
Miljak, A. (1984). Uloga komunikacije u razvoju govora djecepredškolskog uzrasta. Zagreb: Školske
novine.
Moss, P. (1994). The early childhood league in Europe: problems and possibilities in cross-national comparisons of levels of provision. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 2(1), 5-17. Preschool Law [Zakon o vrtcih] (1996). In Šolska zakonodaja I [School Legislation I]. Ljubljana: Ministry of Education and Sport.
Špoljar, K. (1993). Novi pristopi k vzgojnoizobraževalnim programom v sodobnih konceptih predšolske vzgoje [New Approaches to Educational Programmes in Contemporary Concepts of Preschool Education]. Educa, (5), 13-20.
Vrbovšek, B. (1993). Ustvarjalnost - odgovor na izzive časa in okolja [Creativity - An Answer to the Challenges of the Time and Environment]. Educa, (1-2).
White Paper on Education in the Republic of Slovenia (1996). Ljubljana: Ministry of Education and Sport.
Biographical note
Marcela Batistič Zorec worked eight years as a preschool consultant. Since 1991 she has been Lecturer and later Associate Professor for Developmental Psychology at the Faculty of Education on the University of Ljubljana. From 1994 - 1997 she was actively involved in curricular reform of preschool education on national level. Her main research topic is historical and contemporary role of developmental psychology in preschool education. From 2008 she is engaged in the implementation project of Reggio Emilia concept to Slovene preschools. Currently her research fields are the participation of children and the daily routine in preschools.
Andreja Hočevar is an assistant professor of educational sociology at the Department of Educational Studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Besides educational sociology she is also engaged in topics in the field of early childhood education and seeks to intertwine knowledge from both fields. Topics that she deals with in depth are: system and content solutions in the field of early childhood education, special pedagogical approaches (eg Reggio Emilia), preventing drug use and abuse in different educational settings (school, kindergarten, and family).
Scheerens, J., Luyten, H. and Van Ravens, J. (Eds.) (2011). Perspectives on Educational Quality: Illustrative Outcomes on Primary and Secondary Schooling in the Netherlands. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: SpringerBriefs in Education. 148 pp., ISBN: 97894-007-0925-6.
Reviewed by 2iva Kos Kegojevic
Each time we are confronted with the quality concept in education, with its practices, goals, methods, etc., it inevitably becomes obvious that their realisation starts with, or rather is dependent upon, the accepted definition of quality itself. The notion of quality is, therefore, not without internal tensions. It is strongly dependent upon the relevant context, on the interests, values and believes of the stakeholders involved. However, as the present monograph shows, the relevance of the inter-dynamics between different factors and connected priorities, the organisational infrastructure in the orientation of goals, the choice of methods, developmental activities and the implementation of different approaches to educational quality should be kept in mind at all times. The latter also differ in their connections to particular national systems, as well as on the level of their realisation and relationships between particular levels of education (see Kos Kecojevic & Gaber, 2011).
In an effort to apply this, the present monograph could be read as an analysis of the contextual factors that led to the defining and building of the Systems Model of Education. This model can be simultaneously understood as a theoretical framework and guidelines in approaching the quality of education, as well as an example of practical, applied connection to the processes of quality assurance and evaluation. In terms of their theoretical as well as practical approach to quality, the constructed definition and focal points of the Systems Model were, however, in the most part originally presented in 2004 as part of UNESCO's Education for All Global Monitoring Report (see Schereens, 2004).
The first part of the monograph considers the importance of different perspectives in defining "quality" in the context of education. "When discussing the quality of education in this book there will be a strong emphasis on what is objectively measurable and practically controllable and emphasizes the importance of objectively measurable and practically controllable. Even within that inevitably reduced frame of reference there are many difi^erent perspectives" (p. 4). Attempting to establish the need for further reductionism, the authors refer to Pirsig and put further
emphasis on "who, which subject, or which actor poses the quality question", bearing in mind different stakeholders, including national policy makers, school governors, parents, etc. (p. 4). Qualitative aspects of quality are recognised but "hard to grasp" and "not easily captured or measured". Considering the facts, the authors turn to the part of educational quality that can and will be defined in more objective ways and can be captured by the means of scientific methods, and that aims at improving quality through methods of planned change (p. 5).
As the quality of education is likely to be defined differently by different stakeholders, the Systems Model puts forward a cross section of collective interests in terms of educational results that are important for all of the parties involved (see Scheerens, 2004, p. 3). The contextual dimension is also included and gives the model flexible and broader applicability, taking into account the situational, organisational and local context. It also includes different interpretations of quality, different anchoring points, and offers a broad set of indicators. Analytically, the model strives for a "meta-framework", using an "input-process-output" logic with regard to the functioning of education and comparing different perspectives on educational quality (p. 3, 5). In the second part of the book, the model is rendered operational through the Dutch national context on the level of primary and secondary education.
The authors consider the Systems Model as a possible approach to defining and quantifying educational quality, according to which quality is seen as a productive process in which inputs are transferred into outcomes, keeping in mind the contextual dimension.
When examining the basic framework, six ways of defining educational quality are shown. Each of them could be chosen by relevance or in an attempt to emphasise certain parts of the basic "input-process-output-context" framework and specific relationships between these components. When quality is measured solely in terms of produced output (student achievement, etc.) the results aim for productivity. According to "the productivity view", the success of the Systems Model depends on the attainment of the desired outputs/outcomes. If we examine the interrelationship between context, input and process in an attempt to find the combination that provides the best results, we are concerned with "the instrumental effectiveness view". The latter creates a clear perspective for the selection of context, input and process indicators, namely their expected effect on outcomes. By including the financial issue we move to "the efficiency perspective", which makes a further demand on the productivity and instrumental effectiveness view, considering the highest possible outcomes at the lowest possible costs. According to "the equity perspective", inputs, processes and outcomes are analysed for their equal or fair distribution. "The adaptation perspective" looks not only at the question of how to do things right, but primarily considers the question of how to do the right things, how to set objectives
that do justice to the expectations of the stakeholders and to the requirements education is expected to meet. The last possible view presented (the authors imply that there could be more) is "the disjointed view". Compared to the previous five views, it is an alternative view, considering each element on its own. It is the simplest view, but in the evaluative sense the most arbitrary (p. 6, 7, 130). All of the perspectives can be defined at different levels of the educational system.
In addition, the first chapter offers descriptions of some further perspectives that can be used to express the notion of educational quality, especially through the elements that are relevant to the basic aspects of quality defined by the Systems Model. For example, the functional notion of quality is put forward in the sociological approach, defining quality on the level of the fulfilment of specific social functions, including qualification, selection and allocation. Further on, the notion of organisational quality is discussed in the context of the efficiency of the individual organisation and the notion of quality from the viewpoint of various stakeholders. The so-called "alternative vision" of quality is based on UNESCO's classification of quality education, which considers individual educational traditions that are based partly on philosophical, psychological and sociological world views such as humanism, behaviourism and critical theory, and partly on pragmatic decisions based on specific contextual conditions or on a specific type of education (such as adult education, etc.).
The second chapter includes a comprehensive list of available input, process, output and context indicators. These indicators are also categorised and subjected to further elaboration using the Systems Model discussed in the first chapter. A distinction is made between achievement (learning performance), attainment (the level attained) and impact (long-term societal gains from the first two) outcomes.
Chapter three provides an insight into the Dutch schooling system. The latter is strongly classified into many relatively separate categories and subcategories of schools. Schooling is compulsory from the age of five to sixteen. A prominent feature of the system is freedom of education and the freedom to found schools, to organise the teaching in schools, as well as to determine freedom of conviction. Schools thereby differ according to ideological, educational and religious beliefs, but are also free to determine what is taught and how, and are given a choice of textbooks. More than two thirds of schools in the Netherlands are private schools, which, like public schools, are dependent on the government with regard to funding. Some older quality evaluations of the Dutch schooling system were relatively critical; despite high achievements in international studies (e.g., PISA, TIMSS, etc.), the highly stratified system appeared to be an obstacle regarding the attainment issue, especially for students with lower SES.
The fourth chapter attempts to make the most comprehensive possible
148 scheerens, j., luyten, h. and VAN ravens, J. (eds.) (2011). perspectives on ...
analysis of the Dutch educational system on the level of primary and secondary schooling. The focus of the analysis is in the most part based on the relationship between achievement and attainment in the aspect of equity.
In chapter five, attention is focused on the selectivity and vocational orientation of education systems, as two of the specific aspects of quality that are highly interrelated. Examples are given of how different educational paradigms deal with the needs and demands of the labour market through the realisation of professional competence. The authors highlight two dominant paradigms that differ in terms of the age at which comprehensive education ends and vocational and academic education begins. The problem of defining indicators of selectivity and vocational orientation is one of the problems discussed. Selectivity is understood as the discrepancy between attainment and achievement, while measures for vocational orientation are made by the number of students in vocational tracks. However, some of the social implications of selectivity are also discussed. Another interesting aspect is the connection of achievement and attainment regarding economic growth. Consensus on the importance of each factor, and both combined, has not yet been reached. Furthermore, in a relatively short period of time, from 2004 to 20io, many conflicting theories have been proposed regarding the subject, some of them even by the same authors. The diversity of views on the economic benefit of selectivity of education opens a variety of possible discussions, partly because it has not been a subject of investigation until now.
Chapter six sums up the facts and findings.
The reviewed monograph provides an important insight into the rationalisation and systematisation of approaches to the quality of education. As an example of practice, it could be implemented in some individual practices of quality assurance and evaluation on the level of different national systems. Among other contributions, it offers the reader a chance to reconsider the range and limits of individual attempts and capabilities to solve and define specific issues in light of many approaches to quality. Attempts to define and implement individual views and approaches to quality should be made with reference to the notion of their sensitivity towards and capacity for perceiving and prioritising problems.
References
Kos Kecojevic, Ž., & Gaber, S. (201i). Kakovost v šolstvu v Sloveniji [Quality in Schooling in Slovenia]. Ljubljana: Faculty of Education.
Scheerens, J. (2004). The quality of education at the beginning of the 21st century. Paper for the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report.
Haines, S. and Ruebain, D. (Eds.) (first published 2011). Education, disability and social policy. Bristol: Policy Press. 208 p., ISBN-13: 978-1847423375.
Reviewed by Nika Susteric
"The authors consider the advances, challenges and difficulties that make up current experience of disabled students and look to the future of what might come next in the pursuit of greater educational opportunities."
Steve Haines and David Ruebain Education, disability and social policy 2011, p. 1
The question of educating children with disabilities and special needs is becoming more and more discussed, both in the field of education and among various stakeholders in society. With this in mind, we cannot be surprised at the growing number of books, articles and journals dedicated to debating this issue from various standpoints. The book Education, disability and social policy, edited by Steve Haines and David Ruebain, contributes its share to this diverse corpus of works. In the words of the editors, the book "considers the progress that has been made since the 1980s in educational provision in the UK for disabled students (Haines & Ruebain, 2011, p. 1). Despite the fact that it mostly considers UK policy and legislation regarding the education of children with disabilities, this publication may also be of interest to students, researchers, theorists, practitioners and other interested individuals from other countries, as it offers a view on some topics relevant to education, as well as cautions about some possible (unwanted) consequences that can be produced by various policies.
Education, disability and social policy includes contributions by authors from various backgrounds - theorists, practitioners, activists - enabling a discussion rooted in the perspectives of various levels and fields of engagement in the education of children with disabilities, thus giving the book a specific value. While it seems that, at least implicitly, the common denominator of all of the authors is a tendency towards the meaningful and efficient realisation of inclusion, they debate different topics related to education in general and to that of children with disabilities in particular. They do so mostly through the prism of existing policy and legislation regarding children with disabilities from the Warnock report on, focusing primarily on the effects of the most recent policy and legislation (such as The Children's Plan: Building Brighter Futures (2007), The
Lamb Inquiry: Special Education Needs and Parental Confidence (2009), Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability: A Consultation (2011), Removing Barriers to Achievement: The Government's Strategy for SEN (2004), Disability Discrimination Act (1995), Aiming High for Disabled Children (2007), Every Disabled Child Matters (2009), Equality Act (2010), The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, and others), with an eye on the outcomes they bring for inclusive education.
Thus the first article in the book, entitled Disability and education in historical perspective by A. Borsay, briefly presents the history of schooling of children with disabilities in Britain, with a particular focus on the inability of legal entitlements to enforce inclusive schooling, on the contribution of professions to this failure, and on the impact on human rights brought about by the weakened participation of children with disabilities in their families, communities and employment due to segregated schooling. The role of professions and multi-agency working in educating children with disabilities is further elaborated in the article by L. Todd, Multi-agency working and disabled children and young people: from 'what works' to 'active becoming'. The article by C. Booth, M. Bush and R. Scott offers an insight into policy and legislation concerning children with disabilities that have mostly developed in the fields of education, care and disability discrimination. The authors vividly illustrate the undesired effects caused by the interplay of legislation and policy and by the gap between formal regulation and actual practice.
P. Russell touches upon the subject of the family and its role in the education of children with disabilities. She outlines the policies that empower the role of parents, positioning them as central to achieving the objectives regarding children with disabilities. The article also briefly discusses the growing importance of the child's 'voice' in determining the course of their own education. A. Lewis presents a more detailed explanation of the importance and possible implications of hearing children's 'voices'. In her article Disabled children's 'voice' and experience she also highlights some guidelines on the methods, the research ethics, in exploring children's standpoints, as well as the possible outcomes of acknowledging them.
One of the most important issues in education in general is debated by O. Miller, R. Cobb and P. Simpson. Their article discusses the assessment and attainment of children with disabilities, especially those conditioned by hearing, visual and multi-sensory impairments. They explore the implications of a system that aims at assuring universal services for all children and young people, on the one hand, and on setting and streaming based on the outcomes of national tests and formal examinations, on the other. There is no denying
that assessment and attainment are crucial for enrolment in further levels of education. The question of higher education and people with disabilities - its development, challenges and unresolved questions - is discussed by S. Riddell and E. Weedon in their paper Access to higher education for disabled students: a policy success story? One concept that might have the capacity to reconcile and solve these seemingly opposite tendencies and remaining tasks is presented by N. Crowther in his article From SEN to Sen: could the 'capabilities approach' transform the educational opportunities of disabled children? Cowther claims the death of inclusion by presenting the 'capabilities approach', founded in the theory of Amartya Sen, which is, according to Crowther, underpinned by the same human rights principles as inclusion. The concept focuses on capabilities as those enabling people to achieve 'functionings' (amongst which Crowther lists staying safe, acquiring knowledge and others). It is these capabilities that schools should provide all children with. Considering the education of disabled and other children from this standpoint might be in concurrence with human rights, and could meet the Every Child Matters objectives of being healthy and safe, enjoying and achieving through learning, making a positive contribution to society, and achieving economic wellbeing.
All in all, by covering various topics, the book succeeds in illustrating the complexity of the field of the education of children with disabilities. It provides the reader with a general view of the existing policy and legislation, taking into account recent developments in this field. The latter provide a basis for considering possible future developments in education in the light of the current crisis and related public expenditure cuts. Such cuts will leave their mark on education in general, and are very likely to harm the most disadvantaged groups more than others. Bearing all of this in mind, the book acknowledges the intertwinement of education and other parts of society. Taking account of the effects of policy and legislation, it provides the foundations for considering education as inevitably embedded in broader social structures.
However, a reader searching for conceptualisations of disability in general, and for the consequences of these conceptualisations for policymaking and education, might be unsatisfied. The editors have shaped the book claiming that their "own starting point is to consider these issues through the perspective of the social model of disability" (ibid., p. 1). To clearly position oneself is fair, acceptable and very probably inevitable. Yet the reader might find himself or herself unable to get rid of the feeling that presupposing the social model of disability actually turns out to be a presumption of inclusive education, the latter being the "right way" of educating all children. While inclusive education can be derived as a possible form of education that can suffice the demands of
(a certain reading of) the social model of disability, it is not a logically necessary consequence of acknowledging this model. An article discussing the relationship between inclusive education and the social model of disability, or, in other words, discussing possible alternatives to education derived from the social disability model, would thus be welcome.
In conclusion, despite some reservations, the book, especially due to the broad considerations of social policy, satisfies its goal to "stimulate debate and provide considerable food for thought about current issues, recent developments and possible solutions" (ibid., p. 5). Although a wider conceptual framework is necessary for a comprehensive consideration of the education of children with disabilities and related social policy, the lack of this framework cannot reduce the value of the present book.
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University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education
Editorial
— Slavko Gaber, Ljubica Marjanovic Umek, Pavel Zgaga and Živa Kos Kecojevic
CONTENTS
ceps Journal
Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal
Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij
Vol.2 | No2 | Year 2012
www.cepsj.si
FOCUS
Policy Reform Efforts and Equal Opportunity - An Evidence-Based Link? An Analysis of Current Sector Reforms in the Austrian School System
Prizadevanja na področju zakonodajnih reform in enake možnosti - povezava, ki je dokazljiva? Analiza trenutnih področnih reform v avstrijskem šolskem sistemu
—	CoRiNNA Geffert, SoNjA Bauer-Hofmann and Stefan Thomas Hofmann Education System Reforms in an Unstable Political Situation:
The Case of Serbia in the First Decade of the 21st Century
Sistemske reforme na področju vzgoje in izobraževanja v politično nestabilnem času: Primer Srbije v prvem desetletju 21. stoletja
—	IvAN Ivic and Ana Pesikan
A Forgotten Moment in Education Policy: A Hungarian-Swedish Case Study from the Early 1970s Pozabljen trenutek v edukacijskih politikah:
Madžarsko-švedska študija primera iz zgodnjih 70. let prejšnjega stoletja
—	Tamas Kozma and Zoltan Tozser
The Curricular Reform of Art Education in Primary School in Slovenia in Terms of Certain Components of the European Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression
Kurikularna prenova slovenske likovne vzgoje v osnovni šoli z vidika nekaterih sestavin evropske kompetence kulturne zavesti in izražanja
—	Rajka Bračun Sova and Metoda Kemferl Positions, Dispositions and Practices in Education Policy in Central and South East Europe (research in progress) Položaji, dispozicije in prakse edukacijskih politik
v osrednji in jugovzhodni Evropi (raziskava v teku)
—	ŽivA Kos Kecojevic and Slavko Gaber
VARIA
Planning and Evaluating Educational Work in Slovene Preschools
Načrtovanje in evalviranje vzgojnega dela v slovenskih vrtcih
—	Marcela Batistič Zorec and Andreja Hočevar
issn 1855-9719
II 11 III III III
REVIEWS
Scheerens, J., Luyten, H. and Van Ravens, J. (Eds.), Perspectives on Educational Quality: Illustrative Outcomes on Primary and Secondary Schooling in the Netherlands
—	Živa Kos Kecojevic
Haines, S. and Ruebain, D. (Eds.), Education, Disability and Social Policy
—	Nika Šusterič