¿Hacia dónde va la investigación educativa europea?

Graham Attwell reflexiona en su blog Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning sobre la reciente European Conference on Education Research y sobre la dirección que está tomando la investigación educativa europea. A través de una serie de entrevistas en vídeo (no tenemos el enlace por el momento) concluye, entre otras cosas:

I asked each of the interviewees to briefly outline what they considered were the major trends in educational research. A surprising number pointed to a contradictory development. On the one hand policy makers are increasingly obsessed by targets and by quantitative outcomes, be it numbers of students, qualification levels or cost per student. The Pisa exercise is one example of such a development. Whilst no-one was opposed to collecting such data, there was a general scepticism of its value, on its own, in developing education policy. Such policies were also seen as part of a trend towards centralising education policy making.

On the other hand, network conveners pointed to a growing bottom up backlash against this reductionist approach with researchers, parents and students concerned that education is not merely a economic function and that quality cannot be measured by targets and number crunching alone. This movement is being expressed in different ways with small scale local movements looking at alternative forms of learning, a movement also facilitated by the use of new technologies for teaching and learning.