Discourses on Quality and Education
The human right to education encapsulates not only access to educational opportunities but also access to education quality. Equally indisputable is the social and economic significance of education, from nursery to university, from compulsory schooling to vocational training and adult education.
What remains a controversial debate, however, is the definition and development of education quality: How can strengths be preserved and potential for change identified? Does excessive quality management hinder the essence of education? How can education monitoring, competency testing and large scale comparative studies be deployed for improvements at the level of individual schools and in the classroom? Is education quality best fostered through teacher education and school development?
The quality discourse itself would gain in quality, if it were not reduced to implementing bureaucratic procedures producing hollow rhetoric and simplified rankings, but rather reflects the underlying understanding and discourses on education. The keynote speakers will be addressing the discourses of quality and education from various perspectives, including effectiveness research, the examination of teaching and learning processes and critical analysis of education discourses, as well as debates on the philosophy of education. Such it is with education, “it is about everything, orientation, enlightenment, and self-recognition, imagination, self-determination and inner freedom, moral sensibility, art and happiness.“ (Bieri, 2005, p. 7 translated).
The daily work of educational researchers it is not only to determine and understand quality in education but also to question the quality of educational research. With this goal in mind, the paper sessions and symposia provide the opportunity to discuss current research projects from all areas of educational research. Through a stimulating, reflective and critical discussion on content and methodology, on research projects and new theoretical approaches – the congress seeks to contribute to creating quality in educational research.