Conference Program

In recent decades, research has progressively been incorporated into the educational governance of public policies, assuming a role in legitimizing policy decisions and producing technical instruments (Osborne et al., 2013). Within this framework, the growing emphasis on territorial coordination mechanisms has contributed to reinforcing forms of technocratization in educational policies (Aydarova, 2021), sometimes accompanied by the marginalization of the voices of those targeted by such interventions (Aydarova & Berliner, 2018; Biesta, 2007). In this context, paradigms such as the Educating City, promoted by the International Association of Educating Cities, and the Learning City, promoted by UNESCO, were originally developed to foster lifelong learning, participation, and democratic education (IAEC, 2020; UNESCO, 2014). However, in several contexts these paradigms risk being mobilized as symbolic frameworks within urban development strategies and urban branding policies (Facer & Buchczyk, 2019).
Starting from this tension, the paper proposes a reinterpretation of these paradigms through the adoption of an ecosystemic territorial mapping methodological device (Velez et al., 2025). Inspired by the ecological model of human development developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Rahman, 2025), this tool aims to reconstruct the relationships between actors, institutions, and educational practices within a territory, integrating formal, non-formal, and informal learning and privileging a bottom-up methodological perspective (IAEC, 2021; Velez et al., 2025). Ecosystemic mapping is not conceived here as a mere technical tool for planning or administrative efficiency. Rather, it is understood as an investigative practice capable of making visible the interdependencies between territorial actors, power asymmetries, and the blind spots of local educational policies (Velez et al., 2025).
The paper argues that ecosystemic mapping can transform a practice frequently used in territorial governance into a reflexive device oriented toward democratic participation. Through the involvement of local actors and the valorization of distributed educational practices, this approach enables the re-centering of marginalized voices within processes of defining territorial educational agendas (Nation et al., 2020). From this standpoint, educational research is reinterpreted not as a simple technical support for governance, but as a critical practice capable of contributing to the construction of more participatory and inclusive educational ecosystems (Akiva et al., 2020).

Sciences Po Paris is a prestigious French higher education institution—a grande école—and a key site for the training of the country’s political and administrative elites (Parodi, Périvier, Larat, 2023).

For the past fifteen years, we have conducted research on this institution from the perspective of the sociology of educational inequalities (Oberti, Sanselme and Voisin, 2010; Oberti, 2013; Oberti and Pavie, 2020; Rossignol-Brunet et al., 2022; Pavie et al., 2024). In 2022, at the request of the institution, we began an evaluation of a reform of the admission procedures to this highly selective institution.

In this paper, we adopt a reflexive perspective on our position as researchers in relation to the institution and its transformations, as well as on the ways in which our work has been received and used within it.

The case of Sciences Po is particularly noteworthy because the institution grants its own researchers extensive access to administrative data, an arrangement that has no equivalent in the French higher education landscape and that therefore deserves analysis in its own right.

The numerous studies produced on the institution have been appropriated internally, though not always at the highest levels of the institutional hierarchy. While our findings were initially expected to inform governance and decisions regarding admission procedures—particularly with a view to reducing social, territorial, and gender inequalities—a new reform of the entrance examination was ultimately introduced alongside the publication of our report (Oberti, Pavie and Rossignol-Brunet, 2024), moving in the opposite direction to our recommendations.

This paper seeks to shed light on this apparent paradox by highlighting the political, media, and institutional dynamics at stake. In particular, we emphasize the key role played by successive directors of the institution in shaping responses to this research, ranging from integration to rejection or indifference.

Lobbying by various pressure groups—most notably the principals of elite Parisian high schools—also contributed to steering the reform in a direction contrary to our findings and recommendations. This occurred despite the fact that some actors within the institution (including student representatives and members of the administration) mobilized our results in an attempt to influence internal power relations.

We nevertheless show that it was possible to preserve both our scientific agenda and the conduct of our research, thanks to the guarantees provided by our institutional status and the protections established by the formal agreement governing the project.

In recent years, many new forms of funding for research in social sciences have emerged and grown quickly. Those contracts can be with either public or private actors and can sometimes entail the obligation to work part-time for the funding organization, in the case of the so-called “CIFRE” contracts (Gallenga & Pesle, 2023). In the context of a constant slashing of public funding for research and the installation of a management culture (Noûs, 2020), those contracts and the working conditions they imply are to be urgently examined.

I am myself employed through one of those contracts and participate in a group of young PhD candidates working of the question of research under funding from non-academic institution. Expanding on those experiences, I will try to demonstrate that the change in the research conditions for many young researchers can have serious negative consequences on their academic work. Moreover, some topics of research have been particularly prone to tie very close links between the academic and professional worlds. This is the case of research in education, where funding often comes from institutions that are themselves the fields of investigation in scientific studies (Poupeau, 2003).

Our best way out may in fact be to turn the tables on the situation and regard the ordering of research as data documenting the state of the field which is investigated.

Using ethnographical material from my own ongoing investigation in France, I will offer a case study showing that difficulties in doing research due to interference from external actors can be turned into heuristic elements, revealing unsuspected material that could otherwise have been overlooked. This is therefore an attempt to offer a contribution to a sociological analysis of the hindrances of the sociological research (Darmon, 2005).

Problem
Educational inequality has long been a central concern in European education policy. In response, governments increasingly develop evidence-informed administrative instruments—such as school social indices—to identify disadvantaged schools and guide targeted interventions. A prominent example is the German Startchancen Programme (SCP), launched in 2024, supporting about 4,000 disadvantaged schools across Germany.

A key governance mechanism concerns the selection of participating schools. According to the Startchancen programme federal–state agreement, states may rely on a school social index or define selection criteria covering poverty and migration. A school social index (SSI) aggregates multiple indicators of disadvantage into a composite score through a defined calculation procedure, enabling systematic comparison and prioritization of schools. By contrast, sets of indicators (SoI) or selection criteria consist of individual variables used separately (Weishaupt, 2016). In Germany’s federal system, where each state develops its own approach, this leads to different operationalizations of disadvantage and varying understandings of which schools require targeted support.

Purpose

This paper presents the first step of a longitudinal policy analysis. It reconstructs the governance instruments used across the federal states, distinguishing between aggregated SSI and SoI. Thus, it analyses how disadvantage is operationalized within the Startchancen Programme (1), for which policy purposes the indicators are used (2), and how these instruments are institutionally embedded (3).

Theoretical perspective
Educational disadvantage is widely understood as a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by intersecting social positions such as socioeconomic background, migration history, language, and spatial inequalities (Walgenbach, 2012). These dimensions influence students’ educational opportunities and learning conditions. In education policy, such constellations are translated into administrative indicators (e.g. social indices) that operationalize disadvantage by selecting and combining measurable dimensions.

To examine the normative implications of these operationalizations, the analysis draws on Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional conception of social justice (Fraser, 1995; 2010), distinguishing between redistribution, recognition, and representation as key dimensions of educational equity.

Methodology
The study draws on a comparative document analysis of legal and administrative regulations (Prior, 2003). Publicly available policy documents and legal regulations were systematically collected and compiled in a comparative matrix capturing key features such as indicator composition, weighting procedures, and policy purposes.

To analyse how educational disadvantage is operationalized, the SSI and SoI were examined using qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2024). The coding scheme was developed inductively and deductively based on theoretical perspectives on multidimensional disadvantage.

Findings and Discussion

The analysis reveals a heterogeneous landscape across federal states. While all states address the dimensions of poverty and migration required by the federal–state agreement, not all used SSI. Across states, disadvantage is primarily operationalized through indicators related to socioeconomic conditions and migration, sometimes complemented by individual date like learning outcomes. However, indicator selection and weighting vary considerably, leading to different constructions of which schools and student populations are considered disadvantaged. These variations illustrate how multidimensional educational disadvantage is translated into distinct data-led administrative instruments and underline the importance of policy design for understanding the equity implications of educational reforms, while also questioning the effectiveness of such large-scale measures.

In recent years, the governance of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Europe has increasingly relied on quality assurance frameworks, indicators and evidence-producing infrastructures (European Commission, 2019; Cedefop, 2007). Instruments such as the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET), benchmarking mechanisms and skills tracking systems have expanded the role of knowledge in shaping educational policy (Cedefop, 2023; European Commission, 2019). Within this evolving landscape, research and data do not merely inform policy decisions; they actively contribute to the construction of policy problems, priorities and legitimate solutions (Ozga, 2009; Ball, 2012).

This paper investigates how knowledge production operates as a governing mechanism within contemporary European VET policy. Drawing on recent strategic and technical documents - including the European Commission’s Union of Skills communication, EQAVET network materials and Cedefop research reports - the study examines how quality assurance and evidence-based coordination contribute to the regulation and alignment of national education systems (Cedefop, 2021; Baltiņa et al., 2025). Rather than assessing policy effectiveness, the analysis focuses on how policy knowledge frames educational challenges and structures the range of acceptable interventions, by explicitly foregrounding the role of research and academic knowledge.

Methodologically, the study adopts a multi-layered qualitative design integrating thematic document analysis, critical policy discourse analysis and insights from interpretive policy studies (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2013; Fairclough, 2023). The empirical corpus includes European policy communications, quality assurance guidelines, network reports and analytical studies produced between 2005 and 2025. The analysis proceeds in three stages: first, thematic coding identifies recurring policy categories such as quality gaps, performance and skills shortages; second, discourse analysis explores how these categories stabilize specific rationalities of governance, emphasizing competitiveness, adaptability and labour-market alignment (Fairclough, 2023); third, drawing on the sociology of policy instruments, the study examines how quality assurance mechanisms - such as EQAVET peer review cycles and benchmarking indicators - function as knowledge infrastructures that render heterogeneous national systems comparable and governable (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2007).

The findings suggest that quality frameworks increasingly operate as cognitive and institutional infrastructures for policy coordination. Through standardized indicators, monitoring systems and peer learning processes, instruments such as EQAVET facilitate forms of “soft governance” based on shared metrics and comparative knowledge rather than formal legal harmonization. In this context, research performs a dual role: it provides analytical insight while simultaneously shaping the categories through which educational problems are defined and addressed.

These developments raise important questions about the politics of education governance. Structural inequalities risk being reframed as technical issues of skills deficits or quality improvement, while the growing reliance on indicators and data infrastructures reinforces technocratic forms of policy coordination. At the same time, the flexible architecture of frameworks such as EQAVET leaves room for more reflexive and participatory approaches to knowledge production and policy evaluation.