Origins and organizers of the conference
The project arose from the convergence of the concerns of several laboratories, journals and learned societies who are confronted with the question of the place of the European social sciences of the education in a globalized world. It is therefore a continuation of discussions initiated during Congress of the AISLF, the AFEC and the EERA.
The International Association of the Sociologists of French language (AISLF) was founded in the 1950s by Georges Gurvitch and Henri Jeanne to assert the tradition of the sociology of French language, the commitment to the theory and strong links with philosophy and history. The colloquium, organized in Toulouse by Jean-Michel Berthelot in 1983 – For a review of the Sociology of Education-, laid the foundations for the Committee Éducation, Training and Socialisation of the AISLF and for the consortium which supports Éducation et Sociétés, the international Journal of Sociology of Education. In 2004, the symposium “the Sociology of Education to the test of social changes. Prospective studies” began to take to object the first effects of globalisation. This concern is reflected in different works concerning both the export of DML in French-speaking Africa together with the construction of a European area of education and the reports with the obligation results of the Anglo-Saxon world policies. The last Congress of the AISLF in Rabat in 2012 wished to deepen this reflection.
At the international level, beside the 23 dedicated research network on the study of education policies, the EERA (European Educational Research Association) has felt the same need to create a new network specially devoted to the construction of a sociology of the European Education Area: Sociology of European Education (network 28). This reflection was initiated at a seminar at the University of Oxford in 2010 by Jenny Ozga and Martin Lawn. It resulted in the ECER in Cadix in 2012 and stabilized at the ECER in Istanbul (2013) (http: //www. irpps.cnr.it/socedu/).
The AFEC (Francophone association for comparative education) is also attentive to promoting critical and plural space of Comparative Education Research, as part of the World Council of Comparative Education , world events and international publications to which it contributes. This ambition is supported by the journal it publishes –Éducation Comparée– which provides a space for dialogue and fruitful confrontation between the French-speaking Comparative Education Research and researchers from other cultural and linguistic backgrounds in Europe and beyond, thus also with other contributory disciplines to research in education (political sciences, sociology, history)… It also participates in the work of the Publications Committee of the World Council and supports in this context the expression of the linguistic diversity of cultural intellectual production in the field of comparative education. The AFEC essential mission of promotion of a critical and plural research in comparative education is reinforced by the new series of the journal – Éducation Comparée– as well as by the co-animation of the “publications” commission of the WCCES providing its distribution and scientific watch.
To these three international associations, mainly five laboratories and partner universities can be added, listed on the first page of this site. The CAREF ( Amiens Centre for Educational Research and Training) hosts the meeting in the premises of its home university (University of Picardy Jules Verne) The CAREF focuses its work on the analysis of educational policies. This line combines political philosophy and socio-historic analysis of institutions, projects and educational policies in their contexts, their terms and their international, national and regional issues. It deals with the prospective study of changes in educational systems in an international approach. The CAREF supports also the international journal Carrefours de l’éducation.