RELA_2025_1_Antunes_Made_in_the_EU

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Antunes, Fátima

Made in the EU. Dual Europeanisation and the rhetorical construction of adult

education (2000-2022)

European journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults 16 (2025) 1, S. 115-134

Quellenangabe/ Reference:

Antunes, Fátima: Made in the EU. Dual Europeanisation and the rhetorical construction of adult

education (2000-2022) - In: European journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults 16

(2025) 1, S. 115-134 - URN: urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-327325 - DOI: 10.25656/01:32732;

10.3384/rela.2000-7426.5442

https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-327325

https://doi.org/10.25656/01:32732

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University of Minho, Portugal (fantunes@ie.uminho.pt)

This paper addresses the processes involved in the Europeanisation of adult education,

with a particular focus on the limitations of EU policies aimed at increasing adult

participation in education and learning. Mobilising relational, multidimensional

Europeanisation perspectives as tools for understanding, the research is

methodologically supported by the analysis and discussion of documentary and statistical

data. The Portuguese case study illustrates the emergence of dual Europeanisation

processes in education through national policy options, trajectories and outcomes. This

study offers new insights into the role of national contexts in influencing the evolution of

European policies. It elucidates the ways in which EU guidelines are either absorbed or

accommodated, as well as instances of transformation, inertia or retrenchment in the

pursuit of European targets for adult participation in education across member states.

This analysis sheds light on shortcomings of outcomes achieved in about two decades of

(rhetorical?) construction of European adult education policy.

adult education, European education policy, Europeanisation, participation

in education, lifelong education and learning

The European Union (EU) initially established policies pertaining to participation in

education through the implementation of the Education & Training 2010 (ET2010)

Programme, within the framework of the lifelong learning strategy, as an instrument

contributing to the global reform programme of the Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010). That

framework expresses ‘policy concerns on the need to widen access and participation by

policy makers at national and European levels […] largely for economic reasons to

enhance the skills of the workforce in a competitive global world’ (Merrill et al., 2024, p.

7). The ET2010 Programme was succeeded by the Education & Training 2020 (ET2020)

Programme and the more recent European Education Area (2021-2030) (EEA2030)

Initiative, and all three strategic frameworks set objectives and benchmarks, through the

open method of coordination of policies, which in turn feed the European dimension of

national education policies. Three of the initial six benchmarks, pertaining to early school

leavers, completion of upper secondary education and lifelong learning1, are concerned

with policies of participation in education and are common to ET2010 and ET20202.

Twenty years on (European Commission, 2023c; Eurostat, 2023f; Eurostat, 2023g), the

targets set by these European education policies of participation in education have been

achieved, by the EU and Portugal, with the exception of adult participation in learning3.

This paper intends to discuss some of the Europeanisation processes involved in the

shortcomings of the EU policy aimed at enhancing the participation of adults in education

and learning.

The so-called Portuguese case4 in education is interesting because, having been an

isolated case in the EU at the turn of the century with very low levels of formal education

among both its young and adult populations, it has now achieved (and even surpassed)

the European participation targets and the average rates observed for youth education, but

not for adult education. This approach enables an analysis of the Portuguese case of

Europeanisation in participation policies for education targeting young people and adults.

It may help to articulate arguments that shed light on aspects of the failure of the European

policy to improve adult participation in education.

This study addresses the following research questions:

(1) What is the Portuguese case of Europeanisation of public policies of participation

in the field of education, both for young people and adults?

(2) What factors and processes have marked these more than twenty years of

European policy to expand adult participation in lifelong education?

This study adopts a theoretical-methodological approach to the analysis of education

policies combining the policy cycle approach (Bowe et al., 1992; Ball & Avelar, 2016)

with the multiscalar governance proposal (Dale, 2005). The context of influence and the

supranational scale of EU policies are discussed, as well as the national dimension as an

instance of policy translation and interpretation. This multiscale, multi-actor perspective

of education policy analysis provides the framework for an empirically based analysis,

supported by secondary sources. These include documentary/bibliographical sources,

which provide a socio-historical context, and official statistical data, which describe the

empirical educational phenomena under analysis.

Next, we begin by highlighting perspectives on Europeanisation, with a particular

focus on the field of education; in a second stage, the national mediation in contradictory

directions of European education participation policies and the fabrication of a

generational divide, between levels of education of young and adult population in

Portugal, are substantiated on the basis of documentary sources and official statistics.

Finally, the asymmetrical stagnation of adult participation in education and training in the

EU context over several decades is discussed as a partial result of the Europeanisation

process.

This study provides new knowledge about the contribution of the national dimension

or mediation of the European priority of expanding adult participation in education and

training. The Portuguese case illustrates contours of the fabrication of Europeanisation

processes in education through national mediations: policy options, processes,

trajectories, outcomes. The paper brings to the fore the absorption, accommodation or

even transformation centred on EU guidelines as feeding, respectively, a (s)low,

moderate or substantial change in existing public policies, practices or institutions, or the

inertia or retrenchment in the pursuit of European targets for adult participation in

education in many Member states; this argument is an attempt to shed some light on the

poor results of almost two decades of (rhetorical?) construction of European adult

education policy.

The debates surrounding the Europeanisation of public policies raise the most acute

questions about the contours of the field of study itself, as well as the analytical rigor and

relevance of the concept for delimiting phenomena, grasping sociopolitical relations,

‘understanding the multifaceted and continuously developing process’ (Grek & Russel,

2024, p. 216; Radaelli, 2000; Dale & Robertson, 2009). Some research suggests that in

education, as in other fields, when debating Europeanisation, it is important to analyse

the implications not only of the interconnections between European and national

priorities, options, guidelines and political institutions (Andersen & Eliassen, 1993), but

also of the creation of a European education sector and a European education policy (Dale

& Robertson, 2009).

It is a widely accepted argument that member states of EU, and a large array of

subnational (collective/individual) actors, interpret, modify or set preferences when

building European policies, goals or guidelines ‘in accordance with their traditions,

institutions, identities, and resources, thereby limiting the degree of convergence and

homogenization’ of institutions, policies, and processes towards a common European

model (Jambrovic & Maresic, 2020, p. 9). In this sense, some researchers observe ‘partial’

and/or ‘clustered convergence’ (Jambrovic & Maresic, 2020, pp. 25-26), with absorption,

accommodation or even transformation centred on EU guidelines, according to a low,

moderate or substantial change in existing public policies, outcomes, practices or

institutions; inertia, even resistance can feed divergence between member states (Börzel

& Risse, 2000; Klatt, 2023). This is why the national dimension and mediation of

European policies are understood as processes of translation and recontextualisation

(Jambrovic & Maresic, 2020; Börzel & Risse, 2000; Klatt, 2023; Ball & Avelar, 2016),

that is, political processes mobilising resources (from interest coalitions to interpretative

communities, the economic structure or institutional pathways) rooted in the national

space. Thus, even discursive and goals convergence is often accompanied by policy

responses, trajectories and results constructed from the particular context of each member

state.

‘[E]uropeanization on move’ or ‘the power of ideas’ problematise that more formal

model perspective and the predominantly teleological view, underscoring the

sociopolitical processes and the spread of practices and ideas (Baer, 2020; Alexiadou &

Rambla, 2022; Ostrouch-Kamińska et al., 2021). When it concerns human rights, identity

(trans)formation or citizenship practices and movements, like adult education and

learning (Barros et al., 2021; Frias et al., 2022; Doutor & Alves, 2024), it is important to

observe and question reality movement, mobilising an enlarged network of theoretical

tools. This is more so as far as several actors at both national and European level can, as

argued through recent research, work ‘together to increase their chances to influence

Communitarian policies’ paralleled with the fact that ‘neither EU institutions (e.g., the

Council of the EU) or Member States (…) are completely independent actors, nor are

they monolithic actors’ and they ‘can operate according to different logics to steer the

policy process and setting of Communitarian agendas’ (Milana & Mikulec, 2023, pp. 224-

225).

It is important to note that, within the framework of the discussion outlined here, the

term convergence is taken in the descriptive sense, to designate the approximation to

European reference parameters for indicators defined within the scope of structuring

European educational policies in the last few decades: the Education & Training 2010

(ET2010) and Education & Training 2020 (ET2020) Programmes, and the more recent

European Education Area Initiative (EEA) (Commission of the European Communities,

2002; Council of the European Union, 2009, 2021). As argued, ‘a Europeanization

process in education, a distinctive spatial, political, and scientific process’, seriously

means that ‘questions can be asked about the significance of national policies when a

transnational policy emerges with its own policies, agencies, and indicators. What is

implied about the convergence of educational systems in Europe?’ (Grek and Lawn, 2009,

p. 52). It is admissible that, as Dale points out, ‘there is little sign of convergence between

nation-states in their decisions and responses to the common challenges that they face’

(2005. pp. 130-131), without this meaning that what they make decisions about, or what

is excluded from this prerogative, constitute domains in which there is room for the

exercise of an ‘autonomous agency’5, on the part of nation-states. Thus, the ability to

define the (globally structured) agenda for education integrates the protagonism of

powerful supranational actors, in contexts of influence of the policy cycle, as well as other

policy-making frameworks that articulate multiple scales, in which local, subnational,

national and global actors, spaces and dynamics are reciprocally constituted (cf. Bowe et

al., 1992; Ball & Avelar, 2016), in such a way that ‘policies, processes or practices, (…)

can vary quite independently of each other’ (Dale, 2005, p. 144).

The concept of Europeanisation has been invoked in the literature to describe these

sets of processes. However, both from an analytical and empirical standpoint, we are

dealing with distinct, albeit connected, socio-political phenomena and relations. Today,

they are inseparable processes, suggesting a relational and multidimensional approach,

allowing for an understanding of education policies as dynamic realities that comprise

multiple scales and dimensions, and considering the European and national spaces as

interdependent processes, relations and dimensions that are mutually constitutive.

Throughout this fabric, ‘the boundaries between the European, national, and local levels

are overlapping and fluid as Member States’ governments and administrations also relate

to European level actors’ (Sorensen & Eeva, 2024, p. 167). Thus, it is possible, using a

two-way approach, to understand the features and the dynamics of creation of a European

education sector and a European education policy, as well as to analyse the options and

priorities of the national education policies within that framework. In the field of adult

education studies, there is a substantial body of research that examines the processes of

developing a European sector and policy (see, for example, Holford & Milana, 2014;

Milana & Mikulec, 2023). The mobilisation of resources, as well as the translation and

interpretation work, within this framework of guidelines, goals and targets, carried out at

national, local and institutional levels, have also been extensively studied (see, for

example, Mikulec & Krašovec, 2016; Doutor & Guimarães, 2019).

In this multidimensional relational perspective, in the following section, we call for

the Europeanisation of (adult) education for over two decades as a context of influence

(Bowe et al., 1992; Ball & Avelar, 2016). We admit that this scenario of political action

constitutes an important source of discourses, purposes and concepts, which animate

national options and courses of action; in this sense, we observe, document and

substantiate specific processes of national mediation (transformation, commitment,

accommodation, reluctance or inertia) towards European educational policies. As noted

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Antunes,FátimaMadeintheEU.DualEuropeanisationandtherhetoricalconstructionofadulteducation(2000-2022)EuropeanjournalforResearchontheEducationandLearningofAdults16(2025)1,S.115-134Quellenangabe/Reference:Antunes,Fátima:MadeintheEU.DualEuropeanisationandtherhetoricalconstructionofadulteducation(2000-20...

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