EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, office manager Angelika Wegscheider explains what it is like to steer the ‘spaceship’ of the EERA office, the changes she has seen over the years, and the lessons she’s learned from her time with the organisation.

My journey with EERA started in 2007 when a colleague of mine – in an agency which supported schools in developing extracurricular programmes and partnerships – drew my attention to a vacancy. EERA was to move to Berlin and was looking for someone with confidence in English and technology, who was willing to set up the admin structure from scratch in Berlin, including a website, a new conference management system, the contact to tax accountants, etc. I was invited to an EERA Council Meeting and took minutes as one of my first tasks. When coming home after 1,5 days of discussions, my partner asked, “And, how was it?” And I said, “Probably good. I was kissed goodbye by the crème de la crème of European Educational Research”. There was, indeed, a lot of hugging and friendship in this first Council Meeting which I participated in, and while there were also some hard discussions, I had the feeling EERA would be a good place to work in. While people have changed, the atmosphere has remained.

The EERA office – a spaceship, always ready for liftoff

Most of the tasks in the first one or two years were centred around moving the association from Scotland to Germany and getting it re-started in Berlin. With a team set up in Berlin, the first Council Meetings held under the new constitution, the website set up, and the first conference being managed via the new software, the EERA office started to take on more responsibilities for supporting EERA executives in their roles and with their agendas.

But what is it like to work for an association, with an everchanging executive committee, where every other year, someone new comes in? With superiors who are “volunteers”, each of them defining their roles a bit differently, none of them being close at hand? The EERA office is like a spaceship that journeys from Council Meeting to conference to network meetings and back again. There are only four of us in the crew, and we only touch base with those with and for whom we are working when we have meetings. These meetings are then cheerful events, including hugs and being kissed goodbye. Our superiors are mostly not from Germany, so every now and then, we need to explain things that are usually clear, common ground for cooperation, or working procedures, e.g., the German tariff system before a decision on wages for new colleagues is taken. The relationship between the EERA executives and the EERA office is based on friendship and trust – and it is somewhat odd, as usual power relations are turned upside down in some ways.

EERA executives have often claimed that the EERA office is “the living history” of the association, a vital backbone to its development and existence. While this is true in some ways, the EERA office does not have steering powers as such, and it needs to adapt to new executive officers, their policies, focus, and working procedures. Administration can be both the key to making things happen and the barrier to the very same. I have always felt a tension between an admin-way of thinking and a strategic one, as any admin answer to “Is this doable?” always depends on the priorities according to the strategy of those who set the agenda for the association. Especially in associations that are largely supported by voluntary work, the (paid) administration needs to be sensitive to its role – on the one hand, keeping things running and on the other hand, staying open to new initiatives. While the EERA office does not have a formal vote, it has power through the voice that the EERA executives are willing to give it.

The visible and non-visible changes of EERA

EERA has gone a long way since its inception 30 years ago and the formal reboot in 2007, since which time I have been witnessing its development. An annual meeting of network link convenors was introduced, a summer school was developed, and a scheme for funding small-scale projects of EERA networks was set up. Not too long ago, a Blog was launched, academic writing workshops were introduced, EERA executives gave workshops on how to set up a research association, and they teamed up with other research associations in order to impact EU funding policies. These are only the visible developments, but non-visible activities were also set up, tested, changed and reinvented: office development talks, preparation procedures for Council, exec and network meetings, etc. A lot is necessary to let an association grow!

In many of these activities, the EERA office had some role in developing structures and templates, and in helping things take off. When working with the EERA executives, the office grew from doing things we were tasked with, to reminding EERA executives of deadlines and duties, and even to partially advise them on their roles. This development was a discreet one, hardly noticeable while it was going on, but oddly remarkable at some point.

I was once on a training for Non-Profit Management. I had witnessed my first couple of changes in the Executive Committee and felt that probably not much new would come for my role. The trainer there said to me, “It will take you at least five more years to really understand the association and what you learn in there.” Right, she was!

The lessons EERA taught me

What I learned from working with EERA is to stay open for changes, even if it may feel like I do have all good experiences on my side. I learned to understand that people need to “own” decisions in order to adhere to them. I have seen different ways of managing meetings, and have seen German, Nordic, Dutch, and Irish ways of negotiating and preparing decisions.

The role of the EERA office and the office manager is colourful, changing, and often challenging, but usually rewarding. At the conference, the colleagues at the EERA Desk are the first ones to receive complaints, but also the first ones to receive chocolates from Kazakhstan, Strop Wappels from the Netherlands, and that personal “thank you” for a helping hand during the submission process. The ECER / EERA people are a lovely crowd!

I bow to the presidents, from whom I learned the beauty of different styles and approaches and how much good it does an organisation to have to undergo these changes. I send love to all the general secretaries, who always had an open ear and heart for the EERA office and its needs. I thank the treasurers, who made me work with numbers and think in financial matters, and the network representatives on the council, who trusted the office in dealing with network convenors and their specific requests. I send my respect to all who gave and give their time voluntarily to support EERA and its activities:  the Network Link Convenors, the Council Members, the hundreds (thousands over the years) of reviewers and chairpersons for ECER, the EERA Summer School hosts, the organisers of Network Projects, the authors of EERA Blog posts, and each and every person who has submitted to, and participated in ECER over its 30 years.

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, Past Secretary General of EERA, Professor Lisbeth Lundahl reflects on the importance of EERA as an open and welcoming space for educational research and discourse.

Without a doubt, EERA has provided the most important access to and guidance for my journeys through the European and international research landscape. These journeys started in 1995 with a walk uphill to the University of Bath with my then five-year old daughter to the second European Conference on Educational Research (ECER).

By then, I had already attended a couple of gigantic conferences arranged by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) at the end of the 1980s. As a junior researcher, I found them fascinating, but the presentations were often difficult to relate to, at least those addressing education politics and policies. The American policy arena seemed quite different from the one I had analysed in my doctoral work on Swedish education politics. The European presentations at AERA were the ones that spoke to me directly, and the most substantial contribution of those early AERA conferences to my professional development was probably that they prompted me to start engaging with European educational policies and the associated research community.

The Bath ECER was followed by many others that fuelled my interest in positioning Swedish and Nordic education policy and politics in the European context. Network 23 (Policy Studies and Politics of Education) of the EERA became (and remains) a kind of European scientific home for me, facilitating countless professional exchanges and collaborations with international researchers, several of whom have also become personal friends over the years. For example, together with some 20 colleagues in Network 23, I participated in the large EU-funded Educational Governance, Segregation, and Inclusion in Europe (EGSIE) research project (1998- ), led by Sverker Lindblad at Uppsala University (later Gothenburg University). EGSIE offered extraordinary opportunities to deepen our understanding of educational policies in a range of European countries.

EERA Secretary General – and moving the EERA office to Berlin

In 2005, wishing to repay (at least partly) the EERA and colleagues for all that I had experienced and learnt from ECERs and Network 23, I accepted the position of EERA´s Secretary General for some years to come. One duty during this period particularly comes to my mind: managing a move of the EERA office from Glasgow to Berlin in 2007 – 2008 together with EERA´s President Ingrid Gogolin (University of Hamburg) and Treasurer Wim Jochems (Eindhoven University of Technology). This was a high-stakes project that aroused substantial nervousness in me, not least because the annual ECER had to be planned and conducted as professionally as usual in parallel with the move. It succeeded thanks to a combination of factors, including good collaboration within the EERA presidium, the organisation´s well-maintained finances, and generous support from the Glasgow office of the University of Strathclyde, the new host (Free University of Berlin), and the German Educational Research Association. We were also exceptionally fortunate when recruiting new staff to the Berlin office. Angelika Wegscheider and Daniela Preis (the first employees) have played and still play crucial roles in EERA’s stability and development. The present office team is a major component of the foundations that enable EERA to fulfil its intellectual missions.

The importance of EERA – promoting open dialogue and collaborations in an uncertain world

Developing a European dialogue on education and educational research is a central aim of EERA and its networks. The importance of this aim will not diminish. In an uncertain and threatening world, a core element of EERA’s mission is to enable open and critical analysis of possible and desired contributions of educational research. Stimulating new research collaborations, in many cases multi-disciplinary, to help efforts to meet the growing challenges of climate change and social crises is another key task.

Helping development of a European dialogue is a central aim of EERA and its networks, which they have now been pursuing for 30 years. I am confident that professional, respectful, and stimulating dialogue will continue, and that new younger researchers will experience EERA as a scientific home as I did and still do.

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, Past President, Professor Joe O’Hara takes a walk down memory lane to celebrate EERA’s 30th anniversary, and reflects on the developments and achievements of the organisation.

I consider it one of the great privileges of my professional life to have been involved with EERA in a number of roles for nearly two decades. I started as a member of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for ECER 2005 in Dublin, represented the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) on Council from 2008-2011, and ultimately served as EERA President from 2018 – 2023. During this time, I experienced EERA grow in size and complexity and respond to a series of extraordinary external pressures –a global financial crisis, a global pandemic, and the re-emergence of armed conflict on our continent.

 As an Association, we showed resilience, compassion, commitment, and a confidence that education and educational research had a role to play in the wider development of our continent. This understanding, perfectly summarised by our statement of intent to engage in ‘educational research for the benefit of society’, was the guiding principle of our collective work and saw us develop into an Association that represented educational researchers from across Europe and beyond. Ultimately, I feel that it was this commitment to a collective engagement and understanding that our work is a shared endeavour, based on common values and principles that allowed EERA to become what I consider to be the premier educational research association in Europe and one of the most important advocates for educational research globally.

ECERs over the years – always local, always real

 So, what are the standout moments for me over my nearly two decades of EERA work? The first has to be the sheer excitement of hosting the first ECER in Dublin back in 2005. ESAI was a relatively new member of the EERA at that point, and the opportunity the conference gave us to engage with researchers from across Europe in our ‘home town’ was wonderful. We were determined to take the opportunity to ‘put our best foot forward’ while at the same time anxious to grasp the opportunities provided to learn from and network with thousands of colleagues from across Europe. We were also, frankly, a bit nervous both in terms of our capacity to organise, but also about our position within this new community of colleagues. I have seen this dynamic repeat itself over and over again in my time with EERA.

 At almost every ECER – and in particular, for colleagues from smaller or more geographically dispersed contexts – there is a huge, often self-generated, pressure to make sure that everything works perfectly and that the richness, dynamism, and particularity of their research and research context is brought to the conference attendees. This has resulted in brilliant local panels, exceptional local keynotes and an enormous range of unique social and cultural events – from ceilidh dancing in Glasgow, to music in the park in Yerevan, from taking over the botanic gardens in Berlin to experiencing the wonderful Casa da Música in Porto. At the heart of all of these experiences was a connection with the local that provided a unique lens from which to view our collective work for the short period of time that ECER was in town. In my opinion this would be impossible without our commitment to hosting conferences in Higher Ed institutions. While it can be logistically challenging, it provides each ECER with a unique local character and allows for a real and genuine engagement with our hosts. Not for us a soulless conference centre, we prefer the slightly dodgy wifi and the challenging air-conditioning – it keeps things real!

The creation of the Executive Board

 Another key moment for me in the development of EERA was the transition to the new organisational structure involving the creation of the Executive Board in 2010. While this might seem a little esoteric, it did allow for a structure to emerge that saw decision-making streamlined and allowed the Association expand to one that could comfortably encompass 34 Academic Networks, 42 Associations from 37 countries, and regions representing over 20,000 researchers – as I loved repeating at any public event where I represented EERA.

 When I first joined the Council, much of the work subsequently undertaken by the Exec was completed by the full Council. This led to dynamic, intense, and at times, dramatic debates, which were great fun and mostly hugely productive. It also led to meetings that could see a small agenda item dominate to the detriment of larger, strategically important issues. Striking a balance between dynamic engagement and efficient operation is a difficult one – and I am not necessarily sure if we manage it all of the time. To be honest, at times, I missed the freewheeling and passionate debates at Council, but I don’t know how we could have managed to keep the Association operating at the level that it did during the challenging times we experienced without the Exec structure. And here I have to pay tribute to all of the people who have served and serve on the Executive Board. All have busy professional lives, all have a range of personal and other commitments that draw on their time, yet each of them committed and continue to commit many hours of voluntary work to debate, discuss, and offer ideas for decision to the Council that have allowed EERA grow and develop. We really would not be where we are without them.

The EERA office in Berlin

 When I think of those individuals who are central to the ongoing success of EERA, it is impossible not to recognise the centrality of our colleagues working in the Berlin Office. Simply put, EERA in its present form would not exist without the commitment, professionalism, and sheer hard work of the small professional team based in Berlin. Led by the exceptional office manager – in reality our Chief Operations Officer – Angelika Wegscheider, the current team of Daniela Preis, Doretta Dow and Jenny Berger are the foundation for nearly everything EERA does. With a combination of exceptional competence, good humour, and commitment, the Office team skilfully manage the often unfocused and unrealistic demands of we temporary EERA representatives in a way that keeps our fragile egos intact while at the same time ensuring that we do no lasting damage to the Association. 

Being EERA President in turbulent times

 Of course, when I think back on my time with EERA, the key period for me was my period as President from 2018 -2023. In normal times, taking on the leadership of such a systemically and professionally important organisation would be intimidating. In reality, the period of 2018 -2023 was anything but ordinary. The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, followed by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 seemed, at the time at least, to offer existential challenges to EERA. Would we be able to survive in a situation where we did not meet together at a conference? Could we keep our community together? Could we support colleagues who were experiencing violence and war a few hundred miles from our Berlin office? What does it mean to speak about doing research for the benefit of society when society was buckling under the pressure of pandemic and war? How could we individually and collectively bring our professional skills to support education systems that were under extraordinary pressure to, for example, transition online, refocus assessment systems, and create and maintain a sense of safety and well-being for students across the continuum of education? Well, and I still find this extraordinary in some ways, we did. EERA not only survived all of these challenges – I have a strong sense that we emerged and are continuing to emerge as a more dynamic and united Association. How did we do this?

How EERA thrived – and what the future holds

 Well, in some ways, the earlier sections of this blog hint at the context that allowed us to survive and thrive. At a strategic level, the decision by the previous Exec to create a reserve of a year’s conference income was an inspired one. This ensured that we had the resources to continue to operate EERA and even to expand what we did in these unusual times. The flexibility and the willingness to innovate shown by our Networks also meant that we were able to maintain a strong academic focus and continue to facilitate the maintenance of our diverse academic community. We were also enormously lucky with the generosity and commitment of our local hosts, who did all they could to make sure that the concept and reality of ECER remained. Starting with our Glasgow hosts in 2020, who facilitated the cancellation and rescheduling of their conference, to our Geneva hosts in 2021, who hosted the first-ever ECER online event – complete with online social events and ECER cooking classes in the kitchen, and our hosts in Yerevan in 2022, who not only took the risk of bringing us together in person, but also enabled the organisation of our first hybrid conference – each national organiser demonstrated the commitment of the local to make the collective work. This was facilitated by our colleagues in the Office and Networks, who mastered the art of organising online, hybrid, sequential, and mini-conferences almost overnight.

 This dynamic of caring engagement and shared values also underpinned the complex and difficult discussions around the invasion of Ukraine. We were faced with a situation where war had returned to our continent, which directly involved two of our member associations – a genuinely unprecedented situation. However, thanks to the shared values and culture of open discussion that has always been at the heart of EERA, we found a way to keep our community together in a manner that re-iterated our commitment to a common set of beliefs and commitments, and resulted in the publication of what I consider an important statement of intent. We were also able to find the resources to support educational research in Ukraine in a meaningful way, that gave agency to our colleagues in UERA, and allowed them to continue to provide support to their fellow citizens through their work as educational researchers.

 So, twenty years, a pandemic, over 100 EERA meetings, 19 conferences, the opportunity to address 13 National Associations, and thousands upon thousands of photos later – what have I learned? It is not a very original thought, but fundamentally, EERA is about community. We are, to coin a phrase, greater than the sum of our parts. The reason for this is the exceptional commitment from all involved – from Office, to Networks, to Council etc. Collectively, we do things that are important and innovative, and we really do engage in educational research that benefits society. We also have fun. Long may this continue.

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, Professor Emeritus of Educational Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and previous EERA president, Dr Theo Wubbels reflects on his involvement in EERA over the years, and where the organisation’s future lies.

Memories

Thinking about what to write in an EERA 30^th anniversary blog, many memories of interesting, sometimes enjoyable and sometimes tricky, events pop up.

• Mediating between rival associations.
• Watching the recording of a popular television soap and then inspecting the grounds where our conference would have to take place in ten months while it was now a meadow.
• Negotiating a text on fugitives being locked out, or demonstrators being shot at, in the country that hosted ECER.
• Collaborating with many European organizations in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) to ensure the status of SSH research within the EC.
• Sitting in the office with the ever active and cheerful staff (executives come and executives go, but fortunately the office always remains).
• Meeting fruitfully with EERA Council in a far-too-small room; and meeting fruitfully with the Network Convenors in a nice large room.
• Opening and closing ceremonies and panel discussions with keynote speakers in ECER.
• Assisting national associations in statu nascendi.
• Representing EERA in WERA council.
• And many more.

And all these memories are embedded in friendships all over Europe, from Kazakhstan to Ireland and from Helsinki to Cadiz.

My first five years

My involvement in EERA started before it was founded, with my participation in the first ECER held in 1992 at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, organized in conjunction with the national Dutch educational conference; and I was co-organizer of the Dutch conference. As a rather novice educational researcher, I felt it was a kind of requirement of the profession to participate in such a European conference. It soon became evident that for ECER to become a regular event, an association was needed. Happily, several national European organizations, including the Dutch educational research association, invested in creating a European association; EERA in 1994, followed by the second ECER in 1995 in Bath.

I visited the following ECERs and these were a boost for my understanding of educational research and networking. As long as this was possible, I was an individual member of EERA. Meanwhile I became a loyal visitor of EARLI conferences where topics were closer than in EERA to the social psychological perspective of my research. I also frequented the ISATT conferences, that were well-aligned with my work on teaching and teacher education. The annual conference of the American Educational Research Association helped cater for my network in the USA. In my opinion, the quality of all these events outperformed ECERs and I felt that some of the following ECERs were rather badly organized. Therefore, after five years of participation, in 1998 I promised myself never to go to ECER again.

How things can change!

My further 15 years

Despite this promise, ten years later I got involved in EERA again, when I became president of the Dutch educational research association in 2008. This made me an ex officio member of the EERA council, and so a second period of involvement in EERA started. I visited ECERs again, and with much more joy and interest than in the nineties. At that time there was a saying; “the EERA treasurer can be of any nationality as long as it is Dutch”, and thus I started my four-year term as EERA treasurer in 2009. After being a treasurer, I became president-elect and president, completing together almost 10 years of executive roles. During my presidency, my involvement in AERA and EARLI helped to smoothen the relationships with these associations but unfortunately still EARLI and EERA were living too far apart.

Being deeply involved in EERA’s governance and scholarly activities, EERA broadened my perspective again toward more sociological, philosophical and policy aspects of educational research. This helped tremendously in the work I was involved in for research evaluation committees in several countries. Broadening my network through EERA was also very fruitful for my publication record. I became involved in writing papers on EERA with other former and present EERA Executives. I also got the opportunity to contribute chapters in books edited by EERA colleagues, in which I represented the Netherlands with my Dutch colleagues, for example on educational innovation and policy issues.

In addition to the scholarly benefits of participating in EERA, making lifelong friends was an essential and satisfying outcome of my time in EERA. Enjoying the council and executive dinners, coping together with the cold in Vienna and Helsinki and enjoying the warmth of Cadiz, Istanbul and Porto. It all was an enormous pleasure.

What about the future?

There are not many nations missing in EERA, but there are a few to be won over. I cannot wish more than that all European nations have a national educational research association or participate in a regional association. All these associations then hopefully are gathered around the EERA tree. For the European-wide collaboration, it might be needed to further reduce the North-Western dominance in EERA, without losing the strong points the North-Western associations bring to EERA.

EARLI and EERA both have broadened their perspectives, although in EERA the educational psychological perspective is still a bit weak. The broadened perspectives have led to considerable overlap in the activities of the two associations and sometimes even to unfruitful competition. So, I would be very pleased if the two associations in the near future were not so separate from each other. I hope the associations will join forces to help improve the quality and the impact of European education research.

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, ERG Link Convenor Dr Saneeya Qureshi looks back on her journey from a novice doctoral researcher to becoming an integral part of the EERA family.

My journey with the European Educational Research Association (EERA) has been nothing short of life-changing, and EERA’s 30th Anniversary is an opportune moment to reflect on the profound impact that the Association has had on both a personal and professional level for me.

The novice years

Personal and professional growth

Building connections

A springboard for success

Memorable moments

Not challenges, but opportunities for growth

Not just an association

EERA is not just an Association; it’s a community that transcends the boundaries of academia. Personally, it has been a source of inspiration, driving me to contribute more to developing research talent across the global community of early career researchers. Professionally, it has enhanced my ability to design and deliver talent development programs that cater to the evolving needs of a diverse tapestry of multidisciplinary and globally-facing researchers. Holistically, EERA has enabled me to appreciate the true power of collaboration, diversity, and the generosity of knowledge exchange across the educational research community.

A future perspective

EERA’s 30th Anniversary is not just a celebration of the Association’s history; it’s a testament to the power of transformation. Looking ahead, I see EERA continuing to be a catalyst for positive change in educational research, and life-changing experiences for emerging researchers. In an ever-evolving landscape, EERA’s commitment to fostering global connections and advancing educational research for the benefit of education and society remains a vital and critical mission. I am delighted to have had the honour of contributing between 2015-2023, and to have been able to give back to the community that has given me so much – here’s to the next 30 years of inspiration, collaboration, and achievement!

References and Further Reading

1. Emerging Researchers’ Group (ERG): https://eera-ecer.de/networks/emerging-researchers-group-1
2. ERG Annual Reports: https://eera-ecer.de/networks/emerging-researchers-group/annual-reports
3. ERG Summary of Annual Activities: https://eera-ecer.de/networks/emerging-researchers-group/erg-activities
4. ERG Mentoring Programmes: https://eera-ecer.de/about-eera/promoting-emerging-researchers/mentoring-emerging-researchers

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, Network 27 Honorary Member, Professor Emeritus Brian Hudson reflects on the path that led to the creation of the EERA network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching.

The EERA network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching was formally established in 2006. However, the series of developments that led to me becoming the first main convenor began several years earlier. One event of significance took place at the ECER conference in 1997 that was held at the University of Frankfurt. This was my first ECER conference during which I attended the symposium within the Teacher Education Research Network that was sponsored by the recently established Thematic Network for Teacher Education in Europe (TNTEE). The TNTEE network was co-ordinated by Umeå University and supported by the European Commission (EC) from 1996 to 1999 as part of the Socrates-Erasmus Programme (Action 1) with the aim of enhancing the European dimension of university studies. Its main objective was to establish a flexible multilingual, transnational forum for the development of teacher education in Europe by linking together as many universities and other institutions as possible. Project partners included the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and the UK Universities Council for the Education (UCET), alongside other national research associations within the European Educational Research Association (EERA).

The TNTEE network was one of several initiatives around the time of the establishment of EERA, which were promoted by the EC in the field. Prior to the Frankfurt conference I had been involved in the RIF (Réseau d’Institutions de Formation) network and particularly in subnetwork 12 The European Dimension and Environmental Education from 1994 to 1997. In their paper about teacher education and the ERASMUS programme, Delmartino and Beernaert (1998, p75) describe the way in which the RIF programme had resulted in a pool of expertise in the European dimension and education and “had a multiplier effect that … sparked off many activities in several areas of education in general and teacher education in particular.” They also emphasise the way in which the RIF had been successful not only because of the work done by coordinators and its members, but also because of the support and encouragement given by the EC DG XXII.

The organisation of the TNTEE network was similar to that of the RIF network, being arranged around several subnetworks, which included Subnetwork E entitled “Didaktik/Fachdidaktik as science (-s) of the teaching profession?”. The symposium in Frankfurt was followed by a Subnetwork E seminar in Linz in March 1998 and by a further series of meetings of the group at the TNTEE Conference in Lisbon in May 1999. The multiplier effects from these developments resulted in successful applications to the EC that was based on institutional collaboration. These included the SOCRATES Curriculum Development project: DIDAKTIK (1998-2001)and the associated DIDAKTIK Dissemination project (2001-02). A key output from this phase of development was the TNTEE publication by Hudson et al. (1999). A full discussion of all the multiplier effects arising from the TNTEE network is included in Hudson and Zgaga (2017). 

A further impact from this phase of development was the symposium organised by the European Curriculum Network (ECUNET) at the ECER 2000 Conference in Edinburgh entitled “Didaktik: An International Perspective”. This was set against the background of several significant publications around that time, including “Didaktik and/or Curriculum: An International Dialogue” edited by Gundem and Hopmann (1998) and “Starting a dialogue: a beginning conversation between the Didaktik and curriculum traditions” by Hopmann and Riquarts (2000). In turn, this led to the publication (Hudson, 2002), which contributed to discussions within EERA regarding the establishment of the network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching in the following years.

EERA Dublin 2005 and Geneva 2006 – Formal establishment of Network 27

Subsequently, a working group was formed following the ECER 2003 conference in Hamburg as an initiative of the then President Ingrid Gogolin, and despite some internal resistance at the level of the EERA Council, the network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching was proposed at the Annual General Assembly of EERA in Dublin in 2005. Reflecting this resistance, the network was only given provisional approval, which was quite extraordinary. Nevertheless, the call for proposals received a strong response for the conference in Geneva in 2006. Accordingly, the network was formally established at the EERA Annual General Assembly in 2006 following a successful programme of papers and symposia. By this time, I was working as a professor in pedagogical work in the Department of Interactive Media and Learning at Umeå University.  Subsequently, the papers from the Opening Symposium were published in Hudson and Schneuwly (2007).

Discussions at the network meeting during the ECER 2007 conference in Ghent focussed on the overall aims and goals of the network. These took the direction of considering the relation between general and subject-specific didactics. Questions were raised in relation to the main differences between subject-specific and general competences. This process led to a particular focus of inquiry on the generic aspects across subject-specific domains of didactics and/or research on teaching and learning. Regarding the main idea for the network, the scope as outlined on its establishment, highlighted the way in which the field of didactics and research on teaching and learning was, and still is, characterised by its fragmentation across Europe. The very diverse systems of initial teacher education and similarly diverse arrangements for the continuing professional development of teachers reflect this fragmentation. Central questions from a didactical perspective, are what is to be taught, and what is to be learned, and why? In turn, these raise questions about the role of subjects and subject didactics and, significantly, for many traditions within Europe, about the concept of Bildung. A further important question is what are the implications for teacher education in Europe? Therefore, a major task for the network was identified in terms of counteracting fragmentation and advancing research in didactics and teaching and learning as part of a wider movement to advance university-based teacher education in a European context. Subsequently, a collection of papers from the early years of the network was compiled in the publication “Beyond Fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe” (Hudson and Meyer, 2011). The book demonstrated both the need for and the success of the network in finding common ground and in advancing research in the field. Since that time, the network has continued to be an important international meeting ground for researchers in the field.

Early experiences and development of Network 27

In my role as a participant in the network during the early years, two highlights stand out. These were the symposium on “European Perspectives on Fachdidaktik” organised by Helmut Vollmer at ECER 2011 in Berlin and the symposium arranged by Brigitte Gruson on “Joint Action Theory in Didactics: Contributions to comparative didactics in Europe” at ECER 2012 in Cadiz. Both were formative in terms of my own research interests, which I continued to pursue after stepping down as the main convenor in 2012. Impulses from these events fed into subsequent EERA symposia and round tables and also into the activities of the WERA International Research Network on Didactics – Learning and Teaching from 2014 to 2018. Outputs arising directly from this period of activity have included Hudson (2022), Loquet et al. (2022) and Wegner et al. (2022).

A further phase of institutional collaboration began for me in 2017 through my work as a guest professor at Karlstad University with the ROSE research group (Research on Subject-specific Education) and especially through the KOSS network (Knowledge and Quality across Schools and Teacher Education). This has been funded by the Swedish Research Council (2019-2024) as a network in Subject Didactics (Ämnesdidaktik) within the field of Educational Sciences. The core of the network has involved research groups in subject-specific education in Sweden, Finland and England and this collaboration has stimulated wider links internationally. As a result, the network has extended its reach by inviting discussion of traditions and contemporary trends in subject didactics and subject-specific education more widely.

Outputs from the network have included books and journal articles, e.g., Hudson et al. (2022a, 2022b and 2023), and a conference on the theme “Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Subject Didactics”, that was held at the University of Trier, Germany, in May 2024. Future plans include a symposium on the same theme (Hudson et al., 2024) as part of the WERA Focal meeting 2024 at the University of Manchester in September.

Trends in teacher education and subject didactics / subject-specific education

In reflecting on the last few decades since the establishment of EERA with my experience of working across education systems in Sweden and England in mind, I can observe two distinct trends in relation to teacher education and subject didactics/subject-specific education. These trends are the result of quite different directions of policy development in the two countries. I discuss these trends in Hudson (2024a) and the ways in which they arise from competing conceptions of both quality and professionalism and from an associated clash of values concerning the nature of higher education and its role in the professional education of teachers. This clash of conceptions can be seen in the terms used by Hoyle (1974) on a spectrum that ranges from a “restricted” technicist view to an “extended” professional view of the nature of teaching. The restricted view is based on a conception of an effective teacher that is largely defined in terms of technical skills for direct instruction and teaching as merely a craft. In contrast, a teacher at the extended end of the spectrum is seen as the kind of professional who is not only highly proficient in the classroom but is also reflective and enquiring in terms of what should be taught and why.

This tension has been a central focus of the work of Shulman (1986), who argues convincingly that what distinguishes craft from profession is the indeterminacy of rules when applied to particular cases. The professional holds knowledge, not only of how, i.e., the capacity for skilled performance, but of what and why. The teacher is seen to be in command not only of procedure but also of content and rationale, and capable of explaining why something is done. Such extended professionalism involves the capability of reflection leading to self-knowledge and “the metacognitive awareness that distinguishes draftsman from architect, bookkeeper from auditor” (ibid, p13). Furthermore, a professional is capable not only of practicing and understanding his or her craft, but also of communicating the reasons for professional decisions and actions to others. The nature of such professional knowledge for dialogic teaching and learning is discussed in Hudson et al., (2023) and Hudson (2024b) with reference to the development of Subject Specific Educational Content Knowledge (SSECK). Higher education is critical to the development of SSECK given that the didactic dimension should be understood as an integral and inseparable part of teachers’ content knowledge. Teachers develop knowledge that allows them to evaluate and decide how to act in a specific situation. In teacher education, ‘förtrogenhetskunskap’ or ‘familiarity knowledge’ can be related to Bildung, meaning that teachers’ knowledge base consists of an almost embodied specific understanding of the subject and its linked discipline(s), enabling them to transform the content knowledge and having the methods to do so.

The direction of travel in the field of teacher education in Sweden during this time has involved a strengthening of subject didactics as academic disciplines close to practice within the Educational Sciences. This process reflects an emphasis on the development of the field in terms of extended professionalism. In contrast, the direction of travel in England has been quite the opposite towards restricted professionalism, especially since 2010, which has resulted in the marginalisation of subject-specific teacher education as part of a wider crisis in the field. This wider crisis is fully documented in “Teacher Education in Crisis: The State, the Market and the Universities in England” (Ellis, 2024).

References and Further Reading

Delmartino, M. and Beernaert, Y. (1998). Teacher Education and the ERASMUS Programme. Role, Achievements, Problems and Perspectives of Teacher Education Programmes in ERASMUS. The RIF: Networking in Teacher Education. European Education, Vol. 30, Issue 3, 56-85.

Gundem, B. B. and Hopmann, S. (Eds.) (1998) Didaktik and/or Curriculum: An International Dialogue. New York: Peter Lang.

Ellis, V. (ed.) (2024) Teacher Education in Crisis: The State, the Market and the Universities in England. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

 Hopmann, S and Riquarts, K. (2000) Starting a dialogue: a beginning conversation between the Didaktik and curriculum traditions. In I. Westbury, S. Hopmann and K. Riquarts (Eds.), Teaching as a Reflective Practice: The German Didaktik Tradition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 3-11.

 Hoyle, E. (2008) Changing Conceptions of Teaching as a Profession: Personal Reflections. In D. Johnson and R. Maclean (Eds.) Teaching: Professionalization, Development and Leadership. Springer, 285-304.

 Hudson, B. (2024a) Why no Subject Didactics in England? In H. J. Vollmer and M. Rothgangel. General Subject Didactics. Comparative Insights into Subject Didactics as Academic Disciplines. Theoretical Foundations – Empirical Findings. Münster: Waxmann.

 Hudson, B. (2024b) Professional Knowledge for Mathematics Teaching. In Rata, E. (Ed.) Research Handbook on Curriculum and Education, Edward Elgar Publishing.

 Hudson, B., Olin-Scheller, C., Rothgangel M., Sensevy, G., Vollmer, H.J., Wegner, A. and Gogolin, I. (Discussant) (2024) Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Subject Didactics, Symposium at the WERA Focal Meeting 2024, University of Manchester, 9-12 September 2024.

 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2023) Trajectories of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality: analysing the transformations from disciplines across school subjects, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol. 55, Issue 2, 119-137.  

 Hudson, B. (2022) Evaluating Epistemic Quality in Primary School Mathematics in Scotland. In B. Hudson, N. Gericke, C. Olin-Scheller and M. Stolare (Eds.) International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 17-35. ISBN 9781350167100.

 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2022a) International Perspectives on Knowledge and Quality: Implications for Innovation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice, Bloomsbury Academic, London. ISBN 9781350178403.

 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2022b) International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Academic, London. ISBN 9781350167100.

 Hudson, B. and Zgaga, P. (2017) History, context and overview: Implications for teacher education policy, practice and future research. In B. Hudson (Ed.) (2017) Overcoming Fragmentation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice, Cambridge Education Research Series, Cambridge University Press, 1-25.

 Hudson, B. and Meyer, M. (eds.) (2011) Beyond Fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe, Verlag Barbara Budrich, Opladen and Farmington Hills.

 Hudson, B. and Schneuwly, B. (Eds.) (2007) Special Issue of the European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) on Didactics: Learning and Teaching in Europe, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2007.

 Hudson, B., Buchberger, F., Kansanen, P. and Seel, H. (Eds.) (1999) Didaktik/Fachdidaktik as the Science(-s) of the Teaching Profession? Thematic Network for Teacher Education in Europe. TNTEE Publications, Vol 2, No. 1.

 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2023) Trajectories of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality: analysing the transformations from disciplines across school subjects, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol. 55, Issue 2, 119-137.  

 Hudson, B. (2002) Holding complexity and searching for meaning – teaching as reflective practice, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34, 1, 43-57.

 Loquet, M., Hudson, B. and Wegner, A. (2022) Epistemic Quality of Physical Education in a High School in France. In B. Hudson, N. Gericke, C. Olin-Scheller and M. Stolare (Eds.) International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 37-53. ISBN 9781350167100

 Shulman, L. S. (1986) Those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching, Educational Researcher, 15, 2, 4-14.

 Wegner, A., Hudson, B. and Loquet, M. (2022) Epistemic Quality of Language Learning in a Primary Classroom in Germany. In B. Hudson, N. Gericke, C. Olin-Scheller and M. Stolare (Eds.) International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 55-77. ISBN 9781350167100

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, long-term members of the ethnography network, who are currently serving as network convenors reflect on their time with EERA and Network 19.  

Throughout the last 25 years, the ethnography network, formally EERA Network 19, has been an important meeting point for educational ethnographers from all over Europe. As the only network with a dedicated methodological focus, we aim at enabling and linking method and content-related discussions, at creating a space that inspires through experiences of difference, and at facilitating exchange amongst network members. Exchanges generated through our network have resulted in friendships that lasted for decades, alongside many other project-based collaborations, and yielded important impulses for current research in educational ethnography. In the following sections, three long-term network members, currently serving as network convenors, share their stories and insights into what the network means to them.

Challenging common-sense conceptions of educational processes and policies through ethnography

Begoña Vigo

My participation in this network has been through individual papers, symposia, and as a discussant, reviewer, and convenor. The interaction and exchanges with participants from Europe and other countries has made this process one of continuous learning.

It initially reinforced a view of ethnography very close to its original meaning – writing about people and culture – and as a way to generate a detailed approach to the content, processes, and experiences of educational life through close observation, listening, and recording of what happens in specific times and places.

However, my concern was also to open possibilities for thinking differently about people’s lives, actions, and experiences by analysing them in my role as an educational researcher from a critical perspective. My new interest became one of challenging common-sense conceptions of educational processes, policies, and outcomes, and contributing to identifying, unravelling, and transforming/reconstructing the important social mechanisms that may underlie and shape current phenomena in everyday life.

These things have been a major part of my journey over the last twelve years, related to the ideas of Paulo Freire, Antonio Gramsci, and Pattie Lather, among others. They have led me to materialise the meaning of research in education for social justice throughout these years.

“Are you sure they are getting this ethnoballet stuff, Carl?”

Carl Bagley

In terms of the cartoon and the portrayal of myself with a dance partner, any resemblance to Bob Jeffrey, one of the ethnography network co-founders, is purely coincidental!

What isn’t coincidental is how the network, under the initial guidance of Bob and subsequent friends and colleagues, has provided a platform (and perhaps a dance floor) for ensuring ethnographic debates remain pertinent and alive. Freire (1997) observed that “the historical, political, cultural, and economic conditions of each context present new methodological and tactical requirements, so that it is always necessary to search for their actualisation’’. In such a search, the network and its associated journal, Ethnography and Education, continue to play an important part.

In 2024, two satellite conferences are looking at Re-Writing (Against) Culture and Ethnography and Transformation in Educational Contexts. Like the network, the conferences signal a commitment to engage ethnographically with a rapidly changing social world, still ingrained with inequality and discrimination.

Of course, traditional ethnographic craft remains important, but this cannot preclude critique of how ethnographic data should be generated, analysed, and portrayed. Network 19, in providing a safe space for those who metaphorically, or even quite literally, wish to dance their data, is an important one.

A safe space to recollect how we attend to education

Clemens Wieser

Educational ethnography is an exciting way of thinking about education because it prompts you to hang out in a field over a longer period, observing and listening to what participants say, and attending to impressions, atmospheres, relations, and patterns. Granting yourself time to organise your attention around what is going on is, in my opinion, at the heart of ethnography. These characteristics are cherished and passionately articulated by many in the ethnography network – yet, there is no strong convention for how this attending-to is done (Tummons & Beach, 2020). Pondering this issue, I believe this is with good reason, as ethnography has always recognised researchers as the “main research instrument” (Walford, 2018), making their subjectivity and truth-telling (Ball, 2017) paramount to all ethnographic enterprises.

After 13 years in the network, I am continually fascinated by fellow ethnographers and their various personal styles of attending to what is going on, influenced by their life histories, political or intellectual convictions, and local academic power regimes. ECER provides a relatively safe space for talking about ethnography, and I believe this is due to the international atmosphere at ECER, which suspends local power regimes, enabling us to recollect how and why we are doing educational ethnography.

Summing up: Some reasons for doing ethnography in education

In the last 25 years, EERA Network 19 has provided participants with an opportunity to leave the safe zone of their familiar, local ways of doing ethnographic educational research, while at the same time, providing an open space for discussions with critical friends on a European scale.

At times, ethnography is mistaken to be a methodology that implies unobjective anecdotes and point-of-view stories. What it potentially offers, though, is a set of analytical strategies to comprehend ongoing educational practices, firmly grounded in everyday life and its contexts. Programmatic ideas for educational change and political reforms of educational institutions, but also established pedagogical approaches, show their practical complications, unintended consequences, and challenges under implementation, only in the messy situations of everyday life.

Educational research in Europe can benefit considerably by attending to such messy situations, and the analyses of educational practice with an everyday-life perspective that ethnography provides. Studying educational practice closely and extendedly, while staying reflexive (Yon, 2003), fighting familiarity (Delamont et al., 2010), and broadening the scale of research through meta-ethnography (Beach et al. 2014), is what enables ethnographers to see the familiar with a new perspective, and contribute innovative perspectives to educational research in Europe.

References and Further Reading

Bagley, C. (2009). Shifting boundaries in ethnographic methodology. Ethnography and Education, 4(3),251-254.

Ball, S. J. (2017). Foucault as Educator. Springer.

Beach, Dennis, Carl Bagley, Anita Eriksson, und Catarina Player-Koro. 2014. „Changing teacher education in Sweden: Using meta-ethnographic analysis to understand and describe policy making and educational changes“. Teaching and Teacher Education 44 (November): 160–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.08.011.

Delamont, Sara, Paul Atkinson, und Lesley Pugsley. 2010. „The concept smacks of magic: Fighting familiarity today“. Teaching and Teacher Education, Anthropological Perspectives on Learning and Teaching: Legitimate Peripheral Participation Revisited, 26 (1): 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2009.09.002.

Freire, P. (1997). Mentoring the Mentor: A Critical Dialogue with Paulo Freire. Peter Lang.

Tummons, J., & Beach, D. (2020). Ethnography, materiality, and the principle of symmetry: Problematising anthropocentrism and interactionism in the ethnography of education. Ethnography and Education, 15(3), 286–299.

Walford, G. (2018). Recognizable Continuity: A Defense of Multiple Methods. In D. Beach, C. Bagley, & S. M. da Silva (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of ethnography of Education (pp. 36–49). Wiley Blackwell.

Yon, Daniel A. 2003. „Highlights and Overview of the History of Educational Ethnography“. Annual Review of Anthropology 32: 411–29. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093449.