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Chapter 1
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4325-3.ch001
Comparative Analysis of
Educational Policies Research
ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the possibility for European education to convergence in the Bologna
framework by studying the literature dedicated to educational policies in leading academic
journals. Using a content analysis methodology, the qualitative research aims to highlight the
key topics and research concerns of academics in European higher education and to correlate
their research focuses, which are being promoted and implemented in European universities as
effective policy. The results may serve as guidelines for both policy makers and executives in
higher education, as well as for broader categories of stakeholders.
EDUCATION IN A NEW EUROPE: A
CONVERGENCE PERSPECTIVE
It’s twenty years since Comparative Educa-
tion Review has published a special issue on
Education in a changing Europe. The edito-
rial essay, signed by Erwin Epstein, Elizabeth
Sherman Swing, and François Orivel, has
the title we partly borrowed: Education in a
New Europe. The centripetal tendencies of
Western Europe, the second, post-communist,
educational revolution of the Eastern Europe,
privileging centrifugal moves, are, as stated
by the three guest editors, constituents of
the European model of the 1990s. Still, the
picture had more to offer, even at that time,
than this Manichaeism between convergence
and divergence. National and ethnic groups,
Simona Vasilache
Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Alina Mihaela Dima
Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania