National Policies and New Forms of Social Regulation within the Framework of Europeanization

Fátima Antunes is a professor at the University of Minho (Portugal) with a PhD in Sociology of Education. This book presents her doctoral thesis focused on the sociology of educational policy, thus addressing educational policies as specific objects of study. Since it goes deeper in a specific area of knowledge, mobilizing complex key inputs, it will cause difficulties to the work of reviewer. Nevertheless, given the quality of the work, it is worth the effort of carrying out such a task (even so, it can be seen as simplistic compared with the density of the book). Consequently, my proposal is to offer the reader a coherent description of a first-rate work, rooted in theoretical perspectives and empirical research, and critical reflection. Focused on a case study – the process of the foundation and development of a Vocational Schooling subsystem in Portugal – the thesis is one of the first Portuguese works relating globalization and European integration, and the educational policies, with regulation as the key conceptual framework. The very theoretical and empirical issue is the relationship between the policy formulation and the processes of implementation and re-contextualization through the actors’ discourses and practices (Barroso, 2006, p. 17). The author stresses the innovative nature of this policy resulting from globalization processes. The discussion is focused on how this policy can be understood as a particular case, in Portugal, of transnational processes of globalization and European integration, therefore being the expression of a globally structured agenda of education. The book is divided into three parts.