In recent years, school autonomy in France has become a central issue for the improvement of students´ outcomes. French principals, who have a significant responsibility for learning tasks, play an active role in decision-making. The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between the type of school (publicly or privately-managed) and…

In this article, the author outlines some of the defensive weapons with which schools fight to hold their institutional authority over knowledge in a changing educational landscape. If schools are gripped by a crisis of epistemic authority, what are their strategies of shoring up their jurisdiction? To explore this question, the author turns to…

Recent shifts in university governance have relied on increased autonomy. Within this context, the enhanced role attributed to governance boards at the expense of academic bodies and the role of external stakeholders has gained momentum. With the aim of understanding the extent of the influence of external stakeholders at the institutional level,…

In contrast with that basic understanding of university autonomy, in most continental European countries, such as France, and also in Japan, the government has tightly controlled universities, in terms of both their organization and activities. In these countries, the concept of "governance" is often lacking, as institutions were not…

Major public policies for institutional governance in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the past two decades are reviewed, and factors that may account for differences in policy developments in the three countries are considered. In France and (although only recently) in Sweden, politics have aimed at increasing institutional autonomy in…