How to construct an organizational field: Empirical educational research in Germany, 1995–2015

Abstract

Over the past two decades, educational research in Germany has undergone unprecedented changes. Following large-scale assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and a political interest in evidence-based policy-making, quality assessment and internationalization, direct involvement of national decision-makers has led to the establishment of new organizations, programs, funding structures, professorships, and training programs. Thus, a markedly different educational research field has emerged in contrast to the traditional philosophy-rooted, hermeneutics-trained and humanities-based German pedagogy or educational science. Instead, the new paradigm refers to itself as empirical educational research (EER). Thus, we trace institutionalization processes of EER from 1995 through the foundation of the new Empirical Educational Research Association (GEBF), which rivals the long-standing German Educational Research Association (DGfE). Official documents shed light on policymakers' and funding agencies' motivations and rationales as they successfully engage in building new research infrastructure. Expert interviews conducted with (inter) national representatives illuminate perceptions of crucial actors involved in the organizational field's institutionalization. What are the causes and consequences of the emergent EER field in Germany? Extending the neoinstitutionalist organizational field literature, particularly about incipient stages of such fields, we show that a new division of labor transcends national and international as well as governmental and non-governmental borders.

(Re)shaping educational research through ‘programmification’: Institutional expansion, change, and translation in Norway

“…This confirms continuity with regard to research governance observed in particular for Norway in the 1990s (Larsen, 2000). (Zapp & Powell, 2016.…”

Moving towards Mode 2? Evidence-based policy-making and the changing conditions for educational research in Germany

“…Our case illustrates how international stimuli, in the guise of large-scale assessments, evidence-based policy-making experiments, and a globe-spanning quantitative research paradigm in general trigger cognitive and organizational changes in a national setting (Zapp and Powell 2016). Such largescale shifts are supported by a highly utilitarian science for development policy model institutionalized on highly collective levels and beyond concrete evidence of its viability (Drori et al 2003).…”

“…Nor did Germany's ER community show much interest in joining international debates on achievement testing and performance assessment; now routine practice. Germany hardly participated in large-scale assessments until the mid-1990s, thus reducing opportunities for quantitative researchers to contribute analyses (Aljets 2015;Zapp and Powell 2016).…”

“…Applicability of social scientific research is closely related to the idea of EPM, diffusing from health policy to other social and educational policy domains (Zapp and Powell 2016). By the late 1990s, Anglophone countries already experienced their 'evidence turn' (Banks 2009;Howlett 2009).…”

“…Yet ER communities in other countries build on very different traditions, with Germany representing the paragon of a hermeneutics-trained and humanities-based pedagogy or educational scholarship with origins in 19th century philosophy. Yet since the turn of the century, a remarkable ER infrastructure has emerged there (Zapp and Powell 2016). This new organizational field, in contrast to the once dominant humanities-oriented pedagogy focused on Bildung (Hamann 2015;Horlacher 2016), is instead devoted to EER based mainly in the (quantitative) social sciences and psychology (see Terhard 2016).…”