Working Groups

Chairs: Valentina Dascanio (University of Rome, Italy) & Hans Schildermans (University of Vienna, Austria)

Defining the nature and purpose of education can never do justice to the variegated contextual histories of intellectual and political discourse on education across different times and places. The contemporary tendency to narrow down the concept of education to learning, often emphasising the figure of the learner, justifiably concerns many educational researchers.

Historically speaking, different ideals and discourses have informed how societies have understood the aims of educational practices, institutions, and systems. Concepts such as paideia, humanitas, bildung, perfectibilité, or liberal education, only give a first impression of the divergent intellectual histories of education thought in different cultural traditions.

Today, the discourse of learning has made a certain claim on the educational imagination, thereby narrowing down understandings of educational institutions, experiences, and practices. Because of the multiple dimensions and levels of analysis that this question brings with it, there is a need for a complex, context-sensitive approach, particular to comparative education, that allows for identifying and deciphering the effects of the primacy given to a certain idea of learning, at the expense of other educational vocabularies.

It therefore seems necessary to critically analyse comparatively the reductionism brought about by discourses of learning. The working group aims to address the intellectual histories of educational ideas and to rekindle the educational imagination through alternative understandings of education and its relation to society, humanity, and the planet.

The following questions are deemed particularly relevant in light of the working group’s aims:

• How to rethink the long-held ideals that have provided the ideological support for our educational institutions in ways that respond to contemporary concerns? How to do this without falling into the danger of reducing education to a solver of social problems? 
• To what degree and in what terms is the increasing focus on learning changing the pact between society, educational institutions, the individual, and the planet? What are the risks and what are the possible alternatives?
• How does the learning discourse constrain public debates about the role of education systems in various contexts? To what extent is there a conceptual impoverishment because of this undue attention for learning and how can we draw on rich historical traditions of educational thinking to think differently?
• Which philosophies of education have perhaps been sidelined or marginalized in the coming into being of modern education systems? How can we do justice to subaltern styles of educational reasoning within Europe and beyond?

Chairs: Cristina Alarcón López (University of Vienna, Austria) & Christian Ydesen (University of Zurich, Switzerland)

Governing learning today involves a dense ecology of actors—from international organizations and national ministries to tech and testing companies, philanthropic foundations, and data infrastructures. These actors shape learning through metrics, tests, digital platforms, crisis narratives, anticipatory governance and reform agendas, often underpinned by visions of efficiency, competitiveness, and progress. Yet such forms of governance raise critical questions about the very purposes, values, and legitimacy of education in a fragmented, asymmetric and contested world. This working group invites contributions that explore how learning is steered across levels and contexts, and how alternative imaginaries might reconfigure governance for more inclusive and sustainable futures.

We welcome papers that address questions such as:

• Taking in consideration the issue of power, resilience and resistance, how is learning governed across local, national, and global arenas—and by whom?
• What roles do digital technologies, data, and indicators play in shaping education policy and practice?
• How do crisis narratives function as devices of educational governance and to what extent are they linked to anticipatory future constructions?
• What historical continuities and ruptures mark the governance of learning?
• How do new actors (e.g. EdTech firms, IOs, brokers) redefine who governs and what is governed?
• What alternative governance imaginaries exist beyond technocratic or managerialist logics?
• What kind of subjectivities are shaped by educational governance actors?

Chairs: Terri Kim (UEL and UCL, U.K.; Yonsei University, Korea) & Nafsika Alexiadou (Umeå University, Sweden)

In this era where technological, political, and cultural forces converge, the definition and delivery of learning within universities are being fundamentally reshaped. This Working Group invites critical inquiry into how politics -ranging from geopolitical tensions and national security policies to emerging digital governance- are redefining the spaces, framings, and outcomes of learning inside academe.

Current policies across different countries aimed at mercantile protectionism, neonationalism and securitisation exemplify how politics interfere with academic freedom and learning loci. These pressures, coupled with the proliferation of virtual and informal learning environments, raise urgent questions: Who controls learning spaces? Who shapes the worldview and knowledge that are produced and prioritised? And how do institutions balance experimentation with control?

This inquiry demands a comparative and historical perspective to understand how power dynamics, policies, and practices condition what is learned, who learns, and how learning prepares individuals for societal participation. It asks us to think about how institutions, online platforms, and political ideas (like political correctness and decolonisation) affect learning and teaching -bringing up issues about who has power, who gets to influence learning, and what the future holds for universities as places for deep thinking and intellectual dialogues.

The WG invites critical reflections on the evolving learning “ecology” in higher education -how learning is constructed, contested, and controlled at multiple levels. We also explore how these dynamics shape pedagogical practices, academic integrity, and the future role of humanities and liberal arts within possibly post-human educational paradigms.

The following questions are deemed particularly relevant in light of the working group’s aims:

• How do national security and geopolitical policies influence the framing and control of learning within universities?
• Who are the dominant actors shaping knowledge and worldview formation in today’s learning spaces at the university -states, institutions, or digital platforms?
• How does the rise of virtual and informal learning alter traditional notions of pedagogical authority and agency?
• How is the academic profession affected by and respond to discourses and policies that challenge established academic practices, freedoms, and collaborations in research and teaching?
• What tensions exist between policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and security-driven imperatives, and how do these shape learning outcomes?
• How can historical and comparative insights inform our understanding of the politics of learning in contemporary university contexts?

Employing a critical comparative gaze, we seek rigorous, innovative contributions that examine the politics of learning -its spaces, framings, actors, and outcomes- within today’s complex socio-political and cultural landscape. Join us in exploring how the university’s core function of learning is being contested, controlled, and redefined.

Chairs: Felicitas Acosta (National University of General Sarmiento, Argentina) & Euan Auld (Education University of Hong Kong, SAR, China)

Inquiring into the curriculum means asking fundamental questions about knowledge and its transmission. It is widely recognised that curriculum is never neutral; it manifests both explicitly and implicitly through what is taught, how it is taught, and also through what remains hidden. Comparative education has long examined curriculum through traditional lenses, such as cross-national or regional comparisons of curricular content and structure. More recent approaches, however, have analysed how transnational discourses shape curriculum within the global education architecture.

This Working Group particularly is particularly interested in contributions that explore curriculum, teaching, and learning along two complementary lines of inquiry, focusing on: (i) the shifting conditions of contemporary societies and the challenges these pose for research, and (ii) how researchers in comparative education are adapting and innovating in studies of curriculum across multiple scales and in the context of entangled worlds in transition. 

We welcome contributions that interrogate forces shaping curriculum globally, such as i) The narrowing of curriculum through neoliberal regimes of standardisation, accountability, and metrics (for examples, the OECD’s PISA and other ILSAs); ii) The growing influence of educational technologies and AI, redefining not only what is learned, but how and where learning happens; iii) The climate crisis, which calls for new curricular thinking around sustainability, care, and planetary futures; iv) Concerns around mental health and well-being, highlighting the emotional and relational dimensions of education; v) The global resurgence of nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and far-right populism, which threaten pluralism, critical inquiry, and inclusive educational spaces.

Finally, and from the above, the Working Group encourages future-oriented contributions that reimagine learning curriculum constructively within and beyond the conventional boundaries of modern schooling. These may include explorations of alternative ways of knowing and being, more-than-human worlds and collectives, decolonial perspectives, and speculative or participatory approaches to curriculum-making. The Working Group encourages submissions that engage with the following strands, including but not limited to the questions listed below:

1. Foundational Learning and Future Learning (Digital & Beyond)

• How are foundational skills and future competencies defined—and by whom?
• What visions of the future are embedded in current curricular reforms?
• Are foundational and future learning goals aligned, or are they in tension?

2. Hidden and Explicit Curriculum

• What norms, values, and power structures are embedded in curriculum content and delivery?
• How does the hidden curriculum operate across different national or institutional contexts?
• What tools or methods can reveal the implicit functions of schooling?

3. Teaching and Learning

• How are pedagogical practices being shaped –or constrained– by global curriculum reforms?
• What alternatives exist to resist standardisation and reclaim teacher agency?
• How can comparative education re-centre pedagogy as a site of inquiry and transformation?

4. Schooling and Education

• What forms of learning are excluded or marginalised by traditional schooling models?
• How can curricula incorporate learning in non-school or informal spaces?
• What might curriculum look like in plural, more-than-human, or decolonial educational contexts?

5. Reimagining Curriculum Futures

• How can speculative or participatory methods help us envision curriculum differently?
• What contributions can comparative education make toward envisioning and constructing more equitable curricular futures?

This Working Group welcomes critical and comparative proposals that engage national systems and global education architectures, while addressing emerging issues, challenges, and opportunities for the field to open space for dialogue, debate, and collaborative exploration.

Chairs: Barbara Schulte (University of Vienna, Austria) & Philip Knobloch (Technical University Dortmund, Germany)

Human learning is universal. However, conceptions, forms, and practices of learning have developed along various paths that have been shaped by both shared and divided, consensual and conflictual histories of learning. The school, as an institutionalised epitome of mass education, has presently emerged as the most dominant and visible site of learning. This monopolisation and thereby reduction of potential shapes and practices of learning have profoundly impacted on our understanding of what learning is (or should be), including, for example, learning content, modes of inquiry, and relationships amongst learners (and teachers).

This Working Group calls for theoretical, methodological and/or empirical papers that direct their gaze beyond mainstreamed understandings and enactments of learning. We welcome contributions that seek to uncover and foreground those ideas and practices of learning that have been marginalised within school-based worlds of learning, both from contemporary and historical perspectives. Comparative papers are particularly welcome. Relevant questions include the following:

• What are the educational and pedagogical repercussions of alternative epistemologies of learning in historical retrospect or with regard to contemporary analyses?
• Which alternative educational histories exist and which can be reconstructed - from indigenous peoples and other disadvantaged groups?
• Which forms of alternative learning and education have been ignored, misinterpreted or marginalised in the past or to date?
• Which controversies have evolved around the discussions of alternative epistemologies of learning? Whose voices are given legitimacy, whose voices are silenced?
• What are potential implications of postcolonial and decolonial epistemologies for curriculum studies and theories?
• Which alternative pedagogies deal with alternative forms of learning?
• What is the relationship between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, or dominant and counter-dominant forms of learning, forms of knowledge, and epistemologies?
• Which alternative forms of knowledge can be described? What role was, is, or should be ascribed to indigenous myths and/or religious epistemologies, for example? What is the significance of art and aesthetic learning experiences? What role does the body play? How does language frame and shape epistemologies and practices of learning?
• To what extent do alternative forms of learning represent a challenge for comparative studies? Which research methodologies and scientific theories are appropriate?

Chairs: Jesper Larsen (University of Inland Norway, Norway) & Miri Yemini (Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)

Working Group 6 invites scholars to engage with the theme Learning for political engagement exploring the diverse, complex, and interconnected dimensions of civic and citizenship education and learning beyond conventional boundaries. Whereas much learning until recently has been dominated by neoliberal policies emphasizing individual skills and measurable outcomes, and thus to a certain extent has been depoliticised, there now seems to be a renewed awareness in many contexts of education’s broader social, cultural, and political potentials. Indicators recently show a global decrease in democracy at the political level – in some contexts also followed by directly anti-education ideologies. Over a longer period, however, an increase in awareness of human rights as expressed in school curricular can be observed. How these contradictory tendencies play out in diverse educational settings, and across generations and societies, is part of this working groups interest. The working group will seek to foster critical dialogue on education policy, practices, and innovative pedagogies that contribute to shape the future of political engagement across the globe.

Key Questions to explore include:

• How can the role of education and learning as tools for fostering active citizenship and participation in democratic processes be reconsidered in the 21st century?
• In what ways can learning contribute to empowerment and social activism across diverse contexts?
• In what ways can it be defended or criticised to include political activism on the educational agenda?
• What roles are teachers and educators playing in times of increasingly politically polarised classrooms?
• How can awareness of marginalised and overlooked knowledge traditions in education and learning inform political engagement?
• In what ways do digital and virtual learning environments shape political participation and activism?
• How do policy frameworks and institutional practices support or hinder education for democratic purposes?
• How can comparative perspectives reveal different models and challenges in using education as a space for political engagement?

Chairs: Kathryn Magno (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) & Iveta Silova (Arizona State University, USA)

The support of new scholars is a fundamental part of the CESE mission with space provided to discuss ones work in progress, either in its entirety or particular aspects related to theory, method or issues of analysis and writing. The sessions aim to further develop capacities for formative and peer-to-peer feedback as well as to help participants come further with their research. Papers will be organized thematically and most likely cover the full range of interests outlined in the six other working groups.