Educational innovation in the context of challenge and change : a Euro-Mediterranean perspective

Abstract

In her very useful synthesis of research on educational innovation, Cros refers to 18th century French dictionaries to show how the term 'innovation', while not new-indeed, we find it already being used in 13th century Europe-carried very different connotations to those it does today. The Dictionnaire de I'Academie Franr;aise (1740), for instance, defines innovation as 'the introduction of a new element in customs, usage, or behavior', adding that 'One must not innovate. Innovations are perilous.' 'The innovator' is one who introduces 'something new, a dogma that goes against the sentiments and practice of the Church,' and it therefore follows that 'innovators' are 'dangerous.' Similarly, the Dictionnaire Universel Franr;ois et Latin (1771) notes that 'all innovations are hazardous. Innovation in religious matters leads to schisms, and to civil war.' This dictionary also counsels that 'in order to have peace, one must not innovate, either in matters of the State, or in religion.' It is perhaps that key episteme of the 19th century-the idea of progress-that led to a major shift in the way 'innovation' and 'change' became to be understood. Indeed, the very idea of modernity is based on the notion that had emerged in the 17th century when Francis Bacon argued, in his New Atlantis (1627), for a great enterprise which would give humankind a greatly expanded and improved know ledge of nature, ending the stagnation of many centuries. The belief in the possibility of human advancement was dominant in the Enlightenment, which indeed it did much to create (Bury, 1923; Tuveson, 1964), and eventually led to ideologies-such as those of communism and Nazism-that saw progress in a Darwinian, historically teleological manner. While postmodernism represents, to a large degree, the expression of a profound disillusionment with 'grand narratives' of progress (Jameson, 1991), one could argue that the notion of societies 'maturing' towards more 'civilized', 'refined' stages of being is far from dead. Technical-scientific rationality may very well have lost its state of innocence, seeing the mass destruction it has caused to human and planetary ecology, but the fundamental idea that societies can advance-economically, culturally, politically-through a calculated and systematic investment in the knowledge enterprise still has a taken-for-granted quality about it that is rarely examined. Indeed, much of the educational discourse that is extant at national, regional and international levels is impregnated with a confident belief that progress in learning inside and outside school is the key to the future. That discourse has been intensified as the dawn of the new millennium provided national and supranational entities with a unique motivation to articulate projects for 'tomorrow's schools', and where the main call has been to innovate and change. The association of 'danger' with innovation has, in many ways, disappeared, and tends to surface only in the context of discussions as to how change is to be implemented. In that sense, innovation can, if introduced haphazardly or too quickly or without sufficient attention to contextual dynamics, lead to resistance or outright rejection: as the case of the dismissal of the French Minister of Education Claude Allegre from the Jospin government shows, the 'mammoth' task of reforming national education systems requires tact. But the idea of-and discourse about-innovation are rarely if ever challenged. Indeed, innovation is generally construed as the hallmark of dynamic education systems that respond-and in some ways prefigure and prepare citizens for-societal changes in the making. This chapter sets out to focus on the notion of innovation in education, in order to both provide a framework for-as well as to introduce-the national case studies that make up the rest of the volume. First, the interaction between social change and educational innovation is considered. This is followed by a brief analysis of the relevance of 'context' to an understanding and evaluation of innovations. In this book, the overwhelming concern is with the Euro-Mediterranean, and an attempt is made to define the regional backdrop against which the case studies of educational innovation are played out, highlighting both the disparities and unities that mark the different sectors of economy, culture, and education. Finally, some of the key themes and issues regarding educational innovation that emerge from the case studies are discussed, with a view to both presenting a set of perspectives with which to view the rest of the chapters, and to also indicate commonalities in the challenge and change forces that run through the region, and in the educational innovations that have emerged in response to them. One underlying thread running through this discussion, and indeed throughout the book, is that a focus on the EuroMediterranean region as a whole carries with it the promise of generating new in sights about educational dynamics, which might not have otherwise emerged had the object of analysis been solely on the northern, or southern, or eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.