In Deutschland und den USA engagiert sich die unternehmerische Philanthropie zunehmend in der Allgemeinbildung, während der letzten Dekade vor allem in den „MINT“ und den „STEM“ Fächern. Hierzu gibt es bisher kaum systematische Studien. Diese vergleichende Arbeit untersucht, warum und wie sich Unternehmen in diesen Bereichen engagieren, und wie sich ihre Rolle in der Bildung verändert. Die Studie beruht auf einer historischen Analyse der Rolle von Unternehmen in der Bildung seit 1945 und auf Interviews mit Experten aus dem MINT- und STEM-Bereich. Die wichtigsten Befunde der Studie sind: (1) Zuvor überwiegend in der dualen Bildung aktiv, begannen deutsche Unternehmen in den frühen 2000er Jahren u.a. als Reaktion auf den PISA-Schock, sich philanthropisch in der allgemeinen Schulbildung zu engagieren. (2) Unternehmerische Philanthropie führten die MINT und STEM Bildungsbewegung an. Aufgrund ihrer etablierten, gut vernetzten und vielfach finanzkräftigeren Stiftungen gelang es US-amerikanischen Unternehmen besser als deutschen, das Thema ins öffentliche Bewusstsein zu rücken, Ressourcen zu erschließen und Änderungen in der Bildungspolitik zu erwirken. (3) Unternehmen und deren Stiftungen wurden in erster Linie durch Entwicklungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, langfristige ökonomische Überlegungen und die Notwendigkeit zur Innovation motiviert, sich zu engagieren; aufgrund unterschiedlicher demographischer Aspekte und Entwicklungen in der Bildung fanden sich Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Ländern. (4) In Deutschland und den USA agiert die unternehmerische Philanthropie zunehmend strategisch, d.h. sie handelt ergebnisorientiert und achtet auf Skalierbarkeit ihrer Aktivitäten. Dies hat das Engagement von Unternehmen in der Bildungspolitik verstärkt und die Anforderung der Wirtschaft in den Fokus gerückt. Manche US-amerikanische Unternehmen haben begonnen, Berufsbildungswege zu schaffen, was bisher nicht die Regel war. / Corporate philanthropy is active in K-12 education in Germany and the U.S. but there is minimal research about it. Over the last decade corporate philanthropic actors in both countries have become active in STEM* education (in Germany, MINT). This comparative study is about why and how they decided to invest in these initiatives and how that is tied to their traditional roles in education. It leans on the history of company involvement in education since 1945 and on interviews with experts active in the STEM and MINT education scenes. The main findings are: (1) As a result of the PISA shock and other factors, German companies that traditionally engaged only in vocational education have become active in general K-12 education. (2) Corporate philanthropy led the STEM and MINT education movements. However, U.S. companies and their foundations, with decades of philanthropic experiences and networks in education, were more successful in raising awareness, organizing resources, and achieving policy changes at the federal level. (3) Companies and their foundations were driven to invest in STEM and MINT education largely by workforce, long-term innovation, and economic concerns but there were key differences because of the differing demographic and education trends in the two countries. (4) In the U.S. and Germany, corporate philanthropy is attempting to be more strategic. This has resulted in a focus on outcome-based measurements and scalability but has also led to more investments in nonprofit and policy organizations instead of schools or their booster clubs. It has also resulted in corporate philanthropy better aligning with company competencies and needs, which made STEM and MINT ideal. In the case of the U.S., this has also resulted in some companies creating vocational programs, an area of education most companies avoided in the past. *STEM= Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math MINT= Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Technik

This dissertation takes up developments in European Union policymaking that indicate important shifts from an emphasis on prioritizing markets and economic arrangements to a greater recognition and competing prioritization of what can be broadly characterized as "social" concerns. Potentially sweeping changes are taking place in EU policy in the areas of food safety, chemicals, and gender equality. Each is being substantially guided, even driven by concerns for public health, sustainability, and basic rights defined in terms of their social consequences. Such a socially defined agenda is increasingly important in European Union policymaking. This dissertation investigates these developments through case studies - based on interviews and original documents, as well as secondary literature - in three otherwise quite different policy sectors: the transformation of EU food policy from its focus on food as primarily a market commodity to taking into consideration and prioritizing public health and consumer safety concerns; EU chemicals policy and the banning of asbestos in Europe; the development of gender equality as an EU goal and the emergence of domestic violence as an EU policy concern. The concepts of public policy paradigm - and paradigm shifts - are employed as theoretical tools to specify, analyze and understand: 1) the priority ordering of guiding principles and institutional arrangements for defining and creating public policy, 2) public problem definitions and attributed causes, 3) the classes of social actors who are deemed authoritative, credible, and responsible for the amelioration of such problems, 4) the choice and formation of institutional strategies and definitions of appropriate means for problem solving, and more broadly, 5) the ways in which competing compelxes of leading ideas influence the choice and formation of institutional strategies. A paradigm shift in this perspective entails changes in one or more of the core dimensions of a paradigm. Such shifts also typically result in pressures to restructure institutional arrangements to make them consistent with a new paradigm. The cases examined here illustrate varying stages in an ongoing interplay between policy paradigms, actors, and institutional arrangements. The dissertation concludes that paradigmatic shifts have taken place in the three policy sectors examined, and that institutionalization is in varying phases of development.

This thesis advances our understanding of how ideas play a role in policy making by examining the processes and conditions that facilitate their international diffusion into domestic debates, their acceptance by policy actors, and the ways in which their acceptance alters policy processes and policy itself. Specifically, the thesis studies the impact of labour market policy ideas from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and its large-scale study on unemployment, the Jobs Study, in three OECD member states: Canada, Denmark and Sweden. This thesis shows that ideas play a number of roles: sometimes they are simply employed to help legitimize pre-determined policy positions; but sometimes a process of learning takes place, and new ideas change actors’ beliefs about what is and what ought to be, and as well their conception of their own interests and goals. Consistent with previous research, policy failure and uncertainty open actors up to the policy learning process and acceptance of new ideas. More than earlier studies, however, this thesis highlights the role of pre-existing beliefs. Accepting one new idea over another is largely determined by the values and beliefs actors bring to bear when judging new ideas; and thus, the cases show a pattern of acceptance for OECD ideas that largely follows along professional boundaries and/or ideological leanings. Moreover, pre-existing beliefs that are intertwined with an actor’s identity tend to be more resistant to change. As other ideational scholars argue, a change in individuals’ beliefs can alter both the policy process and policy itself. When acceptance of an idea is widespread, problems of collective action can be overcome. When beliefs are not as widely shared, their impact on policy depends on many factors. Fragmentation of power and accountability can create “veto players,” and previous policies can create constituencies of supporters, some of whom may resist change. However, during a policy paradigm change, a shift in authority over policy can alter the political landscape and whose ideas matter. Given all these variables, the impact that a belief in new ideas can have on policy is highly mediated, and policy reforms, therefore, may not resemble the ideas which triggered the acceptance of change in the first place. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-01-31 12:49:18.185

Les systèmes éducatifs dans leur ensemble sont repensés à l’aune de logiques comptables et de notions de rendement. En parallèle de ces réformes, l’éducation, du primaire au supérieur, est également poussée à satisfaire des attentes politiques, économiques et sociales de plus en plus grandes. Cette vague de transformations entraîne des questionnements quant aux origines et à l’évolution de l’éducation moderne. Si la consolidation des Etats-Nations et la monopolisation scolaire de l’instruction semblent être allées de pair en Europe, comment expliquer que l’on trouve la même forme scolaire dans des territoires situés en dehors de cet Occident ? Et comment rendre compte de l’univocité des trajectoires éducatives des territoires jusqu’aux changements actuels des institutions éducatives ?Notre réflexion s’est attachée à montrer que les formes univoques prises par l’éducation à travers le monde ne résultent pas d’un développementalisme éducatif linéaire ou de la domination du colonisateur européen. Premièrement, le passé et les jeux politiques, religieux et économiques des sociétés non-occidentales jouèrent un rôle dans la construction de leur école moderne. Ensuite, l’influence d’un paradigme politique dominant en termes d’institutions éducatives a délimité le cadre du changement. Il en a fixé des fondamentaux et exclu d’autres possibles. Mais la société réceptrice a, à son tour, refaçonné le paradigme pour construire un système éducatif pluriel, mouvant et unique.Nous avons étayé notre réflexion en étudiant un cas empirique précis, celui de la Thaïlande, et en mêlant une étude socio-historique et politique à un travail de terrain approfondi. Ceci nous a permis de rendre compte de la trajectoire éducative et des changements de paradigmes politiques qui ont conduit ce territoire à passer des enseignements traditionnels à une éducation de l’Etat-Nation et aujourd’hui à celle de la mondialisation. / Worldwide, educational systems have been reshaped on the basis of accountability and efficiency criteria. Together with these reforms, education, from basic to higher levels, has also been summoned up to meet ever-increasing political, economic and social demands. These shifts lead to several questionings regarding the origins and evolutions of modern education: If the consolidation of nation-states and the monopolisation of instruction by schools seem to have occurred concomitantly in Europe, how can we explain that we have found the same school pattern in territories located outside this West? And how can we account for the univocity of trajectories until the current changes in educational institutions?Our study focused on demonstrating that these similar patterns taken by education around the world have not resulted from an educational, linear development or from the domination of the European settler. First, the past and political, religious and economic games in non-Western societies played a role in shaping modern schools. Then the impact of a dominant policy paradigm has been tremendous in delineating the framework of change, even until today. Policy paradigm indeed establishes fundamentals and excludes other possibilities. However the receiving society eventually reshapes this paradigm to build a moving, unique, plural educational system.We have backed up our thinking by focusing on a specific empirical case, Thailand, and by combining a socio-historical and political analysis to an in-depth fieldwork. The aim was to understand the educational trajectory and the shifts in policy paradigms that have led this territory from traditional teachings to a Nation-State education, and nowadays an education of globalisation.