Introduction. The Governing of Education in Europe: commercial actors, partnerships and strategies

Contemporary research on the European policy space in education has been conducted from a number of different perspectives. One focus is the constitution of a new intergovernmental arena including new discourses, new forms of deliberation and decision making, shifts from government to governance, challenges regarding legitimacy and representation and emerging tensions and contradictions (Dale & Robertson, 2009). Another perspective is the understanding of Europe as an assemblage of diverse interactions, discourses, associations, expertise and (hybrid) identities that constitutes a transnational space of governing education (Lawn & Grek, 2012). Much attention has been paid to decentralisation, deregulation and new modalities of privatization and marketization of education, but less focus on how these processes and policies are actually played out in education. For instance the role of old and new commercial actors, the new partnerships and their commercial logic of operation, and how new strategies of governing take shape has been little dealt with. In other words, the European policy space is rarely approached by explicitly addressing the creation and functioning of a commercial and a related financial space in education . Moreover such direction of analyisis implies not only considering the ‘hows’ but also exploring the often missing question of ‘why’. This means to address the nexus between education, the wider financial dynamics of capital and “the neo-liberalising of the State” (Ball, 2012, p. 29)The contributions collected in this issue take up this challenge. Before introducing the contributions, we attempt to discuss some general issues related to privatisation and commercialisation in the governing of education: theoretical and methodological considerations, conceptual clarifications and finally possible themes and topics for study but also for further (public ) debate.