LLAKES Research Seminar
A loud but noisy signal? Public opinion and education reform in Western Europe”
Speaker: Erik Neimanns
Date: Wednesday 27 January 2021
Time: 13:00-14:00
Summary
This talk presents research findings from the project “Investing in Education in Europe.” In this project, we collected original data from a survey of public opinion on education policy in eight Western European countries. We furthermore conducted a series of case studies, including England, to examine the role of public opinion in education reforms and non-reforms in the areas of early childhood education and care, schools, apprenticeship training, and higher education over the last decade. The core claim of the project, formulated in a co-authored book publication, is that the influence of public opinion on education reform is highly contingent on issue salience and coherence of popular attitudes. While public opinion often matters in the politics of education reform, under certain conditions, party and interest group politics are more decisive.
About the speaker:
Erik Neimanns is postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. He studied political science and economics at the University of Cologne and received his PhD from the University of Konstanz in 2017. His research focuses on the politics of education, social, and economic policymaking. The book (co-authored with Marius Busemeyer and Julian Garritzmann) on which this talk is based was published in autumn 2020 with Cambridge University Press.