‘Best practice as a governing practice: producing best practice in a European Commission working group.’

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues that best practice is a powerful form of governing practice in education policy whose distinctiveness remains conceptually neglected in comparison to the burgeoning literature on governing by numbers. Moreover, the paper identifies how the practice of generating best practice knowledge remains under-explored and under-conceptualised: we know surprisingly little about how best practices come into being in international policymaking contexts. The paper seeks to address these two gaps by examining the production of best practice in the European education policy space through the Open Method of Coordination. Drawing on in-depth observation, interview, and document data the paper uses political discourse theory to analyse the frontstage and backstage interactions involved in generating best practices for governing school systems in a Working Group coordinated by the European Commission. Analysis identifies three dominant logics which underpin the production of best practice and reveals how these logics work to confine to the backstage of meetings specific practices which threaten to call into question the credibility of best practice. The paper highlights how best practice works as a distinctive form of governing practice which deserves further consideration in debates relating to the role of knowledge in transnational education governance.