Teacher training reform in French-speaking Belgium: A controversial translation process

Abstract

A major reform of teacher training has been underway for the past three decades in French-speaking Belgium, in response to the low quality of teacher training and the consequences for school teaching and learning deemed to be in deep crises. Using a number of eclectic methods (metaphors, typologies, timelines, network maps), we map controversies that arise during four steps of the policy translation process—problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization—by various types of actors (people, texts, working groups, institutions, etc.). Scientific and pedagogical problematizations framed by two interest groups of field level policy actors can produce objects and devices that are transformed and negotiated by political and administrative actors. However, the translation process is rendered controversial and complex as political decision-making is also flavored with backdoor political interests that are negotiated. Administrative policy actors in stakeholder institutions are trying to barter their institutional “share” in the reform implementation, adding some operational problems on the level of organizing the reform, thus reframing some of the original objectives.