TOWARDS A EUROPEAN SUPRANATIONAL POLICY OF EDUCATION BASED ON THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION ON EDUCATION

Abstract

INTRODUCTION . The European Union (EU-28) and the Council of Europe (COE-47) are two supranational political organizations that coexist within the region of Europe. Both organizations have developed a unique cooperation policy in the area of education since their beginnings in mid-20th century. METHOD. More than 60 years later, based on historical-comparative research studies undertaken ad hoc, both organizations maybe considered as leading playersin a novel way of the understanding the fundamentals of education policy beyond national borders. The precision of their policies based on the unique historical-political development and the existing analogies between them, make it possible to place them in a comparative perspective, as comparison units, and to be analyzed through the political-educational concept of the European Dimension in Education, developed by both of them as tertium comparationis. RESULTS . The existence of both policies, the number of relationships, their complementary divergences and their prominent convergences will make it possible to understand it as a single European supranational policy; that is, as a new field of political analysis, the core of which is located within the European Dimension in Education as a primary political-educational paradigm. DISCUSSION . However, the characteristics and idiosyncrasy inherent to the concept, the analysis of the related documents and their historical sequence enable us to understand the European Dimension in Education, based on Rosello’s definition, as an educational movement within the European supranational educational policy, which originatesat a specific period of time, is developed and becomes established within the framework of their policies and ends up disappearing just after the European Year of Citizenship through Education (2005). In conclusion, this article aims to discuss the importance, to reclaim the sense and to clarify the concept of the European Dimension in Education, as a substantive component of the European educational policies, capable of regenerating Europeanism, European identity and citizenship from the educational dimension.