Authors: Karsten Krüger & Alba Molas

Year: 2023

Only available in Spanish

The term “competence” has played and continues to play a prominent role in shaping education policy strategies both at the level of the European Union and its Member States. As is often the case with terms situated between the political and the academic, the term remains highly ambiguous, leading the authors to reflect on the approach. The reflection starts from the different origins of the concept and the difficulties of clearly delimiting it from another key term, skills, but also from the term knowledge. Its ambiguity is criticised as opening the way to the creation of an infinite number of competences and sub-competences.

The implementation of the competency-based approach is framed within political and social changes such as globalisation, neoliberal policies, the transformation of the welfare state and the abandonment of Fordism as a reference point for the organisation of work. Its use allows for greater flexibility in adapting education and training systems to the changing demands of labour markets. In an education and training system such as the German one – oriented more towards holistic educational principles – this change of reference has provoked strong debates around the holistic principle of vocational education and training (Berufsprinzip) and ‘Bildung‘.

However, the competence approach deploys its full socio-political effect only in interaction with the social tendencies towards the s subjectification of work and the individualisation of society, which are exemplified by the demands for self-optimisation that are increasingly imposed on individuals (employees) in capitalist society.

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Author: Karsten Krüger

Year: 2022

Only available in Spanish

The starting point of this essay is that the social and digital divide is also reproduced in the field of telework, as indicated by the different approaches to measuring the teleworkability of occupations. These approaches focus only on the jobs themselves, neglecting working conditions at home. The full extent of the telework social and digital divide can only be detected by taking into account this aspect, i.e. the physical and socio-economic environment of the telework location..

This working paper is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on digitalisation and social equality. It argues that the digital divide is another expression of existing social inequalities in advanced capitalist knowledge service countries, acting as an amplifier of these inequalities. The second section analyses the polarisation of society in the areas of education, income and skill structure using Eurostat data. Here it is interpreted that these changes are not driven by digitalisation. The higher educational level of the population is one of the major drivers of occupational structure change, laying the foundation for digitalisation and organisational change, amplifying and reinforcing societal changes. The third section focuses on the social and digital divide in telework. Social inequality is observed in occupations open to telework, which is reinforced by the different socio-economic and physical conditions of the households of potential teleworkers, especially affecting women.

This reflection is based on a literature review and a simple analysis of statistical data on educational and occupational structure or earnings available at Eurostat at one-digit ISCED and ISCO, mainly for the whole EU 27.

Editor: Karsten Krüger
Year: 2008
Resumen: In the framework of the EU-Socrates Program the NESOR-consortium, consisting of partners of six EU-member states, carries out from 2006 to 2008 a project aimed at examining national approaches of the reforms in higher education under the aegis of the Bologna and Copenhagen Declarations, as well as, at detecting the role of higher education in the European social model of the emerging knowledge society. This can be resumed in the following research questions divided into two blocks:
This number of the Volume 3 of the dia-e-logos – Journal for Social Science was published in 2008 presenting the results of the research undertaken in Austria, Hungary, Italy, the Netherland, Poland and Spain. It focused on the questions: How the knowledge-based society developed in the EU member states, how the European society perceived the social risks, which are emerging in the transition to the knowledge-based society, and which functions accomplished the universities in this transition?
For technical reasons, the articles of the journal were not available in the Internet. The editorial board of dia-e-logos decided to republish the article in one joint publication considering that the questions, which NESOR addressed, have not lost relevance. On the contrary in times of societal stress caused by the Covid 19 and political decision, the questions are even more relevant.

Editor: Karsten Krüger
Year: 2008
Resume: In the framework of the EU-Socrates Program the NESOR-consortium, consisting of partners of six EU-member states, carries out from 2006 to 2008 a project aimed at examining national approaches of the reforms in higher education under the aegis of the Bologna and Copenhagen Declarations, as well as, at detecting the role of higher education in the European social model of the emerging knowledge society. This can be resumed in the following research questions divided into two blocks:
This number of the Volume 3 of the dia-e-logos – Journal for Social Science was published in 2008 presenting the results of the research undertaken in Austria, Hungary, Italy, the Netherland, Poland and Spain. It focused on the questions: What are the main characteristics of the European social model, which are the varieties of the national social models and which function is given education and especially higher education in these models?
For technical reasons, the articles of the journal were not available in the Internet. The editorial board of dia-e-logos decided to republish the article in one joint publication considering that the questions, which NESOR addressed, have not lost relevance. On the contrary in times of societal stress caused by the Covid 19 and political decision, the questions are even more relevant.