Abstract:

Over the past two decades in Italy there have been multiple and pervasive social, cultural and economic transformations, some of which have had and still have a significant impact on the educational field, both scholastic and extra-scholastic. In some cases, such transformations have generated conflicting and problematic relations between educational systems and political systems.

One of the issues that causes more concern in educational services and generates considerable tensions between these and the institutional partners with which they collaborate is related to the process of service evaluation run by the political administrations. As a matter of fact, each service is obliged to provide official documentation on the educational work carried out. This documentation is subsequently delivered to external bodies, such as the Region or the Municipality, who evaluate the service based on what has been communicated through these formal documents. The communication exchange between political and educational systems is not free from conflict, fear and ambiguity. In fact, in many cases the educational services seem to be guided by languages, expectations, logics, rules, standards, communication and evaluation criteria that are quite different from those prevailing in the political institutions with which they interact. For instance, the institutions, differently from services, are more likely to evaluate results rather than processes, and tend to adopt quantitative rather than qualitative criteria. The services thus start looking for communication strategies that take into account the need to mediate with the expectations of their institutional partners, without however remaining subjugated. This situation does not only produce constant tensions between political and educational systems, causing discomfort and anxiety in services, but also modifies the pedagogical and organizational cultures in often unexpected directions.

By briefly referring to a research on the evaluation of educational services, the paper will examine the different conflicts and dilemmas in which services may incur when communicating with the political institutions appointed to assess them. In particular, the paper will adopt Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory to analyze some of the most significant implications underlying the communication dynamics between political and educational systems, in order to critically examine some key problems that the services have to face in the context of a society that can be described as complex, a-centric and differentiated in its fundamental functions.

Keywords:

Niklas Luhmann, systems theory, communication, evaluation criteria, educational system, political system, dilemmas, complexity.