Morphologies and Contexts

In this chapter, we provide readers with the principal elements of context and information about the French and Quebec education systems necessary to appreciate the comparison of the performance-based accountability policies that are implemented in these two countries. Our analytical grid is based on three main components. We first synthesize how each education system was built: What are the principal historical milestones of the construction of a countrywide education system in each country? What key values are put forward and what are the essential policy narratives that accompany this construction? This first part highlights that two education systems based on very different political models of education came up with contrasting policy responses when they were confronted to similar policy challenges (such as the democratization of education). In a second section, we describe the morphologies of the two systems: their demographic evolutions, their key structural features, and their results and performances. In a third section, we describe the governance of each system: What are the key policy problems that must be solved? Who are the stakeholders? What are the traditional modes of governance? What are the main characteristics of the performance-based accountability policy and what are the central accountability tools? This chapter shows the relevance of a multilevel and historicized approach to accountability policies. It explicitly supports the most different system design of our comparison, and it provides several key elements that must be kept in mind and re-examined when interpreting the final findings of our research.