What justification principles underline the rise of university certificates in French speaking Belgium?

Goals Since the 1990s, the European Commission has been implementing a lifelong learning policy as a foundation for the European strategy for growth and employment (EC, 1993 ; OJEC, 1997 ; EC, 2000 ; European Council, 2000 ; EC, 2010). The issue of employability aims at achieving convergence of European economic and social policies through the construction of an active welfare state. In French-speaking Belgium universities, continued education has been rising since the same period (MB, 1994 ; Vertongen et al., 2009). Among other things, universities have been implementing so-called "certificates", which are continued education programs not leading to a diploma. Our goal is to compare the justifications of the European Commission, those of French-speaking Belgian authorities and those of university certificates promoters regarding lifelong learning, in order to identify the logical determinants which underlie the rise of university certificates in French-speaking Belgium. Main perspective or theoretical/conceptual framework The cities theoretical framework (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991 ; Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999) will be used to analyze the public justifications provided by various institutional actors regarding the rise of continued education within universities, and how those principles intersect. The concept of boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989) will allow us to describe how university certificates are vested with meanings that vary according to the actors (academics in charge, university authorities). Research design We aim at linking together the macro-, meso- and micro-social levels through lexicometric and content analysis of discourses gathered from actors from those three levels, namely Europe, French-speaking Belgium, and one specific university. Data sources • Public discourses from European Commission, French-speaking Belgian Parliament and universities official documents; • certificates approval files from one specific university; they will be analyzed and categorized according to their goals and their number of ECTS; • semi-structured interviews with the academics and university authorities in charge of the certificates. Results Hypothesis: certificates allow for the coexistence of various – and at times conflicting – justification principles. This diversity is what allows heterogeneous actors to find interest in certificates and to achieve their implementation