This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests that the holding of inclusive assumptions enables us to think about Europe differently. It presents the research of critically examining the actor practices within familiar spaces of action of the European Parliament and the European Commission. The book then presents research showing how, through their political work, a range of individuals and groups have sought to reconcile Europe with social representations of their industry or their nation to bring about change. It explores the practices of the European Union (EU) government, which either have been under-explored hitherto or have the newly emerging knowledge work of a European consultant. The book also the explores measurement work to define and create a European education policy space. It provides the collective private action to give social meaning to sustainable Europe.

This chapter tells the story of how Christian Daum established himself as a scholar by focusing on how he convinced others that he was one. Daum had planned to spend some time at the University of Wittenberg, but his time at the university was cut short by the doubly catastrophic coming of the plague and imperial troops to Saxony. The clothes Daum and his fellow scholars wore underlined a male identity that was defined both in relation to these men's learned peers and other men in the locality, not in relation to the female sex. Teacher-scholars like Daum expressed a sense of mission towards the cause of humanist education and scholarship that we should not take lightly. A curious drawing that has survived in the Ratsschulbibliothek suggests that, during his later years, Daum had become increasingly concerned with his legacy.

The regeneration of the Latin school and its humanist curriculum took place in an environment of increased demand for education. Pupils pursued a wide range of educational strategies in an environment where both local German schools and Latin schools in other towns provided fierce competition, the school's rectors were acutely aware. The considerable extent of social mobility among Zwickau pupils suggests that the school more than fulfilled its function as a preparatory institution. In an educational market as competitive as that of Saxony and Thuringia, the teaching method used needed to be constantly updated, especially since dissatisfaction with Melanchthonian method had spawned something of a craze for pedagogical innovation. Territorial government certainly had an influence on the conditions in which scholars and schools found themselves, but equally important were the civic traditions of their localities and the specific social and economic conditions of these towns and their populations.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates the multifaceted nature of the school, not through an institutional case study in the traditional sense, but through the personal papers of a teacher and scholar. It describes the Latin school within its urban context as one of a multitude of intellectual microclimates that, taken together, accounted for the decentralised nature of scholarly production in the Holy Roman Empire. The book explores how Christian Daum established himself as a scholar by focusing on how he convinced others that he was one: through his dress, the way he conducted his married life and the ideal of scholarship to which he ascribed. It analyses how Daum used his expansive network of correspondents as a tool for patronage to further his own career and those of his select pupils.

This chapter explains the European Union's (EU) reputation and self-image as a promoter of gender equality. It discusses the existing EU commitments to gender equality and the conventional types of policy analysis which have been used to study them. The chapter develops and applies authors Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA) based methodological approach to a case study of the implementation of Gender Mainstreaming (GM) policy within Directorate-General for Research (DG Research) in the European Commission. It argues that through applying IPA, we can observe the multiple ways that DG Research's policy community is drawn into the negotiation of collective understandings of the science and research policy and the gender's place within it. The chapter presents a methodological synthesis of gender theory and IPA that can be used to effectively focus on the dynamics. The GM related activity outside DG Research shows the same dynamics of re-interpretation and negotiation.

This chapter focuses on education policy in Europe and shows its significant role in the making of the European Union (EU). It conceptualises education in Europe as an autonomous policy space that is both common and complementary, and built on historical and contemporary exchanges of ideas and practices. The chapter argues that the physical properties of this policy space are not so much formal rules, but data, indicators and benchmarks. It draws on the research data derived from 'Fabricating Quality in European Education', 'Knowledge and Policy' and 'Transnational Policy Learning'. The chapter builds upon the political sociological approaches to the EU, an emergent research agenda which has been unfolding through important scholarly work especially in France since the mid-1990s. It draws upon histories of statistics which demonstrate the political, technical and cognitive work necessary to the emergence of both the nation and national statistics and their imbrication in each other.

This chapter describes the consequences for our conceptualisation and study of politics and hence of the working practices of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and European Parliament (EP) officials. It then describes how re-conceptualising politics enables us to simultaneously re-conceptualise Europe. The chapter explores these general questions through the making of three analytical shifts. First, the chapter proposes an inclusive ontological definition of politics from within a discourse-analytical approach. Having defined politics, the second analytical shift concerns how to study politics. Third shift focuses on the place of politics to include not only the 'frontstage' but also the 'backstage' and to show the implications of this shift for our understanding of the working practices of the EP. The chapter summarises recent research on the procedures and workings of the EP from a political science perspective. It adopts a discourse-historical approach (DHA).