ABSTRACT
‘Reform’ is an ambiguous conception in any educational context — whether we are talking about schools, universities, vocational training or professional development. On the one hand it has in-built positive connotations: a reform implies a specific change which is supposed to be an ‘improvement’ on a prior state of affairs. On the other hand, any actual reform is a practical compromise between the problems of the status quo and ideals which in their pure form could not be directly implemented because they are too ‘radical’ to be generally acceptable. This means that most reforms, whatever their apparent political purpose, open up a ‘space’ which can be interpreted and occupied in different ways (i.e., more or less conservative, more or less radical).
