By evaluating the progression of integration in the policy area of Education, Training, and Youth we can see how functionalism helps to us to understand what has occurred in the development of this policy area, what is currently happening, and we can gain enough insight to predict what we can expect to see in this area in years to come. Also, if we define functionalism as a theory of European integration that argues that cooperation in one sector leads to cooperation in other sectors and eventually leads to greater political integration, we can evaluate to what extent this theory is valid when we examine it through the lens of the policy area of Education, Training, and Youth, a part of the larger area of Social Policy.
I examined to what extent the European Union (EU) has harmonized its policy and its practices regarding the vocational training it provides to citizens and the educational systems it administers. I evaluated how far integration has progressed in Education, Training, and Youth in order to gauge the veracity of the claims of functionalism as an explanation for what is occurring in these two areas. I quickly concluded that to fully explore this policy area and to adequately access functionalist theory, I would need to separate and evaluate Education and Training separately. Through a separate examination of these two policy areas it clear that the integration functionalist theory predicts is more apparent and occurs to a much greater extent in the area of Training than in Education. Indeed, in the area of Education, progress has been quite limited, while advancement in the development of Training has progressed quite steadily. The high degree of integration in the area of Training affirms the validity of functionalist theory, but the limited integration in Education reveals functionalism’s limitations.
There is a great deal written about the EU’s ardent dedication to becoming a “Europe of Knowledge” and it’s advancement “Towards the Learning Society”; the EU and Commissioner for Research, Education, and Training Edith Cresson even launched 1996 as “The European Year of Lifelong Learning”. ... In actuality, the EU’s initiatives in the area of Education, Training, and Youth could hardly be more pragmatic. Indeed, ever since the very beginning of initiatives regarding Education, Training, and Youth, the emphasis has clearly been on the growing of the economy of Europe and especially on the reduction of the unemployment rate, a constant struggle for member states and their heads of government.
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