| European Educational | ISSN 1474-9041 | ||
| Volume 4 Number 3 2005 | |||
Other issues available | Journal home page | Publisher home page | |||
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CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text] | |||
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| ECER
KEYNOTE
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| New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: the changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies |
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| This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Crete, Greece, 21‑25 September 2004. One of the most consistent results in sociology of education research has been the existence of inequalities in school results and educational trajectories related to social factors. Despite an important increase in number of years of schooling for all children in most European countries in the post-war period, research still shows important differences between social and ethnic groups and even a widening of the gap between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged in some countries. Factors shown by previous studies to account for these differences are still at work, but many of them are influential in new ways. In addition to this, new factors have to be taken into account. Using available sociological literature on European countries, while focusing specifically on France as an exemplary case, this article presents some of the new constraints on and opportunities for action by parents, teachers and schools that result from both economic, cultural and educational changes and recent policy orientations. |
| Constructing International Policy Research: the role of CERI/OECD |
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| This article discusses how the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) addresses the task of conducting international policy research. The article begins with a descriptive account of CERI’s work, including the way member countries shape the research agenda. Several issues which relate to how research evidence is compiled within an international context are addressed. First, why the supposed priority area of lifelong learning is only weakly supported by systematic research is considered. The author raises the question of how we are to judge the quality and impact of international research work, especially where it is policy-related. He suggests that an increasing focus on the outcomes of education raises questions about causality in a policy research context. This leads to some brief consideration of evaluation of research, and of the country as a unit of methodological analysis. Finally, he asks what might be meant by learning from international experience. |
| Organisation and Context, Efficiency and Equity of Educational Systems: what PISA tells us |
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| After describing both average scores, dispersion, and social inequalities in achievement in the various countries included in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, this article relates those ‘products’ to country economic and cultural characteristics. It then explores relations between student scores and a number of institutional characteristics of countries’ educational systems. Results show that relations exist between average scores and certain institutional or pedagogical practices such as grade repeating or tracking. A high degree of social inequality in achievement proves to be associated with overall score dispersion and degree to which educational system differentiates among students. |
| The Influence of Participation, Identification, and Parental Resources on the Early School Leaving of Boys in the Lower Educational Track |
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| Why do some students drop out while others do not? The role of participation and identification in the process of early school leaving is studied. In addition, the contributions of socio-economic background and available resources are assessed. Boys in the lower vocational track of education, which traditionally has a large number of early school leavers, were studied using the variables from a national cohort study and the responses to some additional questionnaires. The participation-identification model is not found to have much explanatory power. The determinants of early school leaving appear to be the cultural and social resources provided by the parents rather than participation, achievement or identification. |
| The Europeanisation of Higher Education in the Netherlands |
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| This article examines the extent to which higher education policy in the Netherlands is becoming Europeanised. This issue is explored through the case of the Bologna Process and the impact of Bachelor-Master’s (BAMA) Programmes on Dutch higher education policy. Changes in higher education, such as increasing competitiveness and decentralisation, have increased the need for new regulations on a European level. Although the European Union does not have much legal authority in the policy section in question, Europeanisation of higher education is becoming increasingly apparent. The Bologna Agreement, in particular, has been a major push for the integration of the European dimension in Dutch higher education policy. Besides giving a general literature overview of the policy development and implementation of the Bologna Agreement, this article discusses the effects of the Bologna Process on the Dutch Ministry of Education, the VSNU (Association of Dutch Universities) and Dutch higher education institutions. Some interesting insights are provided by interviews that were held with officials working in these sectors. |
| Enterprise Learning: a challenge to education? |
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| The northern part of Sweden is characterised by depopulation and relatively high levels of unemployment among young people. As a consequence, a number of projects have been established for the purpose of strengthening young people’s creativity and spirit of enterprise. The aim of this article is to problematise the concept of ‘enterprise education’ as understood in Swedish schools. This is done by visualising the rhetoric that surrounds the effort of introducing Enterprise in Schools (‘Företagsamhet i skolan’) and by trying to understand what the concept means in practice from the perspective of apprenticeship theory. The authors’ research involves classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students from different schools. The results show that the discourse about Enterprise in Schools is based on catchwords such as cooperation, power of initiative, creativity and activity. The authors’ studies of the organisation and implementation of the teaching have visualised the collaborative aim and emphasis on learning through schoolwork. |
| Remaking Education in Western Europe |
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| This article makes a contribution to discussion on the neo-liberal reshaping of education in Western Europe. It argues for a greater attentiveness on the part of education researchers to collective social actors such as trade unions and social movements. Making use of concepts from Gramsci and from Poulantzas, it suggests that such actors had a formative role in the making of post-war education systems, and that reducing their influence is now an important objective of governments across the European Union. Focusing on educational conflict in England, France and Italy, it explores the extent to which traditions associated with post-war reform continue to possess political vitality. |
| Second Language Acquisition in Pre-school Playgroups and its Relation to Later School Success |
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| Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, the authors focused on the relation between pre-school classroom experiences and the development of later comprehension skills in ethnic minority children whose first language is different from the language they learn in (pre-)school. In Study 1, the relation between pre-school playgroup participation and later comprehension skills (some two to four years after playgroup participation) was investigated. The results did not reveal any effect of playgroup participation. At least two explanations for this lack of effect are possible: (i) taking part in playgroups did not contribute to comprehension skills at all; (ii) taking part in playgroups did affect comprehension skills, but this effect diminished. Aiming to find support for either of these hypotheses, in Study 2 the authors took a closer, qualitative, look at what actually happens in pre-school playgroups. The findings provided some indications of the acquisition of comprehension skills toward the end of the playgroup period, but this proved to be highly dependent on children’s general language proficiency. The combined outcomes of these studies suggest that, if ethnic minority children are to benefit from taking part in playgroups, they need to have at least a basic proficiency in the second language, or playgroups need to change their current practice. However, as many of these children presumably arrive in playgroups without such a basic proficiency, they will probably fail to profit sufficiently from the stimulating environment provided there. |
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