European Educational Research Journal

Posthuman Humanities

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Posthuman Humanities
Author: ROSI BRAIDOTTI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-19
ABSTRACT This article compares notes on different and new concepts of 'the Human', developed both within disciplinary and interdisciplinary academic scientific research and in broader social practices. The main focus is on the shifting relationship between the 'two cultures' of the humanities and science in the light of contemporary developments, such as the sophisticated forms of interdisciplinary research that have emerged in the fields of biotechnologies, neural sciences, environmental and climate change research and Information and Communication technologies. These rapid changes affect the very definitions of the human and of human evolution. The question is how and to what extent they have an impact on both the practice of the humanities and on their self-representation. Is humanism challenged or strengthened by these developments? To what extent is anthropocentrism called to task by what is becoming known as posthuman theory?

What is Wrong with the 'What-Went-Right' Approach in Educational Policy?

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: What is Wrong with the 'What-Went-Right' Approach in Educational Policy?
Author: GITA STEINER-KHAMSI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 20-33
ABSTRACT This article critically examines how 'what-went-right' analyses are used to subsequently justify the transfer of reform packages or 'best practices' from one country to another. Similar to evidence-based policy planning, the what-went-right approach needs to be criticized for being presumptuous. There are three fallacies of the what-went-right analysis that the article dismantles: rationality, precision and universality. The article focuses on the façade of universality and examines how the claim to universal solutions is methodologically sustained. First, the author shows how standardized or normative comparison has in recent years overshadowed the other two types of comparison: comparison across time (historical analyses) and comparison across contexts ('simple comparison'). Then, she elaborates on why the what-went-right approach requires policy analysts to downplay differences between educational systems in order to establish comparability between cases. The emphasis on comparability and similarity of cases is a prerequisite to importing 'best practices' from vastly different educational systems. But what if transfer occurs regardless of difference? There is a curious phenomenon that the article addresses in greater detail: the retrospective definition of a local problem. Given the worldwide circulation of 'best practices' and traveling reform packages, policy analysts sometimes are under pressure to align their analyses of local problems with already existing global solutions. The article ends with a reflection on policy borrowing and lending research and situates the what-went-right approach in the broader question of why and how policy analysts 'buy' or 'sell' reform packages that worked well in one context for transfer into another.

Constitution, Education and Research

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Constitution, Education and Research
Author: FUENSANTA HERNÁNDEZ PINA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 34-47
ABSTRACT This article gives an overview of Cádiz in 1812 and the Constitution; the development of the contents of this constitution; its influence on the constitutions of other countries and vice versa; and the role of women under this constitution. Cádiz was a cosmopolitan city where races, cultures and traditions mingled - what we would call a multicultural city. The cultural environment of Cádiz in 1812 was so positive that not even in the worst moments of the French siege and bombing of the city would local people stop attending gatherings, concerts, schools, theatre performances, etc. The Cádiz Constitution is an essential text in the history of constitutionalism and of the liberal movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century in Spain, as well as in neighbouring countries and America. Therefore, the year 1812 may be considered the birth of Spanish constitutionalism and the beginning of the construction of Spain as a Constitutional State. The contributions of this constitution and subsequent extensions regarding developments in education will be explained, and its importance in the development of education will be highlighted. The Cádiz Constitution is one of the most important legal documents in Spanish national history and a chief contribution of our country to liberalism and international constitutionalism. Cádiz symbolises the beginning of constitutional Spain, Europe and Latin America.

Governing Education Systems by Shaping Data: from the past to the present, from national to international perspectives

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Governing Education Systems by Shaping Data: from the past to the present, from national to international perspectives
Author: VALÉRIE LUSSI BORER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 48-52
ABSTRACT Nowadays, the use of indicators (benchmarks) to govern education systems and policies at national and international level is widespread. The practice of using data to administrate and govern education systems appeared at the end of the nineteenth century and developed throughout the twentieth century. Through national and international case studies, this issue studies the process and the conditions which allowed the emergence and the expansion of this phenomenon. Deciding how to collect useful data, how to organise data series according to models which allow comparison (or even ranking), and how to transform them into governing tools is essential for conducting data/benchmarks-based policies. This process leads to a new 'vision' (social construction of reality) of people, education systems and backgrounds, through new standardised objects like the 'average child' or an 'achievement standard'. These processes are at the core of policies conducted by organisations at national, European or international level (European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], UNESCO). This issue aims to better understand these processes through historical and sociological analysis from national or inter/transnational points of view.

The Science from the State: the production of data by the statisticians of the French Ministry of Education, 1957-2007

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: The Science from the State: the production of data by the statisticians of the French Ministry of Education, 1957-2007
Author: XAVIER PONS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 53-69
ABSTRACT This article analyses the institutionalisation of the production of statistical data by the central administration of the French ministry of education from 1957 to 2007. It shows that beyond the necessary technical and methodological evolutions, this institutionalisation clearly depended on political arbitrations, administrative struggles and professional orientations. Using some theoretical approaches in political science, it interprets this process as the progressive and non-linear development of a specific 'state science'. On the basis of materials collected during a four-year qualitative research study (through 32 interviews, several data sets of documents, consultation of archives, and a questionnaire), it highlights first the main cognitive and transversal properties of this specific state body of knowledge. It describes then its historical concrete forms which varied according to the policy configurations. The latter are studied through four main variables: the formal organisation of the statistical production; the statistical methods, techniques and tools implemented; the composition of the central office; and the main professional cleavages among the members of this office.

Power, Information and Control: school statistics and the Spanish educational system (nineteenth century and first third of the twentieth century)

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Power, Information and Control: school statistics and the Spanish educational system (nineteenth century and first third of the twentieth century)
Author: JEAN-LOUIS GUEREÑA; ANTONIO VIÑAO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 70-80
ABSTRACT In this article, the authors investigate the relationship between the development of school statistics, especially in the area of primary education, and the development of the Spanish educational system in the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century. To do this, they first look at attempts to gather statistical information on education and to provide general figures on education in Spain that took place under the absolute monarchy during the eighteenth century and the first third of the nineteenth century. They then analyse in a little more detail the long journey undertaken by the new liberal regime between 1834 and 1850 - during which years the Spanish education system would be built - to know the educational situation in the country and have steady, regular, reliable school statistics. What can be considered the golden age of school statistics (1855-1885) followed, when this project was realised. Finally, they discuss the characteristics and evolution of occasional school statistics produced during the last years of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century.

'A Necropolis of Numbers': data production in Switzerland's decentralised education system

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: 'A Necropolis of Numbers': data production in Switzerland's decentralised education system
Author: VÉRONIQUE CZÁKA; MATHILDE FREYMOND; VALÉRIE LUSSI BORER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 81-94
ABSTRACT Since 1876 the educational landscape in Switzerland has been made up of more than 20 distinct education systems that are largely managed by the cantons themselves, with minimum interference from the federal state. However, approximately a century ago, Switzerland embarked on a policy of harmonisation, which draws on various data sources that are progressively shaped to serve this aim. Why are data important and what exactly are these data? Who needs, who collects and who shapes them? To what end? This article looks at the processes of collecting, comparing and shaping data through the journal published for close to 100 years by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Public Education. This journal was the first to produce yearly statistics on Swiss education at the end of the nineteenth century. The authors compile and compare the two versions of the journal - one in German, the other in French - and focus on two periods which seem particularly relevant for the history of statistics - namely, from the end of the nineteenth century to the First World War, and the 1960s-1970s.

Historical Change in the Production and Legitimisation of Education Statistics in Switzerland

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Historical Change in the Production and Legitimisation of Education Statistics in Switzerland
Author: THOMAS RUOSS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 95-107
ABSTRACT Internationalisation as a factor in the impetus for and establishment of education statistics is analysed, taking the example of Switzerland in a long-term perspective. The case of Switzerland shows that historically, international comparisons depended on the nationalisation of statistics' responsibility. This nationalisation of education statistics' authority was itself closely connected with the demand for the domestic availability of statistics from the sub-central regions. This demand was in turn coupled with the structural challenges in the education system caused by its expansion and the heterogeneous degrees of institutionalisation of education statistics.

Voyages of Measurement in Education in the Twentieth Century: experts, tools and centres

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Voyages of Measurement in Education in the Twentieth Century: experts, tools and centres
Author: MARTIN LAWN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 108-119
ABSTRACT Through the twentieth century, an international scientific community in education, testing and statistics appeared which was rooted in the same texts and processes and worked together across distance and in specific research centres. From Thorndike in New York in the early 1900s to Husén in Hamburg and Stockholm in the late 1900s, there is a web of shared procedures and purposes. The administration and management of education came to depend on the work of community to solve problems and develop governance and control across the sites and work of education.

Creating an Educational Testing Profession in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 1910-1960

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Creating an Educational Testing Profession in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 1910-1960
Author: CHRISTIAN YDESEN; KARI LUDVIGSEN; CHRISTIAN LUNDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 120-138
ABSTRACT In Sweden, Norway and Denmark national testing communities advocating the introduction and expanded use of standardised educational tests in the national educational systems emerged around World War I. Using international research and cross-border networking activities, these coteries were able to gain power and thus establish and promote a new profession, the educational psychologist, along with instituting practices of alleged scientific tests in the following decades.

Numbers Do Not Replace Thinking

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:20:56 GMT

Title: Numbers Do Not Replace Thinking
Author: ANTÓNIO NÓVOA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2013 Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 139-148
ABSTRACT The article is organised around three themes, each one illuminating half a century of historical life: (i) the first theme relates to the second half of the nineteenth century, analysing the role of statistics in the formation of state education systems; (ii) the second theme concentrates on the first half of the twentieth century and the importance of tests, examinations and surveys in the development of 'pedagogical modernity'; (iii) the third theme looks at the historical period of the second half of the twentieth century, and how databases began to be used as an important tool in the formulation of educational policies. To conclude, the article underlines how comparison is becoming one of the main instruments of governance in contemporary societies - in other words, how power tends increasingly to be exercised through policies that claim to be 'obvious', 'natural', 'evidence-based', instead of being grounded on ideological and political options.

A Diminished Self: entrepreneurial and therapeutic ethos operating with a common aim

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: A Diminished Self: entrepreneurial and therapeutic ethos operating with a common aim
Author: KRISTIINA BRUNILA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 477-486
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the aim of creating a flexible and self-centred self by means of entrepreneurial and therapeutic education. It is an analysis that uses documents from project-based educational programmes as well as interviews with young adults and the people who work with them in these programmes. The data are examined using a Foucauldian and feminist analysis of discursive power and subjectivity. The author argues that entrepreneurial and therapeutic forms of education related to young adults lead to a particular kind of ideal self which she refers to as diminished.

Governing Education in Europe: a 'new' policy space of European schooling

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Governing Education in Europe: a 'new' policy space of European schooling
Author: SOFIA CARLOS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 487-503
ABSTRACT European Schools are a particular type of school that are not integrated into any national education system but are nonetheless official educational establishments that constitute a European Schools System (ESS) governed jointly by the Member States of the European Union. This positioning creates particularly interesting issues of governance that mirror aspects of governing education in Europe, albeit on a smaller scale. This article makes the argument that the ESS, like the European Commission (EC), operates within and across formal national boundaries in a 'new' Policy Space of European Schooling. It suggests that analysis of this 'space' as a microcosm of European governance of education is enabled through integrating interdisciplinary concepts such as re-spatialisation with attention to new approaches to governance that stress fluid and mobile relations in analysing Europeanisation. The article argues that the ESS is an interesting policy case in itself, but also suggests that it has value as a microcosm of the extremely complex and novel forms of policy relations in education in Europe, in which elements of the local, the national and the European are merging and emerging in different ways.

Social Inequalities of Post-secondary Educational Aspirations: influence of social background, school composition and institutional context

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Social Inequalities of Post-secondary Educational Aspirations: influence of social background, school composition and institutional context
Author: VINCENT DUPRIEZ GIRSEF; CHRISTIAN MONSEUR; MAUD VAN CAMPENHOUDT GIRSEF; DOMINIQUE LAFONTAINE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 504-519
ABSTRACT The first goal of this article is to assess, for each country belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the influence of pupils’ sociocultural background on educational aspirations. The second goal is to explore whether, after controlling for educational achievement, the residual influence of sociocultural background is still significant. In addition, the author estimates whether the sociocultural and academic characteristics of school composition have an additional impact on educational aspirations in this group of countries. Finally, he shows that the structural characteristics of school systems moderate the influence of individual characteristics and school composition on educational aspirations.

Reconstructing Higher Education? The Case of Master’s and PhD Programmes in Education in a Portuguese Institution

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Reconstructing Higher Education? The Case of Master’s and PhD Programmes in Education in a Portuguese Institution
Author: MARIANA G. ALVES; CLÁUDIA NEVES; NAIR R. AZEVEDO; TERESA N.R. GONÇALVES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 520-533
ABSTRACT Whether and to what extent we are in the process of reconstructing higher education following the Bologna Process orientation is the issue underpinning this article. To address this issue, the authors consider data from an exploratory survey conducted in a Portuguese university, focusing on the field of education. They take into account the contents of the educational policies at supra-national level in Europe and at national level in Portugal. In addition, they draw upon the conceptual debate about policy and politics. They acknowledge changes taking place in the organisational structure of the academic programmes, as well as in the students’ perceptions. Additionally, critical issues concerning the organisation and implementation of these programmes allow them to identify challenges for universities and issues that need deeper inquiry and continuous monitoring.

Suitable Enemies? Governmentality of Youth: youth as a threat

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Suitable Enemies? Governmentality of Youth: youth as a threat
Author: HELENA OSTROWICKA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 534-544
ABSTRACT This article is a contribution to the discourse of politics towards (for) youth, which the author defines as the 'cultural politics of risk'. The article begins with scientific representations of youth as a threat, as a group inclined to engage in risky behaviours. It then focuses on theoretical approaches called the 'risk paradigm', providing a framework for recognising anxieties and rationalities supporting them. The following section is concerned with the analysis of selected programmes which determine the strategies of Polish state politics towards (for) youth. The author attempts to show the relations between scientific risk knowledge and political projects justified by expert rationality. The article concludes with an interpretation of governmentality of youth portrayed as a threat in the context of the conception of 'suitable enemies'.

Understanding the Difficulties of Implementation of a Teachers' Evaluation System in Greek Primary Education: from national past to European influences

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Understanding the Difficulties of Implementation of a Teachers' Evaluation System in Greek Primary Education: from national past to European influences
Author: GEORGIOS STAMELOS; ANDREAS VASSILOPOULOS; MARIANNA BARTZAKLI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 545-557
ABSTRACT This article delves into the reactions of national institutions to various external stimuli originating from supra-national policies formulated by international organisms and other bureaucracies. The authors argue that such stimuli, when ignoring various previous arrangements developed in a given social and/or historic (national) context, may disrupt the institution's balance. In particular, they create divergence among the three pillars - normative, regulative and cultural-cognitive - around which an institution is built and lead the main actors involved with it - players - to act with the aim to best serve their own interests. In the case of Greece the attempt on the part of the Greek government to establish a system of evaluation at the level of primary education - following the country's participation into the European Union - led to severe conflict among the actors involved and to the institution's neutralisation. Accordingly, the level of divergence between what is desirable (normative pillar), what is established by law (regulative pillar) and everyday practice (cultural-cognitive pillar) became larger. Finally, the problematic institution's function resulted to an even more serious crisis, which could well be interpreted as 'creolisation' of the Greek education system.

The Discourses of Vocational Education and Training: a developmental response from a European perspective

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: The Discourses of Vocational Education and Training: a developmental response from a European perspective
Author: AURORA LÓPEZ-FOGUÉS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 558-569
ABSTRACT The article analyses the discourses underpinning formal vocational education and training (VET). More specifically, it presents three accounts of European VET with the twofold aim of reviewing them and of recommending a conceptual shift that leads to further theoretical discussion. The discussion is organised around the existence of three seemingly contradictory accounts in the management of VET - one centred in economic growth; one concerned about the experiences of students and professionals; and one that focuses on the social implications of those involved in VET. The article concludes that while there has been a degree of convergence between the three, social justice issues remain unresolved due to the eagerness to pursue measurable results, while neglecting individual heterogeneity as part of a rich society. Building on some core concepts of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen, the article takes a step beyond the language of outcomes and reframes VET foundations through the lens of human development.

Multi-level Steering and Institution Building: the European Union's approach to research policy

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Multi-level Steering and Institution Building: the European Union's approach to research policy
Author: MITCHELL YOUNG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 570-585
ABSTRACT Adopting the conception of the university as a primary driver of innovation and economic growth has brought increased pressure for the European Union (EU) to actively steer university-based research policy, despite its being outside of the EU's direct jurisdiction. While the open method of coordination (OMC) was developed for such situations, the complex nature of universities and research policy has meant that such steering does not stop with the OMC and occurs on multiple levels using a variety of governance tools. By mapping out the ways in which the EU uses legal, financial and informational instruments to coordinate policy and build institutions, the article attempts to understand the role and objective of the EU in this policy area in relation to national and other global actors. It suggests that despite strong globalising trends, the EU does more than to echo and promote these trends at the national and sub-national levels, but also attempts to structure the research environment in a complex heterogeneous way.

The Map is the Territory: educational evaluation and the topology of power

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: The Map is the Territory: educational evaluation and the topology of power
Author: ANTTI SAARI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 586-600
ABSTRACT In recent years there has been a global call for more scientific knowledge about education as a basis of governance. This means that exact descriptions of the reality of schooling should inform decisions about what works in education. In this article, evaluation and testing are analysed as cartography, the art of mapping educational spaces, which both creates and confuses our sense of educational reality. By using elements from cultural studies of cartography as well as sociology and the philosophy of science, this article claims that the analogy of cartography and evaluation can open novel vistas for contemplating the relationship between the world of education and its scientific representation. As a case in point, the article uses the construction of Finnish comprehensive basic school reform and the evaluation system pertaining to it. The analysis shows how evaluation as the mapping of the reality of education brings distant objects near, onto a homogeneous, stable plane. It also makes certain things visible while leaving others out of sight. Furthermore, evaluation as cartography is not only passive representation; it actually creates new spaces. In this way, evaluation practices can profoundly affect how we think and act upon schooling.

Pupil Responses to a Saviour Pedagogy: an ethnographic study

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Pupil Responses to a Saviour Pedagogy: an ethnographic study
Author: ANNELI SCHWARTZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 601-608
ABSTRACT This article is based on research in an ongoing ethnographic investigation of schooling in a multiethnic, multiracial school on the outskirts of a major Swedish conurbation in an area of multidimensional poverty. First, it analyses the use of an individuating, visible pedagogy, which contains a large number of routines that are designed and intended to improve the performances and behaviour of pupils in the school. Secondly, it analyses the subjective responses of the pupils to this pedagogy. Hidden forms of resistance to the main intentions of the pedagogy are presented and discussed.

Quantifying Quality: the construction of Europe and the road to the policy of learning

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:08:22 GMT

Title: Quantifying Quality: the construction of Europe and the road to the policy of learning
Author: Eszter Neumann
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Pages: 609-615
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial. The European Curriculum: restructuring and renewal

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Editorial. The European Curriculum: restructuring and renewal
Author: Kirsten Sivesind; Jan van den Akker; Moritz Rosenmund
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 320-327
ABSTRACT Not available

Are the Traditional Curricula Dispensable? A Feature Pattern to Compare Different Types of Curriculum and a Critical View of Educational Standards and Essential Curricula in Germany

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Are the Traditional Curricula Dispensable? A Feature Pattern to Compare Different Types of Curriculum and a Critical View of Educational Standards and Essential Curricula in Germany
Author: DANIEL SCHOLL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 328-341
ABSTRACT The results of international school achievement studies had major educational implications in many European countries, especially for the control concepts of education. This becomes exemplarily apparent in Germany, in which a large-scale educational reform was set in motion. Thereby, the education system was set from an input- to output-oriented control. Part of this reform involved the adoption of new curriculum types. A striking feature of this enactment was, among other things, that while it initiated studies of school curricula, it was shown at the same time that there are currently no established sophisticated theoretical tools for analysis of curricula - neither in Europe in general nor in Germany in particular. In this article, therefore, a curriculum-theoretical instrument is presented, which allows a systematic analysis of the structure of curricula. This instrument was developed based on German curricula, which are taken as examples. There should be generalisable impetus for European curriculum research.

Standards-based Curricula in a Denationalised Conception of Education: the case of Sweden

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Standards-based Curricula in a Denationalised Conception of Education: the case of Sweden
Author: DANIEL SUNDBERG; NINNI WAHLSTRÖM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 342-356
ABSTRACT In this article, the authors examine the development of the Swedish educational reform of 1991 from an international and European perspective, and from the perspective of what counts as knowledge in a recently implemented Swedish curriculum reform. With effect from 2011, the Swedish Government has significantly reshaped the curricula for pre-school, compulsory school and upper secondary school education, but in terms of governing principles for schools, these curriculum reforms can be regarded as a continuation of the 1991 reform. The authors argue that this latest reform, as part of an international policy discourse, can be said to represent a denationalised and instrumental conception of education, and that the implications for the formation of knowledge within this conception can be understood as a standards-based curriculum shaped by two powerful international influences: a technical-instrumental discourse of curriculum, emphasising the form, structure and function of the curriculum; and a neo-conservative discourse of curriculum, with an emphasis on curriculum content as a given and uncontested body of knowledge.

Balancing Curriculum Freedom and Regulation in the Netherlands

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Balancing Curriculum Freedom and Regulation in the Netherlands
Author: NIENKE NIEVEEN; WILMAD KUIPER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 357-368
ABSTRACT The extent to which the goals and contents of (compulsory) education should to be regulated has been a complicated balancing act in the Netherlands. Against a background of a long-standing statutory tradition of freedom of education, governmental decisions about 'what knowledge is of most worth' have been delicate. The purpose of the analysis described in this article is to disentangle, interpret and discuss this complicated balancing act between curriculum regulation and curriculum freedom during the past 40 years and to learn from other countries by putting the results into a wider European curriculum policy perspective. The contribution will end with discussing issues that need to be carefully considered with respect to the recent Dutch policy shift towards output regulation by means of mandatory achievement tests for mathematics, mother tongue and English at the end of lower secondary education.

The European Qualification Framework: skills, competences or knowledge?

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: The European Qualification Framework: skills, competences or knowledge?
Author: PHILIPPE MÉHAUT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 369-381
ABSTRACT The European Qualification Framework (EQF) is intended to transform European national qualification frameworks (NQFs) by moulding them into a learning outcomes framework. Currently adopted as an enabling law by the European Union, the EQF has now operated for several years. In order to secure widespread adoption, however, it will be necessary for it to be anchored at the sectoral and occupational levels in the European labour market as well as at the European and national levels. The article assesses the progress made so far, identifies difficulties encountered and modifications that need to be made and provides an appraisal of the likely evolution of the EQF. It is argued that it is likely that some key design features, such as the 'strong' approach to learning outcomes and a narrow conception of competence will not survive modification and adaptation in the context of the European labour market. The argument is illustrated with some recent research on the EQF.

Facing the Changing Demands of Europe: integrating entrepreneurship education in Finnish teacher training curricula

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Facing the Changing Demands of Europe: integrating entrepreneurship education in Finnish teacher training curricula
Author: JAANA SEIKKULA-LEINO; ELENA RUSKOVAARA; HEIKKI HANNULA; TUIJA SAARIVIRTA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 382-399
ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) considers the learning of entrepreneurial skills to be an essential factor in creating welfare. Therefore, in the EU, one of the latest core aspects is to develop entrepreneurship education in teacher education. However, entrepreneurship education still seems to be, across the countries, a quite uncommon theme. This article describes the ways in which entrepreneurship education is included in the curricula of Finnish teacher training. The curricula for academic and vocational teacher education were obtained in autumn 2010, either online or by requesting them in paper or electronic format. The inclusion of entrepreneurship education has developed relatively effectively in the curricula of vocational teacher education units. Academic teacher education units have not really increased the quantity of entrepreneurship education in their curricula. In the curricula of the teacher training schools, entrepreneurship education is mentioned at least as a formality. The current unstable situation in the EU requires not only economic arrangements, but also new approaches in other areas, such as education and its reform. As an implication for practice, we propose there could be more support for curriculum design of higher education at both national and EU level.

The Epistemological Fog in Realising Learning to Learn in European Curriculum Policies

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: The Epistemological Fog in Realising Learning to Learn in European Curriculum Policies
Author: DAVID LEAT; ULRIKE THOMAS; ANNA REID
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 400-412
ABSTRACT The European Union is concerned about the economic prospects of its member states as they have to compete against newly emerging economies with lower wages and high ambitions. Part of the strategy to deal with this economic shadow is to create a knowledge economy, but in order to achieve this, a shift to a competence-based curriculum model is seen as critical. Since the Lisbon strategy in 2000, policy documents have provided guidelines and tools for member states, but progress has been limited and in several states curriculum reforms which favoured competences have been reversed. This article uses interview data from school students from two projects in England focused on enquiry and learning competence, and analysis which draws on the theories of Bernstein, to illustrate their accounts of the difference between traditional and competence-based models. The data demonstrate the tensions caused by pupils' perceptions of the demands of summative assessment systems, which reflect a very different epistemology from experiential/competence models. The authors conclude that greater pedagogical literacy, attention to professional development, assessment reform and engaging students as partners in curriculum reform are needed.

Comparison as Curriculum Governance: dynamics of the European-wide governance technology of comparison within England's National Curriculum reforms

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: Comparison as Curriculum Governance: dynamics of the European-wide governance technology of comparison within England's National Curriculum reforms
Author: NATALIE PAPANASTASIOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 413-427
ABSTRACT The curriculum is a governance technology of knowledge production and is also itself governed by complex dynamics within European education policy space. This article focuses on how the curriculum is governed by comparative knowledge; in particular, it identifies how this facet of governance has manifested itself within the policy space of England's National Curriculum reforms. Critical discourse analysis of four key policy documents reveals how understanding the governing power of comparative knowledge involves considering dynamics originating from multiple spaces and times. While international comparative logic within England's National Curriculum could be regarded as a manifestation of a European-wide governing technology, the article suggests that the distinctiveness of 'Europe' is at risk of being lost to dominant global knowledge paradigms which are also an integral part of the 'governance by comparison' process.

'Europe' as an Alibi: an overview of twenty years of policy, curricula and textbooks in the Republic of Cyprus - and their review

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: 'Europe' as an Alibi: an overview of twenty years of policy, curricula and textbooks in the Republic of Cyprus - and their review
Author: STAVROULA PHILIPPOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 428-445
ABSTRACT This article compares discourses on 'Europe' in Greek-Cypriot policy, curricula and textbooks over approximately the last twenty years, from the early 1990s, when Cyprus applied for European Union (EU) membership, until 2011-12, the school year during which the recently revised curricula were gradually introduced to schools for implementation. This period spans both before and after the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU in 2004, the year when an educational reform was also launched. As this reform has been mainly materialised through curriculum review processes, and as 'Europe' has been repeatedly invoked to legitimise and explain its necessity, it renders Cyprus a useful case study, within the problematique of this special issue, in terms of exploring the shaping and governing of a European education policy space via 'European' curricula. Findings indicate distinct differences and continuities between the two periods; although 'Europe' increasingly provides a framework to legitimise curricular innovation towards tolerance and respect for diversity, human rights and democracy, reconciliation and inclusion, it is not systematically addressed in curriculum texts in locally relevant ways to alleviate existing tensions between ethno-national and state identities which have historically fuelled inter-communal conflict and division in Cyprus. Moreover, the construction of citizens seems to increasingly draw from the knowledge economy paradigm and from discourses of efficiency and competitiveness, despite a parallel (and more publicised) agenda for social justice and inclusion in the recent curriculum review documentation.

'Tuning' Education for the Market in 'Europe'? Qualifications, Competences and Learning Outcomes: reform and action on the shop floor

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: 'Tuning' Education for the Market in 'Europe'? Qualifications, Competences and Learning Outcomes: reform and action on the shop floor
Author: FÁTIMA ANTUNES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 446-470
ABSTRACT This article examines issues relating to governance and the reform of public policies in the European Union and suggests that a managerial agenda for change is developing, seeking to amplify the space for marketisation and control in the educational sphere. It is argued that, between the 1990s and 2010, world-ambitious educational models have been fostered in 'Europe', proposing curricular organisation and regulation principles, such as competences and learning outcomes, as well as regulatory frameworks based on political-technical instruments (qualification frameworks, credit transfer and accumulation systems, quality assurance systems); that is, an unstable and controversial educational language and universe has developed, populated by entities such as active pedagogy, indicators, targets or benchmarks. In order to substantiate the argument, the author briefly analyses, first, the emergence of the curricular dimension in the agenda for educational change; second, she tries to interpret how and why the category 'learning outcomes (and competence[s])' has acquired importance in the confluence of the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes and the Education & Training 2010 Programme in this 'silent revolution in the field of education'. After considering some of these developments in 'Europe' and Portugal, she proposes a few tentative reflections regarding this educational paradigm change and the action of teachers and students.

The Bias of Markets

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:55:31 GMT

Title: The Bias of Markets
Author: Francesca Gobbo
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Pages: 471-476
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction. Assessing PISA

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: Introduction. Assessing PISA
Author: Jenny Ozga
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 166-171
ABSTRACT Not available

The Fabrications and Travels of a Knowledge-Policy Instrument

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: The Fabrications and Travels of a Knowledge-Policy Instrument
Author: LUÍS MIGUEL CARVALHO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 172-188
ABSTRACT This article sets forth the main elements of the conceptual framework for the overall approach to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) taken in this special issue. PISA is here examined as a (knowledge for policy) regulatory instrument made by intertwined cognitive and social practices, and involving multidirectional flows of knowledge and policy elements. Additionally - and using materials from a study on the fabrication of PISA - the article gives closer attention to the process of gathering and coordinating the social worlds involved in the making of the instrument, to the plasticity of knowledge for policy and to the fictions - which the instrument carries - regarding education and its governing practices. As a whole, the article relates to the ubiquity of PISA - that is, its conspicuous albeit not similar presence in various geopolitical territories and discursive spaces. Fabricated under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, by bringing together individuals and organisations from various social spaces, its materials and texts generated often reach national and local policy and knowledge contexts, where different social groups have interests in them and are using them differently, though attached to PISA's dicta on regulatory processes.

The Field of Knowledge and the Policy Field in Education: PISA and the production of knowledge for policy

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: The Field of Knowledge and the Policy Field in Education: PISA and the production of knowledge for policy
Author: ERIC MANGEZ; MATHIEU HILGERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 189-205
ABSTRACT This article is about the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its actors. It analyses the development and role of PISA as a 'cultural product' from the perspective of Bourdieu's field theory. The authors attempt to answer the following questions: Of which field is PISA the product? In which field and by whom is PISA used and 'consumed'? The authors argue that the development of PISA is part of a broader transformation of equilibria within the field of (education) knowledge - i.e. a move away from its autonomous pole towards its heteronomous pole. Such a move transforms the very form and shape of the field of knowledge: it has expanded and attracts a growing number of internal and external actors around its heteronomous pole. This (cor)responds to a transformation of the equilibrium within the general field of power, where the intellectual bourgeoisie (artists, professors, academics, writers) is increasingly subordinated to - indeed, sometimes working for - economic and political interests. The authors further argue that the incorporation of PISA at the level of education policy fields also transforms their form and shape in two main ways. Within policy fields, the diffusion and reception of PISA reinforces a heteronomous understanding of education which is defined mostly in terms of its contribution to external interests. The diffusion of PISA also extends and, in a sense, dissolves the very boundaries of (national) education policy fields. Specifically, the authors underline that such an internationalisation of the education policy fields progresses mainly at their heteronomous poles and through a heteronomous definition of education.

Going beyond the 'PISA Shock' Discourse: an analysis of the cognitive reception of PISA in six European countries, 2001-2008

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: Going beyond the 'PISA Shock' Discourse: an analysis of the cognitive reception of PISA in six European countries, 2001-2008
Author: XAVIER PONS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 206-226
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to open discussion by analysing the cognitive reception of PISA in six European countries which were studied in the European collective research project KNOWandPOL (Knowledge and Policy in Education and Health Sectors). Reception does not mean here a simple vertical transmission of messages from the international level to the national one, but a cognitive activity when messages are constantly accepted, refused or renegotiated by actors. The adjective 'cognitive' means that the focus is on the cognitive aspects of this constant process of redefinition, trying to understand what kind of knowledge actors talking about PISA in the public debate mobilise, in which context and for what reasons. To do so, the author proposes a specific theoretical framework which largely draws on some concepts and theoretical tools from the sociology of translation and their adaptation in policy analysis).

The Hard Work of Interpretation: the national politics of PISA reception in Hungary and Romania

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: The Hard Work of Interpretation: the national politics of PISA reception in Hungary and Romania
Author: ESZTER NEUMANN; ADÉL KISS; ILDIKÓ FEJES; IVÁN BAJOMI; ESZTER BERÉNYI; ZOLTÁN A. BIRÓ; JÚLIA VIDA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 227-242
ABSTRACT This article discusses the dynamic interaction between global policy and knowledge flows and two post-communist education systems – Hungary and Romania – with special attention to the appropriation of post-bureaucratic regulation tools and the structural changes enhanced by the knowledge transmitted by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey. First, through the lens of the socio-history of educational assessments, the varieties of state socialist education systems are detailed in order to contextualise the subsequent discussion about the entry of the two countries into the PISA survey and the national institutional changes generated by PISA. After the thematic comparison of the country case studies, the article concludes that the two cases do not allow the conceptualisation of a single post-socialist model of PISA reception, but, on the contrary, the international comparative framework of PISA offers an opportunity to critically interrogate the complex processes of convergence and divergence in the study of globalisation, and to elaborate a differentiated perspective on post-socialist education systems and governance strategies.

What PISA Knows and Can Do: studying the role of national actors in the making of PISA

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: What PISA Knows and Can Do: studying the role of national actors in the making of PISA
Author: SOTIRIA GREK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 243-254
ABSTRACT This article builds on previous research which has emphasised the role of comparisons of educational performance in creating visibility and borderlessness, and moves the argument a point further. The article claims that apart from increased visibility, what the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has brought to education systems in Europe is interdependence. This is because one of the often ignored or too obvious effects of comparison is that, first, it creates representations of educational realities (the first level of the construction of the story) and, second, it takes those previously separate and disparate pieces and brings them together into a whole, into one single entity - in the case of PISA, the league table, the report, the speech and so on. PISA has created such interdependence among education systems in Europe and beyond, and has simultaneously created the dependence of this new reality on the continuous production of PISA data. This is precisely how PISA has secured its existence. Although the PISA 'spectacle' may have become slightly banal, nevertheless PISA is the sine qua non of education policy-making in Europe. This is certainly the case for the European Commission and its use of the PISA data to govern. Following the constructed imaginaries of economic globalisation, which see nations and societies as mutually dependent, PISA has substantially contributed towards a fiscalisation of the thinking behind reforming education systems and the narratives and imaginaries that construct this thinking. If economies are now globally exposed, so is education (or so it has to be).

School Subject Paradigms and Teaching Practice in the Screen Culture: art, music and the mother tongue (Swedish) under pressure

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: School Subject Paradigms and Teaching Practice in the Screen Culture: art, music and the mother tongue (Swedish) under pressure
Author: PER-OLOF ERIXON; ANDERS MARNER; MANFRED SCHEID; TOMMY STRANDBERG; HANS ÖRTEGREN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 255-273
ABSTRACT There are great expectations that new digital technology will become a powerful tool for developing education activities. Like many countries in Europe and worldwide, Sweden has invested a large amount of resources in new technology and new media (hereafter called digital media), and they have become a natural and important part of school teaching. The developed use of digital media is assumed to lead to educational change and, hence, better teaching. That such expectations have not been fulfilled, however, is shown in a number of Swedish, European and international studies. One explanation of this situation may be that the incorporation of digital media differs between different school subjects. School subjects have their characteristic structures, which are of great importance for how digital media can be integrated. Digital media influence the way in which school subjects can be described from a knowledge theory perspective – i.e. what constitutes the subject’s paradigm and its teaching practice. The point of departure of this article is the school subjects of art, music and the mother tongue (Swedish), which, like other school subjects, are feeling the pressure of a digital media and screen culture to an ever increasing degree, and it queries whether and how teachers and pupils in these three school subjects conceive of and relate to the shifts that take place in the subjects when digital media are being increasingly integrated into the teaching. The study is based on interviews with pupils and teachers in the three school subjects, and the results are presented in terms of four themes that appear in the investigation – namely: (1) educational environments; (2) what teachers and pupils regard as the sacred and the profane; (3) motives for using digital media in teaching; and (4) whether and how working methods are changing with digital technology, i.e. questions concerning collective and individual aspects. In all three subjects, there are clear indications that digital media have already started to influence both the subject content and the working methods, while, at the same time, the proportion of digital media is limited and the impact is weak.

'Managing' Managerialism: the impact of educational auditing on an academic 'specialist' school

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: 'Managing' Managerialism: the impact of educational auditing on an academic 'specialist' school
Author: IAN HARDY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 274-289
ABSTRACT This article seeks to nuance arguments about the impact of broad policy technologies of auditing processes upon teachers' practices by providing empirical evidence of the effects of such processes, in context. Specifically, the article draws upon a cross section of teachers' accounts of schooling practices in a specialist, academically oriented secondary school and languages college in the British Midlands to reveal the complex ways audit practices influence teachers' work, professional development and student learning under current policy conditions. The article reveals that teachers endeavoured to actively 'manage' audit processes by strategically focusing upon student needs, and critiquing and problematising the more superficial aspects of performance management, systemic inspections and a narrow focus upon academic results. However, even as these tactics were employed, there was also evidence of a simultaneous focus upon simply 'managing' to cope, particularly when audit processes added considerable pressure upon teachers to improve students' test scores, and when they encouraged conditions antithetical to more educative concerns. This sometimes had dramatic effects upon student and teacher learning and teacher identity. Capturing this empirical complexity, in the context of specific schooling settings, provides evidence to nuance the more general literature on educational auditing, including in European and other transnational settings, and existing understandings of such practices at local sites more generally.

Researching Research in Master's Degrees in Europe

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: Researching Research in Master's Degrees in Europe
Author: CRISTINA SIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 290-301
ABSTRACT The research dimension of higher education programmes is usually discussed in association with doctoral studies. Against a background of scarce literature investigating research in a Master's degree, this article aims to analyse the place of research in Master's qualifications, first, as envisaged by official European and national documents acting as reference frameworks for degree design (i.e. qualification frameworks) and, second, in its practical manifestations in Master of Science (MSc) degrees in Physics in three national contexts (England, Portugal and Denmark). It highlights different understandings of the importance and roles assigned to research in Master's degrees by national policy actors in the three countries. Simultaneously, it argues that research is an essential component of MSc degrees in Physics, perceived as a gateway to a Physics research profession on account of disciplinary specificity. Research translates into a number of concrete practices, of which the Master's thesis is the main manifestation, with, however, variation in the purpose of research (instrumental or an end in itself). The article discusses implications of these different understandings and expressions of research in Master's programmes for the comparability of higher education degrees and ensuing recognition and student mobility in the European Higher Education Area, as envisaged by the Bologna process reforms. It is suggested that similar studies could be performed in other disciplines to make up for the gap in evidence and scholarship on the research dimension of Master's programmes and their degree of convergence.

'We Don't Question Whether We Can Do This': teacher identity in two co-teachers' narratives

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: 'We Don't Question Whether We Can Do This': teacher identity in two co-teachers' narratives
Author: ANNA RYTIVAARA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 302-313
ABSTRACT Through the concept of teacher identity, this article examines in detail the factors in the process through which the two teachers under study changed from traditional teachers into co-teaching professionals. The interview data were analysed by thematic narrative analysis. The results showed that the teachers' own attitudes, conflicts in their classrooms and experience of collaboration had created an idea of co-teaching. This idea, combined with a supportive school culture, resulted in the final solution - a shared classroom. It can be concluded that when a certain kind of teacher identity is combined with supportive collegiality, it can lead teachers to find positive solutions to a stressful situation within their profession.

Magali Ballatore. Honouring Higher Education?

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:37:39 GMT

Title: Magali Ballatore. Honouring Higher Education?
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Pages: 314-319
ABSTRACT Not available

Cities: a window into larger and smaller worlds

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Cities: a window into larger and smaller worlds
Author: SASKIA SASSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-10
ABSTRACT Cities are complex systems. But they are incomplete systems. In this incompleteness lies the possibility of making - making the urban, the political, the civic, a history. The urban is not alone in having these characteristics, but these characteristics are a necessary part of the DNA of the urban. Every city is distinct and so is every discipline that studies it. And yet, if it is to be a study of the urban it will have to deal with these key features - incompleteness, complexity, and the possibility of making. This then also makes cities strategic sites for the exploration of many major subjects confronting society. But cities are not always a heuristic space - a space capable of producing knowledge about some of the major transformations of an epoch. Today, as we have entered a global era, the city is once again emerging as a strategic site for understanding some of the major new trends reconfiguring the social order. Each of those trends has its own specific contents and consequences. The urban moment is but one moment in their often complex multi-sited trajectories.

Why are Migrant Students Better Off in Certain Types of Educational Systems or Schools than in Others?

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Why are Migrant Students Better Off in Certain Types of Educational Systems or Schools than in Others?
Author: JAAP DRONKERS; ROLF VAN DER VELDEN; ALLISON DUNNE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 11-44
ABSTRACT The main research question of this article is concerned with the combined estimation of the effects of educational systems, school composition, track level, and country of origin on the educational achievement of 15-year-old migrant students. The authors focus specifically on the effects of socioeconomic and ethnic background on achievement scores and the extent to which these effects are affected by characteristics of the school, track, or educational system in which these students are enrolled. In doing so, they examine the ‘sorting’ mechanisms of schools and tracks in highly stratified, moderately stratified, and comprehensive education systems. They use data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wave. Compared with previous research in this area, the article’s main contribution is in explicitly including the tracks-within-school level as a separate unit of analysis, which leads to less biased results concerning the effects of educational system characteristics. The results highlight the importance of including factors of track level and school composition in the debate surrounding educational inequality of opportunity for students in different education contexts. The findings clearly indicate that analyses of the effects of educational system characteristics are flawed if the analysis only uses a country level and a student level and ignores the tracks-within-school-level characteristics. From a policy perspective, the most important finding is that educational systems are neither uniformly ‘good’ nor uniformly ‘bad’, but they can result in different consequences for different migrant groups. Some migrant groups are better off in comprehensive systems, while others are better off in moderately stratified systems.

Urban Education and Segregation: the responses from young people

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Urban Education and Segregation: the responses from young people
Author: ELISABET ÖHRN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 45-57
ABSTRACT This article takes as a starting point the segregation of urban areas and discusses schooling in the neighbourhoods typically associated with problems and challenges, in order to explore young people's responses to their schooling and social positions. Such responses include individual acts, such as rejecting further schooling or dismissing the local school in favour of prestigious ones, as well as the development of shared understandings and collective formations. The article focuses in particular on young people's responses through aesthetic practices, informal education and public political actions. Although research suggests that youths in poor areas are increasingly individualised and shows that schools provide them with little help to understand and act upon their circumstances in school, the analyses here also bring to light young people's rather strong belief in collective actions; students' formations of resistance groups and political knowledge appear as crucial resources, and, although scarce, teacher support and teaching about political actions appear as important.

Educational Research and Useful Knowledge: production, dissemination, reception, implementation

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Educational Research and Useful Knowledge: production, dissemination, reception, implementation
Author: MARIT HONERØD HOVEID
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 58-61
ABSTRACT The overall question which the three of us asked in this roundtable - 'What counts as 'useful knowledge' in educational research?' - is a question that can be interpreted in different ways. I have chosen to interpret it as a question to ourselves: What do we consider 'useful' as research on education - as researchers? This is asking for a self-evaluation by educational research(ers). Giving an answer to this requires a reflexivity; a reflexivity which places us in a position where we need to examine and re-examine, on different levels, what we say and do as researchers. This kind of reflexivity is not uncomplicated to perform and it could lead into a less fruitful self-absorption. Another reason for this being a difficult task to perform is that it asks each of us engaged in the field of educational research to reconsider what we value, what we count as knowledge and what we care about - although it should be noted that, according to the American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt (1988), we do not always know what we care about. Under the main question, we have been asked to answer the following three questions: What counts as useful education knowledge, and under which conditions, context and criteria? For whom is it useful, and how do they assert their priority? What is the role of researchers in making their research useful?

Multiple Enactments of Educational Research

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Multiple Enactments of Educational Research
Author: PAOLO LANDRI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 62-67
ABSTRACT The article addresses the widespread claim to make educational research more relevant for practitioners, policy makers, potential users and stakeholders, and proposes a problematisation of the notion of 'useful knowledge'. The article illustrates the conceptual, instrumental and legitimative relevance of knowledge and highlights empirically the need to develop detailed descriptions of the local constructions of educational research to understand the non-linear dynamics and the multiple enactments of relevant/useful networks of educational research.

An Exploration of Differences in Mathematics Attainment among Immigrant Pupils in 18 OECD Countries

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: An Exploration of Differences in Mathematics Attainment among Immigrant Pupils in 18 OECD Countries
Author: MARINA SHAPIRA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 68-95
ABSTRACT This article presents findings from a comparative study of sources of educational disadvantage of immigrant children across 18 OECD countries, which is based the data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The findings show that disadvantaged family background and lack of host-country-specific cultural capital account for a large part of the attainment gap between immigrants and their non-migrant peers. The findings also show that school characteristics in terms of their size, quality of teachers and educational resources contribute to the understanding of the further part of the immigrant performance gap. Moreover, school characteristics mediate between the immigrant students' family characteristics and their attainment, by reinforcing or diminishing the impact of the family characteristics. Furthermore, the institutional characteristics of immigration countries, such as type of education provision, type of welfare provision and type of immigration policy, also play a part in producing and maintaining educational disadvantage of immigrant pupils, by affecting the attainment level and mediating between the individual- and school-level characteristics and pupils' attainment. It was found that the first generation of immigrant children perform particularly well in countries with a liberal type of welfare regime, more standardised educational systems and more selective immigration policies; there was also some evidence that institutional factors shape educational attainment of the second generation of immigrant children in a way which more closely resembles that of the children from non-immigrant backgrounds - the former perform better in countries with a more inclusive (social-democratic) type of welfare provision, but also in countries with less differentiated and more standardised educational systems.

Socioeconomic Gradients in Eastern European Countries: evidence from PIRLS 2006

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Socioeconomic Gradients in Eastern European Countries: evidence from PIRLS 2006
Author: DANIEL H. CARO; PLAMEN MIRAZCHIYSKI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 96-110
ABSTRACT This article analyses educational inequalities related to socioeconomic status (SES) in 12 Eastern European countries that participated in the International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006. Economies and educational systems of these countries have undergone critical transformations since the fall of communism. The authors' analyses, using data collected almost 20 years after this period, help explain how these transformations affected the equity and quality of educational outcomes in the region. For each country, overall inequalities as well as inequalities between schools and within schools are estimated with regression models and represented graphically with socioeconomic gradient lines. A possible trade-off between equity and quality of outcomes is explored, identifying countries that have been relatively successful at attaining both educational goals. The extent to which the school SES explains achievement gaps between rural and urban schools is analysed. The results point to country groupings that are reasonably consistent with regional classifications of educational systems postulated in the literature.

Universities and Knowledge Production in Central Europe

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: Universities and Knowledge Production in Central Europe
Author: MAREK KWIEK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 111-126
ABSTRACT The article discusses an East/West divide in Europe in university knowledge production. It argues that the communist and post-communist legacies in the four major Central European economies studied (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic) matter substantially for educational and research systems. The differences in university knowledge production may be bigger than expected, and the role of historical legacies may be more long term than generally assumed in both social sciences and public policy studies on the region. The gradual convergence of both higher education and research systems in two parts of Europe cannot be taken for granted without thoughtful changes in both university funding (both modes and levels) and governance. The article discusses links between knowledge production, economic competitiveness and regulatory and other environments in which both universities and knowledge-intensive companies operate. The role of factors other than higher education and innovation systems is substantially more important for competitiveness and growth in Central Europe than in affluent Western economies. The international visibility of universities as knowledge production centres is low and the analysis of the geography of knowledge production at the level of regions may indicate that Central Europe is in danger of being effectively cut off from the emergent European Research Area.

A Case Study of Parents' School Choice Strategies in a Finnish Urban Context

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: A Case Study of Parents' School Choice Strategies in a Finnish Urban Context
Author: JAANA POIKOLAINEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 127-144
ABSTRACT This article analyses how Finnish parents of sixth graders in a comprehensive school act in the local 'school markets' of the case city. The parents' subject positions as choosers are reflected on and explored in relation to the discourses and resources they use when discussing their school choices. The data were gathered in 2009 by administering a questionnaire (n = 374) and by conducting interviews with 76 of the respondents. The main data used here were thematic interviews, which were analysed using the discoursive approach. The analysis revealed that the parents used three different types of subject positions and discourses when having conversations about their choices and when considering their options. These discourses used were partly overlapping and unexpectedly social, and cultural resources were capitalised on less than previously assumed. Contrary to earlier European research on school choices, most parents in this study were not eager to choose any other school than their allocated local school, because they trusted the quality of Finnish comprehensive schools. The parents' thoughts and actions were notably guided and governed by the local school authorities, according to whom the local school is good enough.

School Children's Visualisations of Europe

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:00:28 GMT

Title: School Children's Visualisations of Europe
Author: RACHEL MASON; MARY RICHARDSON; FIONA M. COLLINS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2012 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 145-165
ABSTRACT 'Images & Identity' was a two-year curriculum development project in which citizenship and art educators in the Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Germany, Malta and Portugal collaborated on the production of teacher education materials. The article begins with a critical analysis of educational policy for European citizenship and of the potential contribution visual art and citizenship education might make to understanding what it means to be European. The main body of the article reports on a small-scale survey of school children's visual representations of Europe carried out in advance of the curriculum development. This survey elicited received, recreated and created representations. Whereas many were totemic symbols of European identity downloaded from the Internet, a surprising number were personal artworks in which children explored and developed their personal feelings and ideas. This article describes and analyses the images the children selected, remixed and/or created, focusing on the subject matter, metaphorical meanings and interpretative themes. Findings about their orientation to European citizen identity were that it was dominated by physical and social perceptions, and whilst largely positive, these perceptions varied according to nationality, ethnicity and age.

Introduction. Discourse and Identity in Education, pages

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Introduction. Discourse and Identity in Education, pages
Author: Carola Mick
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 467-471
ABSTRACT Not available

Agency as the Acquisition of Capital: the role of one-on-one tutoring and mentoring in changing a refugee student's educational trajectory

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Agency as the Acquisition of Capital: the role of one-on-one tutoring and mentoring in changing a refugee student's educational trajectory
Author: IRIS E. DUMENDEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 472-483
ABSTRACT Current research into the experiences of refugee students in mainstream secondary schools in Australia indicates that for these students, schools are places of social and academic isolation and failure. This article introduces one such student, Lian, who came to Australia as a refugee from Burma, and whom the author tutored and mentored intensively during his final year of schooling. The article provides an empirically derived understanding of how one-on-one tutoring and mentoring became a platform through which this student was able to succeed in a structure which systematically tried to exclude him. Here, agency is conceptualised in terms of Bourdieu's concept of capital. The analysis highlights the ways in which one-on-one tutoring and mentoring provided the necessary platform by which this refugee student was able to acquire the necessary capital that effected a positive change in his educational trajectory.

The Construction of Performative Identities

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: The Construction of Performative Identities
Author: BOB JEFFREY; GEOFF TROMAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 484-501
ABSTRACT The influence of policy texts upon learners depends largely on how much influence such texts wield. Policy discourses are one of the main means whereby policy texts, in the settings in which they operate, influence the value, the implementation and the inscribing of those texts on learners. The Economic and Social Research Council-based research project described in this article examines the ways in which Lyotard's performative practices affect the identities of primary school learners and how they are constructed by Key Stage exam process; it also examines performative progression through a system of learning targets. It uses a Foucauldian approach to show how learners are influenced by performativity discourses and how they take part in constructing these performative identities. Employing an ethnographic approach, it illustrates how Foucault's social relations characteristic of extra/intra/inter dependencies is explicated through governmentality and the construction of knowledge and subjectivity, which act as major relays through which learners' performative identities become embedded.

'Non-servile Virtuosi' in Insubordinate Spaces: school disaffection, refusal and resistance in a former English coalfield

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: 'Non-servile Virtuosi' in Insubordinate Spaces: school disaffection, refusal and resistance in a former English coalfield
Author: N. GEOFFREY BRIGHT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 502-515
ABSTRACT This article reviews excerpts from a body of ethnographic data examining some young people's disaffection from, and refusal of, the education project as a whole in a UK coalfield area. Key examples are used to illustrate intergenerational continuities and disjunctions in attitudes to formal education in these exceptional and sometimes 'insubordinate' localities. It is argued that reviewing such data in the light of concepts emerging from the literature on Italian autonomist politics of the 1970s - particularly Paulo Virno's work - is potentially fruitful in reclaiming a politics of educational refusal from the dual grip of a middle-class imaginary that abhors it as pathological and dangerous and a body of scholarship that seems incapable of moving beyond either lionising it as heroic or loathing it as nihilistic.

Enacted Agency as the Strategic Making of Selves in Plurilingual Literacy Events: framing agency and children as contributors to their own and others' learning

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Enacted Agency as the Strategic Making of Selves in Plurilingual Literacy Events: framing agency and children as contributors to their own and others' learning
Author: DOMINIQUE PORTANTE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 516-532
ABSTRACT 'This article is about the understanding of how children, using different conceptions of literacy as means to construct their social reality and their social roles in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, are enabled to enact agency in terms of their strategic making and remaking of selves. The research approach is informed by a sociocultural conception of literacy and draws on a conception of agency as multisourced, distributed and mediated through human interaction, mediational means and discourses. The author uses a microethnographic approach combining ethnomethodology and conversational analysis as well as discourse analysis to make visible how the children are reached by more or less distant meanings and conceptions of literacy conveyed and stabilised through the locally acting devices. The analysis also shows how material objects like written texts produced by children mediate the participants' agency in different ways, constraining or enabling it with respect to how the children contribute to their own and to others' learning. The article ends with conclusions on perspectives for organising learning with regard to subject formation in terms of empowering participation designs and for designing analytic frames for investigating processes of formation of multisourced agency.

Agency as the Ability and Opportunity to Participate in Evaluation as Knowledge Construction

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Agency as the Ability and Opportunity to Participate in Evaluation as Knowledge Construction
Author: ASTRID BIRGITTE EGGEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 533-544
ABSTRACT School communities find themselves within an overall ideological and epistemological controversy with regard to a drive for goal-oriented and 'evidence-based' practices on the one hand and emancipative bottom-up developmental strategies on the other, treating empirical data as information to be analysed according to context, with potential meaning for practice. This raises questions of democratic purposes of education, of leaders' and teachers' agency and corresponding accountability. This article is therefore an empirically based discussion of the relationship between multiple understandings of democracy and multiple practices of evaluation. It presents certain results of three ethnographic research projects among school leaders in Norwegian secondary education. Using a critical ethnographic research methodology in order to build agency, the article focuses on dilemmas and paradoxes of evaluation in an era of market-driven accountability. A situated perspective has been applied in order to view evaluation as a joint enterprise dependent upon the shared vocabulary and repertoire of evaluative tools in each community of practice. The fieldwork shows that the factors that are crucial for teachers' and school leaders' agency in this professional area concern their awareness of assessment used for evaluative purposes within multiple perspectives of democracy and validity. Most participants look beyond formalised procedures and predefined purposes, focusing instead on knowledge construction. The ultimate objective of the participants seems to be that of agency building, or becoming subjects in these processes rather than objects of instrumental application.

Homework through the Eyes of Children: what does visual ethnography invite us to see?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Homework through the Eyes of Children: what does visual ethnography invite us to see?
Author: KIRSTEN HUTCHISON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 545-558
ABSTRACT Whilst the notion of children's rights and an entitlement to express their views and participate as global citizens is threaded throughout the international policy field, children's perspectives on the near ubiquitous practice of homework, and its effects on their daily lives and learner subjectivities, remain under-researched. Drawing on the Bourdieuian concepts of practice, habitus, capital and field, this article develops a cross-cultural analysis of homework practices in Australia, Denmark and Britain to make visible the embodied habitus and agentic possibilities shaping the reproduction of educational advantage and disadvantage for variously located students. Using video data generated by children in primary schools, the article explores children's visual representations of their compliance and resistance to homework's regulatory functions. It demonstrates the affordances of visual ethnographic methods as a form of participatory research with children which foregrounds students' experiences and opinions and makes visible the inclusionary and exclusionary effects of homework on children in diverse socio-cultural settings.

Learner Agency

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Learner Agency
Author: CAROLA MICK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 559-571
ABSTRACT This article presents first results of an ethnographic research project in a Luxembourgish primary school that accompanied the development of a school project by children from the fifth grade. Analysing the data children themselves collected with Kodak Zi8 cameras in order to document their project activities, it investigates their possibilities and constraints to become designers of a 'third space' within the educational institution. The author draws on Emile Durkheim's educational sociology in order to simultaneously analyse the educational processes of socialisation and subjectification that occur when children are legitimated to take part in the design of their own learning processes within school. The analysis focuses on the social languages children are drawing on and creating when shaping their school project in and through the collected data. It succeeds in depicting the interplay of structure and agency in children's practices and in demonstrating children's capability to contribute to their subjectification as social beings and to co-design the educational institution they are socialised by. However, it also points to the institution's mistrust and constant endangering of children's initiative and constitution as social actors. In this sense, the article deals with the possibilities of and obstacles to transformation of institutions of learning from within and bottom up.

On Structure and Agency in Ethnographies of Education: examples from this special issue and more generally

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: On Structure and Agency in Ethnographies of Education: examples from this special issue and more generally
Author: DENNIS BEACH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 572-582
ABSTRACT The articles in this collection are about the development, possibility, exercise and possible frustration of human agency within educational exchanges. They are also all based on ethnography, which is now a common approach to educational research. Ethnography is not a seamless, neutral observational practice but is instead variable in relation to theoretical perspectives and methodological application. However, central to all approaches is an emphasis on an active and creative citizen and an assumption that there is a dialectical relationship between human social practices, human consciousness and social structures. The similarities and differences within education ethnography are apparent even in the articles present here and in the ways in which they depict, define and describe agency in this special issue.

Quality Assurance on the Road: Finland and Austria in comparison

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Quality Assurance on the Road: Finland and Austria in comparison
Author: ANDREA BERNHARD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 583-594
ABSTRACT The ongoing necessity for quality and quality assurance in the entire Bologna process remains one of the main issues for European policy makers. The aims of creating comparable systems and of guaranteeing quality within higher education systems are the reasons for national developments and the eagerness to reform. The situation in two relatively small European countries, Austria and Finland, is at the centre of this research and exemplifies different ways of coping with international developments and the need to establish a comprehensive quality assurance system. How do these countries cope with the pressure to compete in the global higher education market? Is their system of quality assurance in line with the European aim to create a European higher education area? The purpose of this study is to provide an overview on two national quality assurance systems and to figure out similarities and differences between these two countries, providing a clear picture of what has been done in the field of quality assurance, where the challenges to transform are and how to improve quality assurance systems.

Educational Organisations as 'Cultures of Consumption': cultural contexts of consumer learning in schools

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Educational Organisations as 'Cultures of Consumption': cultural contexts of consumer learning in schools
Author: DANIEL FISCHER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 595-610
ABSTRACT High levels of consumption in the industrialised parts of the world such as Europe mark a central threat to global sustainable development. In recent years, growing attention has been paid to the contributions of education and educational organisations to the socialisation of youths and young adults into consumer culture. It is the contention of this article that educational responses to the consumption challenge both within the European Union (EU) consumer policy strategy and in current practices in consumer education in European countries build on an understanding of consumer learning in schools that is too narrowly defined and thus insufficient. The aim of this article is therefore to help overcome this shortcoming by unfolding a socio-cultural view on consumption-related formal and informal learning environments in educational organisations. It is assumed that in response to external framings such as curricula or policies and as a result of inner-organisational negotiations, schools bring about distinct ways of relating to consumption and youth consumers that have socialising effects on their students. This article presents a conceptual elaboration of these contexts and processes. It draws on research into the genesis and characteristic fields of school culture and relates this to the domain of consumption. As a result, a detailed framework of organisational 'cultures of consumption' in schools with six thematic domains is presented. The article concludes with a discussion of implications and demands for a new research, practice and policy-making agenda that is needed to advance a more holistic promotion of sustainable consumer education in schools in Europe.

Policy as Assemblage

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Policy as Assemblage
Author: RADHIKA GORUR
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 611-622
ABSTRACT In this article, the author tells the story of her search for appropriate tools to conceptualise policy work. She had set out to explore the relationship between the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Australia's education policy, but early interview data forced her to reconsider her research question. The plethora of available models of policy did not satisfactorily accommodate her growing understanding of the messiness and complexity of policy work. On the basis of interviews with 18 policy actors, including former OECD officials, PISA analysts and bureaucrats, as well as documentary analysis of government reports and ministerial media releases, she suggests that the concept of 'assemblage' provides the tools to better understand the messy processes of policy work. The relationship between PISA and national policy is of interest to many scholars in Europe, making this study widely relevant. An article that argues for the unsettling of tidy accounts of knowledge making in policy can hardly afford to obscure the untidiness of its own assemblage. Accordingly, this article is somewhat unconventional in its presentation, and attempts to take the reader into the messiness of the research world as well as the policy world. Implicit in this presentation is the suggestion that both policy work and research work are ongoing attempts to find order and coherence through the cobbling together of a variety of resources.

Interactions between European Citizenship and Language Learning among Adolescent Europeans

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Title: Interactions between European Citizenship and Language Learning among Adolescent Europeans
Author: MAIRIN HENNEBRY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Pages: 623-641
ABSTRACT Recent enlargement of the European Union (EU) has created debate as to the suitability of current structures and policies for effectively engaging citizens and developing social cohesion. Education and specifically modern foreign language (MFL) teaching are argued by the literature to play a key role in equipping young people to interact and communicate effectively in the ever-changing European context and to exercise their rights as European citizens. However, much of the empirical research to date has focused on adult understandings of European citizenship. Furthermore, very few studies consider whether current MFL teaching is addressing issues of European citizenship or offer a comparison of provision between one member state and another. This study presents questionnaire data from four European countries to investigate young people's current understanding and awareness of European citizenship and the perceived contribution of their language learning experience to this awareness. Findings suggest that knowledge about European citizenship is patchy across the four countries. Reports on learning in MFL lessons indicate a mismatch between the role identified for the subject in the development of European citizenship and the situation in the classroom. Data gathered from English pupils suggest that these issues are more acute in England than they are in France, Spain or Ireland.

Introduction. Philosophy of Education and the Transformation of Educational Systems

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Introduction. Philosophy of Education and the Transformation of Educational Systems
Author: Roland Reichenbach
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 287-291
ABSTRACT Not available

Philosophy of ... Philosophy and ...: taking the conditions we find ourselves in seriously

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Philosophy of ... Philosophy and ...: taking the conditions we find ourselves in seriously
Author: PAUL SMEYERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 292-303
ABSTRACT Starting from Peters' characterization of philosophy of education, the article elaborates the development offered by the Blackwell Guide (i.e. a field of study that involves a variety of approaches, including philosophical analysis with problems rooted in the use of language in educational discourse, addressing the assumptions and values embedded in other disciplinary approaches in the study of education, and exploring what education might be or might become). Taking into account recent developments of educational research, it is argued that room should be made for other forms of study than empirical, be it quantitative or qualitative types of research. A critical discussion of the preoccupation with method - as well as more generally in educational research, in philosophy of education in particular - is offered. It is argued that the conditions we find ourselves in today, for example the demand for performativity in educational contexts, should be taken seriously and that this has implications for what we address in philosophy of education.

From the Scientistic to the Humanistic in the Construction of Contemporary Educational Knowledge

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: From the Scientistic to the Humanistic in the Construction of Contemporary Educational Knowledge
Author: DAVID BRIDGES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 304-321
ABSTRACT The starting point for this article is a lecture given fifty years ago by C.P. Snow under the title 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution', in which Snow critiques what he sees as the damaging intellectual division between the arts and humanities on the one side and the sciences on the other. Fifty years later this problem is, perhaps, better considered in terms of the hegemony of science, or, more accurately, in terms of a very restricted notion of science which the author refers to as 'scientism'. Scientism privileges a very narrow empiricist view of science and in particular experimental methods which allow the measurement of physical and, by extension, human and social phenomena. The article illustrates a number of ways in which such scientism operates to exclude alternative perspectives on experience rooted in the humanities from social and educational enquiry and discourse. It challenges scientism in two ways. First, it argues that it represents an impoverished view of science itself, which, properly understood, draws on a much wider range of methods and methodologies, some of which bring it much closer to humanistic forms of enquiry than the narrow empiricism that is popularly advanced as its defining characteristic. Then the article begins to illustrate, more positively, the sort of contributions to educational understanding that draw essentially from the academic traditions of the humanities. These include: (i) the exploration of human conscious experience and intentionality; (ii) narratives (including auto/biography); (iii) descriptive writing; (iv) normativity; (v) literary, perhaps even 'romantic', sensibility.

Education's Outside

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Education's Outside
Author: PAUL STANDISH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 322-334
ABSTRACT Is the university to be thought of as in service of society - that is, on the inside? Or should it be regarded rather as its potential critic and prophet of its best prospects, and hence be understood to be on the outside? This is just one example of the multiple ways in which thinking in terms of the inside and the outside figures in educational policy and practice. While the opposition recurs across the broad range of our political and personal lives, it is there in the detail of conceptions of teaching and learning, and of the content of the curriculum. This article seeks to examine some implications of this opposition. It does this by reference to an article by Jacques Derrida in which questions concerning the inside and the outside, of inclusion and exclusion, of purity and contamination, are considered in relation to language itself and to the problems and possibilities of translation.

Philosophy of Education: a thorn in the (clay) foot of the educational system

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Philosophy of Education: a thorn in the (clay) foot of the educational system
Author: MICHEL SOËTARD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 335-342
ABSTRACT The article tries to defend the thesis that our educational systems are not doing well (which is not at all original), that the philosophy of education, more often than not, accompanies, justifies and reinforces the malaise of the system (which is already more original), and that it should, without a doubt, question itself in order to know how to support the betterment of education in our societies in crisis.

Philosophy and the Rationalisation of Educative Action: the example of personal autonomy

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Philosophy and the Rationalisation of Educative Action: the example of personal autonomy
Author: PHILIPPE FORAY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 343-355
ABSTRACT In France, the philosophy of education is not accustomed to reflect on the concept of the 'education system'. Often, the 'humanistic' purposes that it gives to education are far away from the real goals of a systematic education. Often also, it is confined to a critical attitude, whose constructive side is missing. Which form of philosophical practice is desirable vis-à-vis the transformations of the education systems? How to develop an at the same time normative and critical thought, which take account of the current evolutions? This is what this contribution is concerned with, using the limited example of personal autonomy.

Philosophy of Education as an Exercise in Thought: to not forget oneself when 'things take their course'

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Philosophy of Education as an Exercise in Thought: to not forget oneself when 'things take their course'
Author: JAN MASSCHELEIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 356-366
ABSTRACT Starting from a distinction between a critical and an ascetic tradition in philosophy and taking into account their different stances towards the present, the article proposes a practice of philosophy of education within the ascetic tradition. In this tradition, the work of philosophy is in the first place a work on the self - that is, putting oneself to 'the test of contemporary reality' - implying an enlightenment not of others but of oneself; however, of oneself not as subject of knowledge, but as subject of action. Putting oneself to the test is, therefore, an exercise in the context of self-education. The article indicates how this exercise can be described as an exercise of/in thought, how it has to be conceived not as a private matter but as a public gesture and as a condition for a truth-telling that is in the first place illuminating and inviting. In order to do so, the article first recalls how Hannah Arendt describes her own work and how this indicates what kind of philosophical practice is entailed in the ascetic tradition. In line with this description, a topical example (i.e. the films of the Belgian Dardenne brothers) is offered of how educational philosophical research in this tradition is carried out today. And, finally, it is clarified how this relates to a proposal for doing 'empirical' philosophical research and for creating laboratories.

Necessary Transformation or Safe Permanence? A Philosophical Approach to the Desire for Change

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Necessary Transformation or Safe Permanence? A Philosophical Approach to the Desire for Change
Author: ANNE-MARIE DROUIN-HANS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 367-374
ABSTRACT What is proposed is a meditation on the phrase 'transformation of the educational system', paying attention to the sense of the words, and showing what the desire for educational change can reveal. After explaining to what extent 'educational system' is a quasi-oxymoron, the meaning of 'transformation' has to be compared to those of revolution and utopia. The claim to be transforming the educational system is an attempt to adapt education to social and political situations and constraints. The case of the Langevin-Wallon project in France, which was never applied, helps when wondering what has to be adapted to what. What sort of reciprocity is there between school and society? The organisation of knowledge itself can be submitted to a transformation. Jeremy Bentham's Chrestomathia expresses such a conception through an unheeded and somehow utopian project. The desire for something new is in itself problematical, and the very fact of it being new cannot be an aim.

The Research of Transformational Education Processes: exemplary considerations on the relation of the philosophy of education and educational research

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: The Research of Transformational Education Processes: exemplary considerations on the relation of the philosophy of education and educational research
Author: HANS-CHRISTOPH KOLLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 375-382
ABSTRACT Confronted with the choice of either insisting on the inevitability of philosophic reflection and thus risking being neglected by research funding and the policy of offering chairs or of giving up on its philosophical orientation and also becoming committed to empirical research, this article suggests a third option for the Philosophy of Education, consisting of a combination of philosophic reflection and empirical research. By the example of the concept of transformational processes of Bildung it will be demonstrated that philosophical reflection is indeed indispensible but may be productively combined with empirical research. As this concept takes up the classical idea of Bildung, as it was developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt, first the relation of this suggestion to this tradition will be sketched. In working out the concept of transformational processes of Bildung the article will then refer to Bernhard Waldenfels' concept of the foreign. As a conclusion the article will indicat what a kind of empirical educational research might look like which aims at researching transformational processes of Bildung.

Role and Function of 'Philosophy of Education' within the Educational Sciences: a cross-national attempt

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Role and Function of 'Philosophy of Education' within the Educational Sciences: a cross-national attempt
Author: VOLKER KRAFT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 383-392
ABSTRACT Disciplinary structures of education across Europe are rather different mainly due to the fact that education as an anthropological phenomenon is deeply rooted in specific cultural and national contexts. For this reason the role philosophy of education plays within the given national educational sciences is somewhat divergent and not easy to compare. In face of these difficulties the article argues for a cross-national attempt using theorems deriving from modern systems theory. From such a perspective philosophy of education can be regarded as a special 'knowledge system' and its function consists in re-including what has been excluded in the process of rationalisation of education; it serves, so to speak, as a special type of reflection knowledge which is as timeless as it is necessary and therefore of meta-national relevance and indispensable for the process of Europeanisation of education.

EU Funding and Issues of 'Marketisation' of Higher Education in Greece

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: EU Funding and Issues of 'Marketisation' of Higher Education in Greece
Author: DIONYSIOS GOUVIAS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 393-406
ABSTRACT In the last 10 years, tens of millions of euros from European Union (EU) funding have started to flow into Greece's state schools and universities. New departments of higher education have been established all over the country, and a new institutional framework for lifelong learning has been recently set up. Considering the above context, certain questions arise, such as what is the 'agenda' behind the EU-funding rhetoric, which has been officially linked to the 'opening up' of higher education and the 'widening' of opportunities. Initially, the author tries to assess the degree of 'marketisation' vis-à-vis EU involvement in the planning of higher education policy making, and to highlight the balance of power in educational policy making in Greece. To this end, special reference will be made to the Greek academics' response to the new legislation concerning the financing of higher education.

Self-Study Research and the Development of Teacher Educators' Professional Identities

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Self-Study Research and the Development of Teacher Educators' Professional Identities
Author: MIEKE LUNENBERG; FRED KORTHAGEN; ROSANNE ZWART
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 407-420
ABSTRACT This article presents the results of a study on the project 'Teacher Educators Study Their Own Practices'. Nine teacher educators participated and conducted a self-study into their own practices. The leading question of this article is whether their self-studies contributed to the development of their professional identities. Data sources were digital logbooks, exit interviews, and follow-up questionnaires. The results show that conducting self-study research supports theoretical growth, ongoing development, the production of knowledge, and the enhancement of self-confidence. What these results could mean for the teacher educators themselves and their practices, and for the professional community of teacher educators, is discussed in the final section of this article.

The Projectisation, Marketisation and Therapisation of Education

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: The Projectisation, Marketisation and Therapisation of Education
Author: KRISTIINA BRUNILA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 421-433
ABSTRACT Publicly funded projects with economic aims and discourses have permeated the public sector, including education. In practice this has meant a shift whereby publicly funded education has evolved into a series of business-oriented projects with individually targeted activities. The rapidly increasing amount of project-based work in education is a result of a shift whereby Finland has become a project society. In this article I will disclose the alliance between projectisation, marketisation and therapisation of education in Finland by analysing project-based equality training in education and project-based training and guidance for young adults. Both activities operate in quite different contexts in the field of adult education but are still targeted by similar forms of power that I aim to analyse in this article.

On the Reception of Foucauldian Ideas in Pedagogical Research

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: On the Reception of Foucauldian Ideas in Pedagogical Research
Author: HELENA OSTROWICKA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 433-444
ABSTRACT The article is devoted to the presentation of the reception of Foucauldian ideas in Polish pedagogical research over the past twenty years. This movement of thought is described as an oscillation between heterotopia and utopia, autonomy and heteronomy, emancipation and repression. As results of this analysis indicate, Polish pedagogues are most interested in those of Foucault's analyses which undertake an inquiry into the problems of discursive power or reveal the generative conditions shaping particular discursive formations. The concepts of disciplinary and pastoral power are adopted and utilised for analysing power relations inscribed in discourses of gender, market, childhood, youth, disability, homelessness and subjectivity. Apart from this, the article discusses the Polish reception of Foucauldian texts devoted to the critique of the autonomous subject and to his project of heterotopology. In conclusion, the author points to the inspirations issuing from the works of the French philosopher which encourage us to depart from a dualistic mode of reasoning.

Interruptions and Failure in Higher Education: evidence from ISEG-UTL

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: Interruptions and Failure in Higher Education: evidence from ISEG-UTL
Author: MARGARIDA CHAGAS; GRAÇA LEÃO FERNANDES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 445-460
ABSTRACT Failure in higher education (HE) is the outcome of multiple time-dependent determinants. Interruptions in students' individual school trajectories are one of them, and that is why research on this topic has been attracting much attention these days. From an individual point of view, it is expected that interruptions in school trajectory, whatever the reason, influence success in undergraduate programmes, and this success is measured either by time required to obtain a degree, by the scores obtained in some more 'critical' subjects in these programmes, or by the number of enrolment registrations. The study of the impact of interruptions on failure in HE is also important to help education institutions fight this problem, and to support policy measures related to the articulation between upper secondary and HE programmes. In previous research the authors have shed some light on the determinants of failure in the first year of HE studies. In this article, the authors' major concern is to find some evidence of the effect of interruptions on HE failure among students using a life-cycle approach. They are interested to know whether such effects are related to gender and/or specific graduation programme. They also want to investigate whether work experience may counterbalance the effect of interruption on academic success. They hope to be able to derive some useful recommendations to address policy making in the fields of pedagogic methodologies in HE, articulation between academic and occupational learning in the framework of the Bologna Process, and public funding/fellowship policies in HE.

REVIEW ESSAY. Globalization, New Modes of Governance and Educational Challenges: a comparative review

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:49:04 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. Globalization, New Modes of Governance and Educational Challenges: a comparative review
Author: Ana Márcia Pires
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Pages: 461-466
ABSTRACT Not available

Paving the Way to the Future? Education and Young Europeans' Paths to Work and Independence

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Paving the Way to the Future? Education and Young Europeans' Paths to Work and Independence
Author: LISBETH LUNDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 168-179
ABSTRACT This article discusses young people's transitions from school to work at a time when educational systems have become more closely connected to the economy than ever before. The serious situation of high unemployment, unstable employment conditions and poverty among young people and young adults in Europe is highlighted. Using Sweden as an illuminative example, it is argued that the increasing commercialisation and competition within the education sector add to the risks connected to school-to-work transitions. The associated shift to outcome-based curricula and focus on narrow competences and skills rather than a broad education including social, cultural and democratic elements, will provide young people with poor navigation instruments in this process. The need to analyse the long-term impact of the market-oriented culture on young people's self-understanding, orientations and choices is emphasized.

Experiences of Cultural Diversity in the Context of an Emergent Transnationalism

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Experiences of Cultural Diversity in the Context of an Emergent Transnationalism
Author: FAZAL RIZVI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 180-188
ABSTRACT In this article, the author argues that despite wide-ranging appeal of the discourses of globalization, our modes of thinking and ways of addressing issues of cultural diversity remain trapped within a national framework. The dominant constructions of cultural diversity often overlook the ways in which experiences of diversity now take place in emergent spaces that transcend national borders. Using a number of personal narratives, the author shows how experiences of diversity are now affected by dilemmas, contradictions and risks increasingly associated with multiple, dynamic, flexible and intersecting social affiliations. He suggests that this conclusion has major implications for thinking about the requirements of educational policy and practice committed to social inclusion and justice.

Multiple Embedded Inequalities and Cultural Diversity in Educational Systems: a theoretical and empirical exploration

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Multiple Embedded Inequalities and Cultural Diversity in Educational Systems: a theoretical and empirical exploration
Author: MARIE VERHOEVEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 189-203
ABSTRACT This article explores the social construction of cultural diversity in education, with a view to social justice. It examines how educational systems organize ethno-cultural difference and how this process contributes to inequalities. Theoretical resources are drawn from social philosophy as well as from recent developments in social organisation theory. It is argued that ethnic minority pupils face multiple sources of inequalities, of a social (redistributive) and cultural (recognition) nature. The first section argues that these dimensions are made more 'durable' through institutionalized patterns of norms and routines. The second section develops this proposal at three empirical levels: the macro-level of educational systems, where national narratives interact with structural educational patterns to shape ethnic inequalities; the intermediate level of local spaces of interdependency, where we scrutinize segregation and institutional discrimination; and, finally in this section, we look at single-school policies of difference as the product of educational 'niches'. In the last section, the author argues that these multiple embedded inequalities significantly determine pupils' opportunities, identity and 'capability' building. New perspectives for multilevel approaches to inequality and qualitative international comparison are suggested.

Intersections and Translocations: new paradigms for thinking about cultural diversity and social identities

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Intersections and Translocations: new paradigms for thinking about cultural diversity and social identities
Author: FLOYA ANTHIAS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 204-217
ABSTRACT This article reflects on the concepts of cultural diversity, belonging and identity which inform important debates for managing 'difference' in contemporary European societies. These address issues relating to transnational migration, ethnic diversity and racialisation in a range of social contexts. The article also reflects on the concept of intersectionality as a means of developing a more integrated analysis of social divisions and identities relating particularly to gender, ethnicity and class. It is clear that once we focus on the intersectionality of social divisions and identities, we can move away from essentialised notions of culture, difference and belonging. However, the complexity of social divisions and their inter-relations, both as analytical categories and as categories of practice, asks us to rethink the terms that we use for understanding both identity formations and forms of inequality. This article considers the utility of a more intersectional framing and the notion of translocational positionality in understanding the articulation of social identities.

Researching the Powerful: seeking knowledge about policy

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Researching the Powerful: seeking knowledge about policy
Author: JENNY OZGA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 218-224
ABSTRACT This article introduces the articles in the collection on 'Researching the Powerful' by providing some background on the project 'Knowledge and Policy' which gave rise to the research on which the articles are based. It also offers some reflections on the 'work of construction' of research, with particular attention to the ways in which policy elites, which are the main focus of the research processes described and discussed in the articles that follow, seek to control, manipulate and manage the research process. This article draws attention to a finding reported in many of the articles in this special edition - namely, that this work of construction that policy makers do becomes in itself a source of knowledge about policy.

Negotiating Power: interviews with the policy elite - stories from Hungary lost between genres

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Negotiating Power: interviews with the policy elite - stories from Hungary lost between genres
Author: ESZTER NEUMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 225-232
ABSTRACT This article looks at methodological issues arising from collecting data from policy makers. Interview episodes highlight how the processes of role-ascription and the negotiation of competences between the interviewee and the interviewer can be meaningful in terms of the analysis of 'elite interviews'. In the interviews, the interactions reveal how the informant makes sense of the relation between research, knowledge and policy-making. In illustrating how the informant presents himself/herself as policy-maker and ascribes the role of the researcher, the data condense the efforts to bridge different cognitive worlds on both sides and help us understand the working of the institutional-organizational context within which the informant is embedded. This negotiation may be very complex indeed if the informant wishes to maintain a positioning as a researcher as well as a policy-maker, something that is increasingly common as evidence-informed policy-making brings research and policy into closer relationship. The article draws on the experiences of interviewing and data collection for the KnowandPol project, with attention to the politics of the specific context of Hungary. It concludes that context is highly significant in both negotiating and making sense of interviews with policy-makers. It highlights the specific circumstances of enquiry in post-Socialist regimes, where uncertainty about role and status is present on both sides. With the scientization of policy-making, policy-makers as commissioners of various analyses tend to understand themselves as competent readers of social sciences who are also conversant with social science discourse. This also shapes their expectations towards the interview situation and the way they want to present themselves.

Interviewing the Education Policy Elite in Scotland: a changing picture?

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Interviewing the Education Policy Elite in Scotland: a changing picture?
Author: SOTIRIA GREK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 233-241
ABSTRACT In Scotland, access to the 'policy community' is relatively easy and relations are very relaxed, but this may be interpreted as a different means of managing and co-opting researchers. However, the relationships of the different actors, and the kinds of knowledge they draw on, are in a process of change. Since parliamentary devolution there has been (at least at the level of discourse) a strong move to shift away from the traditionally highly centralised forms of policy-making in education towards a more negotiated, decentralised and network form of governance, with more attention to processes of consultation and accountability. This article considers the new challenges and opportunities presented to international early career researchers when interviewing education policy elites in Scotland today.

Dealing with Opposition: uncomfortable moments in research

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Dealing with Opposition: uncomfortable moments in research
Author: ESTELA COSTA; ADEL KISS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 242-251
ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to contribute to methodological discussions on elite interviewing. The point of departure is that elite interviewing constitutes/represents continuous challenges for researchers. This may be due to several reasons; one of these concerns the possible critical incidents that may occur in the course of the interview. The article applies a reflexive perspective, and so draws on two critical incidents of elite interviewing experienced in different research contexts. The theoretical assumptions reflect on the literature on the use of power and the changing power relations in the interview. Then, through thoughts on the dialogical nature of the interview, the article moves to practical reflections and approaches. Through the case analysis the article illuminates moments of difficulty in interviewing, and it calls attention to the necessity of deploying and employing possible strategies for the successful management of the interview. Finally the article not only presents the research and policy relation/constellation in a given context, but highlights the fact that reflexivity contributes to the accountability of the researcher and of the research.

Producing Dangerous Knowledge: researching knowledge production in Belgium

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Producing Dangerous Knowledge: researching knowledge production in Belgium
Author: CATHERINE MANGEZ; ERIC MANGEZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 252-258
ABSTRACT This is an article about the struggle for control of knowledge in a divided society. It starts off by describing Belgium as a consociational democracy - that is, a society organized around integrated pillars of society (Catholic, secular), each of which provides a wide range of services (educational, training, health, health insurance, social care, family planning, leisure) to 'its' people. This special politico-institutional arrangement inherited from the past, though it has evolved, still has profound implications for the way knowledge circulates (or not) and for the way it is used (or not) and perceived both within pillars and across the policy realm: the co-existence of distinct communities requires a form of discretion. The article then goes on to describe the specific incidents that occurred in the course of a recent research project: the authors' written reports produced unexpected effects. They try to make sense of these events by reflecting on how the specific Belgian context can affect and be affected by the production of knowledge about itself. Finally, they extend their reflection to other contexts by emphasizing the general process behind their observation: the transformative effect of knowledge. Knowledge needs to be understood as an act (of construction) that can affect its very object of analysis.

Standardizing the European Education Policy Space

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: Standardizing the European Education Policy Space
Author: MARTIN LAWN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 259-272
ABSTRACT Countries in Europe, through the European Union, are creating, as part of the market and its governance, a new policy space in education. It is being formed through law, regulation, networking and harmonization. The development of standards across the different fields of policy, statistical calculation and commerce underpins and extends the creation of policy spaces. Europeanization processes in education have some subtle and yet powerful features created through measurement and standardization. They may have a technical form but they are knowledge based, policy driven and exclude politics. Europe is at the leading edge of new forms of governance in education.

The Role of Explanations and Prescriptions in the Science of Design: the case of educational research

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: The Role of Explanations and Prescriptions in the Science of Design: the case of educational research
Author: JOSÉ PENALVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 273-280
ABSTRACT This article develops the idea that the sciences of the design perspective offer a more adequate solution for bridging the gap between explanations and prescriptions in educational research. This idea is developed over the following steps: first, the scope of the analysis and the problem of the relationship between explanations and prescription are expounded; second, the article examines the relevance of the science of the design perspective and the advantages compared with the traditional view in educational research; third, it considers educational research as a science of design; and finally, predictions and prescriptions are assigned a new role in the field of educational research.

National Policies and New Forms of Social Regulation within the Framework of Europeanization

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:52:20 GMT

Title: National Policies and New Forms of Social Regulation within the Framework of Europeanization
Author: Estela Costa
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Pages: 281-286
ABSTRACT Not available

'Youth' Making Us Fit: on Europe as operator of political technologies

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: 'Youth' Making Us Fit: on Europe as operator of political technologies
Author: ULF OLSSON; KENNETH PETERSSON; JOHN B. KREJSLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-10
ABSTRACT This article problematizes the construction of youth as a 'driving force' in the contemporary configuration of the European Union (EU) as an educational and political space. The study draws empirical nourishment out of documents that are central to the ongoing formation of the Union, be it White Papers, scripts or memos concerning political arenas such as youth and education policies and the Bologna process. Theoretically the article draws on insights from post-Foucauldian traditions with a focus on mentalities, subject constructions, technologies and practices operating within the ongoing governmentalization of Europe. Central questions are 'who' and 'what' the problematization of youth as political technology is about. Drawing on homologies in the coding of citizen, independent of age, the authors claim that problematization of youth is directed to all of us. We are all, in the name of youth, expected to constantly 'adapt' ourselves in compliance with the aim of the Lisbon process. Furthermore, as the Union itself is coded in a similar way, we may even claim that the EU, literally speaking, appears as a youth project in itself. Thus, the notion that youth can be seen as political rationality that becomes a powerful driving force in the ongoing European project.

Making the Lisbon Strategy Happen: a new phase of lifelong learning discourse in European policy?

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Making the Lisbon Strategy Happen: a new phase of lifelong learning discourse in European policy?
Author: ANDREAS NORDIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 11-20
ABSTRACT The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language. This policy trajectory has taken the discourse from an initial phase of great social visions to a second phase focusing on the need for self-regulated and morally responsible citizens. Recent research on the topic indicates that we are now standing at the threshold of a discursive shift where action instead of visions is at stake. Against this background the author asks if there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase. The author uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework and the analysis of the empirical material points to a direction where it is relevant to speak about a new 'phase' of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation. In this article a tentative conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented 'phase' can be understood.

The Bologna Process Policy Implementation in Russia and Ukraine: similarities and differences

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: The Bologna Process Policy Implementation in Russia and Ukraine: similarities and differences
Author: DARIA LUCHINSKAYA; OLENA OVCHYNNIKOVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 21-33
ABSTRACT The recent establishment of the European Higher Education Area and the ongoing monitoring carried out by the Bologna Follow-up Group raises the question: to what extent have the objectives of the Bologna Process been implemented in the varied higher education systems of the 47 signatory states, including the former Soviet Union states? This article concentrates on the extent of the Bologna Process implementation in Russia and Ukraine at the national policy level, focusing on the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), the dual-cycle degree organisation and the development of quality assurance. Based on official documentation, it appears that by 2009 Ukraine had achieved more than Russia in the implementation of Bologna aims and objectives. The theoretical approach suggested by Heinze and Krill is used to identify the national considerations of Russia and Ukraine relative to the Bologna Process, and Phillips and Ochs' model of policy transfer is employed to analyse the similarities and differences of the Bologna Process implementation in Russia and Ukraine. The findings suggest that while Ukraine may have implemented more of the Bologna Process objectives overall, including ECTS and the degree cycles, Russia has made progress in the diploma supplement, and both countries are at a similar level of quality assurance.

Student Training in Transversal Competences at the University of Cordoba

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Student Training in Transversal Competences at the University of Cordoba
Author: ROSARIO MÉRIDA SERRANO; JULIA ANGULO ROMERO; MANUEL JURADO BELLO; JOSÉ DIZ PÉREZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 34-52
ABSTRACT This article describes a research project developed at the University of Cordoba during the academic year 2007-8, in which 2414 students took part, all studying courses included in a pilot scheme for the implementation of European Credit Transfer System credits. The aim was to ascertain the opinions of students in relation to their grasp and working level of the transversal competences encompassed in the Tuning Project. This article begins by clarifying the concept of competence as it is understood here, then contextualises the study within the research being carried out both within Spain and abroad, and finally presents the research results and identifies the most valued and least developed competences with a view to planning useful training activities.

Deconstructing 'Aspiration': UK policy debates and European policy trends

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Deconstructing 'Aspiration': UK policy debates and European policy trends
Author: KONSTANZE SPOHRER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 53-63
ABSTRACT Strategies of 'employability' and 'activation' are increasingly favoured in the European Union policy context. These strategies are aimed at fostering inclusion by stressing the responsibility of the individual to participate in education and employment. Similar tendencies can be observed in the United Kingdom (UK) over the last decade, among them a debate on raising young people's aspirations. The article reports first findings from a research project on the construction of 'aspiration' in and through policy debates in the United Kingdom. Drawing on Michel Foucault's concepts of Archaeology and Genealogy, policy documents were analysed for the discursive strategies they employ. The analysis suggests that the debate on 'aspiration' constructs young people from disadvantaged backgrounds as deficient, conflates economic and social equality discourses and individualises structural problems. These discursive strategies mirror tendencies that can be observed in strategies of activation and employability in the United Kingdom and the European Union. Focusing on 'aspiration' can be regarded as a way to prepare young people for the responsibility to actively pursue labour market participation at an even earlier stage.

A Challenge to Metrics as Evidence of Scholarity

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: A Challenge to Metrics as Evidence of Scholarity
Author: BONNIE L. STELMACH; STUART D. VON WOLFF
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 64-82
ABSTRACT Now that universities have shifted their priorities to those of the 'cash nexus', they increasingly articulate their accomplishments and validate their existence in business terms for a globally competitive academic market. But corporatizing trends and the use of bibliometric tools that rank publication and quantify scholarity impact a redefinition and reconceptualization of what it means to be a scholar as an instrument of the corporate regime. Judith Butler's notion of normalizing categories is the lens through which this article examines European and United Kingdom corporatizing strategies such as the Bologna Process and Research Assessment Exercise. Key to the discussion is a critique of bibliometric accountability mechanisms that privilege quantification and promote academic materialism. These devices become normative, and, thus, the definition of scholarity to which academics default.

Communicative Competences and the Use of ICT for Foreign Language Learning within the European Student Exchange Programme ERASMUS

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Communicative Competences and the Use of ICT for Foreign Language Learning within the European Student Exchange Programme ERASMUS
Author: JOSÉ IGNACIO; CRISTINA POZO VICENTE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 83-101
ABSTRACT This article presents the results from a mainly statistical and comparative analysis regarding the communicative competences and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) of German exchange students. The data was extracted from two exhaustive, rigorous and methodical questionnaires related to communicative and ICT competences, which were completed by 20 exchange students from the Romanisches Seminar at the University of Bonn, Germany, their native language being German, whilst learning Spanish as a foreign language. Generally, the results confirm that a six-month stay in a foreign country increases the use of ICT and widely improves language skills, which can also be referred to as communicative competences in Spanish for native speakers of German.

Dilemmas in the Implementation of Children's Right to Equity in Education in the Swedish Compulsory School

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Dilemmas in the Implementation of Children's Right to Equity in Education in the Swedish Compulsory School
Author: GUADALUPE FRANCIA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 102-117
ABSTRACT In order to illustrate and discuss the impacts of neo-liberal educational policies on equity, this article analyses the effects of different kinds of decentralisation strategies on the implementation of children's right to an equitable education in Sweden. It begins with a comprehensive overview of the changes implemented in the Swedish compulsory school system during the last two decades. It analyses the processes of transfer of authority and responsibility and discusses the complexity of interpreting these processes in terms of equity. This article examines the complex and contextual nature and consequences of decentralisation and centralisation strategies in order to better understand the implementation of children's right to equity in school practice. Although this analysis is based on the Swedish experience, it can contribute to a better understanding of the impacts of neo-liberal educational policies on equity in other European contexts.

Flexible Grouping as a Means for Classroom Management in a Heterogeneous Classroom

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Flexible Grouping as a Means for Classroom Management in a Heterogeneous Classroom
Author: ANNA RYTIVAARA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 118-128
ABSTRACT This article concerns issues of classroom management in heterogeneous classrooms. Although research in the field of learning styles has yielded mixed results, there is a call for information about how they could be used to individualize instruction, especially in primary schools. This article is part of an ethnographic study aiming to examine teacher collaboration in a primary school and it draws strongly on field notes and on interviews with teachers. The intention was to discover how the two teachers in the classroom studied categorized pupils according to the learning styles model they had invented, and how the resulting groups were used for the purposes of classroom management. The study revealed that, first, learning styles seem to work as a grouping method and, second, that flexible grouping can diminish problematic situations traditionally related to heterogeneous classrooms.

Convening a Network within the European Conference on Educational Research: a history of the Social Justice and Intercultural Education Network

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Convening a Network within the European Conference on Educational Research: a history of the Social Justice and Intercultural Education Network
Author: GHAZALA BHATTI; YVONNE LEEMAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 129-142
ABSTRACT The experience of initiating and sustaining a research-based dialogue on social justice and intercultural education in Europe requires both flexibility and focus. This article highlights the challenges facing convenors of one network, who wish to include researchers from diverse backgrounds, while at the same time enhancing the academic quality of the papers presented at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER). This article presents a brief history of 15 years of networking with a view to discussing some of the main issues which have emerged over the years. The work of Network 7, Social Justice and Intercultural Education, raises significant questions. Is it necessary or desirable to develop a common theoretical language and/or a body of knowledge? And, if so, how can this be done in a scientific world governed by the English language and Anglo-Saxon research traditions? How should differences in research interests and traditions from different parts of Europe be included taking asymmetric power relations into account? Other issues include the incorporation within social justice of discourses on gender, ethnicity, disability and religion. The article defines the interlinked key concepts of social justice and intercultural education which guide the work of the network. A brief history follows, describing the challenges facing the network. These include the issue of language, the discussions during the ECER, the image of the network and the choice of network descriptors. As research is influenced by scientific traditions and cultural, political and financial contexts, it is difficult for the network convenors to influence or direct the research agenda. The article is based on network archives, including documents such as conference programmes; memos; letters; network descriptors and reports; discussions about the selection and acceptance of proposals as recorded in emails and letters; convenors' reflections; and analysis of participants' formal and informal evaluations of network sessions. The issues raised in this article will continue to be debated at the ECER.

Transdisciplinarity? On Discipline, Method and the Danger of a New Homogenization of Educational Research

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Transdisciplinarity? On Discipline, Method and the Danger of a New Homogenization of Educational Research
Author: Paul Smeyers
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 143-157
ABSTRACT Not available

Interdisciplinarity in the Context of University Politics

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Interdisciplinarity in the Context of University Politics
Author: Leena Koski
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 148-152
ABSTRACT Not available

Multidisciplinary Cooperation in Education: the Munich Center of the Learning Sciences

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Multidisciplinary Cooperation in Education: the Munich Center of the Learning Sciences
Author: Frank Fischer; Hermann Müller; Rudolf Tippelt
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 153-159
ABSTRACT Not available

Education and Social Integration: comprehensive schooling in Europe

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:18:56 GMT

Title: Education and Social Integration: comprehensive schooling in Europe
Author: Markus Maurer
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2011 Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 160-167
ABSTRACT Not available

A European Space for Education Looking for Its Public

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: A European Space for Education Looking for Its Public
Author: NINNI WAHLSTRÖM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 432-443
ABSTRACT The open method of coordination (OMC) within the Lisbon strategy is discussed in terms of a European Space for Education and 'programme ontology'. The focus is on indicators and the European dimension, and how they 'work' in the forming of contents and identities in this European Space for Education. The OMC is analyzed in relation to Nancy Fraser's theoretical public-sphere approach of discourses about needs, instead of inquiry from needs. Central to the article is the problematization of the shift from national theories and methodologies to theories that might be better suited to an international European educational arena. Hence, in the final part of the article, the public-sphere theory is discussed from the point of view of globalization and within a transnational frame for education.

European Citizenship and European Union Expansion: perspectives on Europeanness and citizenship education from Britain and Turkey

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: European Citizenship and European Union Expansion: perspectives on Europeanness and citizenship education from Britain and Turkey
Author: CHRIS WILKINS; HUGH BUSHER; TONY LAWSON; ISMAIL ACUN; NUR LEMAN GÖZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 444-456
ABSTRACT This article discusses some perspectives on citizenship education in Turkey and Britain in the context of current contested discourses on the nature of European identity and of the European Union (EU). It is based on data collected during an EU-funded student teacher exchange programme between three universities in Turkey and Leicester University in the United Kingdom. The programme facilitated participants’ investigations of their understandings of citizenship and citizenship education in Britain and Turkey. Data was collected by questionnaire from 581 Turkish student teachers and 85 British student teachers involved with citizenship education and, during the exchange visits, through focus group interviews with 14 British and 14 Turkish students. Both groups thought citizenship education was key to creating ‘good citizens’ in their countries, but the nature of this citizenship was perceived to differ between countries. The Turkish students placed a strong emphasis on national identity and Turkish citizenship, whilst the British students focused more on democracy, social justice, global citizenship and human rights. Students from both countries questioned the efficacy of the pedagogical approaches that they observed during school visits in each other’s countries.

An American Construction of European Education Space

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: An American Construction of European Education Space
Author: IVETA SILOVA; WILLIAM C. BREHM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 457-470
ABSTRACT The construction of the European education space has typically been attributed to European education policy makers, institutions, and networks. Rarely do scholars consider the role of outside, non-European actors in shaping the terrain of European education thought and practice. This article considers the construction of the European education space as a borderless project with multidirectional flows of ideas, policies, and academics. While this project has created an intellectual space for the emergence of new theoretical insights and policy instruments within Europe, it has also had inevitable consequences for the study of comparative education outside Europe. This article explores how American scholars have attempted to influence the development of comparative education as a field in the United States by purposefully constructing specific notions of European education during the cold war (1969-85). Drawing on content analysis of comparative education scholarship in Western European Education - a journal published in the United States - this article discusses the role of journal editors in the construction of European education spaces in order to advance not only a marginalized geographical area of study within the expanding American field of comparative education, but also a methodological vision for the future of comparative education, one free of positivist techniques, quantitative methodologies, and modernization ideologies.

Europeanising Intercultural Education: politics and policy making in Cyprus

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: Europeanising Intercultural Education: politics and policy making in Cyprus
Author: CHRISTINA HAJISOTERIOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 471-483
ABSTRACT Historically, education policy making has been interwoven with the nation-building project. However, the centrality of the nation state in education policy making has been constrained by a wide range of new socio-political and economic phenomena that relate to European integration. This article explores the ways in which European education policies are mediated and reframed by national institutions through the case study of the development of intercultural education in Cyprus. It examines: (a) the types of interaction between European and national intercultural policies; (b) the ways in which European intercultural policies are mediated by national institutions; and (c) the impact of this process for the making and implementation of Cypriot policy regarding intercultural education. Intercultural education relates to a wide range of sociocultural, political and economic phenomena, while it is based on values that affirm cultural pluralism. Thus, the aim of this article is to provide a global perspective of intercultural education in a European state (Cyprus) that seeks conflict resolution.

Mediation in Local Educational Governance: the Educating Cities movement in a Portuguese town

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: Mediation in Local Educational Governance: the Educating Cities movement in a Portuguese town
Author: JOANA LÚCIO; TIAGO NEVES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 484-497
ABSTRACT Educational processes have had to deal with the significant changes that have been occurring throughout the world, at different levels, in the last few decades. The Educating Cities movement, which has been followed by cities from all over the world - from Rwanda to Denmark, through Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Italy - is an attempt to deal with such changes. The movement defines the deepening of the practice of democratic values as the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. This article explores the role of social and educational mediation in the Educating Cities movement. Its empirical focus is on some of the experiences of the cities that belong to this network, with a special emphasis on the city of Porto, Portugal.

Researchers under Pressure: a comparative study of new forms of producing, advising and transmitting knowledge in Brazil and the European Union

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: Researchers under Pressure: a comparative study of new forms of producing, advising and transmitting knowledge in Brazil and the European Union
Author: LUCÍDIO BIANCHETTI; ELISA MARIA QUARTIERO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 498-509
ABSTRACT This article presents some data from the literature and opinions from responses to interviews with 74 Brazilian and 15 European researchers. They were questioned about their work and the consequences to their lives caused by the changes imposed by the Coordinating Agency for Improvement in Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in Brazil and the implementation of the second and third cycles of the Bologna process. The measures by CAPES, the Brazilian agency that evaluates and provides financial support to graduate education, and the Bologna process are among the strategies to reconstruct higher education. They can be metaphorically compared with a chain in which one of the links is very weak or broken: researchers are under tremendous pressure to present results. Studies have been conducted in Brazil on the responsibilities of these professionals and the consequences for their work and their lives. In terms of the Bologna process, however, the most important discovery is that discussion of the role of professors, supervisors and researchers is still relegated to the realm of commonplace suggestions. Meanwhile, globalization creates many challenges and requires that attention be paid by - and to - all those involved in this process.

The Collaborative Production of Meaningful Measure(ment)s: preliminary insights into a work in progress

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: The Collaborative Production of Meaningful Measure(ment)s: preliminary insights into a work in progress
Author: INKA BORMANN; GERD MICHELSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 510-518
ABSTRACT This article introduces a tri-national research and development project which aims to develop indicators for the cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary educational task 'education for sustainable development' (ESD). These indicators are meant to help monitor the implementation of ESD efforts in schools and institutions of higher education and, potentially, may apply to educational monitoring reports. As these kinds of indicator-based reports address a variety of stakeholders, the article focuses on how these stakeholders are included in the process of developing a set of ESD indicators in the course of the project. Its empirical stages and intentions are therefore presented, as well as some of the project's main challenges and the ways of coping with them.

The Europeanization of Education Policies: a research agenda

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:06:02 GMT

Title: The Europeanization of Education Policies: a research agenda
Author: Bénédicte Robert
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Pages: 519-524
ABSTRACT Not available

Stating the Obvious: the European Qualifications Framework is not a neutral evidence-based policy tool

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Stating the Obvious: the European Qualifications Framework is not a neutral evidence-based policy tool
Author: PIA CORT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 304-316
ABSTRACT In European Union policy documents, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is described as a neutral tool embedded in an evidence-based policy process. Its purpose is to improve the transparency, comparability and portability of qualifications in the European Union. The aim of this article is to denaturalise the EQF discourse through a discursive reading of the EQF policy and a review of research on national qualifications frameworks in a number of primarily Anglo-Saxon countries. The argument may seem obvious: the EQF policy is not neutral (policies never are), nor is there evidence to substantiate the claim that the EQF is a case of policy learning from 'good practice'.

European Teacher Education: a fractal perspective tackling complexity

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: European Teacher Education: a fractal perspective tackling complexity
Author: FRANCESCA CAENA; UMBERTO MARGIOTTA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 317-331
ABSTRACT This article takes stock of the complex scenario of the European education space in its past, present and future developments, which highlights the priorities of the modernisation, improvement and convergence of the goals for education and training systems in the knowledge and learning society. The critical case of teacher education is then analysed within the European Higher Education Area, with its characteristic display of national and cultural features and constraints, often jostling with European recommendations about the competences and preparation of quality European teachers. This results in changes and reforms at a diverse pace, or even with contradictory trends, in different national contexts. An approach for tackling some of these issues has been devised by the European project EMETT (European Master for European Teacher Training), involving an academic network of eight universities within its Lifelong Learning Programme. The outcomes and reflections of this project work are thus reported, concerning the development and implementation of a European teacher education curriculum for a joint Master's degree. The key European priorities of mobility and intercultural, multilingual competences in teacher education have been taken into account within the framework of an integrated, flexible curriculum that can best be described by a fractal metaphor dealing with complexity from an ecological perspective.

Lifelong Learning: conceptualizations in European educational policy documents

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Lifelong Learning: conceptualizations in European educational policy documents
Author: MARIANA GAIO ALVES; CLAUDIA NEVES; ELISABETE XAVIER GOMES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 332-344
ABSTRACT Over recent years, lifelong learning has been a central and guiding principle in the formulation of European educational policies. Within this general framework, the authors have been developing a research project that allows them to approach the theme of lifelong learning and European educational policies, taking into account four levels of analysis, namely: the supranational, the national, the institutional and, finally, the individual level of analysis. This methodological strategy reflects a theoretical understanding of policy as the result of the actions of a diversity of actors at different levels. This article focuses on the supranational level of analysis, drawing on data from an analysis of European educational policy documents. First, the authors clarify the methodological issues raised by the research findings presented. Second, they discuss the results concerning the process of definition of European educational policies. Third, the authors briefly revisit the evolution of the idea of lifelong learning and discuss the results regarding its plurality of meanings and conceptualizations within the documents considered for analysis.

Education Policy Convergence through the Open Method of Coordination: theoretical reflections and implementation in 'old' and 'new' national contexts

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Education Policy Convergence through the Open Method of Coordination: theoretical reflections and implementation in 'old' and 'new' national contexts
Author: NAFSIKA ALEXIADOU; DANICA FINK-HAFNER; BETTINA LANGE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 345-358
ABSTRACT This article addresses two key questions about the convergence of education policies in the European Union (EU). How does the open method of coordination (OMC), a new governance instrument for the Europeanisation of education policies, change existing national education policy making and how can the OMC and national responses to it be researched? The authors argue that the OMC brings to national policy making a particular set of ideas about education, such as an emphasis on the contribution of education to building competitive economies and a new public management approach. The authors further suggest that the significance of such policy ideas in national education policy making can be best analysed through a combination of sociological institutionalism and discourse analysis. Hence, 'implementation' of EU education measures - which have been developed through policy learning - should be understood as a combination of a 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' policy-making process that links EU and national levels. Finally, the article suggests - on the basis of a preliminary exploration of the implementation of education OMC measures in the United Kingdom and Slovenia - that education OMC policy ideas resonate to varying degrees in 'old' and 'new' member states.

The Politics of the Economics of Education in the European Union

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: The Politics of the Economics of Education in the European Union
Author: PETER JONES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 359-380
ABSTRACT This article critically examines the work of the European Commission-sponsored network, the European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE). The aim is to develop understanding of the context and significance of the mobilization of the economics of education research and policy paradigm within the European Union's Education and Training 2010 Work Programme. Drawing on a summary of the paradigm and critical assessment of policy texts produced by the network, the article examines the strategic opportunities which the paradigm offers the Commission in its attempts to promote reform of member state education and training systems. It is argued that the policy documents produced by the Commission drawing on the work of the EENEE demonstrate the intention to promote the network's findings as the basis for education reform. However, in key respects, the paradigm has proved unable to gain member state commitment to pursuing an economics of education agenda for reform. The established European Union policy on 'efficiency and equity in education and training' displays a marked reluctance to frame education and training funding in economic terms while at the same time drawing on key economics of education policy priorities (preschool education, the need to reflect on the efficiency and equity implications of tracking, and the importance of ongoing reflection on the funding of higher education). In conclusion, the article argues that the Commission has mobilized the economics of education politically and strategically but that tactical and selective use of an economic evidence base within the negotiation of European Union policy positions has done more to establish the European Union level as a factor in the governance of education and training than to produce effects in terms of the shifting of policy discourse or preference in the formulation of agreed European Union policy texts.

Soft Power and Hard Measures: large-scale assessment, citizenship and the European Union

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Soft Power and Hard Measures: large-scale assessment, citizenship and the European Union
Author: DAVID RUTKOWSKI; LAURA C. ENGEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 381-395
ABSTRACT This article explores the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) with particular emphasis on the European Union's (EU's) involvement in the regional portion. Using the ICCS, the EU actively combines hard measures with soft power, allowing the EU to define and steer cross-national rankings of values of EU citizenship. The authors contend that once hard measures of citizenship are produced, they become an efficient 'truth' that can be legitimated through evaluation and ranking. As measures are represented in comparative tables, the conversation shifts to 'Why are we ranked here?' rather than 'How/why were we ranked?' This shift requires critical discussion, one which is often difficult, given the politics of agreement and funding patterns underlying assessment.

International Organisations and the Shared Construction of Policy 'Problems': problematisation and change in education governance in Europe

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: International Organisations and the Shared Construction of Policy 'Problems': problematisation and change in education governance in Europe
Author: SOTIRIA GREK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 396-406
ABSTRACT Over recent years, research has shown the ways that national governments have seemingly ceded some of their autonomy in education policy development to international organisations (IOs) in the context of globalisation and one of its conduits, Europeanisation. This article develops the idea that IOs, and particularly the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have had significant policy influence within the context of education policy development in the European education space. The article focuses on an examination of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the more recent Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in order to discuss processes of problematisation and normalisation of the notions of 'skills' and 'competencies' by the two major European IOs, the OECD and the European Commission. It examines the ways both concepts have turned into a policy problem in need of soft governance through new data, standards and policy solutions. The article presents work in progress as part of the new project Transnational Policy Learning: a comparative study of OECD and EU education policy in constructing the skills and competencies agenda, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It is therefore a speculative article, setting out the research agenda and explaining the reasons why the construction of policy problems at the European education policy level needs to be further problematised itself by the research community.

Expertise, Networks and Indicators: the construction of the European strategy in education

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Expertise, Networks and Indicators: the construction of the European strategy in education
Author: ROMUALD NORMAND
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 407-421
ABSTRACT This article describes the networks of experts involved in the fabrication of indicators and benchmarks supporting the Open Method of Coordination led by the European Commission. In studying international expertise, it explores the policy borrowing process and the transfer of knowledge between several agents and institutions at global level. Our hypothesis is that science and policy are not in a discontinuing relationship but represent, through the building of instruments and methodologies of measurement, a corpus of scientific knowledge and normative principles held by representatives of supra-national organizations and States.

Is the Grass always Greener? The Effect of the PISA Results on Education Debates in Sweden and Germany

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: Is the Grass always Greener? The Effect of the PISA Results on Education Debates in Sweden and Germany
Author: JOHANNA RINGARP; MARTIN ROTHLAND
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 422-430
ABSTRACT What does a country do when its schools and educational system in general do not produce the results the country believes they are capable of? This article describes the political debates that comparative international studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment have given rise to in Germany and Sweden. As a result of the assessments, both countries have gone outside their borders in order to find new models and policy norms. The article analyzes whether or not the debate on educational policy in the two countries plays a role in policy borrowing. Germany looks to the north, primarily to Sweden - the country at the forefront of pedagogy - but also to Finland. At the same time, Sweden is in the process of dismantling just those parts of its educational policy that have aroused interest and admiration in other countries, especially Germany. Instead, it is investing in individual solutions, elite education and apprentice systems. Through the use of public funds, Sweden has gone from having one of the industrialized West's most centralized educational systems to one of its most decentralized and privatized. Accordingly, the authors pose the following questions: Who is learning from whom? And is the grass always greener on the other side?

REVIEW ESSAY: Becoming an Adult in Europe: a socially determined experience

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:52 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY: Becoming an Adult in Europe: a socially determined experience
Author: Maroussia Raveaud
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Pages: 431-442
ABSTRACT Not available

New Voices, New Knowledges and the New Politics of Education Research: the gathering of a perfect storm?

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: New Voices, New Knowledges and the New Politics of Education Research: the gathering of a perfect storm?
Author: STEPHEN J. BALL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 124-137
ABSTRACT This article outlines and discusses a set of related developments in the governance, reform and privatisation of knowledge production in the field of education policy. It argues that knowledge about, performative knowledge, and knowledge for leadership knowledge are key facets of the new governance and ongoing reform of public sector education but increasingly are created and sold to governments by private sector and philanthropic organisations. In all of this public sector higher education institutions are being displaced as knowledge brokers, and at the same time 'enterprised' and 'hybridised', in a new education policy knowledge market. Increasingly the idea of a public/private divide in education is redundant.

Two Solitudes: educational research and the pedagogical realm

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Two Solitudes: educational research and the pedagogical realm
Author: ROLAND REICHENBACH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 138-146
ABSTRACT There is much to be positive about in the current field of educational research. Now a burgeoning research domain in many European countries, diverse national and international studies are currently officially supported both politically and economically. However, on closer examination the actual effect of many prominent studies is sobering. The general claim that our research domain is full of pseudo-questions is probably unfair and unacceptable, yet it is worth considering how often educational research truly deals with educational questions. The gap between pedagogical thought and educational research has achieved grand proportions. The ideal of mutual profit between the two realms is now arguably simplistic, naïve, and functional.

Theory and Evidence on Governance: conceptual and empirical strategies of research on governance in education

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Theory and Evidence on Governance: conceptual and empirical strategies of research on governance in education
Author: HERBERT ALTRICHTER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 147-158
ABSTRACT During the last 20 years many European education systems have seen profound changes in the way they are governed. This also applies to the school systems of German-speaking countries which until then had been characterized by a long period of stability. Both political rhetoric and actual changes have rightly attracted increased attention of educational researchers, resulting in a growing body of work on the 'governance' of schooling. There is no such word as 'governance' in the German language. Nevertheless, a type of studies called 'Governance Studies', 'Governance Research' or 'Governance Perspective' has recently evolved in German-speaking social sciences. This article aims to make accessible this strand of research which has not yet been extensively published in languages other than German. Further, it intends to explore its links and relationships to other European research approaches. First, the article explains in what way the concept of 'governance' has been defined in German educational research. The second section discusses some of its methodological aspirations. In the third part, some examples of empirical research on changing educational governances are discussed in order to give an idea of how this research approach currently unfolds.

Introduction. Agency in a Changing Educational Context: negotiations, collective actions and resistance

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Introduction. Agency in a Changing Educational Context: negotiations, collective actions and resistance
Author: Anne-Lise Arnesen; Elina Lahelma; Lisbeth Lundahl; Elisabet Öhrn
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 159-163
ABSTRACT Not available

Negotiating Identity: conflicts between the agency of the student and the official diagnosis of social workers and teachers

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Negotiating Identity: conflicts between the agency of the student and the official diagnosis of social workers and teachers
Author: KARI BERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 164-176
ABSTRACT This article aims to demonstrate the interplay between the individual's negotiation of his/her identity in compulsory school and the systems of communication and practice of professionals in the welfare state. It looks at the case of 'Tom', whose custody has been taken over by the Child Welfare Service and who now lives in a child welfare institution. The article discusses how Tom constructs and negotiates his identity within educational and institutional frameworks, which are in turn influenced by professional agencies, alliances, and power relations.

Gendered Post-Compulsory Educational Choices of Non-Heterosexual Youth

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Gendered Post-Compulsory Educational Choices of Non-Heterosexual Youth
Author: JUKKA LEHTONEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 177-191
ABSTRACT Gender and socio-economic background are widely acknowledged factors influencing the educational choices of young people. Following their compulsory education, young people in Finland choose between academically oriented general upper secondary schools and vocational upper secondary schools. Gender and class intertwine in these choices in many ways. This is particularly visible in vocational education, which is highly gender-segregated. This article focuses on the post-compulsory educational choices of non-heterosexual young people. It argues that, in addition to class and gender, sexuality is another relevant factor affecting processes related to educational and career choices. Based on interviews and stories produced with young non-heterosexual people, it analyse how gender, class and sexual orientation were constructed as meaningful in the educational choices these young people made. Young non-heterosexual people take part in processes where they are expected to construct educational and labour-market citizenship. They are often expected to be and act heterosexual; their non-heterosexuality is neither visible nor considered relevant when they consider their educational paths. However, many of these youth resist the gendered expectations forced on them and choose differently.

Mobilities of Youth: social and spatial trajectories in a segregated Sweden

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Mobilities of Youth: social and spatial trajectories in a segregated Sweden
Author: JOAKIM LINDGREN; LISBETH LUNDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 192-207
ABSTRACT This article explores youth mobilities in three geographic and socio-economically diverse Swedish contexts. The concept of mobility has become an important feature of individualistic discourses of responsibility relating to inclusion, lifelong learning and self-regulating entrepreneurial behaviour. This article draws attention to the fact that geographical mobility, as a form of human agency, is closely related to social mobility and hence to both spatial and social inequalities. Using life-history interviews and statistical data, the article explores how space, class and ethnicity are related to education and social inclusion and exclusion as young people are spatially situated yet move, desire to move, dream about moving, seek to move and fail to move, as they migrate through, in and out of social communities. The analysis displays how these mobilities are framed by local traditions and circumstances that both enable and restrict. Such mobility might involve processes of personal development and learning, and be the calculated consequence of each individual's chosen life-career. However, mobility might also arise as flight from a stigmatised place. In these cases, refusal to move can also be seen as a form of resistance.

Student Participation in Activities with Influential Outcomes: issues of gender, individuality and collective thinking in Swedish secondary schools

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Student Participation in Activities with Influential Outcomes: issues of gender, individuality and collective thinking in Swedish secondary schools
Author: MARIA RÖNNLUND
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 208-219
ABSTRACT Drawing on a study in three Swedish lower secondary schools, this article examines how students engaged in the democratic processes involved in the formation of an action group intended to influence their school by making it more environmentally friendly. The aim is to acquire greater understanding of influential processes in relation to gender and both individualistically and collectively oriented ideas, including understanding of which students participate in such groups, the role gender plays in the likelihood of a student participating, how they act, and their experiences of participation. From observations of, and interviews with, four participants, girls were found both to be more active participants and to have more positive experiences than boys. It is concluded that the group represents an arena for both individual and collective performance in which both individual and collective ideas are reflected. However, differences in the expectations of boys and girls, concerning where and how they feel they should act and perform in school, seems to make the arena more suitable and more effective for girls than boys. While the girls' participation provided them with political confidence, the two participating boys did not gain this from the experience.

Vocational Teachers between Educational Institutions and Workplaces

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Vocational Teachers between Educational Institutions and Workplaces
Author: ULPUKKA ISOPAHKALA-BOURET
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 220-231
ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to analyze discursively how the relationship between educational institutions and workplaces materializes in the position of a vocational teacher. Several studies have pointed out that the role of vocational teachers is changing as a result of current educational reforms, which can be understood in terms of bringing education and work closer together. Along these lines, the author focuses particularly on the requirement of vocational teachers to work in close collaboration with industry and workplaces, and to serve economic interests. Vocational teachers are asked, for instance, to be networkers outside of educational institutions and to coach students who enter work life in order to enable favourable 'learning at work' experiences. Students' on-the-job learning is a normatively regulated, goal-oriented, guided, and evaluated study practice. The pedagogical responsibility for what happens to students at work remains with vocational teachers; however, the success of educational programmes depends on the willingness of employees to offer learning opportunities to students, and to guide and evaluate student learning according to the rules set by the educational curricula. How do these new practices challenge the traditional position of vocational teachers? How do vocational teachers negotiate and enact their agency in these circumstances?

Teachers' Collective Actions, Alliances and Resistance within Neo-liberal Ideas of Education: the example of the Individual Programme

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Teachers' Collective Actions, Alliances and Resistance within Neo-liberal Ideas of Education: the example of the Individual Programme
Author: MARIANNE DOVEMARK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 232-244
ABSTRACT The education system in Sweden has taken a strong neo-liberal turn over the past 15 years. This article uses ethnographic research from an Individual Programme (IP) in a Swedish upper secondary school to explore how alliances, collective actions and resistance can be materialised within the changed system. According to the author, the teachers in the study tried to implement consciousness-raising work in three ways: through 'encouraging critical awareness', 'encouraging students' collective actions' and 'working towards a collective'. This view of education stood in sharp contrast to a dominant ideology of education, which was characterised by self-regulation, self-governance, personal choice and other self-monitored activities.

Time, Space and Young People's Agency in Vocational Upper Secondary Education: a cross-cultural perspective

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Time, Space and Young People's Agency in Vocational Upper Secondary Education: a cross-cultural perspective
Author: CARINA HJELMÉR; SIRPA LAPPALAINEN; PER-ÅKE ROSVALL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 245-256
ABSTRACT This article is based on ethnographic studies in the context of vocational education: two in Sweden and one in Finland. The Swedish data originate from the Vehicle programme and the Child and Recreation programme; the Finnish data originate from the social and health-care sector. In this sense, the authors' perspective is cross-cultural. The article focuses on temporal and spatial dimensions of these three educational contexts and analyzes how young people exhibit their agency when negotiating their time and constructing their own space. The authors' analysis elucidates how time-space paths in the context of vocational education are classed and gendered. In the female-dominated fields of vocational upper secondary education, disciplinary practices related to time and space are more visible than in the male-dominated fields. Moreover, it is argued that the political atmosphere in Sweden has been more favourable for promoting equality than that in Finland. Despite this, divisions between students and pigeonholing exist in everyday school life.

Gender Patterns and Student Agency: secondary school students' perceptions over time

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Gender Patterns and Student Agency: secondary school students' perceptions over time
Author: ANN-SOFIE HOLM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 257-268
ABSTRACT This article focuses on students' perceptions of gender relations in school over the last three decades. The analysis is based on data from three inquiry surveys in Swedish secondary schools from 1974, 1992 and 2005, and compares how young students (a) perceive the behaviour of boys and girls in a classroom situation, (b) value different aspects of family and work in their future lives, and (c) experience the power relations between girls/women and boys/men. The analysis indicates both stability and change. In some aspects, the students perceive certain classroom behaviour as highly gendered, but in parallel there is a trend that girls have taken on a more active role in the classroom and are more career-oriented than before. But even though girls seem to have expanded their positions of agency over time, they have not improved their overall status in the gender hierarchy. Rather, the results point in the opposite direction, since the general opinion is that it is more favourable to be male than female. Compared to 1974, this is expressed even more strongly in 2005.

Discourses on Inclusion, Citizenship and Categorizations of 'Special' in Education Policy: the case of negotiating change in the governing of vocational special needs education in Finland

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Discourses on Inclusion, Citizenship and Categorizations of 'Special' in Education Policy: the case of negotiating change in the governing of vocational special needs education in Finland
Author: KATARIINA HAKALA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 269-283
ABSTRACT This article deals with the negotiation process deciding the institutional organization of vocational special needs education and training in Finland. Traditionally, the state has been a strong actor in organizing vocational special needs education in Finland. At the beginning of 2009, however, all five state-maintained vocational special schools were administratively merged with vocational special schools of non-governmental not-for-profit organizations. Three of these former state schools are institutions that have long traditions in organizing care, education and training for people with intellectual disabilities, which is the starting point for the study that this article is based on. The article focuses on research that has documented the change process in these three schools by visiting the schools, gathering ethnographic data and interviewing the head teachers about the process. The article analyzes discursive meanings of the concept of inclusion and different categorizations of 'special' constructed in the data. The results of the analysis show that there is ambivalence in the formulation of ideas of inclusion and exclusion in the educational policy of vocational special needs education and training, as the policy on the one hand supports full inclusion and, on the other, legitimates the separated vocational special schools.

The Power of Time: teachers' working day - negotiating autonomy and control

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: The Power of Time: teachers' working day - negotiating autonomy and control
Author: TOVE STEEN-OLSEN; ASTRID GRUDE EIKSETH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 284-295
ABSTRACT This article focuses on teachers' repeated complaints of lack of time. The theme is explored within data material collected in a research and development project in a Norwegian primary school (2006-09), including observations from development work together with a teacher team, and interviews with their principal, a representative of the teacher union and a representative of the local education authority. The aim of the article is to study in what way teachers' autonomy and utilisation of time is debated when teachers experience that new reforms exert more demands and external control on their professional work. The material is analysed within the framework of critical discourse analysis with a focus on how social practice and power relations are constructed, maintained and negotiated in the education arena. The findings indicate that the teachers' working day is an arena for constant political and discursive negotiations, and two discourses - professional and economic - contribute to conflicting views regarding teachers' autonomy and utilisation of time.

Learning in the Knowledge Society and the Issue of Fundamental Change in Education: a comparative review

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:31:35 GMT

Title: Learning in the Knowledge Society and the Issue of Fundamental Change in Education: a comparative review
Author: Jörg Dinkelaker
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Pages: 296-303
ABSTRACT Not available

Alternative Educational Futures for a Knowledge Society

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Alternative Educational Futures for a Knowledge Society
Author: MICHAEL YOUNG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-12
ABSTRACT This article offers a critical analysis of recent trends in educational policy with particular reference to their assumptions about the knowledge society. It examines the implications of the analysis for the issue of elitism and the promotion of greater educational equality. The article concludes by offering an alternative approach to educational policy based on a social realist theory of knowledge.

Learning and Emotion: perspectives for theory and research

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Learning and Emotion: perspectives for theory and research
Author: TINA HASCHER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 13-28
ABSTRACT There is growing interest in and knowledge about the interplay of learning and emotion. However, the different approaches and empirical studies correspond to each other only to a low extent. To prevent this research field from increasing fragmentation, a shared basis of theory and research is needed. The presentation aims at giving an overview of the state of the art, developing a general framework for theory and research, and outlining crucial topics for future theory and research. The presentation focuses on the influence of emotions on learning. First, theories about the impact of emotions on learning are introduced. Second, the importance of these theories for school learning are discussed. Third, empirical evidence resulting from school-based research about the role of emotions for learning is presented. Finally, further research demands are stressed.

Introduction. The Bologna Process: help or hindrance to the development of European higher education?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Introduction. The Bologna Process: help or hindrance to the development of European higher education?
Author: Jani Ursin; Barbara Zamorski; Elinor Edvardsson Stiwne; Christine Teelken; Monne Wihlborg
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 29-31
ABSTRACT Not available

Higher Education and Employability of Graduates: will Bologna make a difference?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Higher Education and Employability of Graduates: will Bologna make a difference?
Author: ELINOR EDVARDSSON STIWNE; MARIANA GAIO ALVES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 32-44
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the relationship between higher education, employability of graduates and students' satisfaction with their studies, drawing on European statistics, as well as on data collected at national and/or institutional level in Portugal and Sweden. Employability has been understood as a measure of higher education quality and one of the issues at stake within the Bologna process. Having this in mind, the authors try to answer three main questions: What was the baseline situation in the two countries concerning higher education systems, enrolment in higher education and graduate employability before 2007? Were students satisfied with their studies and professional job situation before 2007? Which trends is it possible to envisage - tendencies of enrolment, mobility, employment - after 2007? Data analysed allows these questions to be answered and provides an important comparison due to the fact that both countries started to implement the Bologna structure in 2007 and have quite different educational systems. The authors discuss if 'Bologna' makes a difference regarding graduate employability and students' satisfaction with their studies, and how the differences between the countries can be understood.

Employability and Finnish University Graduates

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Employability and Finnish University Graduates
Author: ANTERO PUHAKKA; JUHANI RAUTOPURO; VISA TUOMINEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 45-55
ABSTRACT In this article the authors concentrate on the change in the concept of employability during the Bologna process. They show that employability has gradually moved from a peripheral to a core presence in the most recent Bologna process documents. Using a Finnish university merger (University of Eastern Finland) as an example, the authors demonstrate that implementation of the Bologna process has reached the most remote eastern border of the European Union. The Bologna process is shaping the Finnish universities, and employability discussion is embedded in university reforms. The authors argue that the reason why employability has been raised as one of the core concepts of the Bologna process is labour market needs. Moreover, students want university education to help their transition to the world of work. On the other hand, employers want graduates who are well prepared for the world of work. In this way, the raison d'être for universities is to fulfil the needs of national economies and the labour market.

Defining and Comparing Generic Competences in Higher Education

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Defining and Comparing Generic Competences in Higher Education
Author: OUTI KALLIOINEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 56-68
ABSTRACT In this article the author discusses the importance of defining generic competences in alignment with the European definitions. As a case study the generic competences defined by Laurea University of Applied Sciences are compared with European definitions of generic competences. The purpose is to open up the various perspectives within this thematic field of interest and reflect on them according to the objectives of the European Higher Education Area. The comparative matrix of generic competences enhances the comparison of learning outcomes in higher education institutions, facilitates credit transfer and the acknowledgement of prior learning.

Third-Cycle Studies in Educational Sciences: expectations and competences development

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Third-Cycle Studies in Educational Sciences: expectations and competences development
Author: MARIANA GAIO ALVES; NAIR RIOS AZEVEDO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 69-80
ABSTRACT In Europe, third-cycle studies may be undergoing structural changes because of the orientation of the Bologna process. This article intends to shed light on the question of how and whether the ongoing changes might mean that we are in the process of reconstructing the university offer of doctoral degree studies. The authors look at the particular case of the Educational Sciences Doctoral Programme offered by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, which started its activities in 2007-08 under the framework of the Bologna reform. The article draws on data from a survey that constitutes the first stage of a case study of this doctoral programme. Thus, the issue of doctoral students' expectations and competences development, focusing on the perceptions of current students enrolled in the programme, is addressed. Data have been gathered by means of a questionnaire answered by the students. The survey allows for the progressive exploration of emergent questions on the changes taking place at doctoral level within the Bologna reform. These questions concern changes in the profile of third-cycle students as well as organizational and pedagogical strategies.

Rethinking the Research–Teaching Nexus in Undergraduate Education: Spanish laws pre- and post-Bologna

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Rethinking the Research–Teaching Nexus in Undergraduate Education: Spanish laws pre- and post-Bologna
Author: JOSÉ LUIS GONZÁLEZ GERALDO; CHRIS TREVITT; SUSAN CARTER; JOHN FAZEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 81-91
ABSTRACT In Europe, under the roof of the Bologna process, the emerging concept of the ‘knowledge-based society’ has its pillars in the so-called European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the European Research Area (ERA). This new kind of society demands a new role for the universities and associated stakeholders, and could provide an ideal opportunity to explore new ambitions and roles, revisiting the old synergy between research and teaching, and rethinking why teaching and research have come into tension for academics in recent years. However, there is some evidence which suggests that actual initiatives are not that coherent in terms of the aims of the process. For example, explicit research training of graduate students is excluded. Has Bologna two faces? The authors consider the Bologna process in the context of Spain, and offer some possible scenarios of the actual and future undergraduate research–teaching nexus within the Bologna framework. These scenarios should have interest and implications for scholars and students entering a new era.

The Bologna Process and the Economic Impacts of Research and Development within the Context of Europeanization: the case of Finland

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: The Bologna Process and the Economic Impacts of Research and Development within the Context of Europeanization: the case of Finland
Author: DRISS HABTI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 92-104
ABSTRACT Higher education and public research play an important role in economic development, mainly in industrial research and development (R & D) and innovation through the manufacturing sector. Finland has taken great strides in this regard as it represents a Europeanization of a knowledge system in the European Union, being relevant at the international level for the outstanding development the economy has witnessed throughout the R & D sector while facing international challenges. The available database from Tekes (on the current state of the Finnish R & D sector) provided records of the gradual development of the sector over time and at different levels of the Finnish knowledge system. The article does not describe major policy measures of the Bologna process but rather attempts to consider the economic rationale of R & D development and its economic impacts in Finland within the Bologna framework. The article is concerned with the ways in which Finnish R & D under specific conditions has given results at the economic level with the Europeanization process and its subsequent policies. A synoptic view is given of higher education research strategies in terms of R & D and the article also touches on the issue of the general effects of the development of R & D and its economic relevance in light of the Bologna reforms.

Reflecting on the Bologna Outcome Space: some pitfalls to avoid? Exploring Universities in Sweden and the Netherlands

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: Reflecting on the Bologna Outcome Space: some pitfalls to avoid? Exploring Universities in Sweden and the Netherlands
Author: CHRISTINE TEELKEN; MONNE WIHLBORG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 105-115
ABSTRACT Europeans have tried for decades to find a way to take a mutual stance on issues of higher education and its development. In terms of taking on the challenge of such a mutual commitment with respect to higher education, the Bologna process is a giant step for the European Union. It involves a large number of countries, representing a great variety of higher education systems, which are currently engaged in a process of striving for certain common, converging goals. The question is whether this is also the 'right step' in terms of the actual organisational goals of higher education institutions: teaching students to the best of their abilities, carrying out good-quality research, and serving a constructive societal role. Is the Bologna process as such helpful in achieving these goals, or do we need to acknowledge peripheral forces that are affecting the (Bologna) process to a much higher degree than we bargained for? The purpose of this article is to explore both mainstream and more tangential issues in order to cast a more critical spotlight on the outcomes of the Bologna process and its construction(s). The article attempts to contribute to the Bologna debate, with emphasis on three contradictions, by placing these issues in a broader perspective.

The School Building as a Pedagogical Space

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:29 GMT

Title: The School Building as a Pedagogical Space
Author: Christine Mayer
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2010 Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 116-123
ABSTRACT Not available

Evidence-Based Education Policy: lip service or common practice? Empirical Findings from Germany

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Evidence-Based Education Policy: lip service or common practice? Empirical Findings from Germany
Author: KATHRIN DEDERING
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 484-496
ABSTRACT Since the late 1990s, it has been the practice in Germany that decisions in educational policy and educational administration should primarily be subject to evidence in terms of reliable empirical data. However, little research has been conducted so far as to the question of how actors in charge receive and process the existing data, and how they use them in decision-making processes. In this article, new empirical findings are presented concerning the way in which the reception and processing of educational scientific evidence is currently carried out. Moreover, differences in the use of data within the last decade are revealed. Relating to an explorative study that consists of 12 qualitative interviews with ministerial personnel in four German school ministries, the findings generally indicate that evidence-based educational policy in Germany is less a matter of paying lip service, but rather increasingly becoming common practice. On the whole, the findings indicate an increasing routine and a more professional treatment of the demands for processing data. All of the school ministries reveal approaches towards systematising the use of data.

Dichotomized Metaphors and Young People's Educational Routes

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Dichotomized Metaphors and Young People's Educational Routes
Author: ELINA LAHELMA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 497-507
ABSTRACT Drawing from an ethnographically grounded longitudinal study on educational transitions, the aim of this article is to analyse young people's reflections about their educational choices at different ages. Consistencies and breaks in their plans and actual choices are explored and reflected in relation to the economic, social, cultural and emotional resources they possess. In particular, the author explores taken-for-granted dichotomous metaphors that seem to open up certain educational routes and close others, such as 'the head' and 'the hand' for routes to academic and vocational education. In the first section of the article, the author demonstrates how metaphors appear in ethnographic accounts of lower secondary schools. The author then suggests how they are activated when young people reflect on their post-compulsory choices. Finally, the author presents the educational routes of two young people, drawing from their hopes, dreams and actual choices, as they relate them in interviews when they were 13, 18, 20 and 24 years old.

Insurance and Assurance: teachers' strategies in the regimes of risk and audit

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Insurance and Assurance: teachers' strategies in the regimes of risk and audit
Author: PER LINDQVIST; ULLA KARIN NORDÄNGER; JOAKIM LANDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 508-519
ABSTRACT This article deals with how the increasing use of notions such as 'risk awareness' and 'blame' in relation to school affects the daily work of Swedish teachers. With the help of empirical excerpts from documents and focus group interviews, the authors provide examples of how the introduction of the risk society and audit cultures encourages the creation of new strategies for coping. Two of these concern the mediation of 'safe school' images and preventions in order to avoid future blame. The authors depict them as strategies of assurance and insurance. The increasing handling of these strategies seems to draw attention away from relations to students and actual time spent on teaching. When considering an action, teachers seem to balance the risk of attracting blame against the didactic potential. Finally, the possibility of practices which reflect more positive risk logic is discussed.

Understanding the Universal Right to Education as Jurisgenerative Politics and Democratic Iterations

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Understanding the Universal Right to Education as Jurisgenerative Politics and Democratic Iterations
Author: NINNI WAHLSTRÖM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 520-533
ABSTRACT This article examines how the universal human right to education can be understood in terms of what Seyla Benhabib considers 'democratic iterations'. Further, by referring to the concept of jurisgenerative politics, Benhabib argues that a democratic people reinterpret guiding norms and principles which they find themselves bound to, through iterative acts, so that they are not only the subjects but also the authors of laws. By examining the use of the Article of the universal right to education in the European Convention on Human Rights, not as an Article with an unambiguous meaning, but as an Article which from its very start was the subject of different interpretations and desires, the author argues for an understanding of the process of transforming universal rights into national law and norms as democratic iterations. This way of conceiving democratic iterations is examined empirically, with Sweden as an example, by analyses of three different discursive arenas: a political/legal arena; an arena concerning political contests over independent schools; and a more limited arena for advocating denominational schools. The conclusion is that two different disjunctions - between universal norms and national self-determination and between law as power and law as meaning - are productive interspaces for renegotiating and rearticulating universal law into local/national norms.

Preschool as an Arena of Gender Policies: the examples of Sweden and Scotland

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Preschool as an Arena of Gender Policies: the examples of Sweden and Scotland
Author: CHARLOTTA EDSTRÖM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 534-549
ABSTRACT As many countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have developed more universal provision for early childhood education during the last decades, preschool increasingly has become a central policy arena. Gender politics, especially with an aim to promote female labour market participation, but also policies addressing children and preschool staff, constitute one vital aspect. This article analyses staff responsibilities for promoting gender equality in preschool in Sweden and Scotland. These countries represent different welfare regimes, but also display common features, both influenced by tradition and recent transnational policies and discourses. Based on national policy documents from 1970 to the early 2000s, this study shows that gender equality has continuously been brought up in the Swedish context since the 1970s, but entered the Scottish context at a later stage. Since the late 1990s, such questions have been addressed in both countries. In both cases, teachers are constructed as role models who should promote certain gender values and provide children with opportunities. The Swedish curriculum places more emphasis on similarities between girls and boys, while the Scottish counterpart tends to emphasize difference more, paying attention to boys and the need for male role models. Scottish gender policies are influenced by the travelling discourse of 'the boys' underachievement crisis', whereas Swedish gender policies in preschool demonstrate little of this.

European Union Initiatives to Enhance the Attractiveness of the Research Profession in Europe

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: European Union Initiatives to Enhance the Attractiveness of the Research Profession in Europe
Author: Peter van der Hijden
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 550-554
ABSTRACT Not available

Academic Mobility and Hospitality: the good host and the good guest

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 09:44:17 GMT

Title: Academic Mobility and Hospitality: the good host and the good guest
Author: Jane Kenway; Johannah Fahey
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Pages: 555-559
ABSTRACT Not available

The Europeanisation of Educational Leadership: much ado about nothing?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: The Europeanisation of Educational Leadership: much ado about nothing?
Author: SIMON CLARKE; HELEN WILDY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 352-358
ABSTRACT This introductory article examines the elusive concept of Europeanisation and discusses the implications of this process for educational leadership, especially as it applies to the formation of school leaders. With an eye to Europeanisation, the article also investigates four pertinent themes extrapolated from the scholarly discussion contained in this special issue of the European Educational Research Journal that may be relevant to the broader context of European educational leadership. These themes are: European understandings of the nature and purpose of educational leadership; the practice of educational leadership in the contemporary European policy environment; the preparation, development and support of school leaders according to a European coordinated approach; and the veracity of a Europeanised educational leadership.

Fostering Learning and Sustained Improvement: the influence of principalship

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Fostering Learning and Sustained Improvement: the influence of principalship
Author: JORUNN MØLLER; ANNE MARIE PRESTHUS; GUNN VEDØY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 359-371
ABSTRACT This article reports on selected findings from the project 'Revisiting Successful Principals'. The authors revisited some of the schools which participated in the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) five years ago. In this article they focus on how the principals are positioning themselves as leaders, and how they are involved in the construction of a public self, while responding to questions about fostering learning and sustained improvement. The study confirms that a principal may have a significant influence on a school's policy and in particular the preferred strategies. In addition, the study revealed that, despite the new expectations which are raised towards schools in society, there was also extensive continuity at the local school.

Performativity and Professionalism: Irish primary principals' experience of building leadership capacity

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Performativity and Professionalism: Irish primary principals' experience of building leadership capacity
Author: CIARAN SUGRUE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 372-386
ABSTRACT The evidence presented in this article regarding policy reforms in the Irish context may suggest that, until now at least, professionalism prevails over performativity when viewed from the perspectives of primary principals. Nevertheless, the article argues that the prevalence of professionalism may indeed be short lived and principals themselves may be complicit in hastening a more performative-driven culture within school communities as they compete for a share of systemic power and in the process increase professional distance between themselves and their teaching colleagues while promulgating a rhetoric of collegiality and shared leadership.

Making a Difference in Challenging Urban Schools: successful principals

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Making a Difference in Challenging Urban Schools: successful principals
Author: JOANNA M. MICHALAK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 386-396
ABSTRACT The article reports upon findings from four multiple-perspective case studies of successful principals in challenging urban contexts. Each principal was described as making a significant difference to the quality of school education. The findings are obtained from the Polish part of the 'Leading Schools Successfully in Challenging Urban Contexts': Strategies For Improvement' project. The research design consisted of two overlapping phases: the first was a literature review to ascertain 'what is known' about the nature and effects of leadership in challenging urban contexts; the second involved a case-study approach, collecting data from 36 schools to explore the leadership strategies that are used by successful principals of schools that face challenging urban contexts. The analysis of the cases identified that there were several interconnected strategies that are not only important, but essential for leadership success in these schools. They are related to setting the directions, developing people, redesigning the organisation and changing the culture of the school. Each of them encompasses more specific competencies, attitudes and considerations.

Hard and Soft Governance: the journey from transnational agencies to school leadership

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Hard and Soft Governance: the journey from transnational agencies to school leadership
Author: LEJF MOOS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 397-406
ABSTRACT The governance and leadership at transnational, national and school level seem to be converging into a number of isomorphic forms as we see a tendency towards substituting 'hard' forms of governance, that are legally binding, with 'soft' forms based on persuasion and advice. This article analyses and discusses governance forms at several levels. The first layer is the global: the methods of 'soft governance' that are being utilised by transnational agencies. The second layer is the national and local: the shift in national and local governance seen in many countries, but here demonstrated in the case of Denmark, and finally the third layer: the leadership used in Danish schools. The use of 'soft governance' is shifting the focus of governance and leadership from decisions towards influence and power and thus shifting the focus of the processes from the decision-making itself towards more focus on the premises for decision-making, and towards the follow-up on decision-making, the connecting phase because influence is exerted in all phases. From this new perspective we are interested in analysing new forms of influences like discourses and new social technologies. In order to get an overview and further the understanding of relations and the coherence of processes of influence/power/governance, the article introduces a communications model of decision-making processes as processes of influence.

Recruitment and Retention of Senior School Leaders: meeting the challenge

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Recruitment and Retention of Senior School Leaders: meeting the challenge
Author: JOHN MacBEATH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 407-417
ABSTRACT Whether or not it may be described as a 'crisis' there are mounting concerns in many countries about the supply line of well-qualified principals or head teachers. This article contends that many of the strategies put in place to address the intensification of school leadership are necessary but insufficient. Collegial networking, confidantes, coaches and critical friends are important and welcome in alleviating the pervasive sense of loneliness that many school leaders express but these measures do not deal with the deeper lying issues. The phenomenon of 'career deputies' is now a telling international indicator of a widespread reluctance to become the 'ultimate Mister Fixit'. Resilience, professional solidarity and subversive qualities within the profession have to play a part in demonstrating to governments that there can be a better way.

Potentials and Challenges of Family Literacy Interventions: the question of implementation quality

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Potentials and Challenges of Family Literacy Interventions: the question of implementation quality
Author: NELE McELVANY; ROEL VAN STEENSEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 418-433
ABSTRACT Literacy interventions in the family context have great potential to promote reading development in children. However, the results of meta-analyses indicate that family-based approaches tend not to be as effective as expected. Although the effectiveness of family literacy interventions can be assumed to hinge largely on the quality of their implementation in families, this aspect has attracted surprisingly little research attention to date. This article identifies, analyses, and discusses aspects of implementation quality that may enhance or diminish the effectiveness of family literacy interventions. Data from two evaluation studies of programmes for kindergarten- and school-age children were used to examine three types of implementation variables (intensity and quality of parent-child activities; support and training provided for parents; participation). The results indicate possibilities for how implementation quality in all three areas can be improved. Implications for future family literacy programmes as well as for evaluation and implementation studies are discussed.

Moving to Secondary School: on the role of affective expectations in a tracking school system

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Moving to Secondary School: on the role of affective expectations in a tracking school system
Author: STEFANIE VAN OPHUYSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 434-446
ABSTRACT Transition to secondary school implies basic changes in social, instructional and organisational aspects of school life which afford the pupils' adjustment. As transition takes place at a predictable point in time, children develop expectations about the start at their new school. In order to analyse predictors and consequences of these expectations 870 German children filled in a questionnaire assessing transition expectations, grades in mathematics and language, academic self-concept, and school dislike. Achievement tests were administered, too. Data were collected at the end of grade four at primary school and one year later at secondary school. Regression and communality analyses revealed that emotional school-related variables are more predictive for expectations than measures of achievement. On the other hand, the influence of expectations on the adjustment at secondary school is only of low importance in comparison to school type-effects.

Collegial or Managerial? Academics' Conceptions of Quality in English and Finnish Universities

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Collegial or Managerial? Academics' Conceptions of Quality in English and Finnish Universities
Author: LAURIE LOMAS; JANI URSIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 447-460
ABSTRACT Two specific forms of quality are identified: Type I, which has a managerial focus and stresses fitness for purpose and accountability, and Type II, which is collegial and concerned with enhancement. Through an analysis of the literature on quality in higher education and small-scale empirical research with a sample of academic staff, this article compares conceptions of quality assurance in the English and Finnish higher education systems. The authors highlight the similarities and differences in the two countries and possible reasons for them. Over time the blend of managerial and collegial approaches to quality has come to favour the former but much more so in England than in Finland, which continues to prefer a largely enhancement-led agenda. Both are signatories to the Bologna Declaration, and the implications for other European countries of convergence in quality assurance systems by 2011 through this Declaration are considered.

Teachers as Professionals and Teachers' Identity Construction as an Ecological Construct: an agenda for research and training drawing upon a biographical research process

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: Teachers as Professionals and Teachers' Identity Construction as an Ecological Construct: an agenda for research and training drawing upon a biographical research process
Author: AMÉLIA LOPES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 461-475
ABSTRACT The study of teacher identity developed greatly during the 1990s and, in a way, replaced other studies on teacher professionalism. Highlighting the interactions, emotions and cognitions in their everyday expression, these studies contributed to making visible the role of specific communities of professionals in valuing and improving professional action. However, after almost two decades, it became clear that the study of the construction of teacher identity could not be based solely on the description of the interactions, but in fact also required a macro-sociological analysis. Coordinating these levels of analysis is important for developing the construct of the teacher as a professional, a profile that inspires current teacher training policies in Europe. Based on theoretical contributions such as the 'construction of professional identities for real social change' (Claude Dubar), and the ideal-typical model of professionalism (Eliot Freidson), this article aims to present the construction of teacher identity as a subjective dimension of the process of teacher professionalisation, viewing it as an ecological construct. To this end, the article presents the results of research carried out during the 1990s and the early twenty-first century, in order to shed some light on the dynamics inherent to each of the levels of analysis and the interactions which are established between them. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages of this approach for teacher training and research.

REVIEW ESSAY. What PISA Did and Did Not Do: Germany after the ‘PISA-shock’

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. What PISA Did and Did Not Do: Germany after the ‘PISA-shock’
Author: Florian Waldow
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Pages: 476-483
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction. Higher Education and European Citizenship as a Matter of Public Concern

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Introduction. Higher Education and European Citizenship as a Matter of Public Concern
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 142-145
ABSTRACT Not available

What Kind of Citizenship for European Higher Education? Beyond the Competent Active Citizen

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: What Kind of Citizenship for European Higher Education? Beyond the Competent Active Citizen
Author: GERT BIESTA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 146-158
ABSTRACT How might European higher education contribute to the promotion and development of European citizenship? In this article, the author addresses this question through a critical discussion of the notions of 'active citizenship' and 'civic competence', which play a central role in current policy and research on the role of education in the development of European citizenship. The author argues that there is a tendency within the idea of 'active citizenship' to depoliticise the very idea of citizenship because it is based upon a consensus notion of democracy and a functionalist understanding of citizenship and the formation of citizens. The author also argues that the idea of civic competence reduces civic learning and political education to a form of socialisation which undermines rather than supports political agency. For these reasons, the author argues that European higher education should not aim to become a socialising agent for the production of the competent active citizen but should seek to support modes of political action and civic learning that embody a commitment to a more critical and more political form of European citizenship than what is envisaged in the ideas of 'active citizenship' and 'civic competence'.

The European Universities, Citizenship and Its Limits: what won't solve the problems of our time

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: The European Universities, Citizenship and Its Limits: what won't solve the problems of our time
Author: GRAHAME LOCK; HERMÍNIO MARTINS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 159-174
ABSTRACT This article attempts to weave together in an original manner a number of themes regarding citizenship and higher education in Europe. Thus, the authors look critically at the notion of citizenship itself; its role in Aristotle and in Hegel's state-versus-civil-society contrast; its relation to the world of work or labour; its connection with the concept of Bildung ('general edification'); the originally divergent strands of the twentieth-century American assault on Bildung in higher education, an assault now extended to Europe, especially in European Union policy and (in a more complex and contradictory manner) in the Bologna process; the marketized university as a psychotic organization; and - a twist in the story - the reaction to some of these developments in the ideology of citizenism, which the authors problematize.

Higher Education and Citizenship: 'the full range of purposes'

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Higher Education and Citizenship: 'the full range of purposes'
Author: PAVEL ZGAGA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 175-188
ABSTRACT This article discusses citizenship education in the context of the purposes and roles of higher education. The social and political changes in Europe of the last two decades have had an immense impact on the understanding of these roles and purposes, defining the university's mission and steering the national systems of higher education. The dichotomy of economic competitiveness and social cohesion has been transferred into higher education discussions and provoked new dichotomies like the 'Europe of the euro' versus the 'Europe of knowledge'. A call from the 2007 London Communiqué to focus on the 'full range of purposes' of higher education is taken as an indicative statement in recent policy debates and analysed. For this reason, four 'archetypal models' of understanding the purposes of higher education are developed against the historical background of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Napoleonic, Humboldtian, Newmanian and Deweyan. Dewey's criticism of the 'educational state' in the early twentieth century is confronted with the later decline of the nation state, and with the processes of the internationalisation and globalisation of education and education policy. We are witness to the progressive instrumentalisation of higher education, but higher education's potential contribution to citizenship lies beyond this: in recognising the 'full range of its purposes'.

European Higher Education Policy and the Formation of Entrepreneurial Students as Future European Citizens

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: European Higher Education Policy and the Formation of Entrepreneurial Students as Future European Citizens
Author: VASSILIKI PAPATSIBA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 189-203
ABSTRACT In this article, the author argues that European education policies and rhetoric are imbued with orthodoxy of agency and models of empowered, entrepreneurial actors, striving to surpass the limits of national boundaries. Free circulation of citizens has progressively underpinned a new construction of 'the European', who is entrepreneurial, flexible and mobile. Ideals and practices of mobility have been premised on two competing agendas: one that focuses on economic imperatives, and the other that relates to a tradition of forming the citizenry. European Union higher education policy via student mobility programmes has been an effective vehicle for conveying images and models of the European citizen, untied from national bounds and with a thirst for new ventures and learning opportunities apt to convert into skills and capital. Arguably these policies, as rationalities with governing ends, aim to form identities and subjectivities. Although it can be argued that new facets of agency are made available to those who are willing to embrace entrepreneurial models, the question is whether and how these 'talk back' to a society and a polity in search of common good.

The Public and Its University: beyond learning for civic employability?

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: The Public and Its University: beyond learning for civic employability?
Author: MAARTEN SIMONS; JAN MASSCHELEIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 204-217
ABSTRACT Instead of asking how universities can contribute to active citizenship and democratic participation (and seeking for ways to improve their contribution), this article asks what it is that universities, due to their specific mission, have to offer. After describing the transition of the historical university (and its focus on modernisation) to the entrepreneurial university (focused on innovation), the authors discuss the current framing of the university's public role in terms of civic employability. The notion 'strategies of immunisation' is introduced to point to the implications of the current focus on citizenship. Finally, an alternative conception of the public role of the university is introduced: the university can be regarded as a space and time to constitute a public by gathering people around matters of concern, and to make something a public concern for people.

The Changing Attractiveness of European Higher Education in the Next Decade: current developments, future challenges and major policy issues

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: The Changing Attractiveness of European Higher Education in the Next Decade: current developments, future challenges and major policy issues
Author: MAREK KWIEK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 218-235
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the different senses of the attractiveness of European systems and institutions for students, academics, the labour market and the economy, drawing attention to emergent tensions between different university stakeholders. Universities not only need to be attractive to increasingly differentiated student populations, but they also need to be attractive workplaces and provide attractive career opportunities for academics. Both public and private institutions are under multifaceted pressures to change today. At a time of imminent reformulation of current welfare state systems in most parts of Europe, attractive systems will be able to balance the negative financial impact of the gradual restructuring of the most generous types of welfare state regimes in Europe on public funding for higher education. Ironically, the more successful public entrepreneurial universities are today, the greater the chances are of them following this entrepreneurial direction in the future. The promotion across Europe of a more substantial inflow of both private research funds and student fees can be expected. The possible redefinition of higher education from a public good to a private good is a tendency which may further undermine the idea of heavy public subsidization of higher education, as the economic rationale for higher education is changing. The expected developments may fundamentally alter relationships between university stakeholders, with the decreasing role of the state (especially in funding) and the increasing role of students and the labour market. The expected differentiation-related developments may alter the academic profession in general, and have a strong impact on the traditional relationships between teaching and research in European universities.

From Active Citizenship to World Citizenship: a proposal for a world university

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: From Active Citizenship to World Citizenship: a proposal for a world university
Author: JAN MASSCHELEIN; MAARTEN SIMONS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 236-248
ABSTRACT This article explores how universities can function as spaces where a world citizenship takes shape. First, Kant’s distinction between the ‘private use of reason’ and ‘domestic gathering’, on the one hand, and the ‘public use of reason’ and ‘public gathering’, on the other, is elucidated. This distinction is used, secondly, to argue that the actual university organises ‘domestic gatherings’. In the name of excellence, it requires an entrepreneurial ethos of its staff, i.e. an ethos of obedience to a permanent quality tribunal, implying a permanent (self-)mobilisation confining the entrepreneur to a domestic gathering and the private use of reason (‘private citizens’). Based on this understanding, the third section develops a proposal for a world university inhabited by ‘learned individuals’ acting as world citizens. It is a habitat in which an experimental and attentive ethos is present and where the public use of reason is ‘finding (a) place’. This public use of reason is not just about making things known, but of making them present. The aim of the final section, then, is to make the proposal more specific, based on an exploration of ‘public lecturing’ as the time and space of public (world) gathering where things are made public.

What is the Public Role of the University? A Proposal for a Public Research Agenda

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: What is the Public Role of the University? A Proposal for a Public Research Agenda
Author: Gert Biesta; Marek Kwiek; Grahame Locke; Hermínio Martins; Jan Masschelein; Vassiliki Papatsiba; Maarten Simons; Pavel Zgaga
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 249-254
ABSTRACT Not available

Migration Background and Participation in Continuing Education in Germany: an empirical analysis based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study (SOEP)

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Migration Background and Participation in Continuing Education in Germany: an empirical analysis based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study (SOEP)
Author: HALIT ÖZTÜRK; KATRIN KAUFMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 255-275
ABSTRACT Europe as an 'immigration continent' is going to become an 'integration continent'. Within this context continuing education has acquired an increasing meaning. Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study data from 2001-04 the authors examine a broad spectrum of possible factors which may influence participation in continuing vocational education. They focus on the heterogeneity of migrants in Germany and analyse their participation in continuing education in contrast to Germans without a migration background. First, some information on the concept and definition of continuing education in Germany is given. Then, the current status of research regarding participation in continuing education in Germany with a focus on migration background is presented. Human capital theory constitutes the theoretical framework for the analysis. The majority of the hypotheses derived from human capital theory are confirmed by the empirical results. Especially formal qualifications, job position and age turned out to be the parameters that showed the most explanatory results. By estimating the influence of migration background on participation in continuing education the results show that migration background does not generally negatively affect the probability of taking part in continuing vocational education.

Using Bourdieu's Concept of Habitus to Explore Narratives of Transition

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Using Bourdieu's Concept of Habitus to Explore Narratives of Transition
Author: GAYNA DAVEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 276-284
ABSTRACT Written as part of a doctoral thesis exploring young people's educational decision making, this article focuses on the stories of three of those students. The study on which the article draws is located in two institutions: an independent school and a sixth-form college. It follows 12 middle-class young people through their two years of A level study prior to university. The thesis argues for educational decision making as a classed practice, using Bourdieu's trilogy of habitus, capital and field to develop a more nuanced understanding than that offered by occupationally defined social class. This article focuses on the narratives of three of those students. Drawing on their narratives of transition, the article aims to explore how far the concept of habitus can be used in empirical research. It is concluded that whilst there are limitations to what habitus offers as a research tool, it is a concept worth grappling with. If its promise is partially fulfilled, at the very least it accentuates the inadequacy of defining individuals through the labels of social class. Above all, habitus embraces continuity and change, offering a more fluid and dynamic understanding of classed identities.

The Value of Post-colonial Literature for Education Processes: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: The Value of Post-colonial Literature for Education Processes: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
Author: BARBARA THERESIA SCHRÖTTNER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 285-298
ABSTRACT The author Salman Rushdie's post-colonial essay, Midnight's Children, highlights a different perspective on the problems created by the colonial power where place and displacement are central themes and migration is a painful but emancipating process; both are expressed through the life of the writer, Salman Rushdie. The primary aim of this discourse is to show that post-colonial narratives have a huge impact on educational settings and conceptions, and, thus, on identity formation processes. This study concentrates on the spaces where formerly colonized people have regained power, or where they have attributed value to their own discourse by displacing the standpoint of normative social behaviour, and thus recovering their own voices. One of the major purposes of this piece of writing is to look at the ways in which the discourse of Otherness privileges direct and indirect (structural and cultural) violence towards the Other, concentrating especially on processes of exclusion from educational settings.

On the Consequences of the Marketisation of Public Education in Sweden: for-profit charter schools and the emergence of the 'market-oriented teacher'

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: On the Consequences of the Marketisation of Public Education in Sweden: for-profit charter schools and the emergence of the 'market-oriented teacher'
Author: ANDERS FREDRIKSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 299-210
ABSTRACT The entrance of for-profit charter schools into the public educational system is one of the most recent manifestations of market-based reforms in public education. Previous studies raise concerns over the marketisation of education and suggest that market reforms clearly change teacher attitudes and behaviour. Taking a public administration theoretical approach, this article discusses how for-profit schools influence the behaviour of teachers. This article develops an index (the Market Orientation Index) for measuring market orientation among teachers. Analyses of differences in scores on the Market Orientation Index among a sample of Swedish teachers working in public schools and for-profit charter schools also shows that charter school teachers are more market oriented. The result indicates that for-profit school ownership led to the emergence of the 'market-oriented teacher'.

Children's Educational Processes in Contemporary Cities: preliminary findings and insights from a case study developed in Lisbon

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Children's Educational Processes in Contemporary Cities: preliminary findings and insights from a case study developed in Lisbon
Author: ELISABETE XAVIER GOMES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 311-325
ABSTRACT This article discusses preliminary findings of the author's doctoral research on children's educating networks in contemporary cities. The research problem is introduced in the theoretical framework composed by issues of formal, non-formal and informal education, contemporary children's studies, and contributions from the debate around the projects and characteristics of education in the city. The research design and methodology will be briefly presented - a case study, within the guidelines of the interpretative paradigm and with a participatory approach. This aims to frame the specific dimensions, techniques and instruments that constitute the main focus of the article. In this context, the preliminary findings focus on children's perspectives of their own educational processes and contexts taking place inside and outside school in the city of Lisbon. In conclusion, the article tries to establish some links between this particular case study and some contemporary educational policy options.

Developing Craft Knowledge in Teaching at University: how do beginning teachers learn to teach

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Developing Craft Knowledge in Teaching at University: how do beginning teachers learn to teach
Author: CAROLINA GUZMÁN V.
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 326-335
ABSTRACT This study addresses how university teaching as a craft is learnt and developed. More specifically, the analysis examines how beginning university teachers begin to develop and reinforce teaching practices that encourage student learning. A qualitative research approach has been used, looking at two beginning university teachers from different disciplines. Data was gathered at the University of Barcelona during one academic year and the content is being analysed through an inductive and comparative method. Preliminary conclusions and some reflections related to teaching practices are also put forward.

Developing Teachers' Work for Improving Teaching and Learning of Children with Visual Impairment Accommodated in Ordinary Primary Schools

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:41 GMT

Title: Developing Teachers' Work for Improving Teaching and Learning of Children with Visual Impairment Accommodated in Ordinary Primary Schools
Author: COSMAS B.F. MNYANYI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Pages: 336-351
ABSTRACT The study investigated how to facilitate teachers in developing their work in improving the teaching and learning of children with visual impairment (CVI) accommodated in ordinary classrooms. The study takes the form of collaborative action research where the researcher works in collaboration with the teachers. The project is being conducted in the three ordinary primary schools accommodating CVI in Tanzania. The findings for the first phase of the project indicate that there are qualitative differences in views about the challenges facing CVI in their learning. Teachers indicated lack of skills in preparing teaching aids, and knowledge and skills in managing classrooms as main challenges. As a result CVI were of the opinion that lack and use of teaching aids and classroom communication were the main barriers to their learning process. On the other hand, parents of CVI had views that learning is of value if their children will be employed later on, otherwise, they learn so that they will later forget. The teachers, parents and pupils agree that inadequate resources are a setback in ensuring quality learning for CVI.

Why from Teaching to Learning?

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Why from Teaching to Learning?
Author: HANNELE NIEMI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-17
ABSTRACT This article explores the changes in learning research that have been visible over recent decades. It describes how such concepts as learning, knowledge and learning environment have changed and what kinds of claims these transformations make in education in Europe. At the end of the article the author reflects how education should apply new concepts of learning, knowledge and learning environments in order to enhance quality of life. The important message is that teachers and teaching still play an important role in educational institutions but learning arenas have widened, crossing boundaries from formal settings. Teachers' role as facilitators and mediators is like scaffolding for a new building. It is a process of creating minds through providing new tools based on multidisciplinary learning research, and continuous dialogue with new artefacts, human beings and environments. It is empowering people through learning. The article also illustrates how learning research and education can support each other. As a case, the author describes the major results of the Finnish national research programme entitled Life as Learning, and new initiatives to promote learning research through the multidisciplinary CICERO Learning Network. In many European countries corresponding research initiatives have been launched. The author claims that a stronger international cooperation of national research programmes and wider multidisciplinarity would provide more additional value, and sets these as a future challenge in Europe.

Introduction

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 18-19
ABSTRACT Not available

Gender and PISA Mathematics: Irish results in context

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Gender and PISA Mathematics: Irish results in context
Author: SEAN CLOSE; GERRY SHIEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 20-33
ABSTRACT This article examines the Irish results in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) mathematics, with particular reference to gender differences. As in most PISA countries, male students in Ireland achieved a significantly higher mean score than females on the overall mathematics scale in all PISA cycles to date. In 2003, when mathematics was a major assessment domain, male students in Ireland outperformed females on all four mathematics subscales representing the overarching ideas, with the largest difference on Space and Shape. This is contrasted with the stronger performance of female students on the state Junior Certificate (JC) mathematics examination, taken by all students at the end of 9th Grade. The authors' analyses suggest that the stronger performance of male students on PISA is related to differential performance across content areas and cognitive levels, stronger performance at the top end of the overall mathematics proficiency scale, stronger performance on multiple-choice items, and stronger self-efficacy in and lower anxiety about mathematics. The findings are discussed in relation to existing theories of gender differences in mathematics and to features of schooling in Ireland. Throughout the article, reference is made to gender difference in PISA mathematics in other European countries.

The Case of Iceland in PISA: girls' educational advantage

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: The Case of Iceland in PISA: girls' educational advantage
Author: ALMAR M. HALLDÓRSSON; RAGNAR F. ÓLAFSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 34-53
ABSTRACT Among 41 participating countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003, the gender difference in favour of females was greatest in Iceland in the three subjects tested: mathematics, science and reading. The aims of this article are to put these findings in national and international context, and report on a number of attempts to explain them. This large gender difference is confirmed and given concurrent validity through the results of the annual Icelandic national standard tests in these subjects. The female advantage is apparent at 4th and 7th Grade, depending on subjects, and is maintained through university level. A comparison of PISA 2003 results with PISA 2000 and recently with PISA 2006 indicates that the year 2003 was somewhat exceptional. However, the basic stability of the gender differences over the past years is demonstrated. A number of explanations for the overall female superiority in PISA and the national standard test performance in Iceland are examined, namely gender difference on low versus high stakes tests, regional effects, school variability and psychological factors. No evidence is found for a stable school effect on gender differences across years, stable regional differences or for the explanation that male disadvantage only appears in 'low stakes' exams like PISA. Various psychological factors such as anxiety and self-esteem are shown to have stronger links with academic performance for girls compared with boys.

Strengths and Weaknesses in the Swedish and Swiss Education Systems: a comparative analysis based on PISA data

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Strengths and Weaknesses in the Swedish and Swiss Education Systems: a comparative analysis based on PISA data
Author: ULF FREDRIKSSON; THOMAS HOLZER; HUGUETTE McCLUSKEY-CAVIN; KARIN TAUBE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 54-68
ABSTRACT Sweden and Switzerland are among the wealthiest countries in the world, but also two countries with different approaches to how to provide welfare. Sweden has followed a social democratic welfare model and Switzerland a liberal model. This has implications for how the education systems have been organised. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study makes it possible to compare the achievements of students in reading and mathematics. Students in Switzerland are significantly better than Swedish students in mathematics. In reading, Swedish students are significantly better than Swiss students. In both countries, girls are better readers than boys. The gender difference in reading is larger in Sweden than in Switzerland. Boys are better than girls in mathematics. The gender difference in mathematics is smaller in Sweden than in Switzerland. The difference in reading between natives and non-natives is considerably lower in Sweden than in Switzerland. Sweden is among those countries where the variance between schools is very low. In Switzerland the variation in student performance among schools is higher than the average in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Both education systems may be regarded to be of high quality in an international perspective. The Swedish system has, with the exception of the gender gap in reading, produced a system that seems to have a higher degree of equity than the Swiss system.

Gender Gap in Comparative Studies of Reading Comprehension: to what extent do the test characteristics make a difference?

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Gender Gap in Comparative Studies of Reading Comprehension: to what extent do the test characteristics make a difference?
Author: DOMINIQUE LAFONTAINE; CHRISTIAN MONSEUR
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 69-79
ABSTRACT In this article we discuss how apparently indicators that may appear straightforward, such as gender differences, need to be interpreted with extreme care. In particular, we consider how the assessment framework, and the methodology of international surveys, may have a potential impact on the results and on the indicators. Through analysis of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data we show how increases or decreases in the achievement of some groups of students (either of whole countries or population subgroups like males and females) can, at least partially, result from variations in the framework or the methodology of the respective assessments. The analyses provide evidence that the gender gap is larger for open-ended questions, for continuous texts and for more cognitively demanding reading tasks.

Identity Construction through Schooling: listening to students’ voices

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Identity Construction through Schooling: listening to students’ voices
Author: SOFIA FREIRE; CAROLINA CARVALHO; ANA FREIRE; MÁRIO AZEVEDO; TERESA OLIVEIRA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 80-88
ABSTRACT One of the main problems faced by several educational systems around the world is educational exclusion. Portugal is no exception. It is recognized that those who drop out of education are at risk of social exclusion, with reduced opportunities to participate in society. In order to understand this, the authors reconceptualized the school as a community of practice, where students not only appropriate academic knowledge, but also new ways of being and perceiving themselves and others, and school practice itself. This article aims to better understand educational exclusion from the perspective of at-risk students. How do their constructed positional identities originate ways of being, relating and acting in relation to school agents and practices? The authors developed four focus group interviews with students presenting high rates of truancy and failure. Against their expectations, several students showed intent of pursuing their own path within the school system and saw themselves as capable of changing the conditions of failure in order to succeed in school.

A Fresh Look at Spanish Scientific Publishing in the Framework of International Standards

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: A Fresh Look at Spanish Scientific Publishing in the Framework of International Standards
Author: PAZ KINDELAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 89-103
ABSTRACT Research has become a key element in the knowledge-based society with its role of producing and disseminating results. In this context, scientific publishing becomes the means by which research activity and knowledge production are circulated to the scientific community and society at large. However, there are factors influencing the system of scientific publications in every national community or country that have to be taken into consideration. The author discusses the effects of the Spanish research system on scholars and publications, with particular reference to the humanities, and the factors affecting this system. Recent research policy in Spain has moved scholars to publish internationally and adopt the linguistic and rhetorical conventions that characterise the discourse of the international English-speaking community. Consequently, all participants in knowledge production and dissemination have joined in a concerted effort to elevate the quality and standards of national scientific publications to obtain international visibility and recognition.

The Many Faces of Entrepreneurship: a discursive battle for the school arena

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: The Many Faces of Entrepreneurship: a discursive battle for the school arena
Author: EVA LEFFLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 104-116
ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship and enterprise in schools are concepts that are appearing more and more frequently in local curricula for the compulsory nine-year school system in Sweden. The meanings of the concepts of entrepreneurship and enterprise in schools vary, however. Over the last few years, the concept of entrepreneurship has started to appear in contexts other than economic ones, and economic authorities are now expressing a need for a widening of the concept of entrepreneurship to include all sectors of society. This article further problematizes entrepreneurship and enterprise by discussing the following issues: the broader application of the perspective of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial perspective that focuses on a business orientation, and the enterprise perspective concerning the development of an individual's inherent abilities. The results show that teachers are still wrestling with the contribution of entrepreneurship in school activities.

The Pedagogical Dimension of Internationalisation? A Challenging Quality Issue in Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: The Pedagogical Dimension of Internationalisation? A Challenging Quality Issue in Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century
Author: MONNE WIHLBORG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 117-132
ABSTRACT What are the pedagogical impacts of internationalisation on the development of higher education in Europe? How can we proceed in this process and take a pedagogical stance on the issue? This theoretical article is partly based on a series of empirical studies, conducted by the author, investigating students' and teachers' experiences and understanding of an internationalised educational context in Sweden. Here, some further implications of these studies are examined and discussed in relation to recent publications and research concerned with internationalisation in higher education in various ways. Underpinned by the findings of earlier studies, this article argues that even though the internationalisation of higher education has been extensively researched in recent decades, more qualitative studies are needed. In particular, there is a lack of studies from the perspective of teachers and students concerned with their experience of internationalisation, and with how they interpret various aspects of this process in relation to their respective educational contexts. The empirical results of the series of studies conducted earlier in this area by the author show that teachers' and students' experience of internationalised contexts varied, and that they were experienced as ambiguous and difficult to grasp. Both teachers and students experienced such contexts as difficult to evaluate in terms of learning outcomes. This article argues in favour of a shift in research perspective, from an overall external perspective to a relational, experienced and context-based perspective, to understand how internationalisation in higher education is developed in practice. Adopting this perspective not only sheds light on issues of meaning making in learning and understanding knowledge content, but also raises significant questions of a general order, concerned with the nature of knowledge development in international educational contexts.

Studying Regulation and Inequalities in European Education: an exercise in counter-moves and counter-narratives

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Studying Regulation and Inequalities in European Education: an exercise in counter-moves and counter-narratives
Author: Maarten Simons
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2009 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 133-141
ABSTRACT Not available

Give Us a Break! A Sceptical Review of Contemporary Discourses of Lifelong Learning

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Give Us a Break! A Sceptical Review of Contemporary Discourses of Lifelong Learning
Author: SHARON GEWIRTZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 414-424
ABSTRACT Over the past 40 years a whole cluster of discourses centred on the ideas of the learning society and lifelong learning has emerged. These discourses have moved from being theoretical and aspirational to become increasingly embedded in international and national policies and professional practices. This article raises some concerns about what happens when the aspirational discourses which abounded in the 1960s and 1970s are translated into real-world practice and policies. The article begins with a brief review of the range of discourses bound up in the theory and practice of the learning society, and some of the sociological explanations for the proliferation of learning society and lifelong learning discourses. It then goes on to ask some questions about the potential risks of specific manifestations of these totalising approaches to education, focusing in particular on threats to 'learning-rich' and 'learning-free' spaces. In the spirit of lifelong learning, the author develops her arguments by drawing on some reflections on her own experiences as a worker (specifically as a supervisor of doctoral students) and as a parent of young children.

Putting the Idea of the Research-Driven or Research-Intensive University in Europe in its Context

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Putting the Idea of the Research-Driven or Research-Intensive University in Europe in its Context
Author: DAVID LIVESEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 425-432
ABSTRACT Research intensive universities have important roles in society and cannot be valued solely on the basis of their contribution to economic growth. Their activities are only part of the diverse spectrum of the higher education system which advanced societies need. League tables of universities discourage diversity, distort the goals of higher education institutions and grossly simplify the transmission of knowledge and the advancement of learning. Universities are complex clusters of networks of individual active learners engaged to their mutual benefit in a variety of ways with the rest of society through a myriad of equally complex network of active learners. These engagements are beneficial provided that the do not distort the roles of universities.

Europe's Universities in the European Research Area

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Europe's Universities in the European Research Area
Author: JOHN H. SMITH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 433-437
ABSTRACT Universities are placed strategically at the interplay of research and technological development, educational and regional development policies at both national and European level. Universities are also unique environments in which interdisciplinary skills are being developed to tackle the complex challenges facing human, social and economic development in the twenty-first century. Future European research policy should take more account of this unique role of universities in building the 'knowledge society'. The launching of the European Commission's 'Green Paper on the Future of the European Research Area' in 2007 provided scope for a new recognition of the place of Europe's universities as key stakeholders and gave the European University Association an opportunity to bring university needs and perspectives into the policy debate on new instruments and initiatives required.

Navigating in the Field of University Positioning: on international ranking lists, quality indicators and higher education governing

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Navigating in the Field of University Positioning: on international ranking lists, quality indicators and higher education governing
Author: SVERKER LINDBLAD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 438-450
ABSTRACT The construction of transnational and national systems for comparing qualities of universities are presented and discussed. In focus are two important university ranking lists - those produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and by the Times Higher Education Supplement. A Swedish example concerning the making of a resource distribution system based on performance indicators is presented. The Swedish performance indicator system and the international university ranking lists contain similar technologies for comparing universities and are to a large extent based on services of the same multinational corporations. From this point of view ranking lists and systems of performance based governance can be conceived of as globalisation at work.

Introduction

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Marit Honerød Hoveid; James C. Conroy
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 451-458
ABSTRACT Not available

Mapping the Field of Teacher Education Research: methodology and issues in a research capacity building initiative in teacher education in the United Kingdom

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Mapping the Field of Teacher Education Research: methodology and issues in a research capacity building initiative in teacher education in the United Kingdom
Author: JEAN MURRAY; ANNE CAMPBELL; IAN HEXTALL; MOIRA HULME; MARION JONES; PAT MAHONY; IAN MENTER; RICHARD PROCTER; KARL WALL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 459-474
ABSTRACT This article discusses the first stages of the work of the Teacher Education Group (TEG) in building research capacity in teacher education research and identifies the potential of the model adopted for future European initiatives in the field. The TEG work is part of the second phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), based on an embedded social practices model of research capacity building. The article opens by outlining the broad context of research capacity building initiatives and identifying general factors which create concerns about the sustainability of teacher education research in the United Kingdom. It then describes the initial impetus, within the TEG, for the creation of an up-to-date annotated mapping of current research in teacher education and outlines the practices used to generate the model used for the mapping. In conclusion, the article discusses some of the methodological, ethical and epistemological issues raised by the mapping exercise and the challenges ahead in disseminating and embedding the initiative.

Contested Aspects of Becoming a Teacher: teacher learning and the role of subject knowledge

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Contested Aspects of Becoming a Teacher: teacher learning and the role of subject knowledge
Author: LAURA COLUCCI-GRAY; CHRISTINE FRASER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 475-486
ABSTRACT Teaching is acknowledged to be complex, multifaceted and dynamic. Curriculum revisions in Scotland, and elsewhere, call for teachers who are adaptable and capable of change. Yet the skills and attributes traditionally valued and acquired by teachers during their education do not necessarily equip them to cope with the shifting landscape of educational change. This article draws on a collaborative review of literature relating to teacher education, undertaken for the Scottish Teachers for a New Era project. It examines the nature of knowledge for teaching generally and in relation to science education in particular to discuss contested aspects and to develop a conceptual framework for future research and development in this area. The main argument for this study is that a reformulation of teacher education is required. This involves changing the way teachers are educated within an accompanying shift in epistemology and a move to interdisciplinarity. It calls for a more egalitarian way of learning as a means to facilitate change within schools for the creation of a more equal and just society.

The Curriculum Workshop: a place for deliberative inquiry and teacher professional learning

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: The Curriculum Workshop: a place for deliberative inquiry and teacher professional learning
Author: KLAUS-HENNING HANSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 487-500
ABSTRACT In this article, the curriculum workshop (CW) is elaborated as an approach to professional learning, deliberation and inquiry. It offers a comprehensive framework for school-based deliberation and inquiry, is rooted in curriculum theory, promises a broad range of applications in teacher education and provides tools to assess the trustworthiness of processes and outcomes. The first section of the article discusses the theoretical background of the CW by going back to Joseph Schwab's idea of 'the practical', of deliberative inquiry in curricular groups. Building on these ideas, Karl Frey's model of a 'curriculum conference' is presented. Elements of Schwab's and Frey's approaches are then modified and adapted to the CW. The second section asks how the CW was enacted in the framework of a European project on good practice in school-based teacher education, presents exemplary outcomes and critically discusses the trustworthiness of the approach. The final section provides a summary of the outcomes and indicates directions for further research.

Researching the Contested Place of Reflective Practice in the Emerging Culture of Performativity in Schools: views from the Republic of Ireland

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Researching the Contested Place of Reflective Practice in the Emerging Culture of Performativity in Schools: views from the Republic of Ireland
Author: GERRY MACRUAIRC; JUDITH HARFORD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 501-511
ABSTRACT This article examines the role of reflective practice in a growing culture of new managerialism and performativity which has emerged in schools in the Republic of Ireland over recent years. Ten student teachers participating in a Postgraduate Diploma in Education and 24 experienced teachers participating in a Master's in Education programme participated in the study. Through a series of open-ended questionnaires and focus group discussions, these teachers' experiences of the evaluative framework which now typifies schooling in Ireland, and their capacity within this paradigm to engage in critical reflection, were examined. The study comments on the extent to which meaningful reflection can be part of a performance-driven agenda, and examines the implications of performativity cultures for initial teacher education and teacher professional development.

Arts-Informed Inquiry in Teacher Education: contesting the myths

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Arts-Informed Inquiry in Teacher Education: contesting the myths
Author: ROBYN EWING; JOHN HUGHES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 512-522
ABSTRACT Arts-informed inquiry has attracted a great deal of controversy in recent times as it has gained popularity as an educational research methodology in teacher education. As with other innovative approaches and methodologies, there have been lively debates about its rigour, authenticity and appropriateness. This article suggests principles for its use in exploring relevant questions in teacher education research and examines some of the issues that have been used to challenge its integrity. Several recent teacher education research projects undertaken by staff and research higher degree graduates at the University of Sydney are discussed initially as exemplars and to provide a context for the discussion. The authors demonstrate how research using arts-informed inquiry contributes perspectives and understandings that are distinctive from other methodologies and so can offer new understandings about some of the liminal issues in teacher education.

Two Profiles of Teacher Education Graduates: a discriminant analysis of teaching commitment

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Two Profiles of Teacher Education Graduates: a discriminant analysis of teaching commitment
Author: ISABEL ROTS; ANTONIA AELTERMAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 523-534
ABSTRACT Although several studies have confirmed the importance of teaching commitment for beginning teachers' retention in the profession, research on the factors that enhance the teaching commitment of teacher education graduates is scarce. The purpose of the current study is thus to identify the predicting factors that distinguish teacher education graduates with a low level from those with a high level of teaching commitment. Four categories of predicting variables were distinguished: (1) personal characteristics (sex, personality); (2) initial motivation for teaching; (3) teacher education (type of teacher training, graduation degree, preparedness for teaching, faculty support and mentor support); and (4) integration into teaching (teacher efficacy and professional orientation). The results suggest that graduates with a low level of teaching commitment can be reliably distinguished from graduates with a high level of commitment by the personality factor 'conscientiousness', the type of teacher training, their initial motivation for teaching, their views of their teacher education (in terms of preparation for teaching, faculty support and mentor support) and their teacher efficacy. As such, the findings of this study have important implications for teacher education since the results confirm the importance of teacher education for the teaching commitment of graduates.

The Quality of Vocational Teachers: teacher education, institutional roles and professional reality

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: The Quality of Vocational Teachers: teacher education, institutional roles and professional reality
Author: PHILIPP GROLLMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 535-547
ABSTRACT What are quality vocational teachers? This article analyzes the different factors exerting an influence on the professional knowledge, practices and performance of teaching staff involved in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The international variety of vocational teacher education patterns, profiles and recruitment practices is presented. Any assessment of the quality of teachers' work, be it in theory or practice, needs to be considered against the background of the institutional environment in which they practise. Hence, some common trends of institutional change within vocational education are introduced. Most particularly here, the author focuses on the professional reality of vocational teachers as made manifest in the conjoined elements of the knowledge of teachers and professional cultures. In doing so, the author draws on some empirical exemplars. The author shows how closely teacher education and the institutional contexts are entwined in the minds of teachers as well as in professional cultures. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as to what this implies for high-quality vocational teacher education and recruitment.

Developing Research Structures and Research Capacity: the Swedish National Postgraduate School in Educational Work (NaPA)

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Developing Research Structures and Research Capacity: the Swedish National Postgraduate School in Educational Work (NaPA)
Author: INGER ERIXON ARREMAN; PER-OLOF ERIXON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 548-556
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the emergence and development of new research structures and research capacity within Swedish teacher education at the beginning of the new millennium. Since 2001, it has been possible in Sweden to undertake postgraduate and research studies within teacher education - something that was previously impossible. As a result of a national reform, a new research discipline, educational work, was established at several Swedish universities. At the same time, the National Postgraduate School in Educational Work (NaPA) was created, the responsibility for which was given to Umeå University, one of the larger Swedish teacher education providers. The aim of the article is to provide a picture of Swedish national teacher education policies in the first years of the millennium that have generated new research structures, which, in turn, have enabled a rapid and nationally distributed expansion of research within the field of Swedish teacher education. It draws on a combination of policy documents, research carried out by the two authors and reflections on their own experiences, as a former PhD student who now has a doctoral qualification in educational work and as the head of NaPA respectively.

Religious Beliefs: a hidden variable in the performance of science teachers in the classroom

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:31:49 GMT

Title: Religious Beliefs: a hidden variable in the performance of science teachers in the classroom
Author: NASSER MANSOUR
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Pages: 557-576
ABSTRACT This article focuses on some of the challenges of teaching science in a culture where science and religion sometimes appear to be or are set at odds with each other. Apparent conflicts between scholarly claims and religious claims are not limited to science, however - they occur in almost every subject. Many topics included in science education are acknowledged as controversial issues, for example, evolution, cloning, abortion and genetic engineering. These issues pose problems for science teachers, especially in a religiously based culture, because of the nature of the conflict between the implications of a scientific study of some of these issues and religion. Some other issues may not formally conflict with religion but teachers' views, or the way they interpret the religious view regarding these controversial issues, can create a false contradiction, which might influence their performance and, in turn, influence their students' learning. Therefore, there is a need to understand teachers' personal religious beliefs and practices around some of these, and the way their beliefs influence their performance in the classroom. This article describes a study conducted to address these needs. The study looks at the role and influence of religion on the science teacher's performance. The findings highlighted the powerful influence of teachers' religious beliefs in dealing with or gaining new knowledge (the epistemology and the ontology of science). Also, the findings found that teachers' religious beliefs are among the major constructs that drive teachers' ways of thinking and classroom practices about scientific issues related to religion.

Governing Knowledge: research steering and research quality

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Governing Knowledge: research steering and research quality
Author: JENNY OZGA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 261-272
ABSTRACT This article argues that the 'quality' debate in education research is not so much about quality as about creating the conditions in which research and knowledge production in the field of education can be managed and steered. The criticisms of research in education have destabilised the field and promoted its closer dependence on and alignment with policy. The paper connects changes in the nature of knowledge to developments in the governance of education, suggesting that experts and techno-scientific research are increasingly necessary not only as sources of information but as ways of 'doing' governing, especially through quantification and comparison.

The Mobility of University Students in Europe and Spain

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: The Mobility of University Students in Europe and Spain
Author: PILAR PINEDA; VICTORIA MORENO; ESTHER BELVIS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 273-288
ABSTRACT The Bologna Process has taken an undeniable role in the development of the European Higher Education Space to create a shared framework at the higher education level. In this new framework, teachers' and students' mobility is the key element. This is one of the main aims that European Union education policies try to achieve. This study is about the mobility of Erasmus and Sicue students in the European Union and the Spanish university context. It tries to explain mobility through three basic lines of research: documentary analysis, the application of eligibility index and work field. The methodology used gathers qualitative and quantitative data from a sample of Erasmus and Sicue students. The results show that the participation in a mobility programme is not only connected with a personal profile but also with other factors that can promote or inhibit this decision. The most important factors are related to the family and relationship context, the features of programmes and the promotion that takes place in the universities.

Top University - downhill for humanities? Policing the Future of Higher Education in the Finnish Mainstream Media

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Top University - downhill for humanities? Policing the Future of Higher Education in the Finnish Mainstream Media
Author: SEIJA RIDELL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 289-310
ABSTRACT The ongoing structural changes of the university are under heated debate worldwide, including the Nordic countries. In scholarly discussion, however, there has been surprisingly little analysis and critical assessments of the ways the mainstream media especially represent the state and future of university for the general public. By focusing on the ways Finland's largest daily newspaper covered a specific plan to reform the Finnish university system during Spring 2007, this article explores who were given the right to define the university's contemporary state of affairs, name its problems and suggest solutions to them in the national print media's public arena. More specifically, the article is concerned with the kind of actor positions afforded to human sciences and humanist scholars in the media coverage.

Introduction

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Bryony Hoskins; Ruth Deakin Crick
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 308-310
ABSTRACT Not available

Key Competencies for Education in a European Context: narratives of accountability or care

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Key Competencies for Education in a European Context: narratives of accountability or care
Author: RUTH DEAKIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 311-318
ABSTRACT This article addresses the ideological challenges and opportunities presented by the European Commission's commitment to the identification of key competencies for education and training, and the development of indicators which can be used to monitor and evaluate progress towards these competences across the European Union. It explores the backdrop of global changes which bring the notion of competences to the fore, worldwide, and then reports on the European Union's framework for competences. The construction of 'competence' is an ideological and political act, since it is an indication of a particular understanding of the 'good life', which may be different when viewed from within a social justice narrative or a neo-liberal narrative. The notion of 'meta-competence' is explored as a means of transcending the binary tension between an economic and a social narrative. European texts are best viewed as complex and multifaceted 'collages' which are dynamic, rather than static, and the term 'competence' in the texts is a good example of this.

The Discourse of Social Justice within European Education Policy Developments: the example of key competences and indicator development towards assuring the continuation of democracy

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: The Discourse of Social Justice within European Education Policy Developments: the example of key competences and indicator development towards assuring the continuation of democracy
Author: BRYONY HOSKINS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 319-330
ABSTRACT Neo-liberal discourse is described by many critical education researchers as almost the only discourse within European education policy making. However, although this discourse clearly exists and is powerful, the author identifies an alternative discourse within European Union policy making which incorporates narratives of social justice, solidarity and democracy, particularly citing education as a vehicle for these narratives. This article highlights the place of this alternative discourse in the policy process of the identification of key competences and the creation of indicators by which the competences can be evaluated. It uses official texts and direct experience of working in the European Commission's Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL) to explain this narrative further, including the process of the development of indicators on certain key competences, such as civic competence and learning to learn and the social justice dialogue that forms the basis for these discussions. The article argues that the absence from critical educational researchers' debates of this narrative leads to an oversimplified understanding of European policy processes.

Hard Measures for Soft Stuff: citizenship indicators and educational policy under the Lisbon Strategy

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Hard Measures for Soft Stuff: citizenship indicators and educational policy under the Lisbon Strategy
Author: JOHN HOLFORD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 331-343
ABSTRACT How far is the European Union a vehicle for inclusion and empowerment of a new range of policy actors in education? This article explores the role of actors in policy formation through a case study. It examines European Union attempts since 2000 to develop indicators of 'active citizenship' and 'education and training for active citizenship'. It is based on two main sources: policy documents on the development of indicators and benchmarks; and a case study of an exercise (2005-07) to develop such indicators, initiated by the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture. It shows that policy actors have attempted to take advantage of the Open Method of Coordination, often seen as a neo-liberal control mechanism, to ensure that citizenship remains on the policy agenda.

The Boundaries of Competency within Lisbon and Bologna: the short-cycle/foundation learner

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: The Boundaries of Competency within Lisbon and Bologna: the short-cycle/foundation learner
Author: JACQUELINE BRINE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 344-357
ABSTRACT The concept of competency is considered both in relation to the educational competency of the short-cycle student described in the 'Dublin Descriptors' of the Bologna Process and in the European Commission's European Qualifications Framework, and in relation to the legal competency that the European Commission has within the field of education and training. This article focuses specifically on the short-cycle/foundation degree introduced in 2003 into the pan-European Bologna Process, and considers its relevance to the European Union's Lisbon Strategy. It argues that the 'short-cycle/foundation' student represents the mid knowledge-skilled learner that is frequently missing from policies and analyses of the knowledge economy that concentrate on either 'basic skills' learners or graduates/postgraduates and that this particular learner, clearly linked to employment, is located at the intersection of vocational and academic learning. The article also considers the role of the European Commission in both the Lisbon and Bologna Processes. Based on an analysis of policy texts the article suggests that the two definitions of competency, whilst quite distinct, are, at the level of policy, very closely connected and serve to increase the Commission's activities within areas of education that are beyond their legal competence.

Investigating the Discourse on Social Cohesion in Relation to Innovation through the Vocabulary of European Commission Communications

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Investigating the Discourse on Social Cohesion in Relation to Innovation through the Vocabulary of European Commission Communications
Author: ERNESTO VILLALBA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 358-370
ABSTRACT After the relaunch of the Lisbon Strategy, innovation has become one of the main areas of interest in the European Union (EU). In general terms, innovation is always seen as a driver of economic growth and a necessary element to achieve the strategic goal set by the EU in 2000 of becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy. The strategic goal also encompasses the so-called 'European Social Model', in which greater social cohesion should be achieved. The article explores European communication documents related to innovation to determine what role they give to social cohesion. The article is framed within the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning's project, 'Education for Innovation and Innovation for Education', which explores the relationship between education and innovation. The article hypothesises that the concept of lifelong learning is instrumental in connecting innovation and social cohesion. The results of the content analysis show that the connection exists in policy documents, but it is limited.

Targeting Resources to Students with Special Educational Needs: national differences in policy and practice

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Targeting Resources to Students with Special Educational Needs: national differences in policy and practice
Author: MARCELLA DELUCA; CARA STILLINGS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 371-385
ABSTRACT Multiple policy strategies exist to promote equity and inclusion in education and training systems. Across countries, the provision of additional resources to students with special educational needs is a common strategy; previous research indicates that providing extra resources to students with special educational needs can help those students make progress in schools. The purpose of this article is threefold: first, it will discuss the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tripartite categorisation system for describing how different countries serve and differentiate between students with diverse special needs. The authors rely upon the OECD's work in an attempt to characterise the international special needs student population and to synthesise some of the progress that has been made toward understanding what education for students with disabilities, learning difficulties, and disadvantages looks like. Next, the article presents new lenses for viewing policies that target additional resources to disadvantaged youth. The authors intend for the lenses proposed to facilitate more fruitful international comparisons. Finally, the article will discuss the challenges inherent to making such comparisons and will conclude with suggestions for addressing those challenges.

Does Formal Education Have an Impact on Active Citizenship Behaviour?

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: Does Formal Education Have an Impact on Active Citizenship Behaviour?
Author: BRYONY HOSKINS; BÉATRICE D'HOMBRES; JOANN CAMPBELL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 386-402
ABSTRACT In the European context Active Citizenship has been promoted within the education and training Lisbon Strategy as a tool to support the continuation of democracy, human rights and greater social inclusion. In this article the authors analyse the impact of education on Active Citizenship and contribute to the existing debates relating to education levels and participation. The results of their analysis uniformly suggest that there is a significant democratic return associated with formal education. Indeed, using a large sample of individuals from the 2006/2007 European Social Survey, it was found that education is positively and significantly correlated with Active Citizenship behaviour. Tertiary education has by far the biggest impact and this impact is the strongest for the domain of Protest. The findings are robust to the introduction of a large set of control variables and to alternative measures of educational attainment.

The Politics of Education Policy Making and Policy Research in Europe: areas for debate and development

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: The Politics of Education Policy Making and Policy Research in Europe: areas for debate and development
Author: AVRIL KEATING
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 403-406
ABSTRACT This article concludes the issue, and reflects upon the main themes that unite the various contributions, namely the evolution of educational and legal competency; the complexity of European Union educational governance; the challenges of measuring and developing indicators for education; and the role of social justice agendas in EU education policy. This article also locates the issue within the burgeoning field of European education policy studies, and considers future avenues for research and areas for theoretical and methodological development. These include better tools for measuring the processes of learning, as well as better models for mapping the processes of policymaking.

REVIEW ESSAY Education, Equality and Human Rights,

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:51:53 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY Education, Equality and Human Rights,
Author: João Paraskeva
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Pages: 407-413
ABSTRACT Not available

ECER 2007 KEYNOTE On Excellence through Competition

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: ECER 2007 KEYNOTE On Excellence through Competition
Author: Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 124-130
ABSTRACT Not available

EERJ ROUNDTABLE 2007

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: EERJ ROUNDTABLE 2007
Author: Phillip Brown; Hugh Lauder; David Ashton
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 131-156
ABSTRACT Education, Globalisation and the Future of the Knowledge Economy. With responses from Wang Yingjie and Stephan Vincent-Lancrin

The Process of Finding a Shape: stabilising new research structures in Swedish teacher education, 2000-2007

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: The Process of Finding a Shape: stabilising new research structures in Swedish teacher education, 2000-2007
Author: INGER ERIXON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 157-175
ABSTRACT This article explores the development and effects of Swedish post-war policies on the emergence of a research base for teacher education. From 2001 onwards, it is possible to undertake research and postgraduate studies within teacher education in Sweden, which prior to the 2001 reform was not possible. The article draws on a variety of frameworks to explore relationships between various parts of teacher education and also more widely in the university. These include relations of power, discourse and gender based on the theoretical perspectives of Bourdieu, Foucault, Sarfatti Larson and Connell among others. Policy documents relating to teacher education and research into national, regional and local perspectives were used to explore institutional history, structures and research development in teacher education from 1946 to the present time. For a micro-level perspective, an interview study was also carried out between 2000 and 2002 with teacher educators and senior managers who from the late 1940s were responsible for teacher education programmes, in and around Umeå, in northern Sweden. A further complementary interview study was carried out with teacher educators and union representatives between 2005 and 2007. The extended study reveals the emergence of new research areas in teacher education as a multilayered process involving a variety of actors at different levels at Umeå University and elsewhere. The aim of the article is to explore the implications of the new research structures for teacher education in Sweden and also to contribute to current cross-national discourses on the need to establish a research base for teacher education.

Middle-Class Families and School Choice: freedom versus equity in the context of a 'local education market'

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: Middle-Class Families and School Choice: freedom versus equity in the context of a 'local education market'
Author: ANTONIO OLMEDO REINOSO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 176-194
ABSTRACT This article analyses the impact of social class on the process of school choice in Spain from the viewpoint of middle-class families. This practice must be seen in the framework of the new social context generated by the information society. The article begins by briefly describing changes in school choice policies in Spain. For a wider understanding, these changes are related to the broader process of the marketisation of education, which has been taking place in this country for the last 20 years. In the second part of the article, qualitative data are presented on how middle-class parents understand and experience the process of choosing a particular school for their children. In this study, 24 interviews were carried out in the city of Granada (southern Spain). They were fully transcribed and analysed using the methodology suggested by 'grounded theory' and Bourdieu's concept of social class. Aspects related to social and cultural capital are added to the traditional social class indicators, which are usually expressed in economic terms. Attention centres on the creation of reconversion strategies for these different forms of capital used by families to obtain positional advantage for their children. This research thus revisits the principles of social reproduction theories from the viewpoint of the 'winners', i.e. middle-class families.

The Changing Relations between Education Professionals, the State and Citizen Consumers in Europe: rethinking restructuring as capitalisation

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: The Changing Relations between Education Professionals, the State and Citizen Consumers in Europe: rethinking restructuring as capitalisation
Author: DENNIS BEACH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 195-207
ABSTRACT This article focuses on research about welfare state restructuring in education and its implications for the teaching profession. Several things are described and discussed. However, amongst the most important are pan-European developments in the social relations of production in education over the past 50 years with respect to the socialisation, habituation and commercialisation of education labour, and a suggested lowering of general standards of public education and increasing class differences in the amount and quality of education consumed by citizens. The idea expressed about this is that neo-liberal restructuring is leading to the creation of apparatuses through which education is objectified for economic accumulation through an outsourcing of functions that were formerly carried out within first domestic and voluntary, and then state arrangements to capitalist enterprises. This is part of a successive privatisation of education services for processes of capitalisation. It consists of an updating of the moral and legal determination of education services by the prevailing standards of market capitalism and an abdication of responsibility for the plight of negatively affected individuals, who, nevertheless, in some intriguing way still often support the system of transformation in question.

From Symbols to Numbers: the shifting technologies of education governance in Europe

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: From Symbols to Numbers: the shifting technologies of education governance in Europe
Author: SOTIRIA GREK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 208-218
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the changing nature of education governance in Europe. It looks at the shifting discourses and policy practices in the ways in which the European Commission has aligned itself to education and discusses the reasons for what is presented as a substantial shift in the tools and resources for governing the European education space. The article suggests that, alongside other significant developments, the knowledge economy has had two significant effects on education governance in Europe: first, a rapid change of policy discourse and practice, moving from constructing a European 'culture' to a Europe of learning governed by numbers; and second, education is slowly moving from the margins of European governance to the very centre of its policy making. The article discusses the new technologies of governance that have powered this shift and makes a case for the significance of recognising and studying them further.

Age of Indicators: changes in the Finnish education policy agenda

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: Age of Indicators: changes in the Finnish education policy agenda
Author: JAAKKO KAUKO; JANNE VARJO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 219-231
ABSTRACT Quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) have become a vital part of education governance, both globally and nationally. This article is an attempt to represent and analyse first, how the idea of education indicators has arrived, has been accepted and has been modified in Finland. Secondly, it describes what are the aims given and actions taken in developing national indicators by different actors. The article sketches the development of education indicators in Finland through two time periods of high adaptational pressure of Europeanisation. During the 'short 1970s' (c.1970-76), the idea of social indicators was introduced for the very first time on the Finnish comprehensive education policy agenda. This first attempt faded away by the mid 1970s. However, the 'long 1990s' reinvented the idea and it seems that this period, beginning from c.1986, is still ongoing. Drawing on Börzel & Risse's thoughts, the authors explain the differences in these two decades mainly with the changes in 'facilitating factors' and the duration of adaptational pressure.

Improving Learning in All-Day Schools: results of a new teaching time model

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: Improving Learning in All-Day Schools: results of a new teaching time model
Author: MICHAEL PFEIFER; HEINZ GÜNTER HOLTAPPELS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 232-242
ABSTRACT Following the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment for Germany, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research founded the capital investment program 'Future Education and Care' as a federal measure to support the expansion of all-day schooling in Germany. During this process it became obvious that learning and teaching in all-day schools had to take place within new time structures. In this context, the Land of Bremen initiated a new teaching time model, which is, so far, unique in Germany. The results of empirical longitudinal accompanying research on the presence teaching time model indicate that pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds profited most from the new model. Further, teachers' workload decreased and there was an increase in their cooperative behaviour.

Advancing the European Education Agenda: international conference of the European Education Policy Network (EEPN) and the Centre for Educational Policy and Innovation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: Advancing the European Education Agenda: international conference of the European Education Policy Network (EEPN) and the Centre for Educational Policy and Innovation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Author: LISELOTTE VAN DE PERRE; ANNELEEN VERCKENS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 243-249
ABSTRACT An international conference on the theme 'Advancing the European Education Agenda' took place in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium from 30 November to 1 December 2007. This conference, part of a conference series organised by the European Education Policy Network, aimed to stimulate debate among policy researchers and policy makers who are interested in the rapid education policy developments taking place in the European arena. In this report the authors provide an overview of the key themes, challenges and tensions that were raised during this meeting. These discussions clustered around four themes: higher education, research and innovation; mobility, integration and inclusion; learning, languages and skills; and bridging the gap between education policy and research.

REVIEW ESSAY The Waning Role of the Nation in History Teaching in a Global World

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:53:24 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY The Waning Role of the Nation in History Teaching in a Global World
Author: Witold Tulasiewicz
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Pages: 250-260
ABSTRACT Not available

Effects of International Comparative Studies on Educational Quality on the Quality of Educational Research

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Effects of International Comparative Studies on Educational Quality on the Quality of Educational Research
Author: JAN-ERIC GUSTAFSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-17
ABSTRACT Large-scale survey studies of educational achievement are becoming increasingly frequent, and they are visibly present in both educational policy debates and within the educational research community. One main aim of these studies is to provide descriptions of inputs, processes and outcomes, and another aim is to provide explanations of how different factors interrelate to produce educational outcomes. These aims are difficult to reach, which in combination with the fact that the comparative studies are typically more policy driven than theory driven, are reasons why these studies are contested on quality grounds. In this article, a set of fundamental methodological challenges related to the validity of the measurement instruments and to the possibility of making inferences about causality are identified and discussed in relation to examples of different studies. Strengths and weaknesses of different research approaches are discussed, and it is proposed that the dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative approaches should be replaced with distinctions between low- and high-level inference approaches with respect to data, generalization and explanation. It is concluded that while the international studies easily invite misuse and misinterpretation, they also offer possibilities for improving the quality of educational research, because the high-quality data generated by these studies can be taken advantage of in research on causal effects of factors in and out of educational systems.

Introduction

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Chris Gaine; Sharon Gewirtz
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 18-22
ABSTRACT Not available

Race, Ethnicity and Difference versus Imagined Homogeneity within the European Union

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Race, Ethnicity and Difference versus Imagined Homogeneity within the European Union
Author: CHRIS GAINE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 23-38
ABSTRACT This article argues three things. First, it argues that the perception of diversity being problematic in Europe has been generated largely by non-European immigration into urban areas. This has been Britain's experience for 50 years and Spain's for barely 15, but whether the immigrants are ex-colonial, Turkish or Balkan migrant labour, or Africans escaping economic despair, they are likely to be seen as troublingly 'other'. The second argument is that partly in response to this there is a degree of policy convergence about protection from discrimination, although it is complex, has several motives and is subject to many local variations. Thirdly, the article reviews the existing diversity within Europe before the immigration of the late twentieth century and argues that historic 'indigenous' minorities have received less recognition and legal protection, primarily because of the very notions of national identity now troubled by immigration.

Taking Identity Seriously: dilemmas for education policy and practice

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Taking Identity Seriously: dilemmas for education policy and practice
Author: SHARON GEWIRTZ; ALAN CRIBB
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 39-49
ABSTRACT If we are to fully understand and adequately respond to the multicultural question in European education, it is necessary to develop rich empirical descriptions and theoretically rigorous explanations of policy processes and effects. For example, we need to be able to characterise and explain the differentiated ways in which education policies and practices do or do not recognise, support or undermine diverse cultural identities and do or do not reproduce various kinds of educational and social inequality. But we also need to be able to produce some kind of account of what ought to be going on. The latter involves confronting a number of important questions: Why does identity matter? What is ethically entailed by - and what are the limits to - recognising and supporting diverse cultural identities? In what ways are the various currents of multiculturalism an adequate response to these complex normative questions? In this article, the authors begin to respond to these questions by mapping out some of the dilemmas involved in taking both identity and equality seriously.

Education and Diversity in the Netherlands

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Education and Diversity in the Netherlands
Author: YVONNE LEEMAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 50-59
ABSTRACT This article sets out the Dutch approach to the multicultural question. It focuses on how national policies, schools, teachers and teacher educators are addressing and making sense of questions of cultural and religious diversity. The article shows how the Netherlands has partly accommodated itself to greater cultural diversity through compulsory reforms like intercultural education and citizenship education and through its long-established structure of public funding for pedagogically and religiously diverse schools. It also shows the double standards applied to Christian and Islamic schools in the media and public debate. Drawing on interview data with teachers and case study material on teacher educators, the article describes their daily dilemmas with regard to diversity and commonality in contemporary classrooms and concludes that these teachers do not have the professional expertise needed to respond effectively to such dilemmas.

Teachers' Ideas about Multicultural Education in a Changing Society: the case of the Czech Republic

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Teachers' Ideas about Multicultural Education in a Changing Society: the case of the Czech Republic
Author: DANA MOREE; CEES KLAASSEN; WIEL VEUGELERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 60-73
ABSTRACT This article draws on Czech teachers' ideas about multicultural education at a time when the teaching of multicultural education has become obligatory for primary and secondary schools. After describing the broader context within which this reform has taken place - specifically, the transformation of the educational system and the changing ethnic mosaic of the Czech Republic - the authors present results of a qualitative research study of Czech teachers' ideas about multicultural education.

Culture-Blind? Parental Discourse on Religion, Ethnicity and Secularism in the French Educational Context

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Culture-Blind? Parental Discourse on Religion, Ethnicity and Secularism in the French Educational Context
Author: MAROUSSIA RAVEAUD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 74-88
ABSTRACT This article examines policy mediation and adaptation in a context where religious, ethnic and other cultural identities are not officially recognised in the public sphere but considered part of the private sphere. French educational policy is firmly rooted within a secular Republican framework which relies on a colour-blind approach to promote equality. The article draws on 53 interviews with parents in Greater Paris, which were undertaken as part of a comparative study of urban parents' values and attitudes regarding education and school choice, conducted in collaboration with the London Institute of Education in 2004-05. The focus is on parents' perceptions of religious and ethnic diversity at school, and the interview data is contrasted to the Republican ideology dominant in official rhetoric. What is seen playing across and through these interviews is how the range of discourse available to parents is embedded in and constrained by cultural, political and educational traditions and values. However, far from endorsing official rhetoric wholesale, many parents question, adapt and mediate secular Republican ideals, raising the issue of the relevance and durability of the French model of integration.

The Impossibility of Minority Ethnic Educational 'Success'? An Examination of the Discourses of Teachers and Pupils in British Secondary Schools

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: The Impossibility of Minority Ethnic Educational 'Success'? An Examination of the Discourses of Teachers and Pupils in British Secondary Schools
Author: LOUISE ARCHER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 89-107
ABSTRACT This article argues that in Britain dominant educational discourses of 'the ideal pupil' exclude minority ethnic pupils and prevent them from inhabiting a position of authentic 'success'. It suggests that 'the successful pupil' is a desired yet refused subject position for many minority ethnic young people - even for those who are (to some extent) performing educational success. The article draws on interview and discussion group data from teachers, minority ethnic parents and minority ethnic pupils (aged 14-16 years) that were collected across four separate studies. All the studies were conducted in British secondary schools and focused on the identities and experiences of British Chinese, British Muslim and ethnically diverse samples of young people. The article engages in an unpicking of the multiple ways in which minority ethnic pupils are Othered in relation to the dominant identity of the 'ideal pupil' as White, male, middle class, and so on. The article moves beyond the notion of a singular Other position, engaging with the slipperiness of power and entanglements of 'race', gender, class and sexuality through the conceptual device of a trichotomy. This integrated model moves beyond notions of simplistic 'stereotyping' to explain how complexly located minority ethnic pupils are always-already positioned as 'other' within British educational discourse, such that even 'high-achieving' minority ethnic pupils may experience success as precarious.

From Foreigner Pedagogy to Intercultural Education: an analysis of the German responses to diversity and its impact on schools and students

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: From Foreigner Pedagogy to Intercultural Education: an analysis of the German responses to diversity and its impact on schools and students
Author: DANIEL FAAS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 108-123
ABSTRACT Germany has been reluctant to adapt its education systems to the growing number of minority ethnic students, and politicians and policy makers have only recently officially acknowledged that Germany is an immigration country despite decades of mass immigration. This article first provides a socio-historical analysis of the German responses to migration-related cultural and religious diversity by tracing the development of educational policies from assimilationist notions of 'foreigner pedagogy' in the 1960s and 1970s to intercultural education, which slowly emerged in schools in the 1980s and 1990s. However, unlike European education, intercultural education still lacks official support in some German federal states. Drawing upon qualitative data collected in two Stuttgart secondary schools, the article then discusses the ways in which schools and students have mediated such macro-level policies. Goethe Gymnasium (a university-track school) promoted European values alongside multicultural values whereas Tannberg Hauptschule (a vocational-track school) was close to being Eurocentric and positioned minority ethnic students as the 'Other'. The findings suggest that Germany still has some way to go to overcome cultural insensitivities, to increase minority ethnic representation amongst teachers and to promote both diversity and civic cohesion.

Evidence-based Reform in Education: what will it take?

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Evidence-based Reform in Education: what will it take?
Author: Robert E. Slavin
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 124-128
ABSTRACT Not available

Evidence-based Reform in Education: a response to Robert Slavin

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: Evidence-based Reform in Education: a response to Robert Slavin
Author: David Bridges
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 129-133
ABSTRACT Not available

The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:41:20 GMT

Title: The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending
Author: Francesca Gobbo
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2008 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Pages: 134-147
ABSTRACT Not available

New Forms of European Union Governance in the Education Sector? A Preliminary Analysis of the Open Method of Coordination

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: New Forms of European Union Governance in the Education Sector? A Preliminary Analysis of the Open Method of Coordination
Author: BETTINA LANGE; NAFSIKA ALEXIADOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 321-325
ABSTRACT This article critically explores how a new form of European Union (EU) governance - the open method of coordination (OMC) - impinges on education policies. The first part discusses three key characteristics of the OMC, in particular its flexibility, reflexivity and reliance on the techniques of new public management. It also outlines briefly why the OMC is being applied to EU education policy. The second and main part of the article develops a critical analysis of the OMC in education by questioning to what extent it can be considered as a new form of EU governance and with what vision of Social Europe it is associated. Most importantly, the second part argues that there may be significant potential for the politicization of mutual policy learning in the context of OMC education measures.

A Comparative Analysis of New Governance Instruments in the Transnational Educational Space: a shift to knowledge-based instruments?

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: A Comparative Analysis of New Governance Instruments in the Transnational Educational Space: a shift to knowledge-based instruments?
Author: ALEXANDRA IOANNIDOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 336-347
ABSTRACT In recent years, the ongoing development towards a knowledge-based society - associated with globalization, an aging population, new technologies and organizational changes - has led to a more intensive analysis of education and learning throughout life with regard to quantitative, qualitative and financial aspects. In this framework, education policy is no longer merely an affair of the nation state; on the contrary, a range of significant actors (international, supranational and non-governmental organizations) play an important role in policy formation and construct a transnational educational space. In a research project being carried out at the University of Tübingen, the education policy initiatives of an international (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]) and supranational (European Union [EU]) organization concerning the concept of lifelong learning are being examined with emphasis on its implementation into national forms of monitoring and reporting systems. A part of the study concerns issues regarding the influence of the OECD and EU on national policy formation and their managing capacity. This article focuses on the emergence of new governance instruments used by the OECD and EU in the transnational educational space, their characteristics and their impacts, applying, as a conceptual tool, Willke's analytical distinction of regulative media into power, money and knowledge.

The Curse of Success: the impact of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment on the discourses of the teaching profession in Finland

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: The Curse of Success: the impact of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment on the discourses of the teaching profession in Finland
Author: MARJAANA RAUTALIN; PERTTI ALASUUTARI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 348-363
ABSTRACT In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international comparative learning assessment measuring young people's knowledge and skills, Finland has been ranked at the top in the two rounds conducted and reported so far. In this article, the authors examine the discourses within which Finland's PISA results have been interpreted by the teaching profession in Finland, and how these interpretations of Finland's PISA success together with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's PISA may affect national education policy in the future. The main question posed is how do teachers interpret excellence so as to support their attempt to improve their working conditions, when the international success of Finnish education could also be used as proof that all is well. The data comprise editorials published in the official organ of the teachers' trade union in Finland, Opettaja-lehti. The analysis shows that in the editorials, success is explained mainly by the expertise of Finnish teachers and their university education. However, the editorials also argue that there is a discrepancy between the good PISA results and the present meagre investments in the education system, the deteriorating school network and the poor appreciation of the education system in Finland. Thus, the editorials use the national PISA results to demand more resources for the Finnish education system.

The European eLearning Programme(s): between rhetoric and reality

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: The European eLearning Programme(s): between rhetoric and reality
Author: FLORIN D. SALAJAN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 364-381
ABSTRACT This article presents the findings of a qualitative study conducted by the author on the implications of e-learning programmes for the higher education systems of the member states of the European Union. The study takes a look behind the scenes of the eLearning Programme and other e-learning actions within other European programmes by tapping into the perceptions of academics at universities in the European Union (in three principal countries - Germany, Portugal and Sweden - and six secondary countries - Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) who have participated in or have knowledge of the logistical and administrative burdens of European e-learning projects. Through a series of in-depth open-ended interviews conducted on location, via the telephone or over the Internet, the study investigates the interactions of academics and researchers with the European-funded programmes in e-learning Several interviews with members of the European Commission offer an inside look at the dynamics of the programmes and confer a 'humanistic' perspective to the stern letter of the legal documentation. The personal accounts are used to build a 'composite picture' of common themes related to the processes involved in developing and conducting e-learning projects under the eLearning Programme and other European programmes, shedding new light on the levels of initiative that go into the actual preparation of e-learning projects.

Exploring the Role of Communities in Education

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Exploring the Role of Communities in Education
Author: BREGJE DE VRIES; JULES PIETERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 382-392
ABSTRACT In this article, the authors explore if and how knowledge communities have the potential to help improve the communal efforts of practitioners, intermediaries and researchers to change education. An explorative study was conducted with a survey that was distributed among 187 workers in the Dutch educational field to investigate if and how knowledge communities are realized, and could contribute to bridge the gap between educational research and practice. The survey explored the role of communities from four perspectives derived from the literature in the field: their heterogeneity, informality, interactivity and effectiveness. The findings show that many communities are active, and that their members perceive them as heterogeneous, informal, interactive and effective ways to collaborate with others. Frequent and face-to-face communication, as well as financial support, seems to positively influence how the community is perceived by its members. It is concluded that the potential of knowledge communities deserves to be investigated in more detail so that the collaborative educational change taking place in the communities can be optimized and sustained for the future.

From Pedagogik to Educational Sciences? Higher Education Reform, Institutional Settings and the Formation of the Discipline of Educational Science in Sweden

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: From Pedagogik to Educational Sciences? Higher Education Reform, Institutional Settings and the Formation of the Discipline of Educational Science in Sweden
Author: DANIEL SUNDBERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 393-410
ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to address the question of Pedagogik as an academic discipline in Sweden based on a social study of the science's point of departure. The philosophical and epistemological issues which constitute the conceptual questions about the nature and content of educational science are, although crucial, peripheral to this article. The article is concerned with the general consequences of the formation of the discipline due to ongoing changes and reforms in Swedish higher education. Text analysis of self-evaluations of education departments in Sweden provide the material for a critical examination of the changing institutional settings for educational sciences. Three general tension fields are highlighted in the ongoing formation of the discipline: Pedagogik as a discipline opposing segmentation and professional specialisation, Pedagogik in relation to other disciplines/subjects in the university system, and the pragmatic specialisation of professional knowledge. The 'boundary work' of the education departments in the positions they take in these tension fields is highlighted and analysed. Studying discipline formation processes can serve, in this regard, to deepen the reflexive self-understanding of the producers and users of educational knowledge. The article concludes with some outlines for further empirical research on the formation of the discipline of Swedish Pedagogik.

Self-study in a Community of Learning Researchers: what can we do to help teachers/teacher educators benefit from our research?

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Self-study in a Community of Learning Researchers: what can we do to help teachers/teacher educators benefit from our research?
Author: MIEKE LUNENBERG; JOHN LOUGHRAN; KIM SCHILDKAMP; JOS BEISHUIZEN; JACOBIENE MEIRINK; ROSANNE ZWART
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 411-423
ABSTRACT This article reports on the results of an intensive summer course in which a community of learners, consisting of three teaching and teacher education academics and 17 European PhD students in the field of education, conducted a collective self-study. The international collective self-study offered a unique opportunity to go beyond parochial and local perspectives on the process of research and knowledge creation. The central question in this summer course was: ‘What can we, as researchers, do to help teachers/teacher educators benefit from our research and what can be learned through this research on research?’ The participants first studied relevant literature about the – relatively new – concepts of self-study and a community of learners. Secondly, they studied and discussed their own research projects through the lens of a self-study methodology. The critical study and discussions of both literature and the research projects resulted in a list of 15 guidelines. In addition, the doctoral students experienced and learned that forming a community of learners can be an effective environment for collaborative inquiry learning and that conducting a collective self-study can be an effective way of carrying out research.

Inequality in the Transition from Primary to Secondary School: school choices and educational disparities in Germany

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Inequality in the Transition from Primary to Secondary School: school choices and educational disparities in Germany
Author: MARCUS PIETSCH; TOBIAS C. STUBBE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 424-445
ABSTRACT This article explores the mechanisms of educational pathway decision making at the transition from primary to secondary school in the German education system by analysing data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). The highly reliable data of the German sample of the 2001 PIRLS make it possible to take into consideration simultaneously students' cognitive abilities at the end of primary schooling, criteria for parental decision making in education, as well as institutional adjustment options of family education strategies, in order to describe the complex mechanisms of educational pathway decision making. First, a general overview of the German education system and a review of the current state of research concerning the issue of social inequality of education in Germany are given. Subsequently, a theoretical background seeking to answer the question of how educational disparities arise and how they are structured, as well as a model for analysing parental choices in education are presented. After hypothesizing, multifarious statistical analyses are conducted with the aim of proving these assumptions and demonstrating how complex the mechanisms of educational segregation in Germany are. The results demonstrate that all participants in the process of decision making take a more or less socially biased achievement criterion as a basis and, thus, the logic of meritocracy does not seem to be an appropriate idea for segregating students into different branches of education at the end of primary schooling.

Linking Educational Research Activities across Europe: a review of the WIFO Gateway to Research on Education in Europe

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Linking Educational Research Activities across Europe: a review of the WIFO Gateway to Research on Education in Europe
Author: SABINE MANNING
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 446-450
ABSTRACT The WIFO Gateway to Research on Education in Europe (http://www.wifo-gate.org) is an Internet portal focusing on vocational education and training and human resource development. Launched 10 years ago by the Research Forum Education and Society (Wissenschaftsforum Bildung und Gesellschaft - WIFO) Berlin, it has developed in several stages in close collaboration with research partners across Europe. Several dimensions of linking educational research activities at the European level are addressed in this article: linking research content, both over time and across the field; linking research and information; and linking researchers in collaboration. These dimensions are outlined by drawing on evidence of piloting from the WIFO site, including thematic resource bases on European research projects, a synopsis of national research across countries in the European Union, directories of doctoral dissertations and Master's programmes, and an indexed edition of ECER/VETNET proceedings (papers presented at the annual European Conference on Educational Research [ECER] by the European Research Network in Vocational Education and Training [VETNET]), and finally the Newsletter for European Research in Learning and Work as an efficient tool for linking the online platform with the community of researchers.

Mass Schooling: a local game with global rules

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Mass Schooling: a local game with global rules
Author: Florian Waldow
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 451-457
ABSTRACT Not available

Teacher Training Policies: deconstructing teaching professionality

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:20:50 GMT

Title: Teacher Training Policies: deconstructing teaching professionality
Author: José Luis San Fabián Maroto
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Pages: 458-465
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction to Special Issue Local Autonomy or State Control? Exploring the Effects of New Forms of Regulation in Education

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: Introduction to Special Issue Local Autonomy or State Control? Exploring the Effects of New Forms of Regulation in Education
Author: Ingrid Helgøy; Anne Homme; Sharon Gewirtz
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 198-202
ABSTRACT Education reforms dismantling centralised education bureaucracies are emerging all over Europe. A main aim is to enhance autonomy at local government and school levels. As a result new forms of regulation in education are being established. By regulation we mean the public activity which is normatively founded in the law and the legislative procedures aiming to supervise and control what is subject to regulation (Lægreid & Christensen, 2006). Hence, deregulation implies a reduction of centrally directed activity. The introduction of private schools followed by the marketisation of state schooling within decentralised systems of control where responsibilities are devolved to municipalities are examples of deregulation. Re-regulation occurs when central government reclaims control, often in an indirect manner through such means as target setting, performance measurement and the use of quality indicators. This thematic issue is devoted to exploring the deregulation and re-regulation of compulsory education in Britain and Scandinavia.

Traditionally education in Scandinavia has been subject to rigorous central regulation. Yet during the last two decades it has undergone processes of decentralisation and deregulation and, more recently - since the beginning of this century - signs of re-regulation have appeared. In Britain education reforms have followed a different direction, moving away from local governance towards a system of stronger central regulation and increased marketisation. In both Britain and the Scandinavian countries these developments are associated with the rise of the New Public Management (NPM). NPM approaches to education and welfare provision involve challenging central government control and emphasising greater autonomy at subordinate levels and entities in order to promote cost containment, efficiency, service quality and consumer empowerment.

However, deregulation emphasising increased local autonomy seems to accommodate mechanisms which, paradoxically, tend to increase central control. The concept of autonomy is commonly understood as freedom and capacity to act (Lundquist, 1987). A consequence of this enhanced freedom and capacity to act at a local level is that the central government loses its grip. Accordingly, in both the Scandinavian and British reforms we observe a kind of re-regulation through the introduction of audit and control systems of reporting and evaluation in the public sector. Yet, at the same time, the importance of autonomous municipalities and schools is still being emphasised. Thus, there seems to be an interaction and overlapping of state control and local autonomy which will be explored from different angles throughout this journal issue.

The articles problematise and contest some aspects of how local autonomy - i.e. the autonomy of local authorities, schools and professionals - is treated within NPM discourse. The NPM rhetoric around autonomy is ambiguous. On the one hand, the NPM logic favours a considerable degree of independence for local political and professional decision makers. On the other hand, the NPM has involved the use of central political decision making to frame local autonomy, so that in practice, a clear-cut division between both autonomy and control and politics and professionalism is difficult to uphold.. The growing influence of the NPM in the field of education is also transforming the relationship between politics and professionalism in significant ways. Implicitly, a profession is defined by its jurisdiction over a specific occupational field (Abbott, 1988). However, advocates of NPM tend to argue for a reduction of professional influence in politics (Byrkjeflot, 2005) whilst professionals tend to mistrust politicians' capacity to govern. This means that teacher autonomy might conflict with politicians' interest in governing education, Moreover, NPM implies new conditions for professionals, emphasising an individualised type of professionalism which relies on situational knowledge, competence and performance (Svensson, 2006) in contrast to the more traditional conditions of formal education, occupation, monopoly and licensing. Linked to this is NPM's emphasis on openness and a wider public understanding of processes, results and effects in education, sometimes referred to as transparency processes. Accordingly, schools and professionals are becoming more accountable for providing education and achieving results. This trend is reflected in the increased use of performance measurement technologies, such as regularly administered standardised national tests, inspections and evaluations, to monitor the performance of both educational providers and students.

However, although different national educational systems are being re-regulated by the introduction of more or less similar reforms, there is still a lack of understanding about the degree of convergence or divergence due to difficulties in making meaningful cross-national comparisons. Discussions of these questions from a comparative perspective have tended to anticipate a convergence of western educational systems. The articles in this issue reject this stance. The degree of convergence and divergence that can be observed depends on the focus or level of analysis and the determination of indicators to be compared. Changes can be identified at different stages and levels; for instance, in political ideas and debates, in reform decisions, in actual practice or in policy results (cf. Pollitt, 2001), or at central, municipal, school or classroom levels. Conclusions about convergence in education at one stage or level do not necessarily correspond with convergence at others; and increased devolution and accountability, as well as demands for audit and control, might have different motivations (e.g. educational quality-related or cost-saving related motivations) and effects in different countries.

The contributions to this issue were first presented at the workshop 'Local autonomy or state control? Exploring the effects of new regulation in education' at the Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies, University of Bergen, supported by the Norwegian Research Council. The contributions reflect the interdisciplinary character of the workshop and include comparisons between Britain and Scandinavian countries, and between Norway and Sweden and Scotland and England. Two of the three European welfare state models, i.e. the social democratic and the liberal, are included (cf. Esping Andersen, 2002).

National comparisons of the consequences of new modes of regulation for local or professional autonomy are relatively limited in educational research. In order to make meaningful comparisons of the consequences of new forms of regulation in compulsory education several clarifications and tasks are needed. In the article 'Unpacking Autonomy and Control in Education: some conceptual and normative groundwork for a comparative analysis' Alan Cribb & Sharon Gewirtz make a contribution to this relatively neglected field of educational research. The article begins with a consideration of some of the conceptual complexities involved in making sense of autonomy and control, sketching out a three-dimensional analytical scheme focused on: the loci and modes of autonomy (who are the agents and how is their agency being exercised?), the domains of autonomy and control (what are the spheres over which autonomy/control is being exercised?) and the loci and modes of control (the general forms and specific mechanisms by which autonomy is regulated, the agents of control and how their agency is exercised). Then, by setting out the main arguments around autonomy and control, the article goes on to illustrate the major value conflicts that arise in processes of enacting autonomy/control. A particular purpose of the article is to avoid the seemingly widespread - and usually unspoken - normative presumption that autonomy is good and control is bad. In education the balance between local autonomy and state control is obviously important but what is exactly at stake if we speak about the balance shifting between the two? Teachers do need both autonomy and control; the issue is the balance between the closely linked ideas and the forms they take in combination.

There is no doubt that the balance between state control and local autonomy has been challenged in Swedish compulsory education. From being once strongly state centred, compulsory education has from the beginning of the 1990s been affected by far-reaching reforms which have attempted to deregulate the schooling system and increase local autonomy. A new policy initiative on school time which allows school professionals freedom to make decisions on time distribution was implemented as a five-year experiment from 1999. In the article 'A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State Control and Strengthen School Autonomy: the experiment with local time schedules' Linda Rönnberg analyses and discusses whether the experiment has affected school autonomy. In order to understand local autonomy two dimensions have to be accounted for: the freedom to act and local actors' capacity to act. The experiment made discretionary space available for local actors but in some cases local autonomy was limited by the actors' limited capacity for action. Rönnberg argues that both of these dimensions need to be considered in any analysis of local autonomy. She also suggests that even if the actors have the discretionary space and the capacity to make use of that space they may lack an interest in implementing reforms, or they may see the reforms as irrelevant. The authorities' lack of effort in building schools' capacity and interest in making use of local freedom suggests the reform may be essentially symbolic in character and this may also explain why some schools avoided implementing the experiment.

In line with Rönnberg's findings based on the study of the Swedish local time schedule project is the idea that devolution of decision making to school level does not mean that teachers are necessarily capable of making use of the autonomy. Nor does devolution necessarily correspond to a strengthening of teachers' status and authority. Teachers' professional autonomy in Sweden and Norway is sensitive to the complexity of changing conditions. In the article 'Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden' Ingrid Helgøy & Anne Homme explore changes in education regulation in the two countries and their implications for teacher autonomy. The comparison, which is based on policy analysis and teacher interviews, indicates a striking difference in the conditions for teacher professionalism in the two countries: while Norwegian teachers' daily work has been regulated by a prescriptive and detailed national curriculum, the autonomy of Swedish teachers has been framed by a goal-oriented national curriculum. The Norwegian teachers are characterised by weakened individual autonomy but also by a relatively strong collective professional identity. Teachers accept national standards and control in education which function to provide a secure body of professional knowledge for teachers and to underline the significance of teachers' formal education. In contrast, Swedish teachers experience a high degree of individual autonomy but rely on a more personalised type of professionalism emphasising teachers' knowledge, competence and performance as individual properties. Based on this finding Helgøy & Homme identify a need to redefine the concept of professionalism and suggest a differentiation between old and new professionalism. Using the dimension of individualism/collectivism the authors explore the concept of teacher professionalism and point to the limits of autonomy in relation to devolved responsibilities in the governing of education.

Helgøy & Homme's study of teacher autonomy in Norway and Sweden indicates considerable differences between two countries often described as very similar. Cross-national comparisons in the field of education show that while globalisation may be a convergent force, nationalism can act as a divergent force. A comparison of aspects of NPM at work in Scotland and England highlights some significant differences. Margaret Arnott & Ian Menter explore the relationship between local autonomy and central control. Their article 'The Same but Different? Post-devolution Regulation and Control in Scotland and England' analyses changes in secondary education policy. Privatisation, performativity and the policy process are examined in the two national contexts. Arnott & Menter argue that to understand the ways NPM has evolved in post-devolution UK it is essential to analyse pressures for convergence and divergence in education. The welfare state and the public sector were questioned in the 1980s and 1990s in Scotland, but the loss of public confidence was not perceived to be as striking as in England. The premise of much of the NPM agenda was that the public sector was failing. The process of questioning in the Scottish political scene arguably stemmed from financial pressures rather than a questioning of relationships between welfare professionals, the state and individuals, which drove the agenda in England. Although there is evidence that aspects of the Scottish cultural tradition and visions of 'the new Scotland' are having effects on both policy processes and outcomes, the signs of convergence in the enactment of NPM are strong when comparing Scotland and England. However, the impact of market forces and competition on schools and local authorities is much more visible in England than has been the case in Scotland. Even though NPM is evident in the regulation of education in both countries, national historical institutional traditions act as modifying influences.

Changes in the governance of education are considered to be a common trait shared by the Nordic countries and Britain. Devolution and NPM reforms are shared characteristics implying a shift from government to governance, from strong hierarchical educational systems to decentralisation and local autonomy including an expansion in the numbers of actors influencing education. In the article 'Governing the Governance of Education - the state strikes back?' Christine Hudson suggests that the state is able to adapt to changing circumstances and find new ways of governing rather than being forced to step back and allow other interests to play the primary role in governing education. The argument is built upon a comparison of the education systems in the Nordic countries and Britain. The comparison shows that despite cross-national differences all countries have introduced new forms of 'soft' regulation and have widened the range of actors involved in education. Because of the importance of education the state will not disappear, Hudson argues; rather, the increased use of output controls indicate that the state is more present than ever but that it is operating in coexistence with other actors. This challenges some of the literature on governance which implies a 'hollowing out' of the state.

The articles in this thematic issue offer new insights for understanding and evaluating the nature and operation of local autonomy and central control in education. From different perspectives the articles illuminate the dynamic processes of decentralisation and centralisation and the relationships between them. The articles show how processes of regulation can be both congruent and incongruent. In general, increased local autonomy seems to imply strengthened state control. However, this sample of nation-specific studies implies different combinations of state regulation-local autonomy relations and different degrees to which local autonomy is being utilised. The collection of articles represents an initial step which points to three main issues around which there is considerable scope for further research. First, the normative connotations of autonomy as solely beneficial are opposed by findings in the articles. For example, local autonomy can be an efficient tool for producing variation which in turn might increase social inequality in, and unequal access to, education. Further, local autonomy can threaten teachers' collective professional identity by individualising demands for teacher performance. Second, there is a need for multilevel analysis in education research. The specific patterns of interconnection between the different levels in the governance of education shape education practice; and policy effects have to be explored at school level and be related to subsequent processes of policy making. Third, we hope to have demonstrated the advantage of doing cross-national analysis in education. National education policies are inspired by global trends but modified within national institutional contexts. The difference between England and Scotland, despite a long period under the same education government, shows the significance of national educational traditions. The Scottish national identity has been prominent in both pre- and post-devolution Scotland. In contrast, Norway and Sweden have similar national educational traditions but because of different financial positions reforms have been implemented differently since the 1990s. Accordingly, it would seem that national transformations of global trends may be driven by different forces set into motion by specific incidents.

Ingrid Helgøy, Anne Homme & Sharon Gewirtz

References

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Byrkjeflot, H. (2005) The Rise of a Healthcare State? Recent Health Care Reforms in Norway. Rokkansenteret Working Papers, 15. Bergen: Rokkansenteret.

Esping-Andersen, G. (2002) Why We Need a New Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lundqvist, L. (1987) Implementation Steering: an actor-structure approach. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Lægreid, P. & Christensen, T. (2006) Autonomy and Regulation Coping with Agencies in the Modern State. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Pollitt, C. (2001) Convergence: the useful myth? Public Administration, 79(4), 933-947. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00287

Svensson, L. (2006) New Professionalism, Trust and Competence: some conceptual remarks and empirical data, Current Sociology, 54(4), 579-593. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392106065089

Unpacking Autonomy and Control in Education: some conceptual and normative groundwork for a comparative analysis

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: Unpacking Autonomy and Control in Education: some conceptual and normative groundwork for a comparative analysis
Author: ALAN CRIBB; SHARON GEWIRTZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 203-213
ABSTRACT To make meaningful comparisons of the consequences of new modes of regulation in education for local autonomy in different national settings we need to a) be clear about what is meant by local autonomy and state control, b) be clear about why the balance between local autonomy and state control matters and c) produce good quality empirical data and analysis. The purpose of this article is to make a contribution to the first two of these tasks which are relatively neglected in the education research literature. The authors begin by unpacking some conceptual complexities involved in debating issues of autonomy and control, distinguishing between three dimensions of autonomy-control: loci and modes of autonomy, domains of autonomy-control and loci and modes of control. They then go on to illustrate some of the normative complexities surrounding issues of autonomy-control, using the case of individual teacher autonomy to explore arguments about the value of autonomy and control. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of these complexities for the task of policy analysis. In doing so, they seek to: 'trouble' the presumption that autonomy is necessarily good; challenge the notion that control and autonomy are discrete entities in some simple zero-sum relationship to one another, drawing attention to the ways in which control can be seen as 'productive' as well as 'destructive' of autonomy; and sketch out the multi-dimensional nature of cross-national comparative evaluation of regulation in education.

A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State Control and Strengthen School Autonomy: the experiment with local time schedules

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State Control and Strengthen School Autonomy: the experiment with local time schedules
Author: LINDA RÖNNBERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 214-231
ABSTRACT In 1999, after a series of far-reaching reforms aiming at decentralisation, deregulation and increased local autonomy in Swedish education, the Government decided to introduce a five-year experiment, which would develop these reform efforts even further. Even though Swedish compulsory schools already were the most autonomous in Europe with regard to decision making on school time, an experiment which allowed schools to freely decide time allocation and time management was launched. At least on paper, the experiment indicates a shift from state control to local autonomy, allowing school professionals to be free to make decisions on time distribution previously controlled by the state. The aim is to analyse and discuss whether the experiment has affected school autonomy or not and how this can be understood. The theoretical point of departure is a two-dimensional view of autonomy, where both freedom of action and capacity for action need to be taken into account. The freedom of action (the discretionary space for local actors) provided within the experiment is analysed through three properties of the experimental programme: programme clarity, division of responsibilities and control mechanisms. The schools' capacity for action concerns the extent participating schools make use of the discretion provided within the experiment. This is analysed in three schools with reference to their ability to organise themselves in a flexible way, as well as to what extent the schools have shown previous capacity for action and readiness for reform. Based on this analysis of the experiment, it is concluded that if reform efforts are made to increase school autonomy, they should not one-sidedly be focused on increasing local actors' freedom of action (such as abolishing the national time schedule). Such efforts should also be accompanied by measures to reinforce local actors' capacity for action. Unless local actors can make use of the discretion given to them by a superior (political) body, local autonomy will be far less than was intended, since freedom to act exceeds the actual capacity to act.

Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden
Author: INGRID HELGØY; ANNE HOMME
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 232-249
ABSTRACT Local autonomy is one of the recent trends in reforms of compulsory education. However, several parallel trends such as individual accountability, performance and visibility challenge professional autonomy. The aim of this article is to explore how accountability and transparency reforms affect teacher autonomy in Norway and Sweden. The authors argue that both individual teacher autonomy at the local workplace and autonomy at the national level embracing teachers as a collective group are important in analysing teachers' professional autonomy. In comparing teachers' professional autonomy they differentiate between processes of individualisation and collectivisation. Their analysis indicates, although intra-national differences, that the difference between Norwegian and Swedish teachers is striking. While the Swedish teachers experience a high degree of individual autonomy, their influence on national policy processes seems weakened. This leads to the assumption that professional autonomy as a result of transparency and accountability reforms, even if the teachers report individual professional autonomy, reduces the authority of the profession at the national policy-making level. The analysis indicates that Norwegian teachers are characterized by old professionalism. The strong input regulations in Norway limit individual teacher autonomy. Even with weakened individual autonomy, teachers still manage to supply conditions for national education policy making. This means that teachers still are autonomous at the collective level. Moreover, the findings indicate that national standards and control in education are accepted as tools for securing professional knowledge and status.

The Same but Different? Post-devolution Regulation and Control in Education in Scotland and England

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: The Same but Different? Post-devolution Regulation and Control in Education in Scotland and England
Author: MARGARET ARNOTT; IAN MENTER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 250-265
ABSTRACT When 'New Labour' came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997, one of their first major initiatives was to establish new devolved political institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Drawing upon developments in education in Scotland and England, this article explores some aspects of 'regulation', 'autonomy' and 'control' in the post-devolution context. The purpose of the article is to assess the ways in which New Public Management have influenced education policy in the two countries. Aspects of the governance of education are examined in the two national contexts. The 'modernisation' of the teaching profession is examined as a particular case, as well as more general aspects of governance. A number of similarities and differences in the two countries are identified. The themes that best demonstrate these similarities and differences are privatisation, performativity and the policy process. The conclusion seeks to identify the extent to which developments in either or both countries can be attributed to the global neo-liberal agenda.

Governing the Governance of Education: the state strikes back?

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: Governing the Governance of Education: the state strikes back?
Author: CHRISTINE HUDSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 266-282
ABSTRACT In many countries, there have been changes in the way in which education is governed, with greater fragmentation of responsibility between the state, local government, schools, individuals and the market often accompanied by a move from detailed regulation to framework legislation. Previously, these developments have been seen as part of the move from government to governance whereby the state is forced to step back and allow other interests to play a role. However, in recent years more subtle theories of governance have been developed which argue that, rather than retreating, the state is adapting to changing circumstances and finding new ways of governing. The importance of education not only in terms of creating and maintaining national identity but also for economic development suggests that this is an area from which the state will not willingly abdicate its role. This article suggests that support for the new governance theories can be found in the field of education. It argues that the growth in the attempts to control educational outputs through, for example, demands for quality controls, standardized testing, evaluations and so on and the introduction of national bodies responsible for carrying out these controls can be interpreted as a sign that the state, far from relinquishing its role, is finding other ways of controlling education. A comparative approach is adopted and these ideas are explored in relation to education systems in the Nordic and British countries. The article draws on a qualitative analysis of official policy documents, legislation and official statements concerning education in the respective countries.

EERJ ROUNDTABLE at ECER 2006, Geneva, Switzerland Knowledge and Policy: research - information - intervention

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: EERJ ROUNDTABLE at ECER 2006, Geneva, Switzerland Knowledge and Policy: research - information - intervention
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 283-302
ABSTRACT Ingrid Gogolin & Edwin Keiner. Introduction, pages 283-284

Gita Steiner-Khamsi. International Knowledge Banks and the Production of Educational Crises, pages 284-292

Jenny Ozga. Research into Actionable Knowledge, pages 293-297

Lyn Yates. Who Counts as Well as What Counts: the desire to be 'world class' in Australia, pages 298-302

Scientometric Approaches to Better Visibility of European Educational Research Publications: a state-of-the-art-report

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: Scientometric Approaches to Better Visibility of European Educational Research Publications: a state-of-the-art-report
Author: ALEXANDER BOTTE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 303-310
ABSTRACT This article reports on methodological approaches to evaluate the relevance and quality of educational research publications. In the first section it focuses on the ISI Social Science Citation Index and shows that this standard instrument for bibliometric measurement is insufficient for the representation of European educational research. In the following sections, alternative approaches are delineated in order to constitute the proposal of a multi-attributive setting for a new observation and evaluation instrument for social science academic publications. The final section outlines a project proposal submitted to the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, supported by the European Educational Research Association (EERA).

REVIEW ESSAY Building a Learning Society: the Chinese experience

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:14:51 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY Building a Learning Society: the Chinese experience
Author: Rui Yang
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Pages: 312-320
ABSTRACT Not available

Intorduction

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Intorduction
Author: Brian Hudson; Bernard Schneuwl
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 106-108
ABSTRACT The place of didactics, learning and teaching has been the subject of discussion within the European Educational Research Association (EERA) for several years. Significant steps were taken in 2006 at the conference in Geneva to advance this work through the organisation of an Invited Plenary Panel and an Opening Symposium as the first steps towards establishing a new EERA Network in this field. These initiatives received strong support and led to the establishment of Network 27 on Didactics - Learning and Teaching. The articles in this special issue of EERJ are based on contributions made by the authors to the Opening Symposium and Plenary Panel at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in Geneva in 2006.

Whilst issues related to teaching, learning and subject content are central to pedagogical practices, associated discussions have tended to be fragmented. This fragmentation can be reinforced by institutional structures, particular policy initiatives, the strength of some discourse communities and the relative weaknesses of others. EERA Network 27 on Didactics - Learning and Teaching has been established with the aim of providing a space for dialogue for integrating such discussions, and this issue of EERJ is intended to provide a record of the starting point and to support the process of widening the debate. We hope this space will attract interest from educational researchers with interests in pedagogical practices, curriculum, student learning and the teaching of specific subject areas.

This issue of EERJ comes at a time of growing interest in teaching and learning at an international level, including particular interest in questions related to associated research and scholarship. Against this background are the long traditions within continental Europe when it comes to such questions. For example, the tradition of Didaktik can be traced back to John Amos Comenius in the seventeenth century though there is little discussion of didactics as such in the English-speaking educational community. Discussions about the nature of didactics, learning and teaching have taken on different characteristics in different national contexts and development has been especially strong in the domain of subject didactics. Furthermore, associated ideas have influenced the development of teacher education significantly in several countries within continental Europe over recent years.

For these reasons we believe that it is timely to create a space for dialogue in order to share perspectives and questions collectively as an EERA community in relation to the advancement of research and scholarship in the field of didactics, learning and teaching. This issue includes articles based on the presentations made at the ECER in Geneva by Stefan Hopmann, Michel Caillot, Yves Chevallard, Brian Hudson, Kirsti Klette and Meinert A. Meyer.

Stefan Hopmann traces the origin of Didaktik back to the ideas of students' activity (Socrates), in a disciplinary setting (Hugh of Saint Victor), with a certain order of knowledge (Thomas Aquinas) and necessary choice of subject matter (Comenius). In the German context, Didaktik, in its different forms, can be described as systematic reflection about how to organise teaching in a way that brings about the individual growth of the student. This means that subject matters can open up different educative meanings for learners; and thus that teaching and learning follow different paths. Didaktik as presented is very different from a curriculum perspective where subject matter and meaning have to be close and also from the French tradition of transposition didactique, which is interested in differences between meanings and subject matter in order to enable the learning of the appropriate meanings of such matter.

Building a new academic field is the focus of the article by Michel Caillot and in particular considers the case of French didactiques. He outlines how French disciplinary didactiques were created and how they have come to be recognised by the academic and instructional systems. Since the creation of Instituts Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres (IUFM) in 1991, they have become completely integrated in French educational research and training systems. The associated development of French didactiques is seen as a major evolution in education that has taken about 40 years. In addition, more recent developments in the French-speaking area on comparative didactics are discussed. This is seen as a new field of research that groups together disciplinary didacticians in a common research programme.

The article by Yves Chevallard is on the topic of readjusting didactics to a changing epistemology. It is based on his talk given at the Plenary Panel in Geneva and provides an overview of the gradual development of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). It stresses important stages in the development of views of teaching and learning, and the establishment of new attitudes towards 'the didactic', seen as an anthropological dimension of social life. Furthermore, it emphasises the logic behind the evolution of a 'science of the didactic' that, in adapting to the changing nature of its object of study, currently brings to the fore new ideas, among which the concept of 'study and research course' (SRC) is seen to be most promising.

Differences between traditions in relation to teaching and learning provide the focus for the article by Brian Hudson, who compares these and asks what can we learn about teaching and learning? The article aims to highlight the ways in which the study of Didaktik has offered new dimensions to and fresh insights on the notion of reflective practice. In particular, this tradition is seen to offer tools and ways of thinking that help to recognise and hold the complexity of teaching-studying-learning processes. This provides a relational framework which places the teacher at the heart of teaching-studying-learning processes. Finally, the article aims to highlights ways in which such tools and ways of thinking can help to inform approaches to development in the didactical, pedagogical and technological uses of information and communications technology (ICT) for learning.

The contribution by Kirsti Klette focuses on trends in research on teaching and learning in schools and in particular on the meeting point between didactics and classroom studies. The relation between teaching, instruction and children's learning is seen to arise whenever models of the teaching-learning process are discussed or whenever problems of learning occur. The primacy of teachers and teaching as the primary subjects of research is seen to have contributed to a rather limited understanding of what goes on in schools and classrooms. Few studies of teachers and teaching have examined the extent to which differences in teacher effectiveness are related to differences in teachers' subject matter knowledge. Furthermore, discussion of issues related to teaching and learning in general terms has tended to be separate from the content that has been taught. She argues for the need to bridge studies of teaching and learning with studies of the subject involved in order to establish a conversation between didactics and classroom studies.

Finally, the article by Meinert Meyer considers didactics, sense making, and educational experience and in particular focuses on student participation in classrooms. He aims to demonstrate how effective cultivation of educational experience in schools will lead to a new perspective on the process of teaching and learning. There are seen to be no privileged methods of teaching and learning, but that in practice most teachers have in mind some fuzzy ideas of what good instruction is, and furthermore there is seen to be a great variety in how teachers involve their students and how students get involved in what happens in school. This is seen to be why the student's didactic competence should be used in the instructional process and teachers' and students' sensitivity for classroom participation and student involvement should be increased. Examples of how learners view their educational process, and how sense making can be identified and described, are outlined

We hope that this issue of EERJ will provide a further stimulus for dialogue on the advancement of research and scholarship in the field of didactics, learning and teaching. If you have been stimulated by any of the issues raised we encourage you to consider making a proposal for a contribution to a future ECER in the near future.

Restrained Teaching: the common core of Didaktik

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Restrained Teaching: the common core of Didaktik
Author: STEFAN HOPMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 109-124
ABSTRACT Didaktik is at the centre of most school teaching and teacher education in Continental Europe, but at the same time almost unknown in the English speaking world. The article gives a brief outline of the history and the common core of Didaktik, of its current situation, and of the basic differences compared to the Anglo-American concept of 'curriculum and instruction' and the French 'transposition didactique'. The common core of Didaktik is characterised as 'restrained teaching', based on (a) a commitment to Bildung, (b) the educative difference of matter and meaning, and (c) the autonomy of teaching and learning.

The Building of a New Academic Field: the case of French didactiques

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: The Building of a New Academic Field: the case of French didactiques
Author: MICHEL CAILLOT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 125-130
ABSTRACT In this article, the author attempts to show how French disciplinary didactiques were created and have developed. At the beginning, nobody could forecast the future and whether the didactiques would one day be recognised by the academic and instructional systems. The French didactiques are strongly based on school subject matters. Since the creation of Instituts Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres (University Teacher Training Institutes) in 1991, they are completely integrated in French educational research and training systems: a major evolution in education that has taken about 40 years. More recently, a new field of research is developing in the French-speaking area: comparative didactics that groups together disciplinary didacticians in a true research programme.

Readjusting Didactics to a Changing Epistemology

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Readjusting Didactics to a Changing Epistemology
Author: YVES CHEVALLARD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 131-134
ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the gradual development, in the span of two decades (1985-2005), of a theorisation which has come to be known as the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). It stresses important stages in the dismissing - based on both fact and theory - of some widespread views of teaching and learning, and the establishing of new attitudes towards 'the didactic', seen as an anthropological dimension of social life. It emphasises the logic behind the evolution of a 'science of the didactic' that, in adapting to the changing nature of its object of study, currently brings to the fore new ideas, among which the concept of 'study and research course' (SRC) seems to be most promising.

Comparing Different Traditions of Teaching and Learning: what can we learn about teaching and learning?

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Comparing Different Traditions of Teaching and Learning: what can we learn about teaching and learning?
Author: BRIAN HUDSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 135-146
ABSTRACT This article explores differences between traditions in relation to teaching and learning and aims to highlight the ways in which the study of the Central European and Northern European traditions of Didaktik has offered new dimensions to and fresh insights on the notion of reflective practice. In particular these traditions are seen to offer tools and ways of thinking that help to recognise and hold the complexity of teaching-studying-learning processes. A key tool for the analysis of the complex relations between teacher, student and content is the Didaktik triad. This provides a relational framework which places teaching and associated design issues at the heart of teaching-studying-learning processes. Furthermore, it provides a means for teachers' thinking about the most basic how, what and why questions around their work. Another key aspect of such traditions is the emphasis that is placed upon meaning and intentionality from the outset of the process of preparation for teaching. Connections are also made with current thinking in the field of scholarship in teaching and learning. Finally, the article aims to highlights ways in which such tools and ways of thinking can help to inform approaches to development in the didactical, pedagogical and technological uses of information and communications technology for student-centred learning.

Trends in Research on Teaching and Learning in Schools: didactics meets classroom studies

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Trends in Research on Teaching and Learning in Schools: didactics meets classroom studies
Author: KIRSTI KLETTE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 147-160
ABSTRACT The relation between teaching, instruction and children's learning arises whenever models of the teaching-learning process are discussed or whenever problems of learning occur. Despite massive research efforts we still know little about how differences in learning activities are related to students' learning. The primacy of teachers and teaching as the primary subjects of research has contributed to a rather limited understanding of what goes on in schools and classrooms. Few studies of teachers and teaching have examined the extent to which differences in teacher effectiveness are related to differences in teachers' subject matter knowledge, and there is still a tendency to discuss issues of teaching and learning in general terms separated from the content that has been taught. In this article the author argues for the need to bridge studies of teaching and learning with studies of the subject involved - to establish a conversation between didactics and classroom studies. An analytical design and framework able to bridge the teaching-learning gap needs to be developed. Emerging technologies in video/audio documentation provide one chain of investigations for bridging how different thematic patterns are linked to instructional activities and interaction formats in classrooms.

Didactics, Sense Making, and Educational Experience

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: Didactics, Sense Making, and Educational Experience
Author: MEINERT A. MEYER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 161-173
ABSTRACT This article focuses on student participation in classrooms. It aims to demonstrate that effective cultivation of educational experience in schools will lead to a new perspective on the process of teaching and learning. There are no privileged methods of teaching and learning, but most of the teachers have in mind some fuzzy ideas of what good instruction is, and there is a great variety of how teachers involve their students and how students get involved in what happens in school. That is why the student's didactic competence should be used in the instructional process and teachers' and students' sensitivity for classroom participation and student involvement should be increased. Examples of how learners view their educational process, and how sense making can be identified and described, are given. Sense making is an individual affair, and what the teachers want is not necessarily in accord with the students' constructions. Therefore, it is not only of interest to examine how learners acquire knowledge and skills but also how they develop the ability to decide things for themselves and act responsibly in an increasingly complex and difficult world.

The International Social Organisation of Educational Research in Europe: reviewing the European Educational Research Association as an example - facts and questions

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: The International Social Organisation of Educational Research in Europe: reviewing the European Educational Research Association as an example - facts and questions
Author: ARMIN GRETLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 174-189
ABSTRACT Armin Gretler passed away on 6 October 2005. Armin was a founder member of the EERA and served on its Council, representing Switzerland. He was a sociologist and founding director of the Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education in 1971. He remained Director until retiring in 1999. Prior to that he had been working as a consultant for UNESCO (Paris) and the Bureau International du Travail (Geneva). He was amongst others a founding member of the Swiss Society for Research in Education (SSRE), the European Educational Research Association and other international associations. He published in different areas of education policy, including migration, teacher education research, and the place of education research in the social sciences. In the early 1990s, Armin was asked to convene a meeting of national educational research associations in Aarau in Switzerland, in order to establish the EERA. Armin was a great supporter of the European Education Research Association. In this article, originally titled ‚Fakten und Fragen zur internationalen sozialen Organisation der Bildungsforschung in Europa am Beispiel der European Educational Research Association', he describes the early days of the Association. It is important to be reminded about the early desires of its founding members for a European association and its priorities. (Of course, some of the information about the national associations, in particular their membership figures, is no longer valid today.)

REVIEW ESSAY: Financing Higher Education

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:27:20 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY: Financing Higher Education
Author: Arnaud Chevalier
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 190-197
ABSTRACT Not available

The Rhetoric of ICT and the New Language of Learning: a critical analysis of the use of ICT in the curricular field

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: The Rhetoric of ICT and the New Language of Learning: a critical analysis of the use of ICT in the curricular field
Author: GEIR HAUGSBAKK; YNGVE NORDKVELLE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-12
ABSTRACT This article focuses on how we perceive new technology and technological development within educational settings, and seeks to establish a critical link between the rhetoric of information and communications technology (ICT) and what Biesta called 'the new language of learning'. Within this 'new language' the learner is a consumer, with needs that must be fulfilled by the teacher. This rhetoric implies that 'teaching' has been replaced by 'learning' and challenges the conventional curricula in many respects. The article applies Biesta's perspective to a concrete scrutiny of current trends in education and the introduction of ICT in education in particular. The analysis gives support to Biesta's main hypothesis, but it also indicates that the radical shift from teaching to learning is accompanied, and we might possibly say influenced, by the rhetoric connected to the use of ICT. In recent Norwegian curricular texts ICT takes a position as the rationalising tools by which teaching can be made efficient, individually designed and flexible. The intention is to critically examine the way in which teaching is more or less automatically replaced by learning, the influence the rhetoric of ICT has had, and how ICT and learning seem to be connected through merely rhetorical couplings.

Why Shouldn't Teachers and Teacher Educators Conduct Research on their Own Practices? An Epistemological Exploration

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: Why Shouldn't Teachers and Teacher Educators Conduct Research on their Own Practices? An Epistemological Exploration
Author: MIEKE LUNENBERG; PETRA PONTE; PIET-HEIN VAN DE VEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 13-24
ABSTRACT The idea of teachers and teacher educators engaging in research is not, in itself, new, but in recent years the propagation of this idea seems to have become really popular. This growing popularity brings the risk that practitioner research will degenerate into an increasingly vague and obscure 'container concept'. The aim of this article is to pause to allow time to reflect on the concept of practitioner research from a perspective that sees knowledge, knowledge-constitutive interests and knowledge construction as interrelated.

The 'Response' of the Greek State to Global Trends of Educational Policy Making

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: The 'Response' of the Greek State to Global Trends of Educational Policy Making
Author: DIONYSSIOS S. GOUVIAS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 25-38
ABSTRACT Many academics in the past have attempted to provide an overview of the general and common elements and 'trends' in contemporary, international education policy, focusing mainly on the most advanced - economically and technologically - countries of the 'West': from the increasing adoption of market ideologies in (public) education, to the introduction of modern management techniques into the organisation of state schools; and from a rising support for 'public choice' theories to the prevalence of the 'perfomativity' criterion. The main aim of this article is to examine the degree of 'adaptation' of the contemporary Greek educational system to the above trends. Using Ball's analytic model (1998), this will be done through a comparison between the specificities of the Greek social - and consequently, educational - formation and those of other advanced countries of the 'West', drawing examples mainly from the European experience.

The Knowledge Society and Global Dynamics in Education Politics

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: The Knowledge Society and Global Dynamics in Education Politics
Author: ANJA P. JAKOBI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 39-51
ABSTRACT This article explores the linkage between the idea of a knowledge society and effects of internationalisation in education policy-making. The fact that the idea of a knowledge society is widely shared is brought together with an explanation of increasing dynamics in education politics. The central argument is that the idea of a knowledge society has helped countries to increasingly perceive themselves as similar with respect to necessary educational changes. In consequence, they exchange policies which, some decades ago, would have been assumed to be bound to and determined by specific national traditions. Theoretically, the article is conceptualised in an institutionalist framework and illustrates the theoretical thoughts by the example of lifelong learning. Methods applied are content analysis, descriptive statistics and interviews.

MAPPING EDUCATION RESEARCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Introduction

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: MAPPING EDUCATION RESEARCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Introduction
Author: Martin Lawn; Gareth Rees
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 52-54
ABSTRACT Not available

The Social Organisation of Education Research in England

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: The Social Organisation of Education Research in England
Author: MARTIN LAWN; JOHN FURLONG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 55-70
ABSTRACT The field of education research has grown enormously in England over the last 25 years - in size, complexity, forms of production and purpose. It has been shaped by governmental, market and production changes, and it appears to be moving outside the university sector as well. The British Educational Research Association is trying to map the field and to make sense of its development. This article begins with a search for relevant data about the key elements in the field - personnel, institutions, output, etc. - and tries to draw conclusions about the next steps in the inquiry.

The Infrastructure of Educational Research in Scotland

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: The Infrastructure of Educational Research in Scotland
Author: WALTER HUMES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 71-86
ABSTRACT This article offers a descriptive and analytical account of the current state of educational research in Scotland, viewed against the background of constitutional change within the United Kingdom and debates about the nature, function and quality of research activity and output. It starts by considering how to undertake the task in hand and argues that it is necessary to draw on a combination of institutional, developmental and interactive approaches. Thereafter the relatively disappointing Scottish results in the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise are reported to set the scene for subsequent efforts to improve research capacity. The role of the Scottish Executive in determining research priorities, commissioning projects and using the findings of research in helping to inform policy is outlined, taking account of important structural changes following devolution. A key development has been the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS), a collaborative university-led initiative, funded jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council (previously the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council). This consists both of substantive research networks and a capacity-building programme of research training for beginning and developing researchers. Established research centres, with different histories and emphases, are described in order to raise issues about the balance between applied research, linked to policy priorities, and fundamental research which seeks to develop new theories and models. The role of the Scottish Educational Research Association, which has links with the British and European Educational Research Associations, is considered. Various attempts by different bodies to promote teacher engagement in research are also described. In the final section an attempt is made to assess what progress has been made. It is concluded that while the overall climate for the conduct of educational research has improved, providing real opportunities to demonstrate the value of research, there remain a number of challenging problems. These include: issues of research quality; inadequate opportunity to undertake fundamental (as distinct from applied) research; tensions between the demands of teacher education programmes and universities' research aspirations; the risk of 'collaboration' becoming 'consensus'; and the absence of a developed international perspective.

Educational Research and the Restructuring of the State: the impacts of parliamentary devolution in Wales

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: Educational Research and the Restructuring of the State: the impacts of parliamentary devolution in Wales
Author: GARETH REES; SALLY POWER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 87-100
ABSTRACT This article explores the relationships between educational research and the state. However, the aim is not to construct idealised versions of what the relationship between research and educational policy ought to be, but rather to examine the ways in which the state is able to influence the priorities of educational research through its role as the key funder of such research and as a principal consumer of its results. Empirically, the analysis is located in a particular historical context: the restructuring of the United Kingdom (UK) through the devolution of powers from the UK central government to a Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly in Wales, each with its devolved executive. In particular, the effects of this devolution on educational research are analysed through an examination of the transformation of educational research in universities; and of the ways in which the Welsh Assembly Government has used research in the processes through which educational policies are developed. Processes of globalisation have created complex interactions between civil society and different levels of government in many societies, which have had important consequences for the ways in which education policies are produced and the roles played by different forms of 'expert' knowledge (including educational research). Accordingly, the significance of the analysis extends beyond the specific, historical context in which it is located.

Gauging the Deliverable? Educational Research in Northern Ireland

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: Gauging the Deliverable? Educational Research in Northern Ireland
Author: JOHN GARDNER; TONY GALLAGHER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 101-114
ABSTRACT This article considers the landscape for educational research in the smallest country of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland. As elsewhere, educational research exists in political and economic circumstances that have considerable influence on its direction, nature and purpose and this article seeks to contextualise these influences. Northern Ireland differs considerably from the other three jurisdictions by virtue of it being very small (a population of circa 1.5 million), a fact that creates systemic difficulties such as capacity weaknesses in both numbers of researchers and the range of research skills available. Perhaps most importantly, however, Northern Ireland is uniquely distinguished from England, Scotland and Wales by having a proportionately large selective education system (grammar and non-selective secondary schools) and a politically and religiously divided population. This article argues that in combination with such national pressures as the Research Assessment Exercise, these contextual features result in a largely instrumental role for educational research - a tool to gauge what policy changes are deliverable. A strategic direction based on a dialogue between the government and the researcher community is therefore needed to prevent the continuation of a perceived ad hoc and fragmented system of educational research. The challenges of building a thriving research community in such circumstances also include the need to promote innovative ideas and related research, and to encourage greater inter-institutional collaboration. This in turn, it is argued, will help to create a community of practice capable of both sustaining itself in the future and making available a broader range of research competence.

REVIEW ESSAY. What's Common Between 'Business in Schools' and 'Education Business'?

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:04:17 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. What's Common Between 'Business in Schools' and 'Education Business'?
Author: Nico Hirtt
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2007 Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 115-121
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial. What Kinds of Democracy in Education are Facilitated by Supra- and Transnational Agencies?

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Editorial. What Kinds of Democracy in Education are Facilitated by Supra- and Transnational Agencies?
Author: Lejf Moos
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 160-168
ABSTRACT Not available

What's the Point of Lifelong Learning if Lifelong Learning Has No Point? On the Democratic Deficit of Policies for Lifelong Learning

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: What's the Point of Lifelong Learning if Lifelong Learning Has No Point? On the Democratic Deficit of Policies for Lifelong Learning
Author: GERT BIESTA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 169-180
ABSTRACT This article provides an analysis of shifts that have taken place in policy discourses on lifelong learning by organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. The article documents the shifts in these discourses over time, analyses the changes in content of these discourses (both in terms of what is included and what is excluded in the discussion), and explores the intended and unintended consequences that follow from these ways of thinking about (policy for) lifelong learning. The article documents a shift towards understanding the point and purpose of lifelong learning primarily in economic terms and far less in relation to the personal and the democratic function of lifelong learning. It is argued that under the conditions of the learning economy lifelong learning itself has become understood as an individual task rather than as a collective project and that this has transformed lifelong learning from a right to a duty. This raises important questions about who has the democratic right to set the agenda for lifelong learning. It also raises important issues about the motivation for lifelong learning and points particularly towards the predicament of the lifelong learner who has to engage in forms of learning without being able to control his or her own 'agenda' for learning. The rise of the learning economy has also put a stress on the democratic potential of lifelong learning, which is one of the most worrying consequences of the rise of the discourse of the learning economy. Since transnational policy documents have a strong 'agenda-setting' function for the development of national policies and practices, it is important at a national level to be aware of the assumptions, implications and intended and unintended consequences of such policy discourses.

A Critical Appraisal of the Impact of International Agencies on Educational Reforms and Teachers' Lives and Work: the case of Ireland?

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: A Critical Appraisal of the Impact of International Agencies on Educational Reforms and Teachers' Lives and Work: the case of Ireland?
Author: CIARAN SUGRUE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 181-195
ABSTRACT Against a general backdrop of an international discourse on educational reform that has focused on accountability, this article provides a detailed and critical analysis of the evolution of accountability policy and practice in Irish primary and post-primary education during the past 20 years. The analysis indicates clearly that national policy agendas have been influenced and shaped in significant ways by key international organisations, despite such influences being 'refracted' in different ways due to traditions of schooling in the country, and the current distribution of power among the major stakeholders. The article argues that the very recent publication of inspectors' reports for the very fist time marks a seismic shift in the Irish education system, and provides further evidence of an increase in the performativity and accountability demanded of teachers. Consequently, the article concludes, the system is at a very important crossroads where there needs to be a national debate on the kind of education system we desire for our children. The accountability path chosen will have enormous consequences for the quality of teaching and learning and the quality of our democracy. The stakes have never been higher.

Quality Assurance in the German School System

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Quality Assurance in the German School System
Author: STEPHAN GERHARD HUBER; BETTINA GÖRDEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 196-209
ABSTRACT Whereas internationally the shift towards quality control of school systems started in the early 1980s, mainly promoted by transnational agencies, this development only began in Germany in the mid 1990s. However, a clear-cut change from an input-controlled and centralised to a more output-controlled, decentralised and deregulated supervision system was initiated in most of the German Länder (the states of the German Federal Republic) no more than at the beginning of the new century. Main triggers were the sobering results of German pupils in international assessment tests like the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) compared to other countries which regularly assessed the school system's performance by various means. Now, all 16 German Länder have started model projects with certain groups of schools in each state to try out how self-managing of schools or local management of schools works. They are on their way to an output-controlled steering system of school quality. Due to the federal constitutional system, the progression in this regard is differently advanced and the characteristics of the local management of schools are manifold. Nevertheless, in all Länder several concurrent aspects can be identified. The five structural components on which the new system of quality control is based are: the traditional tasks of the school supervisory authorities, external school inspections, internal self-evaluations, assessment tests for system monitoring combined with regular educational reports, and last but not least, teacher professionalisation. The fundament of this control system is an understanding of school as a self-managing organisation, which is responsible for educational, financial, and personnel matters. In this area of school self-management, Germany is just beginning to reform its highly centralised and regulated school system towards more self-managing structures at its base.

Discursive Battles about the Meaning of University: the case of Danish university reform and its academics

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Discursive Battles about the Meaning of University: the case of Danish university reform and its academics
Author: JOHN KREJSLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 210-220
ABSTRACT The meaning of university and, subsequently, academics' working conditions are rapidly changing as knowledge economy and globalisation discourses continue to deepen across the Western world. Higher education and research agendas are increasingly staged in the discursive universe of knowledge economy language: common strategies and harmonisation within Europe (the Bologna process), integration of universities into national knowledge economy strategies that adapt to signals from the World Trade Organisation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, etc. Illustrated by the case of Danish university reform, this article traces the transition from a vanishing 'democratic and 'Humboldtian'' university discourse' toward an emerging 'market and efficiency oriented university discourse'. Universities are being turned into organisations with self-ownership, which allegedly increases their freedom of operation on the research and education 'market'. On the other hand, universities are under increased pressure to satisfy government demands, often at hitherto unknown levels of detail. Seen from the point of view of the academic worker, these processes become visible through a host of new social technologies that individualise and totalise researchers simultaneously through complex processes. The article highlights the point that constructive critique and fruitful counter-strategies must incorporate an in-depth understanding of the radicality of changes that are taking place in order to make a difference.

University Governance in Denmark: from democracy to accountability?

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: University Governance in Denmark: from democracy to accountability?
Author: STEPHEN CARNEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 221-233
ABSTRACT This article reports the findings of a Danish research council-funded project aimed at exploring a comprehensive package of management reforms in higher education instituted in Denmark since 2003. The reforms attempt to change not only the way institutions are governed but the very notion of democracy and engagement in higher education. In short, a long-established tradition for university governance based on the internal election of staff and students has been replaced by the formation of university boards comprising a majority of members external to the university. In most cases the leadership of these boards has fallen to senior executives from the commercial sector with a mandate to reform decision-making processes, to encourage the reorientation of educational programmes to the labour market, and to make research more accessible to industry and commerce. Whilst boards are responsible for the university's development agenda (and formal development contract with the government), university rectors (vice-chancellors) and their senior management teams are given greatly increased powers to 'run' 'their' institutions. Whilst Danish universities have maintained some degree of continuity with earlier democratic/administrative forms of governance based on internal elected representation, these non-executive bodies are in the process of being marginalised by new hierarchical models of 'executive' governance. In the process, 'democracy', understood by internal stakeholders as a parliamentary political discourse based upon proportional representation, becomes an attachment to rather than a defining element of the university, posing fundamental questions about the role of such institutions in late modern society, and the place of academic staff within them.

De-democratisation in Denmark?

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: De-democratisation in Denmark?
Author: KATRIN HJORT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 234-243
ABSTRACT In Denmark, as in many other countries, international agendas represented by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment studies, the European Bologna process and the school effectiveness movement are important factors for educational policy. However, in national contexts, international policies become interwoven with local agendas and power relations. In Denmark, neo-liberal educational policies are linked with the present reform processes in the Danish welfare system, new public management. At the moment a political majority in Denmark has decided - without much of a prior democratic debate - to tone down the democratic statements in the objects clause of the Danish Primary Education Act. This seems odd, since traditionally, democracy has been a pillar in the self-perception and self-projection of the Danish educational system. The question dealt with in this article is whether we are dealing with de-democratisation in the Danish educational system and the Danish society, or with the development of new interpretations of democracy and a new need for a democratic debate.

Teams and Collegiality in Educational Culture

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Teams and Collegiality in Educational Culture
Author: KIRSTEN MARIE BOVBJERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 244-253
ABSTRACT In recent decades modern educational organisations have become heavily influenced by new management theories and their new ways of organising staff in teams. This trend started in private organisations with a new organisational agenda but has migrated to public organisations with the introduction of new public management (NPM) in state and municipal institutions. The working conditions for teachers have changed due to the organisational transformations and new demands for the teacher, such as flexibility, self-management and teamwork. In this article, the author suggests that, from her discussions with teachers, and her former work on personal development in work life, there seems to be a conflicting understanding of collaboration which could be grasped by exploring the distinction between the notion of teamwork and the notion of collegiality.

Leadership, Power and Democracy in and around Schools

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Leadership, Power and Democracy in and around Schools
Author: KLAUS KASPER KOFOD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 254-262
ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the connection between school democracy and a strong principalship. The point of departure is taken as the Danish Folkeskole, the aim being to extract some general trends from this Danish case. It is shown how international trends have influenced the Danish situation, making it possible to speak of a convergence between British and Scandinavian development. The issue of school democracy has changed so that the influence of some parts of the so-called small democracy have been diminished to the advantage of the so-called big democracy. The strengthening of principalship has, however, not led to the diminishing of the small democracy. It is, on the contrary, argued that a strong principalship may enhance the possibilities of a well-functioning local democracy in the school.

Conformity to New Global Imperatives and Demands: the case of Swedish school principals

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Conformity to New Global Imperatives and Demands: the case of Swedish school principals
Author: JONAS HÖÖG; PAUL V. BREDESON; OLOF JOHANSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 263-275
ABSTRACT Over the past three decades, the forces of globalisation - economic, political and cultural - have significantly affected institutions and people across the world: altering in some ways the very terrain of public and private life. Public education has in no small way been challenged by new realities and new demands in an increasingly interdependent yet competitive world environment. School principals are uniquely positioned as formal leaders of diverse and complex educational systems to mediate the often times opposing forces of globalisation and localism with their communities. This article examines school leaders' understanding of their work and their work role priorities, especially with regard to teaching and learning, within a policy environment characterised by increasingly convergent policy and leadership discourse. Two major questions are addressed, theoretically and empirically: in what ways do school principals in Sweden, which has strong democratic traditions, address the tension between localism and national interests and the press for conformity to new global imperatives and demands; and to what degree, if any, has globalisation created a new hegemony in school leadership? It is concluded that school principals in Sweden respond to questions about their schools without any reference to new global imperatives and demands. Their attention was generally related to national demands. Also, we see no clear evidence that globalisation has created a new hegemony in school leadership in Sweden.

Ideological Power in Education

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: Ideological Power in Education
Author: PER F. LAURSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 276-284
ABSTRACT This article agues that ideological power plays an important role in education and that it is part of a general trend in policy and social sciences to underestimate ideological and overestimate the role of political and economic power. The article sketches a concept of power in general and especially of ideological power based primarily on the work of sociologists Anthony Giddens and Michael Mann. The role of ideological power is illustrated by discussing the recent trend towards flexible schooling. The emerging flexible school organisation was analysed in an empirical study of the most prominent Danish project of school development in recent years, the SKUB-project from 1998 to 2006. One school in particular, Hellerup School, was constructed and built as part of the project and it is aspects of this institution and its practices that are presented. The study shows that communication, methods of teaching, and techniques of discipline were changed compared to traditionally organised schools. What politicians, administrators, school leaders and teachers were primarily concerned about in developing the new school organisation was the ideological question about legitimacy: does this kind of school organisation and practice seem reasonable to students, parents, and public opinion, and is it in harmony with contemporary organisations in general? New ways of organising schools and the introduction of new frameworks do not necessarily result in reformed teaching practices. But in the case of SKUB and Hellerup they actually did so. The reason was that the new frameworks made possible methods of teaching that students accepted more readily than the traditional ones. Educational development is not only the result of political and economic powers but also of what seems reasonable to students, teachers, parents, and public opinion. Ideology matters in education.

REVIEW ESSAY. Learning about European Union Financed Social Science Practice

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. Learning about European Union Financed Social Science Practice
Author: Christina Segerholm
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 285-289
ABSTRACT Not available

CALL FOR PAPERS. Special issue on Gender and PISA, to be published in 2008

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:23:25 GMT

Title: CALL FOR PAPERS. Special issue on Gender and PISA, to be published in 2008
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Pages: 290-290
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Ton Mooij
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 77-79
ABSTRACT In September 1998 the Research Network 'ICT in Education and Training' was initiated at the conference of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). The new network reflected the recognition and growing importance of information and communication technology (ICT) with respect to education and learning processes. ICT was, for example, expected to aid in transforming education, to better fit the learning of various types of pupils, and to assist in the prevention of school demotivation and drop-out. Moreover, ICT was assumed to help in overcoming negative consequences of organizational differences between schools and in improving learning processes and effects of learners both in and out of school.

Since the initiation of this network, a stable number of more than 50 ICT-oriented contributions from all over Europe and abroad have been presented yearly at the educational conferences of EERA. Each year rather different themes and particularities can be noticed, but it also seems that some specific topics come up again and again. In my opinion these recurring themes reflect the possibility of fulfilling at least part of the original expectations and promises associated with the introduction of ICT in education and training. These issues have to do with the theoretical foundation of transformational aspects of ICT, in particular of Internet-based ICT; with various methodological aspects which are related to these transformational potentials of ICT; and the development and implementation of such aspects and potentials both in and outside school practice; and the experiences or results of these ICT-based approaches compared with more traditional educational processes and effects.

To further develop such topics in the European context and to promote the possibilities of their development and realization in research and in practice, I selected some exemplary contributions to the EERA conference in 2005. The focus was on promising theoretical and methodological papers that could make the future-oriented transformation claims more concrete, as much as possible in reliable and valid ways. This includes a concentration on theoretical analysis and reflection, the necessary systemic design of education to promote and optimise learning processes and effects, the integration of multilevel organizational and managerial support facilities, and appropriate procedures to administer or monitor and evaluate learning in and outside school. Although more contributions on the 2005 conference seemed relevant, for pragmatic reasons four contributions were chosen to represent the aforementioned focus on the 'transformation' role of ICT in education and training. The goal of their presentation in this issue of European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) is to promote their impact and illustrative role in both the European research agenda and - possibly - forthcoming EERA conferences.

In the first article Colin Harrison pays attention to what he calls 'postmodern research and e-learning'. He clarifies that, by taking another position or another view, we see other things than before, or represent the world in other ways than we were used to. The result is that we get along with each other and the environment in new ways, with new procedures and probably improved outcomes. His main point is that the use of a wider range of representations seems valuable in moving the research on technology beyond bivariate descriptions of e-learning, particularly in complex domains. Harrison 'proves' this thesis by reflecting on research into the relationship between information technology and learning, and by relating the reflections to the concept of representation. Visual representations of learning can, for example, add complexity and interconnectedness to our understanding. His concrete examples represent learning with technology in multiple environments, statistical data on relative gains in learning with ICT, and complex Internet search task behaviour.

In the second contribution Ton Mooij & Ed Smeets present an example of this differentiated use of ICT by concentrating on the design, development, and implementation of inclusive education. Inclusive education is a research issue in most European countries at this time. In inclusive education different pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and high ability pupils, are supposed to learn according to their capacities and potentials. However, the question is how to design inclusive education to optimally promote the motivation and learning processes and outcomes of all pupils. Moreover, how can the desired educational changes be realized in practice? To answer these questions Mooij & Smeets introduce a model of guidelines concerning 'multilevel contextual learning theory'. The guidelines are expected to aid in designing psychologically appropriate learning processes and motivating educational, organisational, and managerial characteristics and procedures for all pupils. Researchers and teachers collaborated in a pilot in three Dutch pre-schools. First development results were a prototype of a competence structure and a prototype of Internet-based software. Using these intermediate results, the screening of children's entry characteristics by infant day care teachers, parents, and pre-school teachers was developed and implemented in practice. Further diagnostic, playing, and learning procedures were based on the screening results. The researchers conclude that the pilot seems promising in realizing desired progress with different pupils in early educational practice. However, policy and financial support is necessary to make more progress.

In the third article, Wim Jochems & Karel Kreijns treat the measurement of social aspects of distributed learning groups. These researchers argue that computer-supported group-based learning requires that interaction has to be structured within the group. Also, attention should be paid to social aspects of a distributed learning group (i.e. group dynamics) to develop a good working team. They propose a process-oriented framework that considers five critical elements for enhancing interaction in the cognitive dimension. In order to develop sociable computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments, Jochems & Kreijns propose three scales that measure and validate social aspects.

In the fourth and final article, Helen Ashton & Christine Wood concentrate on the use of online assessment to enhance teaching and learning. They describe a recent collaborative project (PASS-IT) to investigate the use of online assessment in secondary education in Scotland. The aim of PASS-IT was to explore the potential of formative and summative assessment and to build on previous research into the applicability and validity of online assessments. The researchers present an overview of the project with examples of online questions. They also give an outline of the main research findings which provide evidence for the validity of online assessments.

The contents of this collection of articles indeed suggest that we are making progress in theoretical and methodological aspects related to the role and significance of information technology in education and training. We learn to look at traditional education, teaching, and learning in other ways that, for example, have the potential to improve learning in and out of school, and we use other types of representation to design education and the support by ICT otherwise than we did before. The transformation potentials of Internet-based information technology have various impacts on methodological instrumentations in practice, both in and out of school. The theoretical and methodological analyses have various consequences for the systemic design of education, to promote and improve learning processes and effects.

It also becomes clear that, at this time, most of the experiences in practice are developmental and usually more qualitative with respect to the transformation as expected. It will be clear that systemic quantitative research to compare traditional and transformational learning processes and learning effects will be possible only when sufficient implementation of transformational learning has taken place. Moreover, ICT-based multilevel integration of organizational and managerial support, and development of appropriate procedures to administer or monitor and evaluate learning in and outside school, need further development and implementation attention.

It is concluded that, if we continue to concentrate our efforts on the specific theoretical, methodological, and practical topics, as are treated in this EERJ issue, we lend a hand to their development and realization in a European context. In particular the various transformational potentials of information technology in education and training seem valuable for further analyses and research in the next EERA conferences.

Ton Mooij

Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Postmodern Research and E-learning: anatomy and representation

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Postmodern Research and E-learning: anatomy and representation
Author: COLIN HARRISON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 80-93
ABSTRACT This article attempts to do two things: first, to present some postmodern reflections on the current state of research into the relationship between information technology and learning, and second, to relate those reflections to the concept of representation, in ways that, it is hoped, offer some useful and positive models for extending our understanding. Using representations in anatomy and physics as examples, the article outlines three examples from current research of ways in which visual representations of learning can enhance our understanding of complexity and offer the potential for greater interconnectedness in our thinking. These examples are taken from representations of learning with technology in multiple environments, representations of statistical data on relative gains in learning with ICT, and representations of complex Internet search task behaviour. The article argues that making use of a wider range of representations might be valuable in moving the field beyond bivariate descriptions of e-learning, particularly in complex domains.

Design, Development and Implementation of Inclusive Education

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Design, Development and Implementation of Inclusive Education
Author: TON MOOIJ; ED SMEETS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 94-109
ABSTRACT In inclusive education different pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and high ability pupils, can be stimulated to learn according to their capacities and potentials. The research question concentrates on the design features of inclusive education that will optimally promote the motivation and learning processes and outcomes of all pupils, and how relevant changes can be developed and implemented in educational practice. A model of guidelines concerning 'multilevel contextual learning theory' was expected to aid in designing psychologically appropriate learning processes and motivating educational, organisational, and managerial characteristics and procedures for all pupils. From 2003 to 2005, a pilot in which researchers and teachers collaborated was carried out in three Dutch pre-schools. Initial findings resulted in the development of a prototype of a pedagogical-didactic kernel or competence structure and a prototype of Internet-based software. Using these results, the screening of children's entry characteristics by infant day care teachers, parents, and pre-school teachers was developed and implemented in practice. Construction and use of diagnostically based instructional, playing and learning procedures were first based on the screening results. The pre-schools differed much in rates of development and implementation. It is concluded that the proposed approach to the design, development and implementation of inclusive education that was applied seems promising in realising desired progress with pupils in early educational practice. However, policy and financial support are necessary to make more progress.

Measuring Social Aspects of Distributed Learning Groups

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Measuring Social Aspects of Distributed Learning Groups
Author: WIM JOCHEMS; KAREL KREIJNS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 110-121
ABSTRACT Computer-supported group-based learning requires that interaction has to be structured within the group; otherwise it will not happen. Also, it is important to pay attention to social aspects of a distributed learning group (i.e. group dynamics); otherwise a good working team will not emerge. This article proposes a process-oriented framework that considers five critical elements for enhancing interaction in the cognitive dimension. Enhancing social interaction for achieving a sound social space requires a sociable computer-supported collaborative learning environment (CSCL) in which social presence of the group members exists. Such sound social space is considered by many, if not most, educational researchers to be a necessary prerequisite for epistemic interaction. In order to allow designers and teachers to develop sociable CSCL environments, this article proposes three scales to measure social aspects. Although the validation of these scales is somewhat limited, the scales are a first step for making certain characteristics of distributed interaction visible. To provide a more firm base for the scales, this article also calls for more research on this issue.

Use of Online Assessment to Enhance Teaching and Learning: the PASS-IT Project HELEN ASHTON Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Use of Online Assessment to Enhance Teaching and Learning: the PASS-IT Project HELEN ASHTON Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Author: CHRISTINE WOOD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 122-130
ABSTRACT This article describes a recent collaborative project (PASS-IT) which investigated the use of online assessment in secondary education in Scotland. The aim of PASS-IT was to explore the potential of formative and summative assessment in secondary education, and to build on previous research into the applicability and validity of online assessments. An overview of the project is given. Examples of online questions are provided in section 2 with a discussion of some of the issues and benefits. Section 3 outlines the main research findings of the project, which provide evidence for the validity of online assessments.

Social Capital: an educational panacea or a challenge to the way we do policy?

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: Social Capital: an educational panacea or a challenge to the way we do policy?
Author: TOM HEALY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 131-139
ABSTRACT This article focuses on these key themes: (1) the value of education as learning to be fully human, (2) the value of education as learning to be fully human with others and for others - inviting us to consider the concept of 'social capital' as a way of tapping into and releasing this value; and accordingly, (3) a number of practical considerations for how educational policy and practice can be influenced.

'Different Children - a tougher job'. Icelandic Teachers Reflect on Changes in their Work

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: 'Different Children - a tougher job'. Icelandic Teachers Reflect on Changes in their Work
Author: Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 140-151
ABSTRACT This article is based on interviews with 67 primary school teachers and principals in Iceland about changes in the work of teachers during the last part of the twentieth century. The focus is on what teachers and principals understand as the most important change, how it affects teachers work lives, and how they talk about change. The changes reported by the interviewees are different children a tougher job, transformation in the roles of teachers and principals, increased cooperation between teachers and with other professionals, inclusion practices, more goal-governed versus book-governed teaching, and new methods of evaluation. These changes constitute a changing discourse of teachers about teaching, and they also have an impact on the work lives of teachers by creating tensions and contradictions similar to such tensions in other comparable countries.

REVIEW ESSAY. Pathways to Inclusion: a guide to staff development

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:57:51 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. Pathways to Inclusion: a guide to staff development
Author: Bengt Persson
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Pages: 152-159
ABSTRACT Not available

Neo-liberalism and Marketisation: the implications for higher education

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:20:47 GMT

Title: Neo-liberalism and Marketisation: the implications for higher education
Author: KATHLEEN LYNCH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-17
ABSTRACT This article is based on a keynote paper presented to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), University College Dublin, 5-9 September 2005. The massification of education in European countries over the last 100 years has produced cultures and societies that have benefited greatly from state investment in education. To maintain this level of social and economic development that derives from high quality education requires continual state investment. With the rise of the New Right, neo-liberal agenda, there is an attempt to offload the cost of education, and indeed other public services such as housing, transport, care services etc., on to the individual. There is an increasing attempt to privatise public services, including education, so that citizens will have to buy them at market value rather than have them provided by the state. Europe is no exception to this trend of neo-liberalisation. Recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports, including one on higher education in Ireland, (2004), concentrate strongly on the role of education in servicing the economy to the neglect of its social and developmental responsibilities. The view that education is simply another market commodity has become normalised in policy and public discourses. Schools run purely as businesses are a growing phenomenon within and without Europe, and there is an increasing expectation in several countries that schools will supplement their income from private sources, even though they are within the state sector. In this article, the writer presents both a critique of the neo-liberal model of marketised education and a challenge to academics to work as public intellectuals both individually and with civil society organisations to develop a counter-hegemonic discourse to neo-liberalism for higher education.

Governance Shifts in Higher Education: a cross-national comparison

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:20:47 GMT

Title: Governance Shifts in Higher Education: a cross-national comparison
Author: LUCIANA LAZZERETTI; ERNESTO TAVOLETTI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Pages: 18-37
ABSTRACT The article aims to interpret and compare recent governance shifts in higher education across several countries, both at the central government level and at the institutional or 'corporate' level. In order to do that it reviews the most significant literature about alternative theoretical models of governance in higher education and uses these models to interpret changing governance across several nations. It suggests the existence of a general tendency towards a 'new managerialism' governance model in Western Europe. In order to explain this tendency special attention is paid to countries in the forefront of governance innovation. The traditional continental European model is a term of comparison.

Globalisation and Europeification of Education Policies: routes, processes and metamorphoses

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:20:47 GMT

Title: Globalisation and Europeification of Education Policies: routes, processes and metamorphoses
Author: FÁTIMA ANTUNES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Pages: 38-56
ABSTRACT The focus of this article concerns the supranational level, which, in the past few decades, has become increasingly important in the configuration of the field of education. The article examines the way education has been regarded and defined in the context of the European Union and the implications such processes have on the education systems of the member states. The dynamics of Europeification and the setting up of a global European reference for education policies currently possess an intensity, range and depth of intervention which are clearly distant from what was the case a mere decade ago. In this perspective, the European Union and other regional intergovernmental platforms, such as the Bologna Process, constitute settings for mediation that create, filter and convey the globalisation processes.

Evidence and Policy Research

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:20:47 GMT

Title: Evidence and Policy Research
Author: TOM SCHULLER; WIM JOCHEMS; LEJF MOOS; AGNES VAN ZANTEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Pages: 57-70
ABSTRACT The EERJ roundtable took as its point of departure the experience of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) in carrying out policy research. CERI has conducted four reviews of national educational research and development (in New Zealand, England, Mexico and Denmark), and has run a number of meetings specifically on the use of evidence-based policy research (in the USA, Sweden and the Netherlands). Tom Schuller, Head of CERI, presented some conclusions from these and other CERI activities. Responses were made by Wim Jochems, Open University of the Netherlands, Lejf Moos, Danish University of Education, and Agnes van Zanten, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, CNRS, Paris. The EERJ Roundtable was an opportunity to return to the issues raised in the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) 2003 Hamburg Roundtable on the ‘OECD Examiners’ Report on Educational Research and Development in England’ (European Educational Research Journal, 3(2), 2004, pp. 510?526) in a wider context and as part of a trend to evaluate the quality and organisation of educational research, and its contribution to educational policy.

United in Diversity? The Place of Religion in State Education in Europe and Greece

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:20:47 GMT

Title: United in Diversity? The Place of Religion in State Education in Europe and Greece
Author: Nafsika Alexiadou
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2006 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Pages: 71-76
ABSTRACT Not available

The University and the State in a Global Age: renegotiating the traditional social contract?

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:57:42 GMT

Title: The University and the State in a Global Age: renegotiating the traditional social contract?
Author: MAREK KWIEK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Pages: 324-342
ABSTRACT This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Dublin, Ireland, 7-10 September 2005. It argues that we are facing the simultaneous renegotiation of the major post-war social contract (concerning the welfare state) in Europe and the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact: the pact between the university and the nation-state. It suggests that the current, and especially future, transformations of the university are not fully clear outside of the context of transformations to the state (and to the public sector) under global pressures. These pressures, both directly and indirectly, will not leave the university as an institution unaffected. Thus it is more useful today than ever before to discuss the future of the university in the context of the current transformations of the state. The study is divided into four sections: a brief introduction; a section on the university and the welfare state in Europe; a section on the university and the nation-state in Europe; and tentative conclusions.

The 'Problem' of the European Dimension in Education: a principled reconstruction of the Greek Cypriot curriculum

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:57:42 GMT

Title: The 'Problem' of the European Dimension in Education: a principled reconstruction of the Greek Cypriot curriculum
Author: STAVROULA PHILIPPOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Pages: 343-368
ABSTRACT The European dimension in education has been a term increasingly used by the European Union and the Council of Europe to denote some of their educational policies and initiatives. It has also been a contested term in academic writing, as some researchers critique the elitist, exclusionary and Eurocentric educational implications it may have, while others welcome its pedagogic and intercultural potential. This article explores the possibilities of using the European dimension as a tool to alleviate ethnocentrism and traditional pedagogies in curricula and textbooks. To achieve this, the essay presents some principles which have been used for the development of History and Geography curricula with a European dimension in Greek Cypriot state primary schools in Cyprus. The curriculum development process drew upon the literature around the 'political' history of the European dimension, as well as upon academic discussions of social constructivist approaches to the notion of Europe. The principles employed to guide the curriculum development process were structured under the perspectives of curriculum location, content and pedagogy. The curricular location principles were concerned with the European dimension as a cross-curricular innovation, the question of its form within subject-based curricula and of its contextualisation within existing educational localities and contexts. Concerning content, it is proposed that such curricula need to acknowledge the constructedness and fluidity of the frontiers of nation-states and of Europe, the multiplicity and hybridity of identities, as well as Europe's socio-cultural and conflictual past. Finally, the pedagogic principles encourage critical approaches to knowledge, the development of concepts and active learning through cooperation.

Migrants' Resources: multilingualism and transnational mobility. A Study on Learning Paths and School to Job Transition of Young Portuguese Migrants

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:57:42 GMT

Title: Migrants' Resources: multilingualism and transnational mobility. A Study on Learning Paths and School to Job Transition of Young Portuguese Migrants
Author: SARA FÜRSTENAU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Pages: 369-381
ABSTRACT In this contribution, the results of an empirical study on young immigrants' learning paths and school to job transition are presented. The study focused on the strategies of successful students from the Portuguese immigrant minority in Hamburg. One aim was to find out whether the young people could profit by their migration experiences and multilingual skills. Increasing the multilingualism of individuals is an official goal of the European Union, and it is predicted that the labour market will give increasing importance to the ability to communicate and work in contexts of linguistic and cultural diversity. The question was, though, whether students from an immigrant minority, whose parents had come to Germany in the course of the labour recruitment, could benefit from this development. Interestingly, the young people of the sample turned out to be highly flexible during their future orientations, considering options in Germany as well as in their country of origin. Their strategies and orientations during school to work transition were analysed on the basis of Pierre Bourdieu's model of the linguistic market and from the perspective of the sociological concept of transnational migration.

Taylorism of the Mind: entrepreneurship education from a perspective of educational research

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:57:42 GMT

Title: Taylorism of the Mind: entrepreneurship education from a perspective of educational research
Author: CARINA HOLMGREN; JÖRGEN FROM
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Pages: 382-390
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to explore and discuss entrepreneurship education, and to raise some critical questions inspired by the work of Basil Bernstein. The discussion is based on writings on entrepreneurship education and thereby gives one picture of the intellectual debate on entrepreneurship education. In contrast to traditional education, viewed as transformation of knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship education is said to be about changing attitudes and motives. There is a consensus in the field that students can be successfully endowed with an entrepreneurial culture, when their attitudes are changed in the desired way. The focus on fostering a certain identity in entrepreneurship education might be seen as a part of the ongoing neo-liberal oriented educational restructuring process, which is sweeping through Europe.

Is Impact a Measure of Quality? Some Reflections on the Research Quality and Impact Assessment Agendas

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:57:42 GMT

Title: Is Impact a Measure of Quality? Some Reflections on the Research Quality and Impact Assessment Agendas
Author: LYN YATES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Pages: 391-403
ABSTRACT This article uses the development of a 'Research Quality Framework' in Australia as a focus for reflection on the way in which quality is assessed in relation to education research, and a consideration of the role and situation of a national association of education research in relation to that. The study examines ways in which 'quality' and 'impact' are being defined in particular practices, and how the broader context of the status of education research impacts on debates and strategies with regard to quality. It is argued that the current focus on measures of quality assessment need to be re-coupled with more attention to contexts of production of education research and the issue of how quality research can be developed. It is argued too that education research associations do need to engage with the quality assessment exercises, but that doing this will pose some real tensions for them.

New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: the changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: the changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies
Author: AGNÈS VAN ZANTEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 155-169
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: Constructing International Policy Research: the role of CERI/OECD
Author: TOM SCHULLER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 170-180
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: Organisation and Context, Efficiency and Equity of Educational Systems: what PISA tells us
Author: MARIE DURU-BELLAT; BRUNO SUCHAUT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 181-194
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: The Influence of Participation, Identification, and Parental Resources on the Early School Leaving of Boys in the Lower Educational Track
Author: SANDRA BEEKHOVEN; HETTY DEKKERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 195-207
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: The Europeanisation of Higher Education in the Netherlands
Author: JUDITH LITJENS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 208-218
ABSTRACT 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?

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: Enterprise Learning: a challenge to education?
Author: EVA LEFFLER; GUDRUN SVEDBERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 219-227
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: Remaking Education in Western Europe
Author: KEN JONES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 228-242
ABSTRACT 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

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: Second Language Acquisition in Pre-school Playgroups and its Relation to Later School Success
Author: ELMA NAP-KOLHOFF; ROEL VAN STEENSEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 243-255
ABSTRACT 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.

REPORT. ERNIST Networking Study. Analysis of Success Factors in Network Building (Phase 1)

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: REPORT. ERNIST Networking Study. Analysis of Success Factors in Network Building (Phase 1)
Author: Friedrich Buchberger; Brian Hudson; Ahmed El Gamal; Mart Laanpere
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 256-312
ABSTRACT Not available

REVIEW ESSAY. Constants and Contexts in Pupil Experience of Schooling in England, France and Denmark

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. Constants and Contexts in Pupil Experience of Schooling in England, France and Denmark
Author: Maria Birbili
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 313-320
ABSTRACT Not available

BOOK REVIEW

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:21:47 GMT

Title: BOOK REVIEW
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Pages: 321-323
ABSTRACT Not available

Part I. Devising Indicators of Equity in Educational Systems: why and how?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Part I. Devising Indicators of Equity in Educational Systems: why and how?
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 1-27
ABSTRACT RESEARCH REPORT

European Group for Research on Equity in Educational Systems. Equity in European Educational Systems: a set of indicators

Part II. A Set of 29 Indicators on the Equity of Educational Systems

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Part II. A Set of 29 Indicators on the Equity of Educational Systems
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 33-92
ABSTRACT RESEARCH REPORT

European Group for Research on Equity in Educational Systems. Equity in European Educational Systems: a set of indicators

Part III. Equity in European Educational Systems: an interpretation of the 29 indicators

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Part III. Equity in European Educational Systems: an interpretation of the 29 indicators
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 93-151
ABSTRACT RESEARCH REPORT

European Group for Research on Equity in Educational Systems. Equity in European Educational Systems: a set of indicators

Introduction. Young People, Rights and Social Exclusion

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Introduction. Young People, Rights and Social Exclusion
Author: Danielle Zay
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 96-99
ABSTRACT Not available

An International Model for Developing Capacity for Addressing the Needs of 'At Risk' Youth: a French-English affaire?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: An International Model for Developing Capacity for Addressing the Needs of 'At Risk' Youth: a French-English affaire?
Author: PAM MARAS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 100-108
ABSTRACT This article describes a bi-national project planned with Interreg (European) funding involving communities in Kent and Nord Pas-de-Calais. The focus is on 'at risk' youth and training and supporting personnel, and action to address the needs of this client group. The differences in the two systems mean that the forms of the project are different on the two sides of the Channel and the ways of proceeding are necessarily dictated by local cultural imperatives and conditions; the French centralised system where core services are enhanced to deal with new or increasing problems confronts the English style of short-term projects made up of alliances of agencies and community groups working in partnership with schools.

Preventing School and Social Exclusion: a French-British comparative study

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Preventing School and Social Exclusion: a French-British comparative study
Author: DANIELLE ZAY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 109-120
ABSTRACT Statistics in European countries show the same trends, for example: social inclusion depends on inclusion in education, training or employment, and life chances are greatly improved if the level of qualifications is high; in all European countries, economic growth still leads to the existence of 'pockets' of poverty and economic and social relegation. The schools whose students get results below the national average are located in such areas. Nevertheless, educational policies for addressing disaffected young people in European countries are different, as they are linked with choices made among the European paradigms of social exclusion and models of schooling. This article extends the findings from a comparative study for which Professors Carl Parsons and Danielle Zay were responsible in the European Interreg programme. Research teams in France and England included academics and practitioners in two disadvantaged regions, Nord Pas-de-Calais on the French side and Kent on the English side. The study aimed to find practices and strategies likely to help disaffected young people. The comparative approach was worthwhile since the two countries represent opposing perspectives on exclusion and its prevention at school level among the European paradigms. The English and French teams' approach was drawn from the same theoretical background, the same paradigm of school and social exclusion. The starting question which articulates the others was: How can schools deal with problems which come from elsewhere? This article introduces the results of this collaborative inquiry, addressing both the schools' staff and young people in schools, many of whom were dropping in and out of school. It was these initial results that prompted us to submit a new Interreg project as a development from the previous one.

A Case Study of a Lithuanian Foster Family

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: A Case Study of a Lithuanian Foster Family
Author: NIJOLE BANKAUSKIENE; VILMA STASKEVICIENE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 121-131
ABSTRACT The authors discuss the problems of children's foster care in Lithuania in the context of European dimensions. The article consists of two parts. The first part presents the main changes in the children's care system in Lithuania. The first part reveals the discussion of the paradigm of children's foster care in both the Western and Lithuanian contexts. The design of the qualitative research into foster families and the data from the case study are presented in the second part. Here the authors also present the results of the case study of a Lithuanian foster family. The results of this research might be interesting and relevant at national and international levels, because countries in transition lack experience in the field of children's care and it could be useful for Western countries.

Children's Visual Representations of Food and Meal Time: towards an understanding of nutrition and educational practices

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Children's Visual Representations of Food and Meal Time: towards an understanding of nutrition and educational practices
Author: LORRAINE SAVOIE-ZAJC
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 132-141
ABSTRACT Within the broad perspective of school and social exclusion, this article pays attention to an important factor of exclusion: overweight and obesity in primary school children. An interdisciplinary research was conducted and aimed at the study of social representations and practices surrounding food which primary school children, their parents and their teachers hold. This article proposes, firstly, an analysis of drawings produced by the children. Most of them represented dinner time as a social event when the family gathers together. It is pictured as a pleasant and joyful moment of the day, in settings of people standing close to one another or sitting around a table. While concrete references to the act of eating are present, it is the spirit of family reunion that predominates. Secondly, the article will clarify the perspectives teachers have regarding their role in educating for healthy food habits. Holding a prevention perspective, the conclusion will stress the importance of partnerships between parents and schools that should be enacted. Joint interventions should be planned for.

Conclusion. Young People, Rights and Social Exclusion

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: Conclusion. Young People, Rights and Social Exclusion
Author: Danielle Zay
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 142-144
ABSTRACT Not available

REVIEW ESSAY. 'Beautiful Minds' in Rich Discourses: employing discursive approaches to research in mathematics education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:45 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY. 'Beautiful Minds' in Rich Discourses: employing discursive approaches to research in mathematics education
Author: Elena Nardi
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Pages: 145-154
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction. Travelling Policy in Post-Socialist Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Introduction. Travelling Policy in Post-Socialist Education
Author: TERRI SEDDON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-4
ABSTRACT This special issue provides a window on processes of education reform in post-socialist contexts. While there is a huge body of research on reform movements in Anglo-Saxon and European countries, there is less literature on education reform in the countries that were previously embraced by the USSR.

The countries that previously made up the Soviet world are diverse. Prior to its disintegration in the early 1990s, the USSR reached from the Baltic to the Bering Sea and the Sea of Japan, from the borders of Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arctic. The USSR encompassed substantial parts of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Caucasus, and the five countries of Central Asia. Almost 150 million people lived within this immense geographic and culturally diverse space, excluding Russia.

Since the early 1990s, the countries making up the Soviet Union have become independent states with responsibility for the design and development of their own education systems. Each country faces complex social and economic changes that have accompanied independence, and new challenges in terms of governance and policy making. As in other parts of the world, education has been seen as a significant lever in responding to the demands of the new national context and also to the pressures of globalisation. These developments have prompted a series of education reform initiatives across the post-socialist contexts.

The initial idea for a special issue of EERJ on post-socialist education reform came from conversations between a group of people working together on national education reform in Kazakhstan. This initiative, orchestrated and funded by the Soros Foundation, represented the very first stages in an education reform process. It focused on the development of an internal office to support education reform within Kazakhstan and initial interventions into the policy discussions in the country. These interventions entailed a series of workshops at which education experts from around the world talked and worked with senior Kazakh educators. The Ministry of Education was not a sponsor of these workshops but had been informed of them and had sent representatives to participate in each workshop. The aim of the initial one-year program of workshops, and the subsequent three-year strategy, was to build commitment to a reform agenda in Kazakhstan and gain Ministry of Education endorsement. At this stage, it was envisaged that Kazakhstan would seek further funding to support the reform imitative through one of the big banks, the World Bank or Asian Development Bank.

The participants in this Kazakhstan reform initiative had all had prior experience of education reform in other places. These experiences gave each of them a distinctive perspective on the processes of national education reform in post-socialist contexts. Their current roles also provided distinct vantage points on the way reform agenda became embedded in national contexts. The special issue of EERJ provided an opportunity to draw on this expertise and to make it more publicly available. We have also drawn on other researchers who have relevant post-socialist education reform experience to extend the picture of education reform.

Framing the Special Issue

The starting point for this special issue lies in the Kazakhstan education reform initiative. Here is a country, 10 years on from independence, that is confronting significant social and economic changes. It is located in a part of the world that, particularly since 11 September 2001, has been of considerable geopolitical significance. Yet it is a country with a long history of Russian colonisation (200 years) and more recent Sovietisation that has disconnected it from wider debates about education occurring in other parts of the world.

The workshops sponsored by the Soros Foundation and the establishment of the Soros-Kazakhstan national office provide a range of inputs into the prevailing discussion of Kazakh education. These discussions already included debates about education reform prior to independence from the Soviet Union. There were groups of educators, especially in the universities and in non-governmental organisations, who were already working to advance curriculum and assessment reform, the treatment of special-needs children and the reform of school textbooks. The new knowledge inputs from experts outside Kazakhstan both complemented and challenged these existing indigenous reform agenda.

The participation of the Ministry of Education in the workshops, as well as many other senior educators, ensured that the novel ideas and proposals were heard at the heart of the existing education system. It was an initial step in the process of winning the support of Kazakhstan educators for reform, and gaining official endorsement for reform in a country that retains a highly centralised governance structure.

This process of external ideas being inserted into an existing education context with its own traditions and values has been described as a relationship between travelling policy and local spaces (Jones & Alexiadou, 2001).

In a recent paper that draws on European and Anglo-Saxon experience, Ken Jones & Nafsika Alexiadou argue that today, the globalisation of education policy making has encouraged the formation of a distinctive education policy discourse that travels globally across national boundaries. These travelling policies encounter local spaces, such as Kazakhstan education, a particular city or even a specific school, where they come up against local education traditions and values. The interaction between the travelling policy and local spaces leads to a negotiation and indigenisation (Silova, this issue) of the travelling policy and also a growing acceptance or embedding of these policy discourses within the local context and ways of working. They summarise this process as follows:

1. At an international level - through the work of intergovernmental organisations and lobbying groups organised on a pan-European (or transnational) level - a coherent set of policy themes have emerged that national policy makers within nation-states have sought to translate into projects for the reshaping of national schooling systems.

2. These policy agendas interact in specific ways with the traditions, ideologies, forms of organisation and forms of social movement that have developed on the national terrain - though these national traditions have themselves been influenced by wider international contexts and influences (such as the influence of longstanding Russian colonisation of Kazakhstan and a long prior history of migration and cultural exchange in this world of the Silk Road). This relationship between travelling policy and local spaces encourages a policy convergence across nations facilitated by greater global interconnectedness and the workings of a nascent global policy community but it is mediated, translated and recontextualised within national and local education structures.

3. The outcomes of the relationship between 1 and 2 indicate both the developing 'embeddedness' of travelling policy within national policy elites and, to differing extents, a degree of local 'policy inflectedness'. This policy inflectedness arises and is shaped in the processes by which (a) various social forces - local policy communities, trade unions, social movements - have forced an adaptation of global agendas, or (b) local policy elites have managed to combine particular aspects of travelling policy with what are perceived to be agendas arising from problems of a particular national character.

In mapping this process of interaction between travelling policy and local policy and practice, Jones and Alexiadou highlight the way particular agenda generated by organisations such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development provide a reference point for national policy development in many different countries and also as a legitimation for national-level changes whose implementation may be controversial. However, they also affirm that these global policy discourses are not simply implemented in target nations. Rather, local communities at national, regional or local level interact with and negotiate these travelling policies and, in some cases, contest and resist them.

They also indicate that this travelling policy has certain features because of the common concern with reshaping education and education systems, and conceptualisations of educational purposes, in ways that correspond to current shifts in the wider global economy. These features are:

a focus on economic need which is seen in terms of developing a knowledge economy for which education must provide human capital;

an insistence that the process of reform must be rapid - time horizons are short - and that it must penetrate deeply into school cultures among both teachers and students, with an emphasis on the development of strong management cultures - the creation of a leadership cadre and a workforce accustomed to directive leadership;

an insistence that the national education system should become 'world class', that is, it must continually improve not just in relation to the national past but also to international comparators. 'World-classness' is defined in terms of exam-oriented success and measured by international league tables, such as PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment);

a belief in the benefits of direct business involvement in state schooling - both in the interests of emerging private sector edubusiness, and in conforming schooling to business agenda; and

declining interest in equality of opportunity and outcome, and a focus on promoting diversity and differentiation. This is achieved through the re-regulation of education within national contexts, reducing the emphasis on macro-action by government (e.g. through resource provision or income distribution) and an expanded government intervention through a range of different regulatory mechanisms to ensure that the new policy priorities are privileged and that participation in policy debate is restricted so that 'undesirable' groups or interests are excluded from decision making.

Travelling Policy in Post-socialist Contexts

Jones & Alexiadou's (2001) conceptualisation of the relationship between travelling policy and local spaces provides a helpful framework for reflecting on the Kazakhstan reform project. It provides a structure and a set of concepts for talking about the process and experience of initiating education reform in Kazakhstan and in other post-socialist contexts. It also provides a framework for posing questions:

To what extent does the framework based on a Western perspective fit the processes and experience in a post-socialist context?

What are the particular challenges faced by post-socialist countries in defining and embarking on national education reform agenda?

How are education reforms justified in post-socialist contexts?

What are the decision making processes that must be addressed and how are the challenges of gaining support for reform tackled?

Who is included and who is excluded from the decision making process? How is this operationalised?

How are travelling policies received by local educators?

What issues are debated, contested or resisted? Are there reasons for this pattern of contestation?

What is the role and contribution of individuals and agencies (such as the Soros Foundation and the authors) in advancing or mediating the relationship between travelling policies and local spaces?

And what are the implications of these developments for Europe, Europeanisation and the development of linkages between Europe and post-socialist countries?

These concepts of travelling policy/local spaces, and the questions they prompt, provide a framework for reflecting on national education reform processes in post-socialist contexts, on national differences in post-socialist contexts and on the way the Soviet legacy shapes the processes and character of education reform.

References

Jones, K. & Alexiadou, N. (2001) The Global and the National: reflections on the experience of three European states, paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Lille.

Of Credits, Kontrakty and Critical Thinking: encountering 'market reforms' in Kyrgyzstani higher education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Of Credits, Kontrakty and Critical Thinking: encountering 'market reforms' in Kyrgyzstani higher education
Author: MADELEINE REEVES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 5-21
ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of market metaphors and mechanisms on higher education in Kyrgyzstan. Drawing upon recent anthropological literature on the local meanings of market reforms in post-socialist contexts, as well as work in the field of educational policy that has focused attention on the 'local spaces' in which curricular and administrative reforms are encountered, this study will explore the ways in which languages of market have been received and appropriated by the students, teachers and administrators who have to negotiate what Kyrgyzstani higher education reform means in practice. Specifically, the article examines how practices and valuations of higher education have been affected by the opening of commercial (kontraktnyie) departments in nominally state universities, by the transformation of curricular content and teaching practice in the social sciences, and by the severing of the Soviet-era link between higher education and guaranteed professional employment. Drawing upon interviews and participant observation, it will suggest that we need to move beyond the overdrawn dichotomies in which contestations over the post-Soviet educational space are generally cast ('East' vs. 'West'; 'Tradition' vs. 'Innovation') to focus on the complex ways in which educational 'reform' is practised and interpreted in specific institutional settings.

Non-traveling 'Best Practices' for a Traveling Population: the case of nomadic education in Mongolia

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Non-traveling 'Best Practices' for a Traveling Population: the case of nomadic education in Mongolia
Author: GITA STEINER-KHAMSI; INES STOLPE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 22-35
ABSTRACT This article deals with a particular 'best practice' in Mongolia (boarding schools) that neither traveled elsewhere nor was rescued from the socialist past and adopted in the post-socialist present. The boarding schools accommodating children from nomadic herder families have experienced a long decade (1991-2003) of neglect. The boarding school system of the twenty-first century has ceased to be a universal institution catering to a nomadic population, and has been transformed into a socially stratified system that mostly attracts students from poor families (nomadic and otherwise) who could not afford to entertain alternative living arrangements for their school-aged children. The authors treat nomadic education in Mongolia as an interesting case of a 'transfer vacuum.' The authors investigate the political and economic reasons for this immunity towards 'lessons from elsewhere' or 'lessons from the past,' and draw conclusions for research on educational policy borrowing and lending.

Ownership of Education Reforms in the Kyrgyz Republic: kto v dome hozyain?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Ownership of Education Reforms in the Kyrgyz Republic: kto v dome hozyain?
Author: ALAN J. DEYOUNG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 36-49
ABSTRACT An important subset of issues involved in describing the process of educational globalization emerges when considering the reception, response and/or rejection of international proposals, ideologies and agents by indigenous national and regional educators. This case study describes and discusses how foreign/Western education proposals and policies were solicited and then responded to by educators in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, now an independent country, between 2001 and 2004. It also discusses the pivotal role of one key figure in the process, the former minister of education in Kyrgyzstan, now responsible for a large World Bank project to improve rural education in that country. A powerful figure both in her own nation and in the eyes of foreign sponsors, both American and European, her biography continues to illustrate both possibilities and tensions between the former education system and international hopes and designs for school reform in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Traveling Policies: hijacked in Central Asia

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Traveling Policies: hijacked in Central Asia
Author: IVETA SILOVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 50-59
ABSTRACT Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian education reform discourses have become increasingly similar to distinctive Western policy discourses traveling globally across national boundaries. Tracing the trajectory of ‘traveling policies’ in Central Asia, this article discusses the way Western education discourses have been hybridized in the encounter with collectivist and centralist cultures within post-socialist environments in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. In the context of international aid relationships, the article considers different motivations and driving forces for reforms, the way pre-Soviet and Soviet traditions are affirmed within the reforms, as well as how these reforms speak back to Western reform agenda. Emphasizing the historical legacy of Soviet centralist traditions, this article reveals how traveling policies have been ‘hijacked’ by local policy makers and used for their own purposes nationally.

Travelling Policy and Local Spaces in the Republic of Tajikistan: a comparison of the attitudes of Tajikistan and the World Bank towards textbook provision

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Travelling Policy and Local Spaces in the Republic of Tajikistan: a comparison of the attitudes of Tajikistan and the World Bank towards textbook provision
Author: STEPHEN A. BAHRY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 60-78
ABSTRACT For newly independent Central Asian republics a debate has arisen about how much of the aims, content and pedagogy of old Soviet-era curricula to retain, how much to revise or replace, and with what. There is a need to replace and revise textbooks, which are wearing out and outdated. Financial crisis has made the financial support of external funding agencies necessary to do so, allowing these agencies great influence on choice of appropriate aims, objectives and pedagogy to be embodied in new textbooks, and thus on educational change in Central Asia. However, attitudes towards strengths and weaknesses of the existing system, and thus the need for change, may differ between Central Asian educational authorities and external donors. Policies recommended by external agencies may be accepted, adapted, resisted or rejected by local educators for various reasons. This study compares attitudes towards textbook provision policy expressed in two normative texts on educational needs in Tajikistan: one produced by Tajikistan authorities and one by the World Bank. While both express the importance of textbook development for educational reform, clear differences in priorities for textbook development and attitudes towards existing aims, content and pedagogies are identified. These differences suggest the need for increased dialogue between local authorities and external donors. Further, such dialogue should be extended to other key stakeholders in the reform process.

REPORT: European and Intercultural Dimension in Greek Education,

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: REPORT: European and Intercultural Dimension in Greek Education,
Author: Michael Damanakis
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 79-88
ABSTRACT Not available

REVIEW ESSAY: Some Challenges in Researching Racism in Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY: Some Challenges in Researching Racism in Education
Author: Paul Connolly
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2005 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Pages: 89-95
ABSTRACT Not available

Accepted or Rejected in School

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Accepted or Rejected in School
Author: ANDERS GARPELIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 729-742
ABSTRACT In the classroom, young people in their role of pupils are supposed to focus on and respond to the teaching plan. At breaks, the norms and rules may differ and are more similar to life outside the school. Peer rejection is part of this life. According to Swedish school legislation, schools shall counteract all forms of insulting treatment. Still, recently a young woman appealed her case to the Supreme Court. She sued the authorities for not preventing bullying. The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss victimization and bullying as a part of school life, from the perspective of young people. Data from a longitudinal comparative ethnographic case study of two school classes, carried out with an interpretive approach and a relational interpretation perspective, are scrutinized. The results are mainly from qualitative interviews with 62 young people on three occasions (age 12-21). Both individual and collective victimization occur frequently in the social world of the school, mostly within their own school classes and often even in their own peer group, victimization without their teachers' knowledge. For those suffering, the question of being accepted or rejected might be of crucial importance for their career as pupils as well as from a more general life perspective.

A Matter of Timing: time use, freedom and influence in school from a pupil perspective

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: A Matter of Timing: time use, freedom and influence in school from a pupil perspective
Author: MIKAELA NYROOS; LINDA RÖNNBERG; LISBETH LUNDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 743-758
ABSTRACT A weakening of central time regulation has constituted one aspect of the process of decentralisation and deregulation of Swedish education in the last two decades. In 1999 the Parliament decided on an experiment period permitting schools in 79 municipalities to allocate school hours more freely. The article aims at exploring and analysing pupils' experiences of the structuring of contents and work in schools without a national time schedule. Pupils' influence over schoolwork, and their individual responsibility and freedom to plan and use time are focused on. Thirty-one pupils, aged 14-15 years, were interviewed. They come from three comprehensive schools ranging from a strongly classified curriculum and teacher work to a curriculum characterised by a high degree of cross-disciplinary teaching and teacher teamwork. All three schools, to varying extent, have scheduled 'open lessons', when pupils choose content and activity. The majority of pupils appreciate having a responsibility and freedom to plan their own learning, but argue that they are generally not allowed to participate in decisions about teaching and learning. This is particularly the case in subject lessons, which are still mainly controlled by the teachers. The pupils prefer varied forms of teaching and learning and express a need for freedom as well as guidance and structure.

The Emergent European Educational Policies under Scrutiny: the Bologna Process from a Central European perspective

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: The Emergent European Educational Policies under Scrutiny: the Bologna Process from a Central European perspective
Author: MAREK KWIEK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 759-776
ABSTRACT In this article, the Bologna Process and the European Research Area are viewed as the two sides of the same coin: that of the redefinition of the missions of the institution of the university. The Bologna Process is viewed as relatively closed to global developments: as largely inward-looking, focused on European regional problems (and European regional solutions), in the absence of references to global changes and huge globalization-related political and economic transformations underlying them. Higher education in central and eastern Europe has been in a state of permanent crisis since the fall of communism and there has not been enough general reflection on its transformations. The author's concern about Bologna is that it is not trying to rise to the conceptual level that would be required to assist higher education systems in central and eastern Europe with their integration with western European systems. Bologna could be a useful policy agenda; it could provide clear recommendations on what to do and how, presenting a comprehensive package of reforms. But it is not. In this respect, it does not meet expectations of the academic community in the region; it is unclear in its visions, and consequently in its recommendations for actions. In conclusion, the author states that while it may be quite successful in promoting its agenda in western Europe, it may fail in the transition countries, especially because of the combination of old and new challenges and because of chronic underfunding of national higher education systems. While western European institutions currently seem to be afraid of losing their autonomy, for educational institutions in most transition countries the Bologna Process could be a coherent reform agenda.

The European Social Fund: the Commission, the Member State and levels of governance

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: The European Social Fund: the Commission, the Member State and levels of governance
Author: JACQUELINE BRINE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 777-789
ABSTRACT The European Social Fund (ESF) is the European Union structural fund that redistributes funds to facilitate vocational education and training (VET). With the exception of the Common Agricultural Policy it is the EU's largest instrument for redistribution. Currently linked to the European Employment Strategy it match-funds, and through its policies, directs, much of the Member State's training for unemployed people. Drawing on a discursive analysis of ESF official policy text from 1957 to 2000, the article explores the relationship between the different actors and levels of governance involved in the construction of the EU: the Council, the Commission and the nation state. There are two strands to the article's argument: first, that Member State politicians and officials use the EU governmental space to make policies that they would otherwise find difficult to introduce at the national level. Second, that despite its apparent focus on vocational education and training the Social Fund's main function is to distribute funds to maintain political stability within, across and between the Member States and this is a vital requirement for the construction of the Union.

Educational Research: what strategies for development in the European Research Area?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Educational Research: what strategies for development in the European Research Area?
Author: ALAN BROWN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 790-794
ABSTRACT This is a report of the European Educational Research Journal Roundtable that sought to describe what national educational research programmes are doing, how they are working together, and how they might contribute to the developing European Educational Research Space.

Education Research as a Contested Enterprise: the deliberations of the SSRC-NAE Joint Committee on Education Research

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Education Research as a Contested Enterprise: the deliberations of the SSRC-NAE Joint Committee on Education Research
Author: SHERI H. RANIS; PAMELA BARNHOUSE WALTERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 795-806
ABSTRACT The SSRC-NAE Joint Committee on Education Research, a multidisciplinary group formed in 2001, initiated an investigation of the complex and sprawling field of American education research organized into three general domains of inquiry: the social organization of education research, an assessment of the quality of education research, and a consideration of the politics and policy implications of education research. This article describes the organization of this effort, summarizes the major themes discussed, and describes the resources gathered and research projects suggested by these deliberations.

'Simply the Best?' On the Pitfalls of Full Humanity

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: 'Simply the Best?' On the Pitfalls of Full Humanity
Author: Paul Smeyers
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 807-812
ABSTRACT Not available

Equality and Equity in Higher Education: learning to develop new paradigms from the US experience?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:46 GMT

Title: Equality and Equity in Higher Education: learning to develop new paradigms from the US experience?
Author: Miriam E. David
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: 813-819
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 534-538
ABSTRACT A sympathetic methodology assists the process of international research across different cultures, and ethnography provides such a methodology with its emphasis on re-presenting authentic lived realities. Although ethnography focuses on situated realities, the complexities they record resonate with differing cultures that recognise similar multifaceted existences within their own social structures and relationships. Common human experiences of people as they negotiate social structures, power relations and interactive encounters are easily compared and interpreted through ethnographic methodology.

Education ethnographers are interested in many things, ranging from how understandings are formed in instruction to how meanings are negotiated between interlocutors in education arenas, how ‘new’ roles and relationships are developed in education institutions and how a curriculum or policy is formulated and implemented. When researching these issues these ethnographers follow the minute-by-minute, day-to-day social life of individuals as they interact together and develop understandings and meanings by engaging in joint action and responding to each other as they adapt to situations and encounter and resolve problems that arise through their circumstances. Ethnographers produce storied versions of these events. These stories reveal, interpret and represent the everyday encounters, and ethnographers then extract, develop and set these stories into theoretical constructs and contexts in order to help analyse such things as the impact of politics and policies on social practices and processes or how school deviancy is socially constructed. This special issue includes several articles that attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of ethnographic research in these respects by showing examples of ethnographic research from different European countries and education settings. These settings include the pre-school, primary and secondary schools and institutions of higher and adult education, and the ethnographic accounts are developed from critical, textual or material ethnographic perspectives.

The articles cover a broad range of substantive interests, and the theories represented and used are manifold, varying from post-structuralist and post-colonialist, to interactionist, Marxist and feminist, and they address processes of cultural induction, labelling, identity formation, differentiation and polarisation, curriculum modification and friendship formation. However, although multifacted in these senses, the articles all share one thing in common; they have involved long and sustained researcher immersion in the field in order to cover extensive processes and produce ‘thick description’. Thick descriptions are empirically grounded in rich ethnographic data and their relations of production reflect the criteria suggested by the EERA ethnography section as appropriate for ethnographic work. These criteria are summarised as follows:

1. Ethnography should take place over an extended period of time to allow a fuller range of empirical situations to be observed and analysed and to allow for the emergence of contradictory behaviours and perspectives. (Time in the field, alongside time for analysis and interpretation, allows continuous reflections concerning the complexity of human contexts.)

2. Ethnographers should give consideration to relations between the appropriate cultural, political and social levels of the research site and pay attention to the individual’s and group’s/community’s agency at the research site.

3. Ethnographies should include and discuss theoretical perspectives in order to: ‘sensitise’ field research and analysis; provide an opportunity to use the ethnographic research to interrogate theory; and develop new theory.

However, the suitability of ethnography for inter-national research could be questioned due to the fact that ethnography is a situationally based methodology. An example of how this problem was addressed is contained in the Creative Learning and Student Perspectives (CLASP) research project funded by the European Commission in its Socrates programme to the value of €549,000 (http://opencreativity.open.ac.uk). It used ethnography as a common text for a research project in which each partner retained their cultural web of significance (Geertz, 1973) within a loosely coupled (Weick, 1989) relationship. Discussions were held at four European meetings over a year, and over email, concerning the extent to which partners were applying the criteria of ethnography. Partners were asked to provide empirical evidence for assertions and to deepen their analyses by gaining the perspectives of all the relevant people at the research site in order to move beyond initial description and to identify broader characterisations so that a richer analysis of creative learning could be developed in each partner’s project. The inter-national cultures maintained ownership of new knowledge and at the same time offered the project the possibility of drawing upon these autonomous analyses to provide some tentative common characteristics of creative learning. This was the solution for a methodology that values the situational base of each research focus in which educational history, traditions, culture and educational policy are central to any analysis.

Another of the strengths of ethnography is its use of rich and detailed empirical materials to illustrate how a methodological and theoretical argument can be substantiated by ethnographic data. This is demonstrated in the present selection of articles by both Karen Borgnakke and Sofia Marques’s texts. Based on ethnographic field studies in learning processes, Borgnakke analyses a case of project work seen from the learners’ perspective and demonstrates how the learners are ‘doing learning by doing’. At a theoretical level Borgnakke’s analysis shows how the present learning discourse is a late modern variation of the conflict between the progressive ‘learning by doing’ and the traditional ‘learning by being taught’. However, at an empirical level, the analysis also shows how the learners learn by doing, not only through the particular alternative project framework but in other senses as well. For instance, students provide practical confirmation of the statement ‘one learns by doing’, but they also confirm the conflict between different ‘doings’ in different contexts. The learners’ strategies and reflections shift from getting new knowledge in the traditional learning context to getting new practical skills and competences through the practical context, and they highlight a double confirmation and an empirical challenge for both ethnography and discourse analysis. As Borgnakke argues, these kinds of reflection are essential when the main focus is on the impact of the politics and policies of education and learning, for addressing difference in school and adult education.

In a similar vein to Borgnakke, but also in this instance in order to pose difficult and challenging questions to ethnographic researchers, Marques uses empirical data to explore the methodological issue of how ethnographers justify and account for the role they themselves play as the research instrument and uses her research into relations in single gendered groups in educational contexts to do this. Marques suggests how differently each of the gendered groups developed their identities and how relations and perspectives are adjusted as the contexts alter. She uses this as a model to raise questions about how ethnographers need to constantly review their analyses and results.

A second value of good ethnographies is that they research local contexts in terms of broader categories such as culture or identity. This applies in the present collection in Sugrue’s article, which contrasts the dominant characteristics of ‘Irish Ireland’ with the contemporary images of Irish popular fiction and sociological commentary and identitifes and interrogates the lay theories of contemporary student teachers and the manner in which they manifest both continuity and change when contrasted with teaching archetypes. Kearney’s article also discusses issues of culture and identity, this time amongst those who come from diverse cultural and/or linguistic heritages in an education system that has become increasingly anglocentric, narrow and prescriptive. Similar considerations are manifest in Sirpa Lappalainen’s article. Lappalainen explores how national and gender identities are constructed in interactions in pre-schools where nationality is a silent backdrop to the rhetoric of multiculturalism and where there is a prevalent strength of ethnocentricity. Ethnicity, gender, religious and social class are categories of difference that can be explored, negotiated or challenged in everyday lives of school, but as global issues they cannot be avoided. An example is in the article by Gobbo that describes the researcher’s meeting and work with a young Roma woman who works as a cultural mediator in the local gypsy campsites and uses her ethnic and cultural capital to help identify and solve people’s problems and needs in conjunction with civil servants and who defies both the stereotypes and expectations of Roma women from the Kaggé (non-gypsy groups in mainstream society) and conventional Roma criticisms of her life choices. This exemplifies the capacity of ethnography to show how agency and social constraint co-exist.

The article by Dovemark also exemplifies this relationship. Sweden’s new school curriculula all emphasise personal flexibility, creativity and responsibility for learning and they suggest new understandings of quality in learning, where individual responsibility and freedom of choice are meant to help produce creative, motivated, alert, inquiring, self-governing and flexible learners. Dovemark describes how these curriculum ideas relate to changes in the relationships between the state, professional agencies and market interests in education and she discusses these new developments and their effects from the perspective of different students in school based on her ethnographic studies. She demonstrates that whilst many of the rituals that previously indoctrinated individuals into dominant ideologies and submissive behaviour in school have been replaced by outwardly self-monitored activities and self-determined learning, many things remain the same. Students are still graded, separated and characterised by teachers in terms of being weak or superior products and students still adopt these labels in their self-understanding, such that the curricula that are meant to stimulate creativity and inclusiveness actually dampen the creativity and positive involvement of many students. Dovemark also shows how the capacity to act as self-regulated learners is easier for middle-class students and she suggests that, in an era of restructuring, inequalities are maintained and not challenged in mainstream schools. Differences in relation to ethnicity, class, gender and special needs are still maintained and repeated in teachers’ talk and classroom interaction, as well as in the informal relations of young people.

Beach & Carlson’s article describes with the full force that ethnography can employ with its narrative descriptions and use of original data how wholesale reforms can affect professional lives. They examine some of the effects of the restructuring of adult education in Goteborg that came into full force in 2002 and that had consequences for all the then adult education suppliers there, but in particular one of them, Studium AB, a company created and owned by the Göteborg Metropolitan Council that had been established in order to safeguard the provision of a public interest. Studium AB had been the largest provider of adult education in the region before restructuring but lost its mandate in the tendering processes with outcomes that suggest that the new neo-liberal market and quasi-market solutions in education institutions are not of equal value to everyone.

Collectively, the articles suggested for this special issue demonstrate that there are many perspectives that could be considered in the process of policy change, innovation or in the day-to-day processes of educational life, and that ethnography with its attempts to encompass as many perspectives as possible plays an important role in identifying the complexities of life. In particular it is a methodology that can be used in different cultural contexts and has the potential, therefore, to increase pan-European research relations and an even greater potential to be the basis for international joint projects.

References

Geertz, C. (1973) Thick Description: towards an interpretative theory of culture, in C. Geertz (Ed.) The Interpretation of Cultures: selected essays by Clifford Geertz. New York: Basic Books.

Weick, K.E. (1989) Education Systems as Loosely Coupled Systems, in T. Bush (Ed.) Managing Education: theory and practice. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Ethnographic Studies and Analysis of a Recurrent Theme: learning by doing

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Ethnographic Studies and Analysis of a Recurrent Theme: learning by doing
Author: KAREN BORGNAKKE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 539-565
ABSTRACT The present learning discourse and terms such as 'learning in practice', 'situated learning', 'project and problem based learning' are like variations on a recurrent theme: learning by doing - the striking maxims of progressivism. The newest reforms confirm that the maxim is still alive as a standpoint with consequences for institutional and educational development. The article follows the tracks by analysing significant variations, project work and practice learning, firstly by analysing the practical variations seen from an organisational perspective, and secondly, by analysing a case of business-practice oriented project work seen from the learner's perspective. The analysis shows how the teachers and learners in practice are doing learning. The analyses also show how the learners in action and in words provide the practical confirmation: one learns by doing.

Doubts and Intrigues in Ethnographic Research

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Doubts and Intrigues in Ethnographic Research
Author: SOFIA MARQUES da SILVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 566-582
ABSTRACT This article acknowledges some moments of intrigue aroused during the execution of an ethnographic investigation at a high school, in Oporto, Portugal with young boys and girls. The making of this investigation aroused our reflection towards what we consider to be some intrigues and towards the Social and Human Sciences themselves, epistemologically and methodologically speaking. How do we place ourselves in an investigation? How can we define our own intentions in the bosom of the familiar-strangeness relationship as far as the context is concerned? How can we analytically and ontologically deal with intrusion? When are we given permission by the reality we want to know? How shall we define the fidelities and infidelities in our interpretations and questionings? How do we define ourselves and define the others in the moments of mutual expiation? What amount of care do we take when organising the texts' or narratives? What do we kill and build in the images produced in those texts? What lucid referents may we establish to the understanding of others' experiences? These are some of our doubts and intrigues.

Revisiting Teaching Archetypes: identifying dominant shaping influences on student teacher's identities

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Revisiting Teaching Archetypes: identifying dominant shaping influences on student teacher's identities
Author: CIARAN SUGRUE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 583-602
ABSTRACT The primary aim of this article is to identify and interrogate the lay theories of contemporary student teachers and to indicate and illustrate the manner in which these 'theories' manifest both continuity and change when contrasted with teaching archetypes and previously articulated lay theories of student teachers in the setting. It is in five parts. First, a theoretical lens of teaching archetypes and lay theories is provided. Second, a succinct account of the changing educational and policy context is provided. Third, data generation and analysis are described. Fourth, emergent cultural themes are critically analysed. Fifth, some tentative implications are drawn for initial teacher education and further research.

Inventing Mythologies: the construction of complex cross-cultural identities

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Inventing Mythologies: the construction of complex cross-cultural identities
Author: CHRIS KEARNEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 603-625
ABSTRACT There is a tendency in academic literature concerning children from diverse social and linguistic background to concentrate on failure within the school system. It is only in recent years that this is beginning to change. In this article the author argues that if we are to motivate children towards success we need to have a clear picture of the kinds of cultural and linguistic understandings they are bringing into schools. Central to this is how they perceive themselves in terms of identity. Much has been written about this area. However, little of it has been empirical or systematic and that which is empirical has been from a positivistic viewpoint. In this article the author describes a non-positivistic analysis of the life stories of several academically successful people and analyses them systematically to demonstrate how they now 'story' their identities.

Cultural Intersections: the life story of a Roma cultural mediator

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Cultural Intersections: the life story of a Roma cultural mediator
Author: FRANCESCA GOBBO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 626-641
ABSTRACT The article presents the life story of a young Roma cultural mediator who narrates (1) her life and professional decisions, still rather uncommon among young Roma women, and (2) the impact of her education and work experiences and achievements on her self perception. The narratives, from which the life story emerges, express the young Roma's efforts to interweave two different cultural perspectives; furthermore they emphasize how cultural diversity can be a way to be and to relate to others. The life story is told as a personal project negotiated between the Roma and the Gagé cultural heritages; the cultural constraints within and without cultural boundaries are highlighted, while character traits and imagination are presented as the main turning points in the young woman's life.

They Say it's a Cultural Matter: gender and ethnicity at preschool

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: They Say it's a Cultural Matter: gender and ethnicity at preschool
Author: SIRPA LAPPALAINEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 642-656
ABSTRACT This article is part of an ethnographic study in two preschool classes, which aims to explore issues of nationality, ethnicity, gender, and citizenship. It explores firstly, the ways in which nationality, ethnicity and gender are discussed and negotiated by preschool girls at the age of six and how they become positioned in national space and secondly, how gendered citizenship is constructed in the educational practices of the preschool. The article draws on field notes and interviews with children, teachers, and parents. The theoretical starting points have been the sociological theorisations of childhood, poststructuralist feminist research and postcolonial theorisations. The article specifically looks at the interpretational resources, which girls have in their subject formation, and explores how preschool as an educational institution deals with ethnicity and gender.

Pupil Responsibility in the Context of School Changes in Sweden: market constraints on state policies for a creative education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Pupil Responsibility in the Context of School Changes in Sweden: market constraints on state policies for a creative education
Author: MARIANNE DOVEMARK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 657-672
ABSTRACT Sweden's present school curricula emphasise personal flexibility, creativity, responsibility for learning and suggest new understandings of quality in learning, where individual freedom of choice is meant to help produce creative, motivated, alert, inquiring, self-governing and flexible users and developers of knowledge. These curriculum changes relate to similar changes in the relationships between the state, professional agencies and market interests in education planning and delivery. In this article I discuss these new developments and their effects from the perspective of different students in school. The article is based on ethnographic studies and student interviews that suggest that whilst rituals that previously indoctrinated individuals into submissive behaviour in school, through the mechanical memorisation of other's facts, have been replaced by outwardly self-monitored activities and self-determined learning, some things remain the same. Students are still graded, separated and characterised by teachers in terms of being weak or superior products and students adopt these labels in their self-understanding. Furthermore, the curriculum that is meant to stimulate creativity and inclusiveness dampens creativity and positive involvement for many students.

Adult Education Goes to Market: an ethnographic case study of the restructuring and reculturing of adult education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Adult Education Goes to Market: an ethnographic case study of the restructuring and reculturing of adult education
Author: DENNIS BEACH; MARIE CARLSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 673-691
ABSTRACT The restructuring of adult education in Göteborg was first initiated experimentally with respect only to SFI education (an education in beginning Swedish for ethnic minorities living in Sweden). This was done on the basis of decisions in the Göteborg Municipal Council in 1999. But restructuring came into full force for all municipal adult education in the Göteborg municipality later in 2002, after the completion of the National Adult Education Initiative (AEI). The restructuring processes followed guidelines for franchise in the public sector as per the 1992 Purchasing Act and had consequences for all education suppliers, but in particular one of them, Studium AB. This was a company created and owned by the Göteborg Metropolitan Council that had been established in order to safeguard the provision of the municipally owned adult education public service previously known as Komvux. This 'humanist' form of comprehensive adult education has a strong history in Sweden, within the provision of adult education on a 'folk-home' basis. Studium AB had been the single largest provider of adult education in Göteborg up until the franchise but lost its mandate in the tendering processes. Although it concentrates mainly on 'talk-data' the present article has been developed from an ongoing ethnographic case study of the effects of restructuring in Göteborg.

What in the World Happens in Classrooms? Qualitative Classroom Research

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: What in the World Happens in Classrooms? Qualitative Classroom Research
Author: ANTONIA CANDELA; ELSIE ROCKWELL; CÉSAR COLL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 692-713
ABSTRACT This report synthesizes the discussion that took place in a Conference on Qualitative Classroom Research ('What in the world happens in classrooms?' ), organized by the authors and held in Oaxtepec, México in May 2002. The primary aim was to visualize possible interconnections among the various disciplines represented by the 35 scholars who were present. We faced the initial difficulty of defining what 'classrooms' are, have been, or will become. This led to a discussion of the various links between classrooms and their social contexts, which posed the problem of working on various spatial and temporal scales. The topic of learning was a constant preoccupation, as we considered that researchers still lack tools to connect specific teaching practices with student outcomes over time, and simultaneously to account for learning in other, non-classroom, spaces. Although qualitative classroom research has shown convincing results on the nature of verbal interaction, a current horizon is the integration on non-verbal modes of representation and communication, in ways that make sense to both researchers and participants. Finally, the knowledge of cultural and historical, global and local, (dis)continuities, provides a new angle for viewing classroom practices, but also entails methodological and conceptual challenges.

REVIEW ESSAY, Theorizing and Practicing Research Approaches

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY, Theorizing and Practicing Research Approaches
Author: Gitsa Kontogiannopoulou-Polydorides
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Pages: 714-728
ABSTRACT Not available

Studying the Supra-National in Education: GATS, education and teacher union policies

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Studying the Supra-National in Education: GATS, education and teacher union policies
Author: ULF FREDRIKSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 415-441
ABSTRACT This article starts by putting the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) into a general context of privatisation. It is noted that the privatisation process is in many cases complex and not only about full-scale privatisation of schools. The growing trade in education must be seen in this context. GATS is not an agreement which deals with educational issues from a political or educational perspective, but from a commercial and trade perspective. The purpose of GATS is to liberalise trade in services, which also includes education. Commitments made in GATS negotiations are difficult to withdraw and the protection of commercial interests which GATS provides is stronger than the protection of human rights, in, for example, the Convention of the Right of the Child. The protection given in GATS to public services, including public education, is ambiguous at best and in many cases open to interpretation by Trade Dispute Panels. It can be assumed that such panels will deal with some educational matters in future. Another risk for the future is that governments will use GATS as an excuse for deregulation and privatisation within the education sector. There is also a risk that education will become part of a general negotiation game where governments may have to open up the education market in their own countries in order to get access to other markets and that education policies will increasingly be decided by trade ministers instead of education ministers. The international trade union movement, including Education International, has been critical of GATS and has raised a number of issues. Also, there is a growing concern about GATS among national teacher unions. Many teacher unions have taken different initiatives: produced information material; established a dialogue with governments; and built broader coalitions with other trade unions, student organisations, etc.

The Three Axes of School Merchandization

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: The Three Axes of School Merchandization
Author: NICO HIRTT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 442-453
ABSTRACT Deregulation and privatization of the school systems are the symptoms of the transition from the era of 'massification' of education to the era of 'merchandization'. This process is generated by a new relation between education and the needs of the globalized economy. Education is charged to supply the economy with a skilled and flexible labour force, to stimulate the markets by fashioning the consumer and to become itself a new, profitable market.

Too Eager to Comply? OECD Education Policies and the Finnish Response

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Too Eager to Comply? OECD Education Policies and the Finnish Response
Author: RISTO RINNE; JOHANNA KALLO; SANNA HOKKA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 454-485
ABSTRACT The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has strongly influenced European education policy and the entire global neo-liberally toned discourse that nowadays prevails in the implementation of national education policy and educational reforms. The educational policy governance of the OECD is based on overall and supranational information management - the instruments of which in practice are published analyses, statistics and indicator publications, as well as country and thematic reviews. This article presents, first, four phases in the history of the OECD educational policy based strictly on an analysis of documentary material. These phases provide a context for the analyses of the connections of the OECD and Finnish education policies in which the country and thematic reviews of Finland are used as empirical material. Finland has, especially in recent years, attained a status of a model pupil in implementing the educational policy recommendations of the OECD. Thus, several connections between the OECD recommendations and the development of education policy in Finland can be found in the material. In this study Finland has a role of an example of the field of activity of supranational actors and the connections and influences between the OECD and Finland should not be considered unique. Similar rapprochement of politics and thinning out of the independent authority of nation-states can even be seen on a larger scale.

Evaluation in the Transnational 'Management by Projects' Policies

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Evaluation in the Transnational 'Management by Projects' Policies
Author: ANJA HEIKKINEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 486-500
ABSTRACT There is a supranational tendency in educational governance towards a 'management by projects' policy, which substitutes democratic procedures and norm-based control in the materialisation of educational justice. The organisational level becomes crucial for the management of education and the pressure to conceive education as a managerial activity increases. At the same time, educational expertise in public administration becomes substituted by subcontracted, policy-led research. In the context of transnational governance the civil service is turning into a busnocracy, which is responsible for the quality of education to the global markets instead of to people. The article discusses this transnational policy agenda through one European Union project which aims at developing tools for transnational evaluation of re-integrative programmes targeted at students who have problems in following the mainstream pathways to vocational education.

Bildung: a paradigm regained?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: Bildung: a paradigm regained?
Author: KLAUS PRANGE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 501-509
ABSTRACT Bildung is a key concept in the German tradition of educational theory. Originally meant to indicate a specific state of mind and ideal of perfection, it now serves as a symbol of the unity of whatever refers to the field of education, particularly to its organisational and functional aspects. The aura of Bildung is bestowed on its counterpart in the form of preparation for the needs of the day. However wrongheaded or deplorable that may appear in the light of traditional values and ideas, this alienated use of the concept of Bildung may be a blessing in disguise: it keeps alive the memory of autonomous learning as opposed to regular training under the imperatives of the day. The paradigm of Bildung survives in title if not in substance as a paradigm to regain.

ROUNDTABLE at ECER 2003, Hamburg, Germany

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: ROUNDTABLE at ECER 2003, Hamburg, Germany
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 510-526
ABSTRACT Not available

NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:47 GMT

Title: NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Pages: 527-533
ABSTRACT Not available

The Information Society: towards an iron cage of e-learning?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: The Information Society: towards an iron cage of e-learning?
Author: SAMI HAUTAKANGAS; TOMI KIILAKOSKI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-13
ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to analyse the meaning of different cultural paradigms in the development of educational technology. The article analyses technology critically from the perspective of the philosophy of technology, examines the manifestations of instrumentalism in the curriculum theory and analyses its effects on the different levels of decision-making relative to the design processes of educational technology. It is claimed that instrumental rationality may increase if common curricular models are used when engineering technology. One major problem that affects the development is that instrumentalism and its manifestations on different levels of design and application of educational technology excludes alternatives by its internal logic, while it provides a general problem-solving model which is justifiably rational. The essential feature of educational technology in relation to the topic of the article is the underlying logical framework in which every feature that is to be supported by technology must be given a quantifiable description.

Trends in the Patterns of Tertiary Entrance in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Trends in the Patterns of Tertiary Entrance in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland
Author: CRISTINA IANNELLI
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 14-48
ABSTRACT In recent decades the proportion of people entering tertiary education has grown considerably in all western European countries. Common factors (economic, political and social) have contributed towards this expansion. There is considerable debate about whether these common pressures have led to similar changes across countries in the structure, content and student composition of tertiary education. This study aims to analyse changes over time in the patterns of tertiary entrance in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland, and to explore whether a process of convergence is emerging despite the institutional differences which characterise the national educational systems of these three countries. The results show that the extent and the modalities of tertiary expansion in the three countries have been different. Moreover, changes in the effect of ascriptive factors (gender and social class) on tertiary entrance also appear to have followed different patterns in each country. The conclusion therefore suggests that, although there is a general increase in entry to tertiary education in all three countries, there is little evidence at present of convergence.

On the Possibilities of Educating Active and Reflective Teachers

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: On the Possibilities of Educating Active and Reflective Teachers
Author: MARIT HONERØD HOVEID; HALVOR HOVEID
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 49-76
ABSTRACT Education is working with language. As teacher educators, this is the authors' main theory. They present one way of working with language through language-games. The article is constructed in three sections. The first part presents the method, stating what concepts are essential in order to understand both this way of working with student teachers and the structure of the article. Two concepts are brought to the fore, that is; teacher identity and teacher knowledge. In the second section the authors introduce their way of working with cases. They briefly present what they mean by case-work, how cases are constructed and how they work with them. In the final section they theorise about some key aspects of education. They present two concepts for understanding individual learning processes. These concepts are embedded in the philosophy of ethics. Thus, their theoretical outline moves the origin of learning from the knowledge of subjects to the learning self.

Designing Artefacts for Inquiry and Collaboration When the Learner Takes the Lead

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Designing Artefacts for Inquiry and Collaboration When the Learner Takes the Lead
Author: JULES M. PIETERS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 77-100
ABSTRACT The availability of user-friendly tools for designing learning environments resulted in an innovative shift of design focus. This shift has been noticed from a user-centred, although passive and reactive, design approach to a participatory, at responsibility and self-directedness directed, design approach. This latter innovative and promising approach empowers co-designers (teachers and even learners) to actively participate in designing learning environments leading to higher learning outcomes. New pedagogical perspectives and approaches in which teachers (as domain experts) and learners are assumed to cooperate on a basis of equity and mutual responsibility will be offered a practical context for the implementation in powerful learning environments. In this article the potentials of learners as designers of their own learning environments are discussed. Support tools needed to play this role appropriately are discussed as well.

Benchmarking the Quality of Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Benchmarking the Quality of Education
Author: JAAP SCHEERENS; MARIA HENDRIKS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 101-114
ABSTRACT Presently, the idea of benchmarking educational quality is one of the corner stones of the EU's education agenda (EU, 2002). Interest in education indicators has taken a high flight in recent years. Publications like Education at a Glance by the OECD and EURYDICE's 'Key Data' stimulate a lot of attention in the public media, and at first sight are also frequently used in policy documents. An interesting phenomenon is that many countries publish national interpretations of the international publications. In these national publications there is of course room for highlighting those elements that are of particular interest to the country, but also for providing background information that 'contextualises' the information and may give explanation for certain figures.

The ultimate purpose of education indicators can be described as providing a basis for monitoring the quality of education. Even though the current indicator sets have become quite comprehensive, and there are clear signs of their use in policy-debates, there are still some important aspects in which their impact on educational policy and practice could be strengthened. Addressing this issue appeared to be extremely timely in terms of informing developments of evidence based policy and practice (e.g. in the DfES, UK) and was the main motive to carry out this study. Our objectives were concerned with several conceptual issues, with more theme-based ways of reporting indicators and gearing them to policy issues and with feedback to lower level units of education systems, notably schools. The overall purpose of this study can be seen as learning from national use and application of educational indicators to provide suggestions for enhancing the supra national effort. In addition the aim was also to provide suggestions for the improvement of national applications through the mechanism of international exchange and countries learning from one another.

Perspectives on Education Quality, Education Indicators and Benchmarking

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Perspectives on Education Quality, Education Indicators and Benchmarking
Author: Jaap Scheerens
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 115-138
ABSTRACT Not available

Three Sets of Indicators on Education: Education at a Glance (OECD), Key Data on Education (European Union), The State of Education (French Ministry of Education). Elements of Comparison and Analysis

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Three Sets of Indicators on Education: Education at a Glance (OECD), Key Data on Education (European Union), The State of Education (French Ministry of Education). Elements of Comparison and Analysis
Author: Julie Sedel
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 139-176
ABSTRACT Not available

The Use of Educational Standards and Benchmarks in Indicator Publications

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: The Use of Educational Standards and Benchmarks in Indicator Publications
Author: Sally Thomas; Wen-Jung Peng
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 177-212
ABSTRACT Not available

National Interpretations of the International Indicators

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: National Interpretations of the International Indicators
Author: Alejandro Tiana; Niels Egelund; Morin Thygesen
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 213-245
ABSTRACT Not available

Feedback of Indicators to Schools

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Feedback of Indicators to Schools
Author: Peter van Petegem; Jan Vanhoof
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 246-277
ABSTRACT Not available

Attention that Indicators Receive in the Press

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Attention that Indicators Receive in the Press
Author: Maria Hendriks; Giovanna Barzanò; Emanuela Brumana; Claudia Cremonesi
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 278-304
ABSTRACT Not available

Reports on the Interviews about Reception and Use of International Indicators

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Reports on the Interviews about Reception and Use of International Indicators
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 305-376
ABSTRACT Not available

Reports on the Interviews with School Principals

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Reports on the Interviews with School Principals
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 377-391
ABSTRACT Not available

Benchmarking the Quality of Education: Discrepancies and Correspondence between Theory and Practice in Seven European Countries

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Benchmarking the Quality of Education: Discrepancies and Correspondence between Theory and Practice in Seven European Countries
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 392-399
ABSTRACT Not available

Comparative and International Perspectives on Educational 'Spaces'

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Comparative and International Perspectives on Educational 'Spaces'
Author: SALLY FINDLOW
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2004 Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Pages: 400-414
ABSTRACT This review evaluates the contribution of Comparative and International Research in Education: globalisation, context and difference by Michael Crossley & Keith Watson (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003) to current efforts at exploring ways forward for comparative education, suggesting alternative ways in which central questions could be approached. It focuses on the notion of balance in policy-theory, insider-outsider, developed-developing world terms, and explores a number of actual and potential approaches towards achieving the kinds of integration that the book recommends. Finally, it argues that it is in this intersection (or balance) that the relevance of such disciplinary reconceptualisation lies for the discussion about 'European educational research spaces'.

Integrating Culture and Higher Education: a pragmatist approach

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Integrating Culture and Higher Education: a pragmatist approach
Author: GRAHAM BADLEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 477-495
ABSTRACT By taking a pragmatist approach to both higher education and culture, it will be seen more clearly how integration between the two may be usefully effected. Indeed, what is argued is that such an approach enables the use of important pragmatist principles - such as democracy, equality, freedom, growth, justice and tolerance - to bind culture and education closely together. It is an argument which sees the university as the best institutional embodiment of the principles and values which pragmatists think should characterize a modern (even a postmodern) liberal culture. This approach should challenge those in universities who are content that the academy is becoming a safe haven for academic capitalism.

Vertical Discourse: the role of the teacher in the transmission and acquisition of decontextualised language

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Vertical Discourse: the role of the teacher in the transmission and acquisition of decontextualised language
Author: JILL BOURNE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 496-521
ABSTRACT This article examines the production of pupils at different levels of 'ability' within the school setting. It uses the theoretical work of Basil Bernstein, and particularly the concepts of vertical and horizontal discourse, to critique contemporary forms of 'progressive' educational practice and to suggest a reappraisal of the possibilities of more formal pedagogic strategies. The article uses detailed case study material drawn from primary classrooms in England and Russia, the practice in each underpinned by contrasting understandings of human development and learning, to illustrate the way in which teachers construct children's learning either as the development of individual competencies or as a collective social achievement, and thus position children as more or less effective and successful learners. Finally, it examines the way in which a secondary school teacher draws on her own social positioning and life experiences as well as those of her students to develop ways of relating school knowledge to local knowledges, in this way encouraging students both to analyse the world and to understand, and thus potentially work to transform, their own position in society.

Changes of Education Policies within the European Union in the Light of Globalisation

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Changes of Education Policies within the European Union in the Light of Globalisation
Author: ULF FREDRIKSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 522-546
ABSTRACT Education issues have traditionally not played a central role within the European Union (EU). This has gradually started to change in recent years. At the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, the heads of states and governments of the EU member countries, in response to the challenges of globalisation and the information society, set out a new strategic objective for the coming decade: 'Becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion'. This implies major changes, and education will be among the areas affected. Two questions can be raised in relation to this development: (1) How can a European education policy be created within the existing framework of the EU? (2) What could be the content of such an education policy? This article sets out to answer these questions by examining new methods of working and the initiatives that have been undertaken. It goes on to look at some of the problems and challenges confronting the EU in adapting Europe's education and training systems to the demands of the knowledge society, and, using an examination of how the EU is trying to find new methods for cooperation in the field of education and how elements of a European education policy can be found in present initiatives, it explores some scenarios setting out how the work of the EU and a European education policy can develop.

Are Timetable-Free Schools Possible?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Are Timetable-Free Schools Possible?
Author: JÖRGEN FROM; CARINA HOLMGREN; HÅKAN ANDERSSON; ASTRID AHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 547-558
ABSTRACT This article is about timetable-free schools, the latest 'innovation' in Swedish educational policy, and is based on findings from an ongoing research project. In autumn 2000, the Swedish government started a 5-year trial period where a limited number of municipalities and schools were allowed to abandon the current restrictions in the national timetable for comprehensive schools. The research primarily focuses on the effects of abandoning the timetable on the inner life of the schools. Two categories of schools are followed: (two) schools with the national timetable and (four) schools without. Primary findings indicate that the use of time in school is a complex sphere of operation. In many aspects, the differences within the category schools without the national timetable are more notable than differences between the two categories of schools. How time is spent in schools is related to a wide range of interlinked factors on different levels, and the national timetable is only one of them. It seems that when the new so-called freedom increases, the instruments of individual control also increase. This may be an indication that disciplining and selection still are fundamental tasks for schools to fulfil.

The Use and Abuse of International Comparative Research on Student Achievement

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: The Use and Abuse of International Comparative Research on Student Achievement
Author: WILFRIED BOS; KNUT SCHWIPPERT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 559-573
ABSTRACT In more and more European countries the conditions and the output of education are systematically monitored - often every year. These analyses focus on the question of which educational standards are reached by different age groups, the standard of their grades in different subjects, and which conditions moderate the differences in student achievement. The aim is to establish a basis for the discussion on quantity and quality of the educational system of the corresponding country. This is done by implementing national studies or by participating in international studies on school achievement. This kind of output control seems to be necessary for the autonomy of schools. Furthermore, the feedback about student achievement could be an important aid for schools and their staff to improve their own quality management. External evaluation can be seen as an important means of supporting the process of school development. This article is the keynote held at the European Conference on Educational Research, Germany, Hamburg, 15-19 September 2003.

European Social Science Citation Index: a chance for promoting European research?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: European Social Science Citation Index: a chance for promoting European research?
Author: Ingrid Gogolin; P. Smeyers; Ángel García Del Dujo; Diann Rusch-Feja
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 574-593
ABSTRACT Not available

The SALTSA Project on Work Organisation and School Work-life: how do schools as organisations facilitate professional development and well-being?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: The SALTSA Project on Work Organisation and School Work-life: how do schools as organisations facilitate professional development and well-being?
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 594-603
ABSTRACT Not available

Educational Researchers' Use of Information Services on the World Wide Web: a first report on the PERINE survey of educational researchers in eight European nations during 2001 and 2002

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Educational Researchers' Use of Information Services on the World Wide Web: a first report on the PERINE survey of educational researchers in eight European nations during 2001 and 2002
Author: SAM SAUNDERS; ELFRIEDE TAJALLI; ANITA MONTY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 604-613
ABSTRACT This report is based on a paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003. PERINE is the Pedagogical and Educational Research Information Network for Europe, a project supported by the European Commission under its Access to Research Infrastructures activity within the Improving Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base programme of Framework 5. PERINE emerged from collaborative work within Network 12 (Information Centres and Libraries in Educational Research) of the European Educational Research Association, and continues to work closely with EERA.

ECER's Space in Europe: in between science, research and politics? A research report

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: ECER's Space in Europe: in between science, research and politics? A research report
Author: MARTINA KENK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 614-627
ABSTRACT The sciences of education in Europe are situated in between national, European and international spaces, challenged by Europeanisation processes and European research policy. The author takes up the debates at European Conferences on Educational Research (ECERs) on the formation of a 'European educational research space' by academic actors versus the foundation of a 'European (Educational) Research Area' by European Union (EU) policy. This report provides results of the author's investigation of the 'Europeanness' of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and ECER, thereby sketching an exemplary picture of the current state of the sciences of education in Europe, indicating tendencies over the last few years, while analysing the European dimension of EERA and ECER. The representation of educational scientists from a variety of (not only) European countries points to three problematic issues: the dominance of EU member states, especially of the United Kingdom; the tendency towards marginalisation of European non-member states; and a clearly biased 'European educational research space'.

Convergence of Higher Education Systems in Europe: the English and French example. A review of Higher Education in England and France since the 1980s (Cecile Deer, 2003)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:48 GMT

Title: Convergence of Higher Education Systems in Europe: the English and French example. A review of Higher Education in England and France since the 1980s (Cecile Deer, 2003)
Author: Jean Luc De Meulemeester
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Pages: 628-647
ABSTRACT Not available

Civic Education: what are we getting from research?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Civic Education: what are we getting from research?
Author: MARIA ROLDÃO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 355-460
ABSTRACT In this article, some of the more relevant aspects found in the studies presented in ECER's Conference in Lisbon, 2002, developed within IEA Civic Education Project, are briefly highlighted. The emerging need for rethinking the concept of civic education itself is pointed out, as well as the nature of research questions for future studies in the field, taking into account and expanding the present findings and their contributes for illuminating the complexity of the concept.

Introduction

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: ISABEL MENEZES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 363-365
ABSTRACT The articles assembled in this issue of EERJ represent a considerable amount of consistent knowledge on civic education across Europe. They were produced as a variety of particular studies developed by some of the 20 countries that participated in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) International Civic Education Project, initiated in 1994. This set of studies followed, re-examined or expanded the results of the second phase of the general study, looking at particular dimensions, combining or expanding aspects worked within the study, now focused on more restricted universes, or confined to more specific dimensions

This special issue of the European Educational Research Journal assembles a group of papers, some of which were presented in a symposium at the Lisbon European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) 2002, that highlight and discuss the data collected within the context of the Civic Education Study promoted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The involvement of the IEA in this area goes back to 1971 when a first civic education study involved a total of nine countries, all of which with long-established democratic regimes; in 1994 the IEA General Assembly decided to conduct a new study 'to identify and examine in a comparative framework the ways in which young people are prepared for their roles as citizens in democracies and societies aspiring to democracy' (Torney-Purta et al, 1999). This second study involved more than 20 countries, from a variety of geographical locations and political traditions, including countries that experienced recent democratic transitions (Amadeo et al, 2002; Torney-Purta et al, 2001). The study used an innovative methodology with a two-phase design, including both a qualitative analysis of national policies and practices, and the testing of national representative samples of adolescents at age 14 and attending upper secondary education (see Torney-Purta, 2003, this issue).

Obviously, we are dealing with a rich and extensive database (with more than 150,000 students overall), open to multiple analysis and interpretations, and that constitutes an impressive view on adolescents' political development across nations. This issue of the EERJ intends to be a contribution to that ongoing process of analysis and discussion. The authors address several dimensions of the IEA Civic Education Study, including the discussion of methodological issues related to test quality (see Nikolova & Lehman), the analysis of the impact of civic skills and knowledge on likelihood to vote (Maiello, Oser & Biedermann), the consideration of students' concepts of democracy both in terms of their relation to existing models of democracy (Husfeldt & Nikolova) and to their cultural appropriation in different countries (Kontogiannopoulou-Polydorides, Fragoulis, Zanni & Ntelikou), the exploration of how participation experiences relate to students' civic concepts, attitudes and engagement (Menezes), and the comparison between experts', teachers' and students' views on civic education (Mintrop). The articles focus on the data for 14 year-olds and/or upper secondary students, from a diversity of theoretical and disciplinary viewpoints, and stressing cross-national comparisons.

Naturally, this special issue does not intend to give a complete picture of the IEA Civic Education Study. However, the articles do bring new insights on the IEA data and raise further questions for research within the area of political development of adolescents - in terms of methodology, topics to be considered, and the significance of the results. Finally, in a time where democracies face particular tensions of integration and inclusion, in Europe and elsewhere, the articles also point out relevant implications for the design, implementation and evaluation of citizenship education projects within educational institutions and beyond.

A final word of personal appreciation is due to all the people who made this special issue possible: to Martin Lawn, who was most supportive and enthusiastic of this project from the start; to Maria do Céu Roldão, the co-editor of this issue, whose involvement was (as always) a pleasure and a privilege; to the authors for their notable work; to the reviewers for their comments and suggestions; and to Judith Torney-Purta, whose support throughout the whole IEA Civic Education Study was an inspiration for us all.

Correspondence

Isabel Menezes, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Porto University, Rua do Campo Alegre, 1055, P-4169-004 Porto, Portugal (imenezes@psi.up.pt).

References

Amadeo, J-A., Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Husfeldt, V. & Nikolova, R. (2002) Civic Knowledge and Engagement. An IEA Study of Upper Secondary Students in Sixteen Countries. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Torney-Purta, J., Schwille, J. & Amadeo, J-A. (1999) Citizenship Education across Countries: twenty-four case studies from the IEA Civic Education Project. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H. & Schulz, W. (2001) Citizenship and Education in Twenty-eight Countries. Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

A European Perspective on the IEA Civic Education Study: an introduction

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: A European Perspective on the IEA Civic Education Study: an introduction
Author: JUDITH TORNEY-PURTA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 366-369
ABSTRACT Until the early 1990s there was relatively little interest among comparative or international educators in research on civic education. During the 1980s, for example, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), a consortium of educational research institutes in nearly 60 countries, focused its large-scale data collections on literacy, mathematics, and science. However, in the early 1990s, prompted by recent massive changes in political and social structures, several member countries of the IEA requested a study of civic education that would have a strong knowledge measure as well as an assessment of young people's attitudes and behaviors. The aim was to study schools in the context of other democratic institutions and to take advantage of the IEA organization's perspective and resources, including a wide network of research and policy institutes in different countries and a wealth of technical and methodological expertise in cross-national comparative education research. Education policy concerns were central. However, many of those involved in the study were social scientists from fields such as developmental/social psychology or sociology interested in research within a disciplinary framework. Therefore the study melded research and policy-related approaches.

Because of the hope that the study could reflect the voices of teachers and students as well as producing data amenable to statistical analysis, the first phase of the IEA Civic Education Study (1994-98) consisted of the collection of structured national case studies. These case studies served as the basis of a consensus process used to develop content specifications for a test of civic knowledge (with right and wrong answers) and also a survey of political attitudes and civic behavior. These qualitative data also provided contextual information for interpreting the more quantitative data collected in 1999-2000. For analysis within and across countries of the data collected during Phase 1, see Torney-Purta et al (1999) and Steiner-Khamsi et al (2002).[1]

The second phase of the IEA Civic Education Study began in 1997. An international steering committee, together with national research coordinators, constructed items, pre-piloted, and then piloted an instrument (test and survey) that would be suitable for early and late adolescents and would take about two class periods to complete. The attitude survey included a number of scales drawn from surveys of adults and was substantially the same for the two age groups. The test of civic knowledge administered to the older students, however, contained some more difficult test items as well as items about economics, political efficacy, and international relations not administered to the 14 year-olds. Thirteen scales based on Item Response Theory (IRT) were developed for the knowledge items and for sets of attitudes items.[2]

Nationally representative samples of students in the modal grade for 14 year-olds (a total of about 90,000 students from 28 countries) were tested in 1999; students ranging in age from 16 to 19 (a total of about 50,000 students from 16 countries) were tested in 2000. See Torney-Purta et al (2001) and Amadeo et al (2002) for a description of scaling and analysis of the 28 and 16 countries, respectively, for early and late adolescents.[3]

To give some perspective on the overall results of the study, the current generation of adolescents in countries participating in the study believes in voting as a hallmark of the good adult citizen. However, social movement related activities, including community action or environmental protection, are nearly as important as voting for these adolescents (Torney-Purta et al, 2001). Activities that have conventionally been associated with good citizenship for adults, such as engaging in political discussion or joining a political party, are relatively unimportant for adult citizens, according to these adolescents. There are cross-national differences in conceptions of citizenship at age 14. In summary, some of the post-communist countries (such as Poland) are above the international mean in the extent to which their young people believe that conventional political participation is important, while other countries are below this mean (such as the Czech Republic). All the countries in southern Europe and in North and South America rate relatively high, while all the countries in the northern part of western Europe rate relatively low in adolescents' belief in the importance of conventional citizenship participation (Torney-Purta et al, 2001; Torney-Purta 2002).

There have been several types of publications from the second phase of this study. First were the reports published by the IEA (for example, Torney-Purta et al, 2001 and Amadeo, et al, 2002). Second, the large majority of the research teams under the direction of national research coordinators have produced national reports and other publications for national or international audiences. Third, the chair and members of the international steering committee (along with their research colleagues) have produced a series of publications. For example, the web page lists or links several chapters and articles from the IEA team at the University of Maryland, presenting results from the USA, Europe, and Latin America. Fourth, some national research coordinators have organized special issues of educational journals, inviting other coordinators and steering committee members to prepare articles.

This special issue is one of the first to appear. It demonstrates laudable diversity in its focus, including two articles about the civic knowledge test, two articles analyzing young people's concepts of democracy, one article that focuses on students' current and anticipated participation, and one article that links the views of experts (gathered during Phase 1) with the responses of teachers and students (gathered during Phase 2). Data from both 14 year-olds (the Standard Population) and upper secondary students (the Older Population) are included, and there is some consideration of gender differences. The approaches range from strictly statistical ones to interpretative ones.

Some of the articles refine or elaborate earlier analysis, while others challenge its framing, methods or conclusions. Several relate the data to alternative current discourses and suggest new perspectives on issues that range from the definition of the social good, to economic inequalities as they affect views of democracy, to generic narratives of participation within democracy. One author questions, for example, whether similarities of views within and between countries are the result of equal opportunities for participation or of homogenization in the society which may be oppressive in character. Another brings up alternative meanings of the term 'active participation' found in different democratic traditions. Another calls for attention to indirect as well as direct effects. Among the psychological processes addressed are the filtering process that leads to political judgment, the cultural appropriation of meaning, and increasing differentiation and complexity of concepts with age. Finally, the contrasting views of persons at different levels of the process are highlighted, both the ways in which they provide similar views and the ways in which their perspectives diverge.

These articles provide a map suggesting directions for future analysis once the international data become known by researchers and policy analysts around the world who share an interest in the future of citizen preparation and participation. As one author concludes, 'the field is not where it should be. But the field is in transition' (Mintrop, this issue). These articles are an important step in promoting the debate that is part of this transition.

Correspondence

Judith Torney-Purta, Chair of the IEA Civic Education International Steering Committee and Professor of Human Development, College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA (jt22@umail.umd.edu).

Notes

[1] Major funding for Phase 1 came from the Pew Charitable Trusts (Philadelphia, USA). Major funding for Phase 2 came from the Deutsche Forschunggemeinshaft (Germany) and the William T. Grant Foundation (New York, USA). The IEA Organization, the National Research Centers in the participating countries, the University of Maryland (College Park, USA), and the Humboldt University of Berlin provided support throughout the study.

[2] To give an idea of the scope of the instrument, in addition to the knowledge test there are 52 items about concepts of democracy, citizenship and government, including 4 IRT scales; 22 items dealing with trust in institutions and efficacy, including 2 IRT scales; 12 items dealing with attitudes toward the nation, including 1 IRT scale; 28 items dealing with attitudes toward diversity, including 2 IRT scales; 41 school and organization participation items, including 2 IRT scales; and 22 items about expected political and civic engagement items, including 1 IRT scale. Since the release of the IEA reports a number of other scales have been developed by the University of Maryland IEA Team (e.g. 4 types of expected civic participation, 3 more trust scales).

[3] Twenty-eight countries tested 14 year-olds. Those 28 countries are: Australia, Belgium (French speaking), Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong (SAR), Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. Sixteen countries tested upper secondary students. Those 16 countries are Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hong Kong (SAR), Israel, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland (German speaking). These countries are very diverse in their histories of democratic governance and this should be borne in mind when interpreting the findings.

References

Amadeo, J., Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Husfeldt, V. & Nikolova, R. (2002) Civic Knowledge and Engagement: an IEA study of upper secondary students in sixteen countries. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (see also: www.wam.umd.edu/~iea).

Steiner-Khamsi, G., Torney-Purta, J. & Schwille, J. (Eds) (2002) New Paradigms and Recurring Paradoxes in Education for Citizenship: an international comparison. Amsterdam: JAI/Elsevier Science.

Torney-Purta, J. (2002) Patterns in the Civic Knowledge, Engagement, and Attitudes of European Adolescents: the IEA Civic Education Study, European Journal of Education, 37, pp. 129-142.

Torney-Purta, J., Schwille, J. & Amadeo, J. (1999) Civic Education across Countries: twenty-four national case studies from the IEA Civic Education Project. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H. & Schulz, W. (2001) Citizenship and Education in Twenty-eight Countries: civic knowledge and engagement at age fourteen. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (see also: www.wam.umd.edu/~iea).

On the Dimensionality of the Cognitive Test Used in the IEA Civic Education Study: analyses and implications

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: On the Dimensionality of the Cognitive Test Used in the IEA Civic Education Study: analyses and implications
Author: ROUMIANA NIKOLOVA; RAINER H. LEHMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 370-283
ABSTRACT The second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study was designed to measure dimensions of civic knowledge among 14 year-old and upper secondary students across diverse educational systems. One of the major aims of the study on upper secondary students was to attain sufficient commonality with the test instrument for the 14 year-olds in order to facilitate meaningful cross-population references. This requirement could be successfully achieved by including a substantial number of (anchor) items from the test for the younger group, yet leaving room for more difficult items. In addition, the test for the upper secondary students included the newly introduced domain of economic literacy. The quality of the test has been assured through confirmatory factor analysis; analysis of item-by-country interaction and Item Response Theory (IRT) based analyses of item fit within and across countries. Preceded by a short review of previous research on civic knowledge as well as a brief description of the IEA test for the 14 year-olds, this article then focuses more explicitly on some methodological aspects of the test of civic knowledge and economic literacy in the IEA Civic Education Study for upper secondary students. It describes the structure of the test, including three examples of items covering different levels of civic knowledge. Furthermore, the quality of the test is discussed in some detail, referring to the main test analysis procedures. Finally, the test analysis results are briefly discussed, followed by a note of caution, as well as some insights into the relationship of civic knowledge and gender among adolescents.

Civic Knowledge, Civic Skills and Civic Engagement

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Civic Knowledge, Civic Skills and Civic Engagement
Author: CARMINE MAIELLO; FRITZ OSER; HORST BIEDERMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 384-395
ABSTRACT In this article the authors suggest that civic skills and civic knowledge are key components of the political information perception process and try to determine the differential effects of these variables on civic engagement. Starting from a model proposed by Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald & Schulz, they developed an alternative model to explain the likelihood to vote in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Civic Education Study Standard Population of 14 year-olds tested in 1999. Results indicate that home environment and school-related factors predict civic knowledge and skills equally well. However, the direct effects of civic knowledge on likelihood to vote appear to be stronger than the corresponding effects of civic skills in 23 out of 28 countries. The evaluation of total effects highlights the meaning of an open classroom climate for discussion with reference to the likelihood to vote.

Students' Concepts of Democracy

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Students' Concepts of Democracy
Author: VERA HUSFELDT; ROUMIANA NIKOLOVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 396-409
ABSTRACT In addition to assessing the civic knowledge and skills of adolescents, examining students' concepts of democracy was an important aspect of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study. Based on theories and previous research with adults and youth in this area, a set of survey items was developed to cover several models of democracy. In the 1999 IEA Civic Education Study of 14 year olds, the confirmatory factor analysis showed one factor with items relating to the generic or rule of law model. A second factor, participatory democracy, did not meet IEA scaling standards. In contrast, confirmatory factor analysis of upper secondary school students' data revealed a three-factor solution for the democracy items, suggesting that they have more differentiated concepts of democracy than 14 year olds.

Cultural Appropriation of Concepts of Democracy

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Cultural Appropriation of Concepts of Democracy
Author: G. KONTOGIANNOPOULOU-POLYDORIDES; G. FRAGOULIS; A. ZANNI; M. NTELIKOU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 410-429
ABSTRACT This article investigates how 14-year-old students seem to conceptualise democracy in four countries, namely, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Greece. In particular, it will be examined whether adolescents living in different cultural milieus develop different conceptions and different practices regarding democracy. The article indirectly questions the way in which teaching of social and political education in school is related to students’ concepts and attitudes. Students’ responses in the second phase questionnaires of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) research are the focus of the analysis in this article. A crucial question is whether similarities or homogenisation of students’ conceptions regarding democracy are viewed as the result of equal participation in the processes of constructing meaning through education, for example, or as the result of (oppressive?) homogenisation in school and society. However, it will be argued that there is always varying meaning construction and a definite (re)formulation of practices in any conception, and in any practice, a particular cultural appropriation of concepts and practices. From this perspective, the important issue explored in this article is the ways in which independent-contextual construction of meaning for democracy as well as in relation to the dominant in the West model emerges across the four countries reviewed.

Participation Experiences and Civic Concepts, Attitudes and Engagement: implications for citizenship education projects

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Participation Experiences and Civic Concepts, Attitudes and Engagement: implications for citizenship education projects
Author: ISABEL MENEZES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 430-445
ABSTRACT This article considers participation experiences of 14 year-old and upper secondary students in six European countries that were involved in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study: the Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland, countries that vary in their history of institution of democratic regimes. Participation has been considered as a crucial dimension of citizenship, and experiences within civil society are viewed as a relevant opportunity for developing personal and social resources essential for the survival and expansion of democracy. Additionally, participation experiences in adolescence seem to be a good predictor of political engagement during adult life. Results show that participation is most evident in organisations that provide enrichment activities (sports, music, computers), but both 14 year-old and upper secondary students are involved in voluntary activities, in some civic-related organisations (mainly Scouts, religious affiliated and environmental), and in experiences within the school (with student councils and school newspapers at the top). However, cross-national and cross-age variations are significant. Overall, there seems to be a positive impact of the frequency of students' involvement on civic concepts, attitudes and engagement, but results also reveal that more is not necessarily better. The most relevant implication for the development of citizenship education projects is that 'action' can be a powerful learning tool but only if it is intentionally designed and systematically supported: the quality of participation experiences, both in terms of meaningful involvement, of interaction with (different) others, and opportunities for personal integration, is therefore crucial if the goal is to promote the personal empowerment and social pluralism on which the essence of democracy relies.

The Old and New Face of Civic Education: expert, teacher, and student views

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: The Old and New Face of Civic Education: expert, teacher, and student views
Author: HEINRICH MINTROP
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 446-454
ABSTRACT Using the representative database of the Second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study, this article takes a look at civic education through the lens of expert scholars, teachers, and students. The data reveals that, as some of the experts reported, political interest is not pervasive among students and classrooms are not places where a culture of debate, controversy, and critical thinking flourishes for students. But things have changed if civic education was primarily an imparting of facts about national history and the workings of the political system. As for teachers, now the discourse of rights and the social movements associated with it top the list of curricular concerns. Large majorities of teachers share with national scholars a conceptualization of civic education as critical thinking and value education, repudiating knowledge transformation as ideal, and they recognize the wide gulf that exists between these ideals and reality. As for many students, political disinterest notwithstanding, forms of participation born out of social movements and community organizing are the preferred channels of political activity. And yet, it seems the experts have a point: the field is not where it should be.

Demand for Higher Education and the Supply of Graduates, pages

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: Demand for Higher Education and the Supply of Graduates, pages
Author: Keith Tribe
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 461-471
ABSTRACT Not available

RESEARCH NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:49 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Pages: 472-476
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction: Inclusion in Schools: who is in need of what?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Introduction: Inclusion in Schools: who is in need of what?
Author: CHRISTER BRUSLING; BIRGIT PEPIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 197-202
ABSTRACT The history of schooling of children with special needs has been described as going from neglect early in the twentieth century to segregation based on individual needs in the 1920s-1960s to integration in the 1960s to the present (Casey, 1994). This picture could be complemented by the current movement towards inclusion in schools, which is responsive to the needs of children as well as to their rights as citizens, and to the needs of all of us to learn to live in a world of differences (Thomas & Loxley, 2001). The global dimension of this movement has been described by Mittler (2000) as connected to places like Jomtien (Thailand) and Salamanca (Spain). In Jomtien, ministers of education and officials from 155 governments met in 1990 and committed their countries to set national targets for the coming decade in five domains:

expansion of early childhood care and development activities, including family and community intervention, especially for poor, disadvantaged and disabled children;

universal access to, and completion of, primary education (or whatever higher level of education is considered as 'basic') by the year 2000;

improvement in learning achievement such that an agreed percentage of an appropriate age cohort (e.g. 80 per cent of 14-year-olds) attains or surpasses a defined level of necessary learning achievement;

reduction of the adult illiteracy rate to say one half its 1990 level by 2000, with sufficient emphasis on female literacy to reduce the current disparities between male and female literacy rates; and

expansion of provisions of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults, with programme effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioural changes and impacts on health, employment and productivity. (Mittler, 2000, p. 14; the original text can be downloaded in four different languages from: http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/sne/salamanc/index.html)

Mittler concluded that although relevant statistics over the past decade show some progress, children do not seem to be a high priority for most governments. The Salamanca conference in 1994 reminded governments of their duty to provide for children with difficulties and disabilities - however they are defined - and discussed the philosophy and practice of inclusion. The conference declared: 'inclusion and participation are essential to human dignity and to the enjoyment and exercise of human rights' (UNESCO, 1994). Governments were expected 'to adopt as a matter of law or policy the principle of inclusive education, enrolling all children in regular schools, unless there are compelling reasons for doing otherwise'. On its website, UNESCO states that 'concurrently "inclusive education" is a transverse issue which cuts across all education initiatives - from early childhood education to primary education, vocational education, adult education, teacher education and curriculum development - as well as in spheres related to culture and social development' (http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/sne/). A guide for teachers in schools has been developed and been used in over 50 countries (UNESCO, 2001).

The percentage of pupils seen to have special educational needs varies in the European countries from 1% in Greece, to 18% in Finland (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2003a). There is, however, a common trend in all countries to move towards the inclusion of these pupils into mainstream schools. As could be expected, there is a high correlation between percentages of pupils in segregated provision and population density of the country. The approaches adopted by different countries can be grouped into three: the one-track approach geared towards inclusion of almost all pupils (Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Cyprus); the multi-track approach, which offers a variety of services between the mainstream system and the special needs education system (Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland, the United Kingdom, Latvia, Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia); and the two-track approach, with two distinct systems, one mainstream and one consisting of special schools and special classes (Switzerland and Belgium).

The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education has not only looked into education policies and practices, but also at how special needs education is funded, and in particular at ways of funding that work as positive incentives towards more inclusive practices. Two parameters in funding models are discussed, destination locus (clients, pupils and parents, or schools, mainstream or special) and funding indicators (input, throughput and output). In general, evidence shows inclusive practices to be favoured by decentralised use of funds regionally allocated, adjusted for differences in socio-economic composition.

A new report (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2003b) based on an international literature review provides findings from case studies in 15 European countries and expert visits. It discusses preconditions for and efficient practices to achieve inclusive classrooms. Important preconditions mentioned are teachers' attitudes, skills, knowledge, approaches, materials and time, the support offered to teachers inside and outside the school [1] and government backing. Efficient practices are analysed in five groups: cooperative teaching; cooperative learning; collaborative problem-solving; heterogeneous grouping; and effective teaching by means of individual educational plans fitted into the normal curriculum.

With these European developments in mind, this special issue addresses the theme of inclusion in schools from a number of perspectives. Five papers were selected, ranging from teachers' negotiation of roles within a reformed school system emphasising inclusion and the construction of self-governing students (Dennis Beach, Sweden) to teachers' attitudes towards grade retention as a means of dealing with 'school failure' (Patrick Bonvin, Switzerland).

In 'From teachers for education change', Dennis Beach reports on a one-year ethnographic investigation of the 1994 reform of the Swedish upper secondary school and the development of what was termed a new school vision (promoting inclusion by means of team teaching, collaborative planning, student-teacher cooperation and increased professionalism). At the time, schooling was discussed within a neo-liberal market discourse. Beach focuses in particular on the tensions and contradictions inherent in this setting, and how they cause teachers to feel uncertain. While on the one hand, they try hard to adapt to the reform, on the other, they find new ways of upholding the usual differentiation of students into the 'good' (academic) ones and the 'weak' (vocationally oriented) ones. Beach argues that one of the implications of the reform is that teachers experience little control over their own professional lives. It appears that it does not allow teachers to be rational, autonomous professionals, but rather, disrupts, subverts and disintegrates their professional subjectivity. However, he identifies and describes different kinds of resistances, and concludes by saying, 'The key to realising the possibilities of social inclusion in education lies thus in constantly questioning new policy rather than passively accepting it'.

It is often pointed out that inclusion is a continuous process, not a state discreetly achieved. Alan Dyson, Frances Gallannaugh & Alan Millward report from a three-year study of schools' attempts to develop more inclusive practices in partnership with teams of researchers. Like Beach, they notice that the discursive context in which this is to be realised is rather hostile. Despite a background of the current preoccupation in the United Kingdom with 'standards' and 'excellence', teachers, organised in teams, were willing to try out ways of becoming more inclusive. The eight schools taking part in the project developed very different courses of action, some perceived as narrow, some wide ranging. Contrary to Beach's reference to his teachers' subverted professional identities, Dyson et al found that this project 'allowed the teachers to rediscover some of their "professional wisdom" and trust their judgements in taking action that they perceive to be in the best interest of pupils'.

There is a paucity of longitudinal studies of students with special education support. However, in Sweden, Ingemar Emanuelsson has followed 8500 students born in 1982 from their third year in the comprehensive school to the age of 19, when they left the upper secondary school. Repeatedly, he collected data such as school marks, national test results, information on special education support given, subject and programme choices made, as well as answers to a questionnaire related to self-concept and school experiences. In his article, he asks if, and how, school careers and development of self-concepts differ between students given special educational support and students without such support. Tentative results are presented. One result is especially relevant to the question put forward in the title of this issue: who is in need of what? Schools and teachers allegedly do not need inclusion; rather, they emerge as agents of differentiation for students independent of student-perceived abilities.

To what extent is the Scottish policy of inclusion in schools in the forefront of teachers' minds at the very beginning of children's school life? Christine Stephen & Peter Cope have studied the transition from pre-school to primary school through the lens of inclusion. A sample of children previously observed in pre-school took part in the investigation. Data were collected during the children's first year in school, in particular towards the end of the school year, in addition to retrospective information about the arrangement for transition made in the transitional period. Both teachers and parents were interviewed. Results show that the arrangements for transition were more concerned with conveying school expectations to parents and children than with teachers learning about their new pupils or children's curricular experiences from pre-school. Accordingly, categories in which pupils were placed by their teachers were the following: 'ideal pupils', 'well-adjusted pupils', 'pupils needing time to adapt to the classroom', and 'pupils having difficulties in the classroom', with almost half of the children seen to belong to the last two categories. Using cases, Christine Stephen & Peter Cope argue for the identification, and educational control, of barriers to inclusion, such as cultural and social differences between children and their families, in addition to differences of value systems between pre-school and primary school.

Research on grade retention as a practice to raise student achievement levels seems consistently unable to provide evidence to support this practice. Despite this, it is practised in most European school systems. Patrick Bonvin examines how it works within the Swiss context, which places the decision-making on teachers. More than 4000 students and their teachers participated in his study, in which 2.3% of the students were retained in the second grade. Retainees were matched with similarly low-achieving peers who were not retained. Bonvin shows that teachers' attitudes towards the efficiency of retention are equally divided between those in favour and those against. Teachers' decisions to retain increased with more positive attitudes towards the efficiency of retention, as well as with their underestimation of student maturity and intelligence. Perhaps more importantly, Bonvin concludes, 'Teachers who accept responsibility for school success and failures, as well as teachers who recognise the effects of the system's selectivity or structure, seem to hold more negative attitudes towards retention'.

The research highlighted in this EERJ special issue illuminates cases and contexts of an emerging borderless space of European educational research, that of the conditions for and practice of a shared educational policy - inclusion in schools.

Note

[1] The role of resource centres and support services is reviewed by the EU Commission HELIOS II in Warwick et al (1997).

References

Casey, K. (1994) Teaching Children with Special Needs. Wentworth Falls, Australia: Social Science Press.

European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (2003a) Special Needs Education in Europe. Thematic publication with the contribution of EURODYCE, the information network on education in Europe. http://www.european-agency.org

European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (2003b) Inclusive Education and Classroom Practices. Summary Report. http://www.european-agency.org

Mittler, P. (2000) Working towards Inclusive Education: social contexts. London: David Fulton.

Thomas, G. & Loxley, A. (2001) Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion. Buckingham: Open University Press.

UNESCO (1994) The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality. http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/sne/salamanc/index.html

UNESCO (2001) Understanding and Responding to Children's Needs in Inclusive Classrooms. a Guide for Teachers. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001243/124394e.pdf

Warwick, C., Johnstone, D. & Rodrigues, D. (1997) The Role of the Resource Centre in Supporting Integration in Education. Paris: European Commission

From Teachers for Education Change

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: From Teachers for Education Change
Author: DENNIS BEACH
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 203-227
ABSTRACT This article concerns issues connected to social inclusion and exclusion in Swedish upper secondary education in the late 1990s, after the 1994 curriculum reform. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork that was completed in 2000 and that appropriated participant observation and interview methods in data production. Extensive comments from teachers and headteachers on strategies and ideas about how to work within the context of the reform, with respect particularly to expressed aims of providing an education of good and comparable quality for all students and opening up higher education to groups who were previously excluded from it, figure strongly in the article. The intention was to discover what the people working within schools felt about their working experiences with respect to social inclusion and to understand what stands in the way of the realisation of social inclusion at present. The article indicates that two competing regimes of truth currently operate on what counts as valid teacher work but also that a creative subject position for all education participants is important in projects of inclusion.

Making Space in the Standards Agenda: developing inclusive practices in schools

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Making Space in the Standards Agenda: developing inclusive practices in schools
Author: ALAN DYSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 228-244
ABSTRACT In spite of the focus on inclusive education in recent years, there is a relative dearth of studies which explore the complexities of the move towards greater inclusion. This article seeks to redress this situation by reporting some interim findings from a three-year study of schools' attempts to develop more inclusive practices, involving teams of researchers from three higher education institutions working in partnership with 25 schools, in three local education authorities. The development took place within a national policy environment which focused heavily on the issue of 'standards' narrowly defined. This article reports the way that this context helped to form schools' responses to inclusion and the ambiguities in these responses. It argues, however, that the view of schools' actions as entirely determined by this external agenda is as erroneous as the image of them battling heroically against it in the name of inclusive values. Rather, to a greater or lesser extent, schools tried or were impelled to find spaces within the 'standards agenda' where different values and priorities could be realised. The article outlines some of the factors which made this process more or less likely to occur and offers an important new way of thinking about the development of inclusive education.

Differentiation, Special Education and Equality: a longitudinal study of self-concepts and school careers of students in difficulties and with or without special education support experiences

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Differentiation, Special Education and Equality: a longitudinal study of self-concepts and school careers of students in difficulties and with or without special education support experiences
Author: INGEMAR EMANUELSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 245-261
ABSTRACT The main aims of the article are to analyse how school and learning careers of students with special education support during their compulsory schooling differ from those judged not in need of such support. Choice of study programmes, success in upper secondary schooling, and schools' grading of learning in compulsory school are focused upon. Patterns of post-secondary school careers are of special interest. Determined needs of special support are related to individual student characteristics as well as teaching needs of differentiation and educational demands. The database used is from approximately 8000 Swedish students, born in 1982 and followed from school start-up through post-secondary school to the age of 19. Allocation of special education resources is found more clearly related to school needs of differentiation than to individual student characteristics. The amount and kind of special education support are also related to self-confidence and students' choice of and success in post-secondary school programmes. Conclusively, most of an individual student's education career possibilities are determined early, often in the compulsory school. Such patterns are related to the overruling aim of inclusive education in 'a school for all'. More proactive roles for support teachers are discussed.

An Inclusive Perspective on Transition to Primary School

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: An Inclusive Perspective on Transition to Primary School
Author: CHRISTINE STEPHEN; PETER COPE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 262-276
ABSTRACT Despite a commitment to inclusion and equality in the national priorities for school education in Scotland, the experience of children as they move from pre-school to primary school falls short of being an inclusive experience for all, and some children are at risk of becoming disengaged from education at the beginning of their school career. In this article, the process of transition to school is examined through the 'lens' of inclusion. The data comes from a study of the experience of 27 children during their first year in school. It was clear that teachers saw transition to school as a one-way process in which children had to 'fit in' to school, and did not see it as their task to respond to the diversity of children's preferences, previous experiences or background. It is argued that the teachers' approach is akin to adopting a medical or individual model of inclusion (locating the difficulties in the child) rather than a social model that looks for the source of difficulties in the mismatch between the environment and the child's needs. Adopting a social model allows for barriers to inclusion at the beginning of primary school to be identified and some of the barriers that children experience are explored, with illustrations from the data.

The Role of Teacher Attitudes and Judgement in Decision-making: the case of grade retention

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: The Role of Teacher Attitudes and Judgement in Decision-making: the case of grade retention
Author: PATRICK BONVIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 277-294
ABSTRACT ABSTRACT This article presents a study of grade retention as it 'naturally' occurs, focusing on teachers' role in the process leading to retention or promotion for comparable peers. Achievement and IQ were measured prior to the retention decision. A total of 4248 second grade students initially participated in the study, of which 2.3% were retained. Eighty-three retained students were involved in the study, and matched with 83 low-achieving peers. Measures at the teacher's level included attitude towards the efficiency of retention, towards criteria that ought to be taken into account in the decision and general attribution of children's difficulties in school. Teacher decision-making shows internal consistency but seems biased when objective criteria are examined. The probability of a child being retained was substantially influenced by teachers' attitude towards the efficiency of retention as well as by their evaluations of developmental maturity, intellectual potential and their achievement expectancies in language.

The Crisis in Educational Research: a pragmatic approach

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: The Crisis in Educational Research: a pragmatic approach
Author: GRAHAM BADLEY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 295-308
ABSTRACT This article first identifies and discusses four main causes of the crisis in educational research. These are summarized as false dualism, false primacy, false certainty and false expectations. False dualism is the apartheid that divides positivist and constructivist researchers with positivists believing in an objective reality and constructivists arguing that reality is a social construction. False primacy is the view that the positivist paradigm has come to dominate research to the detriment of more open, pluralistic and critically reflective approaches. False certainty is the argument that in an increasingly complex and uncertain world researchers have retreated to a reactionary position in order to shore up the dominant paradigm. False expectations is the case that governments, especially, are demanding more evidence-based research in order to provide urgent solutions to educational problems. The second part of the article shows how taking a pragmatic approach may help us resolve some of the difficulties identified. For example pragmatists would not privilege any one paradigm or methodology over another but would argue that both science and constructivism offer different sets of tools for investigating different aspects of the world. This also means that pragmatists see inquiry not as discovering what is really out there but as offering more or less useful descriptions to meet our particular needs and purposes. The third part of the article argues that pragmatism is not an alternative model of research but is more a working point of view or a perspective which is admittedly modest and, so pragmatists think, appropriately fuzzy. What a pragmatic approach to research actually leads to, through reflection, is a kind of useful if temporary equilibrium amongst the community of inquirers. Part of this approach is the rejection of the idea that scientific research can be used with certainty to specify educational practice. All it can provide is possible lines of action.

Using Problem-based Learning to Explore Qualitative Research

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Using Problem-based Learning to Explore Qualitative Research
Author: ROISIN DONNELLY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 309-321
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to discuss an approach to deliver a component on qualitative research on a research methods module in a postgraduate diploma in third level learning and teaching using problem-based learning (PBL). The Diploma in Third Level Learning and Teaching is on offer to a variety of academic staff (lecturers) in higher education at a higher education institute in Ireland, hereafter referred to as participants. The 10-week Research Methods module is one of eight offered on the Postgraduate Diploma, all designed and delivered using the pedagogic strategy of PBL. The entire Postgraduate Diploma is voluntary, and only lecturers who are keen to implement novel pedagogical approaches in their own subject disciplines apply for a place on the modules. However, the key to the participants' success is by using the principles of PBL to share and discuss valuable information with their colleagues in a variety of other disciplines. The opportunity is being given to enhance group learning in a real-life multidisciplinary learning environment. The objective of this module was to explore qualitative research methods and their distinctive value as an educational research approach. The learning issues established in the PBL group focused on the relationship between the actual real-life authentic problem, the theoretical underpinning and epistemology associated with a qualitative research approach.

Teachers' Understanding of Internationalisation as an Essential Part of Nursing Education in Sweden

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Teachers' Understanding of Internationalisation as an Essential Part of Nursing Education in Sweden
Author: MONNE WIHLBORG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 322-341
ABSTRACT This study presents a phenomenographic, contextual and content analysis approach used to reveal the understanding 60 university teachers in the Swedish nursing programme had of internationalisation. A 28-page self-administered questionnaire, especially designed for this study, was distributed to university colleges of health sciences in southern, central and northern Sweden. The variations in teachers' qualitatively different experiences and understanding of internationalisation were first related to two perspectives within their working context - an organisational didactic and an educational didactic - and second, the perspectives were described in five main themes and 10 subthemes. The findings imply the importance of reinforcing an understanding of internationalisation in coherence with the need for a didactical theoretical awareness and thinking of the learning object.

RESEARCH NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 342-249
ABSTRACT Not available

REVIEW ESSAY

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: REVIEW ESSAY
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Pages: 350-362
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial - Learning and Work: issues for vocational and lifelong education research

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Editorial - Learning and Work: issues for vocational and lifelong education research
Author: TONI GRIFFITHS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-5
ABSTRACT This special edition of the EERJ explores some issues which are central to the development of a European understanding of the relationship between learning and work, particularly in the context of vocational and lifelong learning research. The articles collected here reflect the assumption that learning has a social and cultural basis and they have been developed from some of those given during the VETNET programme at the European Educational Research Association (EERA) European Conference on Educational Research in Lisbon, September 2002. Together, they set out some of the challenges for this field of the European research area and suggest ways in which the particular research community associated with the EERA VETNET network may develop. This special issue also suggests that effective policy development at a European level will require attention being given to some neglected issues which have been highlighted by research.

One such issue is that the conceptualisation of both 'problems' and 'solutions' has differed markedly between policy makers and researchers with the result that, in the policy domain, learning questions give way repeatedly to management questions or accreditation issues. Thus, the solutions promoted in the policy literature are over-definite; what they do not address is how people learn in general, vocational and lifelong education, particularly where they are introduced to different contexts of learning. Despite all the systemic and other policy reforms and a wealth of good intentions, the complex matter of learning as such is neglected. The problems which persist are evidence of this.

Another problematic issue is the tendency to view the question of learning in dualistic terms: practical experience and theoretical learning. For example, research (Griffiths & Guile, this issue and forthcoming) shows that models of work experience in both general and vocational education have attempted to address new issues about skill development through boosting the informal component of learning and simply offering greater recognition to workplace learning, rather than paying attention to the need for models of learning in the workplace which explicitly overcome this dualism by assisting learners to 'connect' both forms of learning. Consequently, the weight of policy measures still rests upon the traditional model of work experience as a 'bridge into work', albeit in its various reformed manifestations, a model which will not provide the form of learning increasingly necessary for the future. The concept of 'connectivity' (Griffiths & Guile, this issue and forthcoming) takes into account four interrelated practices of learning through work experience: acquiring theoretical knowledge, dialogic inquiry, boundary crossing and resituating knowledge and skill. They present big issues for educators in both educational institutions and the workplace but they constitute the foundations for supporting the 'employability' of individuals in the knowledge economy and for becoming lifelong learners.

Specific connection is made with research into Work Process Knowledge and, in another article, Waldemar Bauer and Karin Przygodda reflect upon the German pilot projects programme and its aim of identifying the content and form of work activity as a basis for curriculum development and its impact upon learning processes. The research programme sought to 'close the transformation gap', something which remains problematic and for which an adequate model procedure is a concern. The possibilities inherent in a 'connective' model may be a productive form of future research at a European level.

Bauer and Przygodda also offer interesting observations on methodological development during the course of research. They conclude, inter alia, that, in order to understand occupational areas and to gain indepth insight into work activities, the vocational education and training (VET) researcher should be a domain expert. If research results are to pass into practice, teachers and trainers need instruments for the design of work-related curricula; otherwise, they suggest that the innovation of the 'learning field' will not be realised. Mats Lindell and Jan Johansson describe in their article on the introduction of the Advanced Vocational Education programme in Sweden how the attempt to integrate school- and work-based learning appeared to have a positive effect upon the way in which graduates of the programme entered the labour market. Jeroen Onstenk concludes his account of research in entrepreneurship and vocational education by summarising the now widespread view that 'learning in - and of - practical contexts is essential'. Further research may usefully illuminate the extent of the pedagogical implications for teachers. Onstenk instances a 'very innovative and didactic pedagogic system which oriented around entrepreneurial competence development'. This connection relates to the core question of his research project: 'what must happen in education in order to deliver good preparation for independence, self-employment and entrepreneurship?' In this sense, as in others, the impact on pedagogy of changes which are sensitive to learning processes is necessarily significant. The full implications for teachers working in a connective model of learning may be considerable and are relevant to questions raised by these articles. Bauer and Przygooda indicate that there is interest in further VET research in the context of occupational analysis and curriculum development. In this area, and others explored in this issue, the possibility of mutual learning within the broad research community is apparent.

Several articles refer in some way to the importance and significance of 'mediation'. Stephen Billett's activity theory perspective reflects the idea that learning is a mediated process which occurs as individuals learn how to engage with different kinds of practice in coming to terms with the world. For Vygotsky (1978), of course, learning was a 'complex mediated act' which took place in a 'zone of proximal development'. Billett emphasises that interactions with others and the social world can enrich the learning experience or simply assist in the learning of hard-to-learn knowledge that would otherwise not occur. 'This then leads to a consideration of the important role of experiences in vocational colleges mediating experiences gained elsewhere'. Billett raises the questions of how variations in the same sociocultural practice can best be understood and the interest of an individual in engaging in transfer to another and differently constituted practice. Future research in this area would be helpful: as Billett suggests, these and other ideas need greater elaboration, qualification and critical appraisal.

They link to others concerned more generally with the idea of consequential transition (Beach, 1999). (The term 'transfer' is often used in this context but it is usually given an unhelpfully simplified meaning). The development of the capacity to make transitions, to 'cross boundaries', constitutes a very profound form of learning and development, involving the construction of new knowledge, identities and skills or the transformation (rather than the application or use) of something that has been acquired elsewhere. A transition of this form involves the idea of progress and is best understood as a developmental process. In his article on 'Competence and Learning in Late Career', Leif Lahn suggests that a theory of late career should reflect consequential transitions within and between communities where 'consequential' refers to a process of identity change. Lahn is sensitive to the diversity of European countries in urging a conceptual structure for exploring the interaction between trajectories in work organisations and a larger cultural and institutional framework.

At the level of the individual, Billett writes that 'The capacity to adapt what has been learnt to different situations is a key benchmark of rich learning and a goal to which vocational education aspires ... The reason to focus on practice is the failure of the skilful thinking approach to transfer knowledge from one situation or circumstance to another ... many of the prescriptions flowing from the cognitive view place a reliance on processing capacity, rather than enriching experience.'

The idea of simple 'transfer' is at the heart of the problem with the idea of generic skill. While competence can be understood as the capacity to operate efficiently in a particular domain, Billett argues that securing the bases of adaptability to a wider domain of activities (transfer) has largely remained unrealised. Despite this, policy makers have ubiquitously promoted generic competences although such measures have been neither effective nor realistic. The broader the generic competence, the less likely it is to be useful except at the most general level. Without embedding in a particular context, the process, argues Billett, is 'fanciful and flawed'. Like other contributors to this issue, Billett concludes that a more situational approach to curriculum development and the framing of goals and content is required.

Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin have explored the adequacy of situated learning theory for understanding learning at work more generally. In their article on apprenticeship, they build on Engeström's work in a conceptual framework for analysing the range of learning environments or cultures experienced by employees. They also refer to the work of Lave & Wenger (1991) and their situated view of learning and end up questioning some of the assumptions underlying their conceptualisation of the 'novice to expert' journey. They show how even young employees such as apprentices are regularly involved in 'teaching activities' in the workplace, indicating that pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older employees may be more complex than Lave and Wenger suggested. Further, although elements of the 'novice to expert' model may still be found in apprenticeship programmes today, Fuller and Unwin observe that contemporary workplace conditions and cultures challenge the model's simplicity. In the German Dual System, for instance, apprentices are increasingly called upon to undertake work tasks which involve a combination of easy and difficult elements and this often cuts across traditional vocational profiles (Bremer, 2000; Heisse, 2001). This is relevant to the growing awareness in German VET that it is important to introduce a more explicitly 'contextual' dimension into the cognitive-based VET curriculum to ensure that knowledge and skill are taught in ways which reflect more closely the actual problems and challenges which arise in work processes.

Read together, the articles propose a new agenda for research in the European VETNET research community, an agenda which continues to question the innovative work which has almost become the new orthodoxy (like the questions raised of Lave and Wenger by Fuller and Unwin). There is a concern too for genuine interdisciplinarity and multi-perspectives. Lahn suggests that his arguments support the need for an integrated framework that places the field of cognitive ageing in relation to human capital models, career theory and workplace learning: 'Conceptual explorations into issues of late career should also include competing perspectives.' Patricia Gielen, Aimée Hoeve and Loecke Nieuwenhuis take this further in a different context in suggesting that interactive learning and innovation should be analysed from a perspective of uncertainty. Writing of 'Learning Entrepreneurs', they say: 'The impulses for learning cannot be predicted or planned, as is the case in the linear approach.' They see innovation as the result of an informal learning process in which social networks play an important role.

The strength of research in the broad VETNET area is growing and the development of the European research area is timely. Progress towards genuine and rigorous interdisciplinarity is an exciting and challenging prospect which could involve much closer research collaboration and mutual learning than has been the case hitherto. VETNET is a strong research network within EERA and there is every sign that it is ready to respond to the encouragement to explore research development in new ways and from different perspectives.

Finally, I should like to thank Martin Lawn for inviting me to edit this special issue and all who responded to the initiative or assisted, particularly Jittie Brandsma, David Guile and Anne McGee.

References

Beach, K. (1999) Consequential Transitions: a sociocultural expedition beyond transfer in education, Review of Research in Education, 28, pp. 46-69.

Billett, S. (2001) Knowing in Practice: re-conceptualising vocational expertise, Learning and Instruction, 11, pp. 431-452.

Bremer, R. (2000) A Portrait of a Pilot-Project Called GAB in Co-operation with Schools, an Enterprise and the ITB. Bremen: Universität Bremen, Institut Technik & Bildung.

Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. & Kärkkäinen, M. (1995) Polycontextuality and Boundary Crossing and Expert Cognition: learning and problem-solving in complex work activities, Learning and Instruction, 5, pp. 319-336.

Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. (forthcoming) Work, Knowledge and Learning: issues for research, policy and practice. Luxembourg: CEDEFOP.

Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. (this issue) A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge, European Educational Research Journal, 2, pp. 56-73.

Heisse, W. (2001) Business- and Work-process Orientated Vocational Training in Selected Industrial Training Profiles. Unpublished paper presented at meeting of the GAB Project, ITB, University of Bremen, May.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vocational Curriculum and Pedagogy: an activity theory perspective

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Vocational Curriculum and Pedagogy: an activity theory perspective
Author: STEPHEN BILLETT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 6-21
ABSTRACT This article advances a scheme that proposes how curriculum goals and content might be conceptualised for vocational education. The scheme is founded in socio-historical activity theory. An account of the social sources of vocational knowledge (sociogeneses) comprising history, culture and situation is discussed to illuminate how both the canonical requirements of vocational practice and its manifestations in actual practice need to be accounted for in curriculum goals and content. Currently, curriculum frameworks for vocational programmes focus on the sociocultural level of practice (e.g. national competencies, national skills standards). Yet, these fail to account for the actual manifestations and requirements of the vocational practice and how judgements are made about performance. An emphasis on practice as a basis for considering curriculum goals and developing adaptable outcomes is proposed.

New Learning Concepts within the German System of Vocational Education and Training

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: New Learning Concepts within the German System of Vocational Education and Training
Author: WALDEMAR BAUER; KARIN PRZYGODDA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 22-40
ABSTRACT In 1997, a new curricular framework for vocational education and training (VET) schools - 'learning fields' - was implemented in Germany. As a result, vocational curricula with their elements and contents had to relate to work and business processes and be described on the basis of competences. Regarding the German tradition of curricula, a paradigm shift can be observed, because earlier curricula were organised according to disciplines. In 1998, a pilot programme was launched which focused on 'new learning concepts within the dual vocational education and training system' and involved projects in the construction of learning fields, which were implemented in VET schools. These projects developed concepts for the empirical analysis of work processes or tasks and identified the competences required as a basis for curricula, in order to link qualification research with curriculum development. By analysing the different approaches, it became clear that an integration of the analysis of work and the transformation of the empirical results into curricula was necessary. This work also implies a model of competence development, because the focus of this VET research is ultimately teaching and learning practices in VET schools. Research in these areas has to be domain specific because it deals with the content and expertise in an occupational field and therefore requires an in-depth understanding of knowledge and skills in these fields.

Fostering Workplace Learning: looking through the lens of apprenticeship

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Fostering Workplace Learning: looking through the lens of apprenticeship
Author: ALISON FULLER; LORNA UNWIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 41-55
ABSTRACT This article argues that researching the lived reality of apprenticeship in contemporary workplaces provides a useful lens through which workplace learning more generally can be examined. Drawing on data from a 3-year study of the social and pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers in the English steel industry, the article proposes that, building on Engeström's work, an 'expansive' as opposed to a 'restrictive' approach to apprenticeship will not only deliver the broader goals being set for apprenticeship programmes around the world, but will also foster workplace learning. The article offers a critique of Lave and Wenger's novice to expert conceptualisation of apprenticeship and, using data from employee learning logs, argues that pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers need to be better understood. A conceptual framework for analysing the relationship between organisational culture and history, work organisation, and workplace learning is provided.

A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge
Author: TONI GRIFFITHS; DAVID GUILE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 56-73
ABSTRACT This article draws upon research in the field of Cultural Historical Activity Theory in order to provide a new theoretical and methodological framework for analysing work experience and identifying the social and cultural practices which support the production of new knowledge. In doing so, it builds upon recent work (Griffiths et al, 2001; Guile & Griffiths, 2001) which has explored knowledge development and learning, raising questions for research, policy and practice. The article describes the potential of a 'connective model' of learning as a way of reformulating and addressing questions of learning and knowledge development in and between different contexts. There are, for example, implications for the idea and development of 'work process knowledge'.

Entrepreneurship and Vocational Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Entrepreneurship and Vocational Education
Author: JEROEN ONSTENK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 74-89
ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is an important European Union objective for education and lifelong learning policies (European Community, 1999). This article reports the results of a research project on entrepreneurship competencies in higher and vocational education commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. A three-layered concept of entrepreneurship competencies is presented. The way in which innovations in higher and vocational education develop competencies for entrepreneurship, enterprising behaviour and employability is analysed. The views of students and teachers in entrepreneurship-oriented education are presented. The article ends with recommendations on promoting entrepreneurship competencies in (vocational) education and lifelong learning.

Learning Entrepreneurs: learning and innovation in small companies

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Learning Entrepreneurs: learning and innovation in small companies
Author: PATRICIA M. GIELEN; AIMÉE HOEVE; LOEK F.M. NIEUWENHUIS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 90-106
ABSTRACT This article concerns agricultural entrepreneurs involved in organising their learning so as to develop innovative and learning enterprises. In hi-tech sectors, such as Dutch agriculture, this learning and innovative capacity is particularly essential for economic survival. Reviewing the literature, we conclude that innovation can be seen as informal learning processes, in which social networks play an important role. Workers learn by sharing knowledge in the working team and employers learn by creating networks of colleagues and advisers. The results of two research projects suggest that interactive learning and innovation should be analysed from a perspective of uncertainty. Learning skills for interactive innovation, as part of the entrepreneurial craft, should comprise the capability of selecting impulses and combining newly selected impulses with existing skills and routines. Paradoxically, they need new impulses from weak, unknown networks to be continuously innovative. Innovative learning involves balancing the chaos of uncertainty with the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship.

Meeting the Demand? Students within Swedish Advanced Vocational Education Entering the Labour Market: reflections from an ongoing research project

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Meeting the Demand? Students within Swedish Advanced Vocational Education Entering the Labour Market: reflections from an ongoing research project
Author: MATS LINDELL; JAN JOHANSSON
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 107-125
ABSTRACT This article considers an ongoing research project concerning the outcome of the Swedish reform of advanced vocational education (AVE) from a graduate perspective. Launched in 1996 as an experimental post-secondary reform meeting the advancements within working life, several new educational features were introduced. In January 2002, AVE became a regular part of the national education system with 12,500 education places per annum. From start to present, over 6,100 students have graduated from the approximately 350 different national AVE programmes available. The purpose of this article is to present results from three sets of questionnaires collected in 1999, 2000 and 2001 surveying over 5,400 of the graduates concerning their opinions and experiences on how AVE corresponds to the demands and requests made of them when entering the labour market. The aggregate results suggest that a majority of the graduates (82%) had a job 6 months after having completed their AVE programmes and that approximately 80% of them were working, with regard to their educational focus, within a 'target' field of profession.

Competence and Learning in Late Career

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Competence and Learning in Late Career
Author: LEIF CHR. LAHN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 126-140
ABSTRACT Issues of late career have recently attracted much political and public interest but contributions from research have been meagre. In this article, a review is made of the literature on cognitive ageing and learning abilities in an occupational context. Multidimensional and non-linear perspectives are increasingly replacing models of late career as a period of declining expertise. Data from an European Union Framework Programme 4 research project 'Working Life Changes and the Training of Older Workers' (WORKTOW), supports such a redefinition. Also, the optimistic scenarios for late career that are held out by the literature on 'boundaryless careers' are challenged. A sociocultural framework that is more sensitive to the institutional and cultural context of age differences in learning at work is asked for.

The Opportunity Trap: education and employment in a global economy

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: The Opportunity Trap: education and employment in a global economy
Author: PHILLIP BROWN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 141-179
ABSTRACT This article is based on the Keynote Address to ECER, Lisbon, Portugal, 11-14 September 2002. The opportunity to make a better life is enshrined in democratic societies. In recent decades the growth in personal freedom and the rhetoric of the knowledge economy have led many to believe that we have more opportunities than ever before. We are told that the trade-off between efficiency and justice no longer holds in a global knowledge-driven economy, as the opportunity to exploit the talents of all, at least in the developed world, is now a realistic goal. This article will challenge such accounts of education, opportunity and global labour market. It points to enduring social inequalities in the competition for a livelihood and an intensification of 'positional' conflict. Our 'opportunities' are becoming harder to cash in. The opportunity-cost is increasing because the pay-off depends on getting ahead in the competition for tough-entry jobs. Middle-class families in competitive hot spots are adopting increasingly desperate measures to win a positional advantage. But the opportunity trap is not only a problem for individuals or families. It exposes an inherent tension, if not contradiction, in the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It will be argued that the legitimate foundations of opportunity, based on education, jobs and rewards, are unravelling. Within education, this not only represents further symptoms of the 'diploma disease' but a social revolution that fundamentally challenges our understanding of education, efficiency and social justice.

Is There an Emerging European Education Research Space?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Is There an Emerging European Education Research Space?
Author: Angelos Agalianos; Olivier Brunet; Barry McGaw
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 180-188
ABSTRACT Not available

RESEARCH NEWS - A European Research Council?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS - A European Research Council?
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 189-191
ABSTRACT Not available

Lifelong Learning under the Perspective of Functional Differentiation

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:50 GMT

Title: Lifelong Learning under the Perspective of Functional Differentiation
Author: Klaus Harney
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2003 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Pages: 192-196
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Introduction
Author: Sverker Lindblad; Jenny Ozga; Evie Zambeta
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 615-624
ABSTRACT Not available

From Centralisation to Decentralisation: governance of education in Sweden

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: From Centralisation to Decentralisation: governance of education in Sweden
Author: LISBETH LUNDAHL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 625-636
ABSTRACT This article draws on interviews with Swedish system actors, at national and local levels, to consider the impact of changes in the governance of education in Sweden, which have been characterised as a shift from centralisation to decentralisation. The respondents discuss their explanations of change, putting emphasis on social and economic developments, and consider alterations in the relationships between the centre, the localities and the institutions. Change is mostly seen as both inevitable and positive: only a minority raise concerns about the impact of deregulation on inequalities.

Modernisation of Educational Governance in Greece: from state control to state steering

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Modernisation of Educational Governance in Greece: from state control to state steering
Author: EVIE ZAMBETA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 637-655
ABSTRACT This article attempts to understand the emergent forms of education governance that are developing in the context of the Greek educational system. The methodology used is discourse analysis, which draws upon interviews with political actors at the central and local level, while it also takes into consideration other written texts and parliamentary proceedings relevant to the recent educational reform. The article argues that education policy constructs modernisation as an inevitable process related to globalisation and European integration. The introduction of competitiveness and entrepreneurialism is perceived as the main means to accomplish the task of modernisation, while social exclusion remains unvoiced in contemporary education policy.

The New Magistracy of Influence: changing governance of education in Portugal

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: The New Magistracy of Influence: changing governance of education in Portugal
Author: NATÁLIA ALVES; RUI CANÁRIO
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 656-666
ABSTRACT This article considers the impact of recent changes in the governance of education in Portugal, drawing on interviews with Portuguese politicians and administrators centrally involved in education policy-making in the last 15 years. The interview data reveal a strong focus on the school as a vehicle for building democracy in Portugal. The school remains central to a project of enhancing social justice and supporting community, but at the same time there are concerns about the capacity of the school to cope with pressure for change. The same ambiguity is present in system actors' view of teachers: they are central to policy but also judged to be inadequate to meeting the need for change. The interviews also draw attention to the expanded role of supra-national and transnational agencies in policy-making in Portugal, and the emerging 'magistracy of influence' that is engaged in these networks.

Changing Educational Governance in Spain: decentralisation and control in the autonomous communities

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Changing Educational Governance in Spain: decentralisation and control in the autonomous communities
Author: MIGUEL A. PEREYRA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 667-675
ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of change in the governance of education in Spain by exploring the views of system actors engaged in education policy-making in two autonomous communities within the Spanish state. The interviews reflect on the long process of reform of education in Spain, and the shaping principles of that reform. They also consider the ways in which the process has altered as Spanish society has changed. A key issue is the tension between the legacy of a history of centralisation and the pressure for modernisation, which is seen to require decentralisation. Issue that relate to the definition of 'national identity' within a decentralised education system are also considered.

Modernising Education Governance in England and Scotland: devolution and control

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Modernising Education Governance in England and Scotland: devolution and control
Author: NAFSIKA ALEXIADOU; JENNY OZGA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 676-691
ABSTRACT This article considers the impact of the neo-liberal agenda for modernising the government of education in two of the United Kingdom's education systems: England and Scotland. The article looks at differences between England and Scotland in the context of devolved education governance and concludes that there are significant and possibly ongoing differences in the 'local' interpretation of New Labour's modernisation project.

The Reconfiguration of the Modern Social Contract: new forms of citizenship and education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: The Reconfiguration of the Modern Social Contract: new forms of citizenship and education
Author: STEPHEN R. STOER; ANTÓNIO M. MAGALHÃES
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 692-704
ABSTRACT This article argues that a reconfiguration of the modern social contract is taking place as a process that involves the reconceptualisation of citizenship as difference. At the base of this process is one the authors have previously described as 'the rebellions of differences' (Stoer & Magalhães, 2001). The rebellions are against the cultural, political and epistemological yoke of Western modernity. What characterises differences and their social relations today is precisely their heterogeneity and their inescapable resistance to any attempts at epistemological or cultural domestication. The implications of this rebellion of differences for the concept and practices of citizenship are profound. The main implication explored here is the reconfiguration of what we call 'attributed citizenship' into 'demanded' or 'claimed citizenship'. The authors conclude by relating the latter to the political management of education systems.

OECD REVIEW. Educational Research and Development in England: examiners' report

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: OECD REVIEW. Educational Research and Development in England: examiners' report
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 705-738
ABSTRACT Not available

RESEARCH NEWS. ECER Hamburg 2003 Flier; Pre-Conference ECER Hamburg 2003; Notes from the PostGraduate Net

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS. ECER Hamburg 2003 Flier; Pre-Conference ECER Hamburg 2003; Notes from the PostGraduate Net
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 739-741
ABSTRACT Not available

Education and the Democratic Society A review of Democratizing Education and Educating Democratic Citizens: international and historical perspectives (Leslie J. Limage, Ed., 2001)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Education and the Democratic Society A review of Democratizing Education and Educating Democratic Citizens: international and historical perspectives (Leslie J. Limage, Ed., 2001)
Author: Lisbeth Lundahl
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Pages: 742-750
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction. Learners and their Learning/Working Environments

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Introduction. Learners and their Learning/Working Environments
Author: CHRISTER BRUSLING; BIRGIT PEPIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 400-402
ABSTRACT Schools and workplaces today exist in different social, economic, systemic and political contexts than they did a few decades ago. Societies and communities have changed, family systems have been redefined, and workplace contexts are different (Graham, 1995). In turn, learning occurs in fundamentally different social and economic contexts than in previous decades (Honig et al, 2001).

If we view occasions for learning, resources and support, not from the policy maker's view, but through the student's lens, one can see that youth[1]have many opportunities for learning in and out of school, and that these learning environments, and their attached relationships, are likely to shape them in various ways. In this issue we would like to explore different learning environments of pupils in schools and young adults in their workplace environments, in order to develop an understanding of the contexts in which they work and learn.

Overview

The issue is divided into two interrelated parts. The first part addresses pupils and their learning environments in schools, both in terms of school climate as well as school-parent connections. The second part explores the learning and workplace environments of young adults, also in terms of student-teacher relationships.

In the first part De Fraine, Van Damme and Onghena take an 'outsider's view' to look at school environments. Given the current political and media hype over school league tables and other measures of school performance, the first article - by De Fraine et al - is particular commendable. Using a multiple regression analysis, they argue that effects of group composition in secondary classes and schools (in a Flemish/Dutch speaking context) influence pupil achievement and well-being. For example, the composition of groups of students is said to have an effect 'over and above' individual characteristics, which is the agreed correction made in order to compare schools. This, in turn, questions not only the ways 'fair' comparisons can be achieved, but also how much sense it makes to compare them at all.

In the second article, and in a more 'southern' context (Turkey), Collins explores the perceptions of administrators, teachers and students on what it means for a school to be 'effective'. Amongst the most important features of an 'effective school' were, in their opinion, strong school leadership, a good school culture/climate and good quality human resources, however they define those. On the other hand, and in the third article, Papatheodorou gives students a voice to discuss their experiences of the physical environment in which they work and learn. It is argued that the physical environment of the school, and in particular the outdoor areas and facilities, are important influences on pupils' learning experiences.

In the fourth article Walker turns to pupils' home-school environment. She examines British secondary schools' parents evening and focuses on the difficulties faced by teachers, parents and students to integrate the young person into this kind of school-home liaison. Whilst this article draws on 'live' interviews, Rabusicová & Emmerová investigate the role of parents as school partners through the legislation of and media coverage in the Czech Republic. Interestingly, both articles regard parents as an important part of the 'educational triangle' which consists of the young person, the teacher and parents.

The second part of this Special Issue consists of three articles. In article six Karen Evans explores the ways in which social changes impact on the lives of young adults. The life experiences of nine hundred students in the former East and West Germany were compared with those in England, and they were equally sampled from those in Higher Education, unemployed and employed. In answering the title's question, she argues that young people in both countries are struggling to take control of their lives, whilst the reasons for this are different and varied.

In article seven Sambrook develops a model of those factors that influence work-related learning, both in and at work, and at the organisational, functional and individual level. In particular, she focuses on those factors influencing computer based learning and argues that identifying these factors is likely to help managers to identify ways of enhancing learning.

In the concluding article, by Tor Aase Johannessen, Joe Harkin & Oyvind Mikalsen, students are given the voice again, to evaluate their teachers informally. Interestingly, the findings show that there are great commonalities amongst students, regardless of their countries of origin or curriculum area. They all appear to judge the creation of a positive learning climate as the most important factor in what they regard as effective teaching.

Throughout these articles runs a common theme, that of the learning-working environment of young people. If we consider where and how learning takes place from the pupil/student or other perspectives, it is evident that students have many teachers and learning opportunities throughout their day, both in and out of school. It reminds us that young people are more than just students; they are young people with many relations in addition to, or perhaps even instead of, their school. Keeping this in mind, we might ask the following questions:

In which ways do students, teachers and parents communicate and talk about their learning experiences?

How can we develop a broader conception of what learning is and where it takes place?

We hope that this issue encourages the reader to consider students' learning-working environments in a wider sense, and perhaps subsequently the development of research that provides an enhanced theorised understanding of the area.

CHRISTER BRUSLING Oslo University College, Norway

BIRGIT PEPIN Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom

Note

[1] We use the term 'youth' here to refer to all young people of school age, that is up to the end of upper secondary schooling.

References

Graham, P.A. (1995) Assimilation, Adjustment, and Access: an antiquarian view of American education, in D. Ravitch & M. Vinovskis (Eds) Learning from the Past (pp. 3-24). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Honig, M.I., Kahne, J. & McLaughlin, M.W. (2001) School-community Connections: strengthening opportunity to learn and opportunity to teach, in V. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Teaching (4th edn). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Accountability of Schools and Teachers: what should be taken into account?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Accountability of Schools and Teachers: what should be taken into account?
Author: BIEKE DE FRAINE; JAN VAN DAMME; PATRICK ONGHENA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 403-428
ABSTRACT The domain of school effectiveness relates to the question of accountability of schools. It is commonly agreed that a correction should be made for student background in order to achieve fair comparisons between schools. But even then, a fair estimation of the schools' value added is not achieved. The composition of the group of students has arguably an effect over and above individual student characteristics. This study addresses the effects of group composition in secondary schools and classes on achievement and well-being. Compositional effects are discussed with reference to type A and type B effects. Type A effects are school effectiveness indices, controlling for student background. Type B school effects are controlled for both student background and school context.

Does a School Make a Difference? Perceptions of an 'Effective School'

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Does a School Make a Difference? Perceptions of an 'Effective School'
Author: AYSE BAS COLLINS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 429-444
ABSTRACT This article examines perceptions of an effective school considering relevant literature, teachers', administrators' and students' judgments. It discusses effectiveness as it applies to private school systems operating in Turkey. It gives abridged aspects of the current Turkish Education System: state; and private. This perception, Eastern European, Quasi-Mediterranean, draws commonalities with Western systems lying groundwork for comparisons of universal problems faced by educators. The study employed qualitative case study methods and procedures. Data were collected through interview schedules, document analysis and observation notes. Results show that the subjects perceive 'effective school' qualities as being school leadership, school culture/climate and quality human resources. Commonality can be found between the situation presented here and other developing school systems.

How We Like Our School to Be ... Pupils' Voices

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: How We Like Our School to Be ... Pupils' Voices
Author: THEODORA PAPATHEODOROU
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 445-467
ABSTRACT Overall research findings have revealed that the school environment both immediate and in the wider sense of the community does play a role in pupils' academic and behavioural outcomes. The present article aims to discuss pupils' experiences of, and suggestions for, the physical environment of the school which they attend. A case study was conducted in the United Kingdom in a primary school located in an area that is characterised by high levels of economic and social deprivation. Methods of collecting data included documentary evidence, interviews, observations, focus groups and pupils' drawings and designs. The study findings have shown that there are great concerns about pupils' learning and behavioural outcomes and that the school experiences overcrowding conditions as well as lack of space and facilities that provide opportunities for creative activities. The pupils themselves also showed awareness about the limitations of their school environment and their discussions revealed the physical environment to be of considerable importance to their experience of learning. The implications of the study findings for teachers, policy makers and budget holders will be highlighted.

The Missing Person: student roles in home-school interviews

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: The Missing Person: student roles in home-school interviews
Author: BARBARA M. WALKER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 468-479
ABSTRACT In British secondary schools the 'Parents' Evening' is held annually for each year group to allow parents and subject teachers to meet and discuss a child's progress. This article draws from two qualitative studies of Parents' Evenings and focusses on the difficulties faced by parents, teachers and students in trying to integrate the young person into this type of home-school liaison. Much of the data consisted of tape-recordings of Parents' Evening interviews made by teachers or parents. Key analytical concepts include the parent-teacher-student interview characterised as 'institutional talk', where the participants struggle over control of personal information, definition of problems and follow-up action. Even though it is becoming more common for students to attend these events, the article brings out their relative powerlessness and concludes that, while parents and teachers contest authority within the interview, the role, power and identity of the young person is even more problematic.

The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of Schools in the Czech Republic: legislation and media analysis

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of Schools in the Czech Republic: legislation and media analysis
Author: MILADA RABUSICOVÁ; KATERINA EMMEROVÁ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 480-496
ABSTRACT The article presents results of the first stage of a three year research project on the role of parents as educational and social partners of the school in the Czech Republic. Basic questions are: What does the school consider parents to be and how is their position defined in the legislature? To what extent are parents influenced in their attitudes to school by the reflection of the contemporary school in the media? The methodological frame of this study includes application of the existing theoretical framework and methods like content analysis of the school legislature and documents, and analysis of selected media. Such analyses focus on how information about schools and school system is presented to parents and the general public. As far as legislative conditions are concerned, the results indicate that they do not define precisely parents' position towards the school and therefore it is only up to the good will of both sides - parents and teachers - to create their own definitions. As far as the media context is concerned, the picture presented by media is rather unfavourable towards school issues and teachers in particular which could make interactions between the school and parents not an easy matter.

Taking Control of their Lives? The Youth, citizenship and Social Change Project

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Taking Control of their Lives? The Youth, citizenship and Social Change Project
Author: KAREN EVANS
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 497-521
ABSTRACT The question of whether there now exists a period of 'extended dependency' in young people's transitions is central to the 'Youth, Citizenship and Social Change Research Programme'. The project 'Taking Control' aims to understand how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through extended periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment and in their personal lives in selected localities experiencing economic transformation in England and the new Germany. Through a combination of questionnaire survey and group interviews the study has investigated how, in different ways, choice and uncertainty can be important dimensions in young people's biographies in contemporary societies. Their experiences and their futures are not exclusively determined by socialising and structural influences, but also involve elements of subjectivity, choice and agency. The research contributes to understanding of the process involved in becoming 'independent' and 'personally effective' in different settings and has aimed to involve researchers and users (young people, policy-makers and practitioners) in debate about the most effective ways to support transitions in early adult life. While building on methodological approaches and findings of the author's previous Anglo-German research, this research is new and distinctive in its theme of control in the under researched 'young adult' phase (up to 25) and in the inclusion of the post communist society of eastern Germany in the selected localities.

Factors Influencing Learning in Work: a comparison of two research projects (European- and United Kingdom-based)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Factors Influencing Learning in Work: a comparison of two research projects (European- and United Kingdom-based)
Author: SALLY SAMBROOK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 522-537
ABSTRACT This article reports on two research studies exploring factors influencing learning, one in the United Kingdom (UK) and the other conducted across Europe. The European project focused on an investigation of the role of human resource development (HRD) practitioners in creating opportunities for, and supporting, lifelong learning. This article examines one aspect of that project - factors inhibiting and enhancing learning in work, specifically in large, learning-oriented organisations. These factors were categorised at organisational, functional and individual levels. The UK project focused on computer-based learning, with researchers exploring learners' perceptions of the quality of computer-based learning materials. Computer-based resources can offer accessible, flexible and affordable learning opportunities. However, it is important for managers, HRD practitioners and learners to be able to judge the quality of information and communication technology (ICT) based resources to ensure effective learning. It is also important for managers and HRD practitioners to be able to recognise, understand and address the more subjective factors identified by learners themselves which might the effectiveness of ICT-based learning in education and work contexts. Drawing upon the two research studies, the article identifies, compares and contrasts the various factors influencing learning in work, at organisational, functional and individual levels, and then focuses upon factors influencing computer-based learning. Research findings suggest that the same factors could be both positive and negative features, highlighting the complexity and subjectivity of investigating both factors influencing learning in work and learners' perceptions of the quality of computer-based learning materials. However, it is argued that identifying such factors is an important step, enabling managers and HRD practitioners to recognise how learning might be hindered or helped within the organisational, and particularly ICT, context. The article presents a model of factors influencing learning in work.

Constructs Used by 17-19 Year Old Students in Northern Europe When Informally Evaluating their Teachers

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Constructs Used by 17-19 Year Old Students in Northern Europe When Informally Evaluating their Teachers
Author: TOR AASE JOHANNESSEN; JOE HARKIN; OYVIND MIKALSEN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 538-548
ABSTRACT This article reports the findings of a joint international Socrates project, 'Quali-Teach', that researched the constructs that students aged 17-19 in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Norway use to informally evaluate their teachers. Although one would expect considerable differences in the constructs due to the factual differences in the educational systems of the countries, as well as other factors, the study shows no signficant differences between the groups. The most important determinants of student evaluation of teachers are constructs that describe affective behaviours of the teacher, which have an impact on the learning climate; and constructs that describe aspects of the professionality of the teacher, such as his/her teaching skills. In keeping with earlier research by the principal researchers, the main finding seems to be that the creation of a positive learning climate is the most important factor in effective teaching, in the perceptions of young adults, irrespective of country and curriculum area; combined with a range of professional skills that may be developed in initial training.

Commercialism in Education: historical perspectives, global dimensions and European educational research fields of interest

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Commercialism in Education: historical perspectives, global dimensions and European educational research fields of interest
Author: INGRID LOHMANN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 550-565
ABSTRACT Around the globe, the systems of public education currently are being transformed into marketised institutions. Education is essential to the basic needs of every individual. But in a so-called 'free-market' economy, access to schools and universities is open only to those who can afford it. Jan Amos Comenius, Adam Smith, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, among others, laid the theoretical foundations of public education. Today, however, their ideas are being functionalised by corporate libertarians and 'free-market' ideologues. With the help of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services they promote the abolishment of the public sector worldwide, including the EU. In opposition to this, the struggle for public education cannot be grounded on the demand for free und full access to (higher) education alone. It has to be conceptualised, in addition, within the horizon of a non-eurocentric, postmodern, global public sphere.

European Networking in Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: European Networking in Education
Author: Régine Sirota; Danielle Zay; Martin Lawn; Edwin Keiner
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 566-592
ABSTRACT Not available

RESEARCH NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 593-603
ABSTRACT Not available

Language and Power: demands on education. A review of Linguistic Genocide in Education - or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? (T. Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:51 GMT

Title: Language and Power: demands on education. A review of Linguistic Genocide in Education - or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? (T. Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000)
Author: Sara Fürstenau
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Pages: 604-614
ABSTRACT Not available

Introduction. Globalisation: autonomy of education under siege? Shifting Boundaries between Politics, Economy and Education

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Introduction. Globalisation: autonomy of education under siege? Shifting Boundaries between Politics, Economy and Education
Author: Karin Amos; Edwin Keiner; Matthias Proske; Frank-Olaf Radtke
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 193-213
ABSTRACT Not available

Demanded and Feared: transnational convergencies in national educational systems and their (expectable) effects

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Demanded and Feared: transnational convergencies in national educational systems and their (expectable) effects
Author: CHRISTEL ADICK
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 214-233
ABSTRACT The article focuses on the impact of social developments related to ‘globalisation’ on education. In line with the world systems approach as most prominently expounded by Immanuel Wallerstein the author conceptualises globalisation not as a new development, but as the current expression of a long historical process originating in sixteenth century Europe. In order to make use of world systems theory for education, the author makes a strong argument in favour of taking Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and the relative autonomy of the educational system into account. On this basis, the author reviews a secondary analysis based on numerous studies of national education systems with respect to the various degrees of convergence, divergence and variation. It is argued with reference to the neo-institutionalist approach of the Stanford group that convergence and standardisation in education are not questions of affirmation or rejection as much as historical processes that by no means imply a deterministic implementation of an economic rationale.

Myths of Efficiency and the School System: observed at the levels of interaction, organisation and society

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Myths of Efficiency and the School System: observed at the levels of interaction, organisation and society
Author: THOMAS BRÜSEMEISTER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 234-255
ABSTRACT The article discusses, how the logic of the economic system - facilitated by terms like efficiency and quality management - is introduced into the educational system. The thesis is, that similar myths concerning the supposed efficiency of quality management can be differentiated according to three dimensions: to observation constellations between various audience groups at the level of society, to influencing constellations, which are established by consulting organisations (organisation level), and to negotiation constellations, in which the educational professions in schools are involved (level of interaction). Such a multi-dimensional programmeme of observation seems to be necessary, both in order to take account of the diversity and the simultaneity of particular processes in schools and their environments as they occur in the context of globalisation. Thus, it is necessary to heuristically link different theoretical explanation modules: systems theory, neo-institutionalism and theories of action. The hypothesis is postulated that myths of efficiency have similar effects in the societal audience, in organisation and in the education profession, in the form of a mutually responding resonance.

Eyes Wide Shut: university, state and society

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Eyes Wide Shut: university, state and society
Author: FRANCISCO O. RAMIREZ
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 256-273
ABSTRACT The article seeks to explain why the ties between industry and university are reacted to in different ways across the Atlantic. The modal European response is one of concern while the modal response in the United States of America is more optimistic. Some sociological explanations emphasize how differences in historical legacies explain persisting differences in what constitutes universities and why these differences in turn explain differences in sensibilities toward university industry links. These explanations indicate that the historical legacy of greater social embeddedness makes American universities more open to multiple external influences, including those rooted in industry. An alternative sociological perspective suggests that the weight of historical legacies is increasingly offset by the authority of a common world frame that defines what constitutes a university. More broadly, world models of progress and justice and their enactment to attain viability and probity as universities leads to common university blueprints. These blueprints become a core feature of the transnational organizational environment within which universities are increasingly situated. The first set of explanations seeks to make sense of persistent differences between European and American universities; the second focuses on growing commonalities.

Europe and Higher Education between Universalisation and Materialist Particularism

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Europe and Higher Education between Universalisation and Materialist Particularism
Author: GERO LENHARDT
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 274-289
ABSTRACT Universalisation characterises the development of higher education since the Middle Ages. Three manifestations of this process can be distinguished: the expansion of enrolments, the expansion of the scope of teaching and research over ever more subjects, and the expansion of academic freedom. Universalisation is supported at the European level by the secretaries of education of 29 European countries, who are committed to the development of a European university. At the same time it is attacked by the higher education establishment in Germany. As a result the analysis suggests, that the process of universalisation will go on and shape the future European university.

Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: the role of transnational policy actors

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: the role of transnational policy actors
Author: MARTIN LAWN; BOB LINGARD
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 290-307
ABSTRACT Educational policy is no longer, if it ever was, the product of the nation state alone. In Europe, significant policy actors in education are working today face to face and virtually in joint governmental projects and networking translating, mediating and constructing educational policies. The existence of this new social sphere of work, in which the construction of Europe is paramount, served by the regular communications and intimate work relations of a new European class of educational system actors, is deserving of further research. They appeared to constitute a form of policy elite in education, which has not surfaced into view in the study of education, either in studies of the national state or of Brussels: in the latter's case, it may be because education does not have the same regulatory or legal framework as key aspects of governance in European law. The power this group wields by acting as shapers of the emerging discourse of educational policy, expressed in reports, key committees, funding streams and programmes has to be examined and recognized within studies of educational policy.

The Manipulated Consensus: globalisation, local agency, and cultural legacies in post-Soviet education reform

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: The Manipulated Consensus: globalisation, local agency, and cultural legacies in post-Soviet education reform
Author: IVETA SILOVA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 308-330
ABSTRACT At the end of the 1990s, Latvian minority education reform was characterised by extensive references to Western European models, including such concepts as 'ethnic integration,' 'multiculturalism,' and 'bilingual education.' Focusing on the conceptual development of the idea of 'integration' and its interpretation in the education sphere, this article examines the process whereby Western discourses became widely accepted locally. Emphasising the existence of a 'hybridity' of voices in a rapidly changing political context, this article maps out different interpretations of the new discourse by Latvian- and Russian-speakers, including their attempts to resist, modify, and create new meanings of 'integration' in post-Soviet Latvia.

Education Governance in the United Kingdom: the modernisation project

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Education Governance in the United Kingdom: the modernisation project
Author: JENNY OZGA
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 331-341
ABSTRACT This article considers the modernisation of education governance as implemented by the New Labour governments of the United Kingdom since 1997. The discussion focuses on the apparent contradiction between those elements of modernisation that require the measurement and management of performance; and those that promote greater fairness and responsiveness. It is argued that tensions between these elements of policy are resolved by New Labour policy makers through the use of ideas derived from social capital theory. Modernisation uses these ideas in pursuit of a transformation of politics that enhances governability by making beliefs and feelings quantifiable, and by equating social relations with capital accumulation. The article concludes with a consideration of the problems encountered in the operationalisation of the modernisation project in the United Kingdom's Education Action Zones, where business was encouraged to play a major role in building new networks and social relations.

Excluding the Poor: globalisation and educational systems

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: Excluding the Poor: globalisation and educational systems
Author: FRANÇOIS ORIVEL
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 342-359
ABSTRACT The article starts from the fact that one billion adults are illiterate world-wide, that more than 100 million children of school age are not schooled, and that the democratisation of the access to education is often only rhetorical. On the basis of available statistics it tackles successively three questions. First, who finances education and how much do they spend? Secondly, what resources or means are devoted to the education of an individual, and how can these data be evaluated. And finally, do the inequalities between individuals, social groups or nations tend to de- or increase with respect to education access. It will be shown that, for example, in developed countries like France, the social inequalities when it comes to education have widely diminished and can appear as relatively minor when compared to those affecting children from the poorest countries. At macro-economic level the 'tendentious reduction of education systems' productivity is not valid. Schools are unequally efficient with the same means. The traditional distinction between developed and developing countries is changing, part of which is due an unequal development of developing nations. The least advanced have remained outside of the race, and the distance is increasing.

The Practical and Professional Relevance of Educational Research and Pedagogical Knowledge from the Perspective of History: reflections on the Belgian case in its international background

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: The Practical and Professional Relevance of Educational Research and Pedagogical Knowledge from the Perspective of History: reflections on the Belgian case in its international background
Author: MARC DEPAEPE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 360-379
ABSTRACT During the past 25 years, the author has set up several research projects in the history of education. A lot of them focus on the so-called 'educationalisation' or 'pedagogisation' process, that is the increasing importance of educational phenomena (educational conceptions, mentalities and practices and their legitimation in educational research and pedagogical knowledge) in society. On the basis of such studies it is possible to draw at least partial answers to the problem of the practical and professional relevance of educational research and pedagogical knowledge in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Among other things, analyses of the inception of experimental research, of the change and continuity of in the 'progressive' area, of the social significance of the teaching profession, as well as of everyday life in ordinary schools, show an almost persistent tension between 'rhetoric' and 'reality' on the one hand, and between 'higher' and 'lower' pedagogy on the other. Tackling these kind of paradoxes is not only very helpful in qualifying the enduring attempts to improve education by research, but also in demythologising the educational past - a task to which contemporary history of education has devoted itself.

RESEARCH NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 380-392
ABSTRACT Not available

BOOK REVIEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:52 GMT

Title: BOOK REVIEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Pages: 393-399
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Editorial
Author: Martin Lawn
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-2
ABSTRACT Welcome to the first issue of the European Educational Research Journal (EERJ). The Journal is a new venture for the European Educational Research Association (EERA), an association of national educational research associations, started in the mid-1990s and open to national educational research associations across Europe. The Council of the EERA has been very involved in the setting up of the Journal and the construction of its Editorial Board because it regards the EERJ as a crucial advance in the formation of a European voice for educational research.

The European Educational Research Journal will be a journal about educational research in Europe, a Europe in the process of becoming, and a work in progress. The EERJ will be a forum for constructive dialogue that recognises particularity and difference, that acknowledges and seeks to address the relative weakness of links between social science and education research in Europe, and that seeks to develop methodologies for studying the new 'space' of educational research in Europe.

EERA intends its journal to build a transnational community of scholars in and through the idea of the 'European Educational Research Space'. European Union educational researchers are working today in a context in which the mobilising discourses of the 'European Educational Area' and the 'European Research Area', combined with other 'borderless' flows of the internationalisation of programmes, public-private partnerships and university alliances, are reshaping the milieu of research in education. A challenge for EERA is to understand this process and to render globalisation visible. At the same time, the difficulty of creating a vital European research area follows from the lack of shared information about public research and national and European research policies in education. Europe is a place; but it is a changing place and also an imagined place. The idea of the 'European Educational Research Space' can be used as a metaphor for a culturally specific intellectual and social practice among educational researchers, which engages, in many diverse ways, with local and global similarity and difference.

The new journal will have four issues each year, one of which will be a special issue based on the EERA annual conference - the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER). It will contain peer-reviewed academic research papers, an essay review, ECER keynote articles, research reports and an important 'research news' section, dealing with general EERA and European research news, EERA Network news and ECER conference announcements. It will have a refereeing policy in which members of the Editorial Board and other academics will 'blind' review submitted articles. The journal will be a new academic publication delivered via the Internet and a 'portal' for EERA and European educational research: the site will contain other information, including copies of the articles in other languages than English, discussions related to the issue content, and links to current policy documents or research calls.

Forthcoming articles include Keynotes from ECER 2001 (Lille, France) by Ingrid Gogolin and Marc Depaepe; there will be a collection of articles on 'Educational Governance and Social Exclusion in Europe' (edited by Jenny Ozga, Sverker Lindblad & Evie Zambeta); an ECER 2001 Special Issue on 'Learners and Learning Environments' (edited by Christer Brusling and Birgit Pepin).

The first issue is based on a symposium at ECER 2001, edited by Rita Hofstetter and Bernard Schneuwly, on 'the emergence and development of educational research in Europe'. This symposium is symbolic of the core intellectual task of the EERJ, which is to provide critical reviews of key problems in European education: in this case, a symposium on the roots of educational research and the comparative methodologies which can clarify the past and at the same time unlock 'national' traditions into a common discourse on educational research. This process of Europeanisation, a recognition of a fresh stage in 'Europeanness', will require intellectuals to defend the particularity of intellectual traditions and institutions as a basis for working creatively with difference to strengthen a common project and to resist current homogenising imperatives. In this sense, the EERJ represents a project that goes beyond territorial limitations.

Martin Lawn

EERJ Editor

(martin@greenhill.wyenet.co.uk)

Institutionalisation of Educational Sciences and the Dynamics of Their Development

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Institutionalisation of Educational Sciences and the Dynamics of Their Development
Author: RITA HOFSTETTER; BERNARD SCHNEUWLY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 3-26
ABSTRACT The articles in the first issue of the European Educational Research Journal aim to analyse the moving forces of the emergence and evolution of educational sciences as a disciplinary field, i.e. as a social institution that is specialised in the production, discussion and diffusion of knowledge about education. The articles explore the hypothesis that the process of emergence and evolution is strongly interwoven with reforms that take place in the whole educational system, from primary school to university, and more generally with the evolution of social demands coming from the fields of education. They pay particular attention to the relationship between the evolution of educational sciences and professional qualification requirements.

Preparing French School Teachers by Means of the Science of Education (1883-1914)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Preparing French School Teachers by Means of the Science of Education (1883-1914)
Author: JACQUELINE GAUTHERIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 37-44
ABSTRACT At the end of the nineteenth century, in France, the Ecoles Normales were in charge of the training of all future school teachers and delivered to them a basic knowledge in the different school subjects, as well as a practical preparation. A new academic discipline, called Science of Education, was created in 1883 at the Sorbonne by the republican reformers of schools, in order to train the future teachers and to prepare them to teach civics and non-religious morals. This was extended to all the universities but two at the beginning of the twentieth century. As the new discipline could not be grounded on a previous branch of knowledge, it was dominated exclusively by professors of philosophy, and because it was not recognised as a 'real' discipline, most of these professors tried to get rid of it. Thus, most of the lectures became rather general, abstract, philosophical reflections on education and human nature. A small number of them turned into general abstract sociological considerations or, occasionally, psychological knowledge. In both cases, they were oriented towards a long-lasting theoretical conception of university training.

Early Textbooks in Educational Research: the birth of a discipline

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Early Textbooks in Educational Research: the birth of a discipline
Author: JOHN NISBET
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 37-44
ABSTRACT The publication of textbooks summarising experimental results and procedures marks a significant stage in the recognition of an area of knowledge as a new discipline. These early textbooks also play an important part in shaping the subsequent development of the discipline. In educational research, the first textbooks appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century. The psychological emphasis in these texts influenced the concept and style of educational research for much of the next half-century.

Interweaving Educational Sciences and Pedagogy with Professional Education: contrasting configurations at Swiss universities, 1870-1950

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Interweaving Educational Sciences and Pedagogy with Professional Education: contrasting configurations at Swiss universities, 1870-1950
Author: MARTINA SPÄNI; RITA HOFSTETTER; BERNARD SCHNEUWLY
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 45-64
ABSTRACT This article presents some results of research aimed at analysing the emergence of pedagogy/educational science(s) in Switzerland. It focuses on the evolution of academic chairs, their holders, their denominations and their relationship to professional fields and other disciplines. In a first, empirical part, professorial chairs are analysed in four Swiss universities (Basle, Bern, Geneva and Zurich). The data show important differences between Geneva, where autonomous chairs were introduced quite early and where an empirical approach dominated, and the other universities, where pedagogy remained dependent on philosophy and became autonomous only in the 1950s. In order to understand these differences, the evolution of the universities in Geneva and Bern is analysed in more detail, particularly the relationship between the disciplinary field and teacher education. The institutional articulation between teacher education and the academic chair(s) and the orientation toward primary or secondary teacher education seem to be important distinguishing factors that led to different evolutions in the two sites. Other factors, like the relationship to school reform, to political administration, and to teacher trade unionism reinforced the differences. The question of larger cultural influences is raised in conclusion, contrasting the Swiss-German universities, clearly oriented towards Germany, with the Genevan site, which is more multifaceted, and even eclectic.

Is 'Pedagogik' as an Academic Discipline in Sweden just a Phenomenon for the Twentieth Century? The Effects of Recent Education Reform

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Is 'Pedagogik' as an Academic Discipline in Sweden just a Phenomenon for the Twentieth Century? The Effects of Recent Education Reform
Author: LEIF LINDBERG
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 65-82
ABSTRACT In this article, the disciplinary transitions of Pedagogik in Sweden during the last century are examined. The material used includes written expert assessments, inaugural lectures, syllabuses, descriptions of teaching and research duties, governmental reports and research activities. Three different periods are detectable. From the first decade until the mid-century, an embryonic stage of psychometrics and intelligence testing could be observed. From mid-century up to the mid-1970s, a neo-behaviouristic paradigm was growing strong and dominated school research and a new teacher education was launched, supported with professorships in school research. From the mid-1970s up to the turn of the century, research was characterised by a variety of research perspectives and approaches. The conception of the discipline seems to be stable but under development. Parliamentarians searched for another knowledge base for teacher education than Pedagogik at the end of this period. There is evidence of Pedagogik moving towards an interdisciplinary approach, but there are also contradictory movements.

Education between Academic Discipline and Profession in Germany after World War II

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Education between Academic Discipline and Profession in Germany after World War II
Author: EDWIN KEINER
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 83-98
ABSTRACT This article analyses the development of the science of education in Germany between 1947 and 1990, focusing on the relationship between discipline and profession. First, it describes the shifts from a unity concept to a concept of difference between discipline and profession. The second part outlines an analytical concept of discipline based on communication and publication, and describes sources and methods used for an empirical investigation based on educational journals. Part three presents the findings. In view of the occupational profiles of authors, it shows the process of 'academisation' of educational communication and the exclusion of 'profession'. In view of the cognitive texture of science of education, it finds a stable continuity over time. The results support the thesis of a decoupling of the development of the social structure of disciplinary communication and the theoretical concepts.

Observations from Quebec: the emergence of a research culture in education through legitimacy and universitarisation, 1940-2000

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Observations from Quebec: the emergence of a research culture in education through legitimacy and universitarisation, 1940-2000
Author: THÉRÈSE HAMEL; MARIE-JOSÉE LAROCQUE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 99-117
ABSTRACT This article sets out the preliminary findings of a study on the emergence of a research culture in the field of teacher training, focusing specifically on the case of Laval University in Quebec (Canada). The authors first define some concepts and discuss the period when teacher training in normal schools was highly rudimentary, then focus mainly on the three types of university institution at the time (higher normal school, school of education and faculty of education). Based on a number of indicators, they determine how this research culture found a place for itself in, among other things, the universitarisation of teacher training. In the second part, the authors highlight some periods of disruption which reveal that a fledgling research culture appeared before 1955, truly emerging between 1955 and 1969, and gaining a dominant place and true legitimacy after 1969. The authors conclude by outlining the issues raised by this change in the institutional culture and argue that the emergence of a research culture in Quebec and elsewhere has changed the traditions and marked the transitions in the development of education and teacher training.

A Comparative History of Educational Sciences: the comparability of the incomparable?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: A Comparative History of Educational Sciences: the comparability of the incomparable?
Author: MARC DEPAEPE
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 118-122
ABSTRACT Based upon a series of comments and reflections made at the Symposium meeting in Lisbon, this short article raises questions about the difficulties of period comparison when analysing the history of the educational sciences, the issue of 'disciplinarisation' and the heterogeneity of the subject, and the methodological problems in operationalising research.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Europe: a challenge for educational research and practice

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Europe: a challenge for educational research and practice
Author: INGRID GOGOLIN
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 123-138
ABSTRACT Diversity of languages and cultural backgrounds is a common reality in European societies. But European educational systems do not adapt very well to this reality. It can be observed that a linguistic and cultural background different from the respective national one serves as a means of exclusion, of prevention from equal access. The contribution offers reflections about the question, if and how the traditional notion of nation contributes to the - in a democratic society - unwelcome stratification effects for children from immigrant minorities in Europe.

A European Research Area?

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: A European Research Area?
Author: Martin Lawn
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 139-140
ABSTRACT Not available

A Short Report on the INNOCULT Project

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: A Short Report on the INNOCULT Project
Author: Kyriaki Doumas
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 141-150
ABSTRACT Not available

Higher Education Admissions and Student Mobility: the ADMIT research project

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Higher Education Admissions and Student Mobility: the ADMIT research project
Author: ADMIT Project Team
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 151-172
ABSTRACT Not available

RESEARCH NEWS

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: RESEARCH NEWS
Author:
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 173-177
ABSTRACT Not available

Researching the 'Grammar of Schooling': an historical view. A review of Order in Progress: everyday educational practice in primary schools - Belgium, 1880-1970 (M. Depaepe, with K. Dams, M. de Vroede, B. Eggermont, H. Lauwers, F. Simon, R. Vandenberghe & J. Verhoeven

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:19:53 GMT

Title: Researching the 'Grammar of Schooling': an historical view. A review of Order in Progress: everyday educational practice in primary schools - Belgium, 1880-1970 (M. Depaepe, with K. Dams, M. de Vroede, B. Eggermont, H. Lauwers, F. Simon, R. Vandenberghe & J. Verhoeven
Author: Kevin J. Brehony
Journal: European Educational Research Journal
Year: 2002 Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Pages: 178-189
ABSTRACT Not available