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This paper seeks to compare the evolution of inclusive education policy in the four countries of an EU-funded research project (QualiTYDES) operating under the shared policy environment of the UN, EU and European Commission. A shared policy cannot of course be assumed to result in common legislative or provisional outcomes at national level. The different sociocultural, political, historical and economic contexts in each country shape its journey towards ‘compliance’ with an international convention (both pre- and post-ratification), and neither the route nor the destination can be assumed to be shared, given the scope for different interpretations of the same texts. This paper places the implementation trajectories of four European countries side by side as they attempt to move towards ‘inclusive’ education systems. Following a brief overview of the international education policy environment relating to the education of people with disabilities, we describe the national education policy responses in Ireland, Austria, Spain and Czech Republic in recent decades, including both legislation pertaining to special educational need and implementation of policies in practice. The comparison highlights the different manifestations of inclusive education current in each country, and also explores the challenges which have arisen as individual countries attempt to align international policy with provision in existing education systems, each with their own legacy interests, pressures and priorities. Examples of ‘gaps’ in this alignment are where learners with disabilities/SEN are likely to be failed, and represent the critical points at which barriers to fully inclusive education arise and negatively impact opportunity over the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Overeducation describes the situation whereby workers are located in jobs for which they are deemed overqualified. This paper examines patterns in overeducation between countries using a specifically designed panel data set constructed from the quarterly Labour Force Surveys of 28 EU countries over a 12- to 15-year period. It is not the case that overeducation has been rising rapidly over time in all countries, and where overeducation has grown, the trend has been very gradual. Furthermore, overeducation rates were found to be static or falling in approximately 50% of the 28 EU countries. The evidence points towards convergence in overeducation at a rate of 3.3% per annum. In terms of the determinants of overeducation we find evidence to support policies aimed at improving effective female participation, labour market flexibility and the practical aspects of educational provision as a means of reducing the incidence of overeducation within countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to answer the question of what motivates governments to introduce and implement reforms in higher education (HE). The political and economic reasons why some governments in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), for the period 1990 and 2015, have invested resources in order to facilitate cooperation between employers and universities, and have introduced quality criteria in HE finance while others have not, are identified. Use of a comparative perspective on Poland and Hungary revealed important differences in HE regulations in these seemingly otherwise very similar cases, showing that what drives regulations, at least in part, is the governments’ responses to the labour market, i.e. the dynamic between students – future workers – and employers – largely multinational companies. Moreover, differences in HE regulations in the two countries are responsive to voters’ concerns. The paper thus contributes to the literature on skill formation in Central and Eastern Europe and to the literature on political economy focusing on this part of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate, from a generational perspective, the effect of human capital on individual earnings and earnings differences in Germany, France and Italy, three developed countries in Western Europe with similarconservativewelfare regimes but with important differences in their education systems. Income inequalitiesbetweenandwithineducation levels are explored using a two-stage probit model with quantile regressions in the second stage. More precisely, drawing upon 2005 EU-SILC data, returns on schooling and experience are estimated separately for employees and self-employed full-time workers by means of Mincerian earnings equations with sample selection; the sample selection correction accounts for the potential individual self-selection into the two labour force types. Although some determinants appear to be relatively similar across countries, state-specific differentials are drawn in light of the institutional features of each national context. The study reveals how each dimension of human capital differently affects individuals’ earnings and earnings inequality and, most of all, how their impacts differ along the conditional earnings distribution and across countries. In the comparative perspective, the country's leading position in terms of the highest rewards on education also depends on which earnings distribution (employee vs. self-employed) is analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Education reforms come in two general types: access and quality reforms. Access reforms provide more educational opportunities, while quality reforms improve educational effectiveness. This paper investigates empirically the factors affecting the enactment of these two kinds of reforms in public primary and secondary education. By using a novel dataset of U.S. state legislation from 2008 to 2013, we find that both access and quality reforms are more likely in times of bad educational outcomes. Moreover, this is the first study documenting that teachers' union strength correlates positively with access reforms and negatively with quality reforms. Our results also shed light on the way teachers' unions promote their political interests: both lobbying and contributions are effective at opposing undesired reforms, but contributions have an extra effect of influencing the enactment of desired reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a nonlinear distribution method based on dynamic targets for reducing the early school leaving (ESL) population. The aim of this proposal is to provide policymakers with a new view in terms of transferring the EU-wide headline target to national targets. This methodology was applied to the 2010-2020 EU education target at two territorial levels. Weighting was based on the ESL rate, for the total population, by sex, and unemployment rate (for those 15-24 years of age). In addition, the proposed method was applied to the Lisbon Agenda goal. The results found underlining the need for decentralised weighted decisions to be made at different territorial levels, and a view to converging toward the common aim throughout the geographical area over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of the European Commission's endeavour to promote the cooperation between the EU member countries, institutions from five countries involved in VET teacher education have worked together in a project aiming at the development of systems for vocational teacher qualification improvement. The analysis of the current situation of VET teacher education in the different partner countries was taken as the basis for a comparison which as a result allowed developing improvement concepts during the subsequent course of the project. In order to analyse the present situations, a methodology was developed which will be presented along with the analysis and the results of the comparison in this paper. The aspects covered in this analysis furthermore allow a critical discussion on problems that should be considered within the developing process of the European educational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governing processes in Europe and within Europeanization are often opaque and appearances can deceive. The normative practices of improvement in education, and the connected growth in performance measurement, have been largely understood in their own terms. However, the management of flows of information through quality assurance can be examined as a new form of governance, not just at the national level but within the broad policyscape of the European Union. The shaping of policy through data and the constant comparison for improvement against competition has come to be the standard by which public systems are judged. Indeed, public systems of education are recreated, and Europe is formed. The mediation of travelling policies and policy discourses across Europe constitute a polymorphic policyscape in which quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) has become a major instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Higher education policy has long had important domestic, intergovernmental and values‐based features. However, through the Bologna Process, the European Union (EU) has influenced these traditional features and helped to develop an external dimension to higher education policy in and beyond Europe. Despite these significant changes, scholarship on the EU has not yet interrogated directly the external dimensions of Bologna and the influence the EU wields through this process. This article employs Market Power Europe (MPE) as a conceptual framework to examine the Bologna Process and the EU's role in these important changes. Focusing on the notion of externalization, the article reveals the importance of market factors, multiple means (externalization tools) and actors (beyond intergovernmental) through which the EU influences other actors in higher education policy. The findings contribute to the MPE conceptual framework and encourage further research into the causal mechanisms at play in the under‐studied external dimensions of this policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges of a modern society have important consequences on the educational system. During the last decade, the European Union has attempted to harmonize and improve educational policies, in order to give all European citizens the chance to study abroad and to learn and train on a continuous basis. This paper aims at a closer analysis of European educational programmes, such as ERASMUS, Leonardo and other lifelong learning programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the association between migrants and education in the European Union. Topics discussed include the significance for the European schools to improve their teaching methods to migrant students, the education policies, the significance of knowing language in learning, the desire in leaving school early, and the proportion of students in classrooms.

In this article, I bring an ethnographic lens to untangling the influence of policy discourses on civil society-initiated projects of history education reform in the Balkans. Drawing on data from a multi-sited project conducted amongst historians, teachers, and NGO personnel, I ask: what are the dominant discourses that impact civil society-initiated efforts to promote history education reform, and how are these discourses made authoritative? How does policy act to organize the work of this cluster of actors, and what kinds of responses does it provoke? While educational policy discourses and their impacts are varied, I argue that such discourses can be profitably viewed as technologies of governance deployed in the service of post-national citizenship formation. In analysing behaviours of “complaisance”, how “competencies” emerge as a slippery signifier whose expansive meaning was exploited to multiple ends, and how the demands of post-national citizenship can, and sometimes do, detract from the goal of addressing controversial history, I map the field of possibilities in which my interlocutors found themselves, and highlight how they navigated their positions as mediators of particular, shifting, social worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents analytical considerations for the discussion of issues of access to education and inequality. It first sharpens the concept of access and inequality by pointing to the interplay of structure and agency as well as to processes of social differentiation in which differences are constructed. This implies a critical view on “access” not as something that is simply given in educational systems or as something students “have.” Referring to interactional and intersectional considerations, the more comprehensive concept of “accessibility” is suggested, which points to the process of making education accessible. Second, the chapter distinguishes and discusses four levels of analysis to be considered, while providing a review of the existing research and putting into context the research findings of the European research project GOETE. In the concluding section, accessibility is discussed as requiring a multidimensional and multidisciplinary theoretical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present study investigates the effect of social connectedness through associational involvement on over-education among immigrants in 19 European societies, addressing the often-claimed importance of weak ties. Based on the idea that the effectiveness of social networks in distributing relevant information may depend on the degree to which such networks are linked to other networks, it thereby specifically distinguishes between associations that are connected to the wider community and those that are rather isolated. Using pooled individual-level data from the European Social Survey, empirical analyses indeed reveal active participation in associations to be related to lower risk of experiencing over-education. Moreover, the effect appears type specific, indicating access to multiple associations which are widely connected to different parts of society to be of particular benefit, especially in case of more recent migration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the Drama Improves Lisbon Key Competences in Education (DICE, 2008–2010) research project, a cross-cultural research study examining the impacts of educational drama and theatre in the European Union on skills such as social and civic competences, communication, and cultural awareness and expression. Topics addressed include the study's design, a database created from the study's quantitative findings, and results and recommendations based on the study.

This article aims at deconstructing the "PIGS" label, bestowed by the media on four southern European countries - Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece - in the wake of the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis. The article will demonstrate that the "PIGS" label has no correspondence to reality by discussing the evolution of several European countries on the fields of economy, education, social policies and health. The "PIGS" label should be viewed instead as an instance of symbolic discrimination and as part of an hegemonic narrative aiming at legitimizing austerity policies in Southern Europe and postulating the incompatibility between social development and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a number of EU documents on the term and way of implementation of lifelong learning. However, the characteristics of learning from adult education perspectives are not sufficiently emphasized and are undertheorized in them. Numerous new, theoretical works have been published on adult learning in the related adult education literature since the millennium, which have not yet been integrated into the lifelong learning policy. This article analyses the documents of the European Union on lifelong learning from the aspect of how compatible they are with the most recent adult learning theories assisting the deeper understanding of the characteristics of adult learning. According to the recommendation of the author, the present transformation of Europe experiencing recession should be thought of as a learning process, of which the newest, innovation-oriented adult learning theories say a lot. These are, for example, the process-, biography- and change-oriented theories which contain the elements of transformative learning theory as well, and are also compatible with action-learning theories focusing on solving the tasks and problems of the workplace through learning. Further relevant theories can be the theories of innovation management and the flow theory. It would be worth integrating the relevant elements of these theories into a new, innovation-centred concept which would include the innovation indicators of adult learning/adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this research is to analyse some indicators which allow us to understand the current state of social education politics in Europe, with special reference to Spain. Some European and Spanish social and educational policies which try to confront the challenges of the current financial crisis are also explained. Some deficiencies, failures and contradictions attached to the process of the construction of European citizenship are pointed out. Some key topics which seem to foresee a deeper social and democratic crisis apart from the economic one are tackled. It is explained how the new forms of inequality evidence the failure of some of the important declarations of intent and objectives of the European Union. The subjection of social and democratic aspects to neoliberal economy --i.e. the negation of ideologies-- is questioned. To conclude, some key topics are proposed as the central axis through which it could be possible to redefine the content of social education politics in Europe and Spain and to set the bases of a new democratic European citizenship [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity is a priority in international contexts, but it seems that this can be an obstacle both to the transmission of knowledge in higher education and to production in the fields of research. In Italy, there is not a global approach to language policy, nor a comprehensive policy document at either university. This article discusses three reasons to teach both in the national language and in the English language so as to internationalise Italian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the academic study of borders in Austria and in Europe at large. Particular focus is given to the influence of Gloria Anzaldúa, a scholar of Chicano cultural theory, on such studies. The author uses Anzaldúa's theories to critique multiculturalism and attitudes towards immigrants and refugees in the European Union (EU). It is suggested that scholars can use Anzaldúa's works to bridge the gap between academic theory and practice on such issues by providing translations of them for migrants and teaching them in schools.

For the past 20 years, researchers worldwide have shared a consensus that tracking leads to failure in school. But educational systems continue to use this practice for many reasons. One argument used to support the practice is that students who enter the vocational track early in their careers tend to enter the labour market more quickly. Data show, however, that when these people are in their 40s, they become the most vulnerable to poverty, especially during periods of economic recession. In addition to moving towards more comprehensive educational systems as the best long-term way to improve the chances of all future adults, our research demonstrates that schools can play a key role in preventing and reversing the risk of unemployment and poverty of low educated youth. The INCLUD-ED project has analysed effective actions in eight European countries (Slovenia, United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Romania, Belgium, Finland, and Spain) that respond to the educational needs of those who have experienced tracking. These effective alternatives are vocational programmes that include an academic-type of curriculum and allow students to move to higher education, as well as adult education programmes in schools which meet families' training needs, improving their opportunities in the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scholarly interest in analysing the effectiveness and performance of education policy has risen again. The present article follows this path and presents the first empirical evaluation of the influence of national education policies on educational inequality in the European Union member states. We examine whether the availability of preschool education, an all-day school tradition, tracking during secondary education, a large private school sector, average class size and education expenditures moderate the relationship between individual social background and educational success. As a main finding, our multi-level analyses show that education policy affects educational inequality very differently, an outcome that is most visible when comparing West European and post-communist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present European higher education policy and research policy can be characterized as emphasizing external financing of universities, competition between and within universities, and the need for a more practical and economically profitable output from research and education. A theoretical framework of analysing the impacts of this new rationale can be constructed on the following two premises. First, the funding structure of universities and university research is a main factor that influences the situations in which universities and their members make their decisions on teaching, research and administering. Second, universities consist of various groups of personnel each having and developing objectives and preferences of their own. This theoretical framework is applied to the Finnish science university system. On the basis of the analysis it can be seen that although the new policy probably has clarified the division of labour between universities, there have emerged some negative unintended consequences of the new funding structure. Indications of weakening performance in research and education can be identified in the empirical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romani community is the largest European minority and has two main characteristics; first, the Roma have no motherland to act as their patron and, second, the Roma encounter similar problems regardless of the country they live in (low education levels, high unemployment, poor housing conditions and dependency on social transfers). This makes public policies that address this marginalised population even more important. According to many authors, the first step in improving the Roma's status is to grant the Roma auxiliary rights and benefits. International studies imply that the starting point should be education policy. When the Romani community is granted special support in the education process the unemployment rate consequently drops, their value in the labour market rises and this enables them better access to financial resources. The gaining of a sustainable financial status has a positive influence on welfare support (reducing it) as well as on housing accommodation. This article is a result of extensive research on implementation of the Roma teaching assistant, one of the most valued mechanisms for better inclusion of the Roma in national education systems. Based on the international comparison of this mechanism in CEE countries we found grounds for the further promotion and institutionalisation of the Roma teaching assistant. The empirical study reveals the experiences, status and potential of Roma teaching assistants through the eyes of principals, teachers and Roma teaching assistants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]