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Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge 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.)

Whilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the '5A's model of creativity' and a view of professional development taking place within 'landscapes of practice', the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence‐base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the impact of enterprise education on entrepreneurial attitude within European higher education institutions (HEIs) in France, Germany and Poland. The research seeks to consider whether differences between cultural and industrial heritage can influence entrepreneurial attitude and mediate the effectiveness of enterprise education. Design/methodology/approach - Research argues that Europe requires more entrepreneurs willing to innovate and create new ventures to facilitate economic growth. This research builds on prior studies, which have examined the impact of enterprise education and training on business start-up. In particular the study utilises the concept of entrepreneurial attitude to measure how enterprise education influences students'' perceptions of, and motivations towards, entrepreneurship as a viable career option. The study contrasts and compares the impact of a short enterprise course on entrepreneurial attitude among undergraduate students in French, German and Polish HEIs. A quantitative methodology employed a research instrument utilising five-point Likert arrays to contrast attitudes and opinions of students both prior to, and after, the delivery of the course. Findings - Enterprise education has a positive impact on entrepreneurial attitude of French and Polish students. Conversely, the course had a negative impact on male German students. It was also found that while female students are more likely to perceive a greater benefit from the learning experience, the impact of enterprise education on entrepreneurial attitude is actually more significant for male students. Practical implications - The research findings are of interest to academia and policy makers. The study suggests that entrepreneurial attitude among European students can be influenced by exposure to enterprise education. The results also indicate that gender, cultural and industrial heritage can moderate the impact of enterprise education. Originality/value - The paper provides evidence that differences between gender, culture and regional settings need to be considered in the design and delivery of enterprise programmes if they are to have the desired impact on entrepreneurial intent and graduate entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is exacerbating the loss of competences in the workforce and simultaneously young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs) are struggling to be reengaged in employment. These issues, which are deemed priorities for the European policy agenda, could be addressed by triggering active aging dimensions, valuing and exploiting older adult entrepreneurs' knowledge for enhancing youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes, through mentoring. This paper reports the results of a study based on an intergenerational learning program, carried out in 2018 in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The study was aimed at developing and testing one training on mentoring addressing 41 older adult entrepreneurs (55 and over), and two intergenerational learning trainings aiming at boosting entrepreneurial competences of 33 NEETs (aged 18–29). The impact of the program on older adult entrepreneurs and NEETs was assessed through a pre and post-evaluation using qualitative and quantitative tools. Findings at country level were treated as national case-studies and then the latter were compared by considering them as a multiple embedded case-study. Results indicated that, to different extent in the study countries, mentors learned and enhanced mentoring competences, e.g. active listening and the capability of orienting, improved well-being and self-esteem, social inclusion and active aging attitude. Moreover, NEETs acquired entrepreneurial and socio-relational competences by benefiting from the full exploitation of mentors' know-how and the trust relationship with them. Companies, trade unions, educational and voluntary organizations should cooperate to adopt intergenerational learning programs as good practices for older adults and NEETs' lifelong learning promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines state that heart failure nurse specialists (heart-failure nurses) with specific competences are essential for a successful heart-failure-management programme. Thus, the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC developed the heart failure nurse curriculum (HFA curriculum). Several ESC member states developed cardiovascular education programmes to enable nurses to deliver high specialist care, but little is known of whether these curricula are in line with the HFA curriculum. Therefore, this paper describes the extent to which cardiovascular education programmes in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany correspond to the HFA curriculum. Methods and results: A case study approach was adopted to obtain an in-depth understanding of the programme contents in relation to the HFA curriculum. For this purpose, representatives of the educational programmes and/or delegates of the national cardiovascular nursing organization shared their educational curricula. All of the studied cardiovascular education programmes aim to provide heart failure and/or cardiovascular nurses with essential competences for implementation of evidence based and guideline derived care. However, every cardiovascular education programme has a different focus/area of attention. Cardiovascular education in Belgium discusses aspects of all core-learning objectives of the HFA curriculum and emphasizes mostly knowledge aspects of these. Learning objectives in cardiovascular education in The Netherlands focus on chronic diseases in general and on learning objectives concerning patient education, support in self-care and management of device and pharmacological therapy. Cardiovascular education in Germany discusses most learning objectives; however, not all learning objectives receive equal attention. Conclusions: Although local cardiovascular education programmes adopt certain aspects of the HF curriculum, the curriculum as a whole is not adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European quality assurance has a complicated history that must be viewed as taking place on two levels: first, in a national effort to deregulate the public sector and to make universities accountable for their teaching performance; and second, a supranational endeavor to accomplish European integration in the field of higher education. Similarly, the web of institutional constraints and opportunity structures in which accreditation agencies are embedded spans two policy levels, the national and the European. In this paper, we examine how German accreditation agencies achieve some level of autonomy in a highly entrenched institutional environment. The paper is based on a qualitative study comprising archival data and over 70 semi-structured interviews. Drawing on the insights of neo-institutional theory, we argue that quality assurance agencies seek political leverage at the European level in order to strengthen their standing in the higher education systems of their own countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research into educational inequalities has shown the importance of decomposing social origins into parental class, status and education, representing economic, socio-cultural and educational family resources, respectively. But we know little about how inequalities in educational attainment at the micro-level map onto institutional characteristics of educational systems at the macro-level, if we treat social origins in a multidimensional way. Drawing on the rich over-time variation in educational systems in four European countries – Britain, Sweden, Germany and Italy – this paper develops and tests a number of hypotheses regarding the effects of various components of social origins on individuals’ educational attainment in different institutional contexts. It is evident from our results that a great deal of similarity exists across nations with different educational systems in the persisting importance for individuals’ educational attainment of parental class, status and education. But our findings also indicate that changes in the institutional features of educational systems have, in some instances although not in others, served to reinforce or to offset the social processes generating educational inequalities at the micro level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper provides an overview of qualifications in the German construction workforce and draws comparisons with the situation in the British construction industry. The German system of general education and vocational training is outlined. Data from a variety of sources are used to describe both the stocks and the flows of qualifications in the German construction workforce. Particular attention is paid to vocational qualifications, such as apprenticeships and the Meister qualification. Key findings are that the majority of German construction workers are qualified up to apprenticeship level, and that most of these employees have achieved a general schooling certificate from at least a lower secondary school prior to their vocational training. These factors are taken as signs of strength of the German construction workforce. Comparisons between the stocks of qualifications in the construction industry in the two countries suggest that intermediate qualifications of the apprenticeship type are far less prevalent in the British construction workforce. [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]

From international comparisons we know that the German education system is more socially selective than many European or Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and has only been slowly catching up during the last several years. At the same time, German higher education (HE) has consisted mostly of public institutions that were not allowed to charge tuition fees. Only since 2005 have some of the Länder allowed for a modest tuition fee of €500 maximum.While the German higher education system seems to be struggling with the task of including disadvantaged students and those with a non-German, non-academic background, the country faces an unprecedented demographic change that will make young people a rare good and education even more valuable than it is today.This paper explains the German discussion on tuition fees and the background to this discussion of lurking demographic change. It describes the challenges that demographic change poses for German higher education institutions (HEIs) and the strategies to deal with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in European and German social and labour market policies have particular consequences for the transition into adulthood of disadvantaged young people. This paper discusses these effects, especially as they impinge upon those who, as a result of such changes, leave social care earlier than planned. In so doing, they often come under the provisions of the employment promotion system, which provides insufficient support for them in light of their difficult life circumstances. By employing autobiographical narratives and reconstructions, the consequences of these sociopolitical changes are described in detail. Three typical ''trap situations'' are created under such conditions for young adults and their educational facilitators. These will be explained with reference to case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of the study was to test the psychometric properties of the Facilitative Student–Patient Relationship (FSPR) Scale in clinical practicum in hospital settings within six European countries. Design: A multi‐country, cross‐sectional survey design was applied. Methods: A convenience sample of graduating nursing students (N = 1,796) completed the FSPR Scale. Psychometric testing was carried out through explorative factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Results: Both validity and reliability of the scale were confirmed. The explorative factor analysis yielded a two‐factor construct explaining 47.7% of the total variance, identifying two sub‐scales: caring relationship and learning relationship. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two‐factor structure. The Cronbach alpha coefficients (0.8–0.9) indicated acceptable reliability of the scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studii de Ştiintă şi Cultură is the property of Studii de Stiinta si Cultura 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.)

The global spread of degree courses taught in English as a Medium of Instruction raises questions about the identity or "branding" of English-taught degree programs in non-Anglophone countries and whether they differ from their equivalents in the national languages. To answer this question, we have examined a sample of master's degree programs in the same domain, International Relations, across Italy, France and Germany from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. Our findings suggest that they present a similar branding strategy in line with the standardization process of EU higher education, also reflecting the global trend toward the "entrepreneurial university." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of digital technologies, electronic learning and communication tools are becoming a firm part of academia to promote knowledge of health sciences. This study sought to analyse the attitude of students regarding social media and digital learning for study purposes in sport and exercise science. A survey was carried out with a questionnaire (20 main items) in six sport science faculties, equally spread across Germany (G), Italy (I) and the United Kingdom (UK) between February and October 2017. The focus areas were students' usage of social media (Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube) for academic purposes and their use of e-learning. Data were analysed by quantitative and qualitative methods. 229 students participated in the study (G: 68, I: 121, UK: 40). While YouTube was mostly used for receiving knowledge, WhatsApp and Facebook showed additional preferences for peer contacts for learning purposes and knowledge discussions. Preferred online data sources were PubMed (77%), free access journals (67%), YouTube (66%) and Wikipedia (63%). Often used digital learning materials were own universities' PowerPoints (77%), scripts (59%) and scientific articles (53%). However, some preferences showed national differences. The evaluated participants showed an overall high use of social media and e-learning tools for their studies. Students would like more digital learning sources made available to them by their institutions. However, some differences in preferences of digital learning or communication tools may exist and this should be considered for international approaches to promote health knowledge among students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: To examine the association between registered nurses' (referred to as "nurses" for brevity) shifts of 12 hr or more and presence of continuing educational programmes; ability to discuss patient care with other nurses; assignments that foster continuity of care; and patient care information being lost during handovers. Background: The introduction of long shifts (i.e., shifts of 12 hr or more) remains controversial. While there are claims of efficiency, studies have shown long shifts to be associated with adverse effects on quality of care. Efficiency claims are predicated on the assumption that long shifts reduce overlaps between shifts; these overlaps are believed to be unproductive and dangerous. However, there are potentially valuable educational and communication activities that occur during these overlaps. Design: Cross‐sectional survey of 31,627 nurses within 487 hospitals in 12 European countries. Methods: The associations were measured through generalised linear mixed models. The study methods were compliant with the STROBE checklist. Results: When nurses worked shifts of 12 hr or more, they were less likely to report having continuing educational programmes; and time to discuss patient care with other nurses, compared to nurses working 8 hr or less. Nurses working shifts of 12 hr or more were less likely to report assignments that foster continuity of care, albeit the association was not significant. Similarly, working long shifts was associated with reports of patient care information being lost during handovers, although association was not significant. Conclusion: Working shifts of 12 hr or more is associated with reduced educational activities and fewer opportunities to discuss patient care, with potential negative consequences for safe and effective care. Relevance to clinical practice: Implementation of long shifts should be questioned, as reduced opportunity to discuss care or participate in educational activities may jeopardise the quality and safety of care for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can participation in job-related training contribute to the formation and maintenance of adults’ literacy skills? Although evidence suggests that participation in training is related to higher literacy skills, it remains unclear whether this association reflects a causal effect of training participation on literacy (training effects), results from the self-selection of more high-skilled individuals into training (selection effects), or is due to other sources of endogeneity (e.g., omitted variable bias). To unravel these possibilities, we used data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and its German follow-up, PIAAC-Longitudinal (PIAAC-L). As these unique data offer repeated measures of literacy skills, spaced three years apart, in a large and representative sample, they allowed us to disentangle training effects from selection effects and to account for potential endogeneity. Analyses revealed that, even after taking account of formal education and a host of job characteristics, individuals with higher literacy skills were more likely to participate in training. By contrast, no evidence for effects of training on literacy skills emerged in any of our models, which comprised lagged-dependent, fixed effects, and instrumental-variable models. These findings suggest that, rather than job-related training contributing to literacy development, individuals with higher literacy skills are more likely to participate in training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Large proportions of the populations in many European countries, including Germany, are migrants. Migrant children and adolescents tend to be less physically active than their non-migrant peers. However, current research is limited as it does not sufficiently consider different domains of physical activity. Using a representative dataset, the present study examines the patterns of sports participation and other domains of physical activity among migrant and non-migrant children and adolescents residing in Germany. Methods: Nationwide data from the Motorik-Modul (MoMo) Study is used. Five different domains of physical activity participation (sports clubs, outside of sports clubs, extra-curricular physical activity, physical activity, outdoor play and active commuting to school) were compared between children and adolescents with no, one-sided and two-sided migration background using logistic regression adjusted for demographic factors. Interaction terms were included in order to examine whether difference between the three groups differ by age and gender. Results: Information on n = 3,323 children and adolescents was available. As compared to non-migrants, children and adolescents with a two-sided migration background had a 40% (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.60, 95%-CI: 0.44–0.81), those with a one-sided migration background a 26% (aOR = 0.74, 95%-CI: 0.55-<1.00) lower chance of participating in sport club activities. In contrast, children and adolescents with a two-sided migration background were at 65% higher chance of participating in extra-curricular physical activity than non-migrants (OR = 1.65, 95%-CI: 1.15–2.36). Conclusion: The study shows that differences in levels of physical activity between migrant and non-migrant children and adolescents are less pronounced than previous research has suggested. In particular, it reveals that migrants are only disadvantaged regarding participation in sports clubs whereas they fare better with respect to extra-curricular physical activity. Interventions should therefore address barriers migrant children and adolescents encounter in the access to sport clubs while maintaining their high level of extra-curricular physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1924 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a volume investigating the teaching of school history in former belligerent states in Europe. The project sought to reconcile former enemies through mutual understanding and educational exchange and reflected a widely held belief that although the military conflict had finished, its ideas still resounded and served to perpetuate antagonism. The CEIP project, conceived in the internationalist spirit, was itself derailed by nationalist enmity, a consequence of the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, demonstrating the limits of cultural reconciliation in the early 1920s, and the resultant volume showed that belligerent views of recent history were still being taught to schoolchildren in France and Germany in the early 1920s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European societies increasingly implement diversity education as part of citizenship education (CE) curricula in order to provide young people with skills for dealing with diversity. This article analyses the policies and practices of diversity education at both the level of the European Union and the Council of Europe, and on the level of nation states, focusing on Germany and Russia as examples. In Europe, diversity education at schools simultaneously pursues two separate goals: on the one hand, teaching materials and education policies generate a grand narrative of celebrating European diversity. On the other, those same materials and policies stipulate that issues of inequality are to be dealt with separately. Thus, within European citizenship, diversity education and inequalities are often decoupled. Conceptualizing diversity in terms of heterogeneities and inequalities, this article reveals the ways in which diversity and inequalities are decoupled in citizenship and civic education and asks what happens when diversity is treated only as a matter of celebration. Examining blog posts from LGBTQ youth who are minority learners who experience exclusion, the article demonstrates the way in which the narrative of celebration of diversity disempowers them and how it contributes towards more uncertainty and more (self-)exclusion of those learners who do not find themselves within celebration of diversity narratives. The article argues for a reintroduction of the term 'heterogeneities' into CE and concludes by suggesting that diversity education as part of CE should begin with the question of whether there are any heterogeneities that do not require action or critical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an impact assessment of the current European higher education reform (Bologna process) in the context of German educational federalism. The goal is to come to grips with the puzzling observation that the reforms have had a large impact, even though the joint decision-making trap of German educational federalism has continuously impeded structural changes in previous decades. It suggests that the reason why the Bologna process has been so influential is its openness, ambiguity, and the complete absence of binding commitments. These characteristics of soft governance dovetail with the strategy of the central government and the federal states to protect their political autonomy against potential threats resulting from inter- and transnational political cooperation as well as the national reform of the constitutional principles of federalism at home. However, drawing on empirical examples of policy fragmentation, understood as the co-existence of partly incompatible reform islands, illustrates the costs of soft governance in the national implementation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents empirical results of explorative case studies that examine whether the New Public Management mechanisms have improved the academic performance of PhD education in selected German and European economics departments. Our data rely on document analyses of organisational variables and in-depth semi-structured interviews with professors in Germany and several European countries. We propose a typology of departments along their PhD production technology and suggest that organisational improvements should look at the processes through which new professional standards gain acceptance in departments and at the means by which long-term incentive problems of collective action in a department are solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing educational experience, culture and academic practice within Europe can often be an interesting and rewarding exercise. The observations in this article are based on the author's experience of six and half years' teaching at two universities in Bavaria, the completion of a doctorate at the Free University Berlin, two degrees at the University of Edinburgh (one in history, the other in social sciences), and, most recently, two years' teaching in the Politics and Contemporary History Subject Group at the University of Salford in the United Kingdom. The aim is to reflect on the experience of teaching in two different European academic systems, with a view to making some comparisons as well as observations on the changes which have taken place in the UK higher education system over the last two decades.European Political Science (2007) 6, 322–331. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210146 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses educational reconstruction in Europe after World War II. Concerning the occupied countries, the first thing is to ascertain to what degree the Nazi invasion has influenced the social environment in which a child is to be educated, and especially, the two most important groups, the family and the school. In Europe, particularly in the southeast great shillings of population were brought about by the Nazi policy. First the masses of war prisoners, and second, the slave workers recruited from all over Europe, were brought to Germany. Adult education is certainly undervalued in all plans for educational reconstruction. Until now, the adult education in all of Europe played a significant role, but it was never recognized as equally important, for example, to the secondary schools. However, for the workers its importance was equally as great. Adult education should come into its rightful place after the war with adequate financial support. Until now, it has been supported chiefly by membership contributions and small grants, unlike the schools which were financed by the state or municipalities.