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This paper presents results of a comparative international study on some aspects of school counseling in the following 12 countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, Malta, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, UK, and USA. The authors explain the multifunctional character of school counseling, give an idea of establishing a research field that could be called 'comparative school counseling studies', show the original terms in individual countries, and compare six aspects of school counseling: 1) legislative framework; 2) position requirements; 3) role of school counselors; 4) functions of school counselors; 5) interaction; and 6) ratio. The paper concludes with a long list of qualities school counselors are expected to possess. This is a document study chiefly based on examining, systematizing and comparing national documents (laws, reports, instructions, advices, position requirements, ministerial orders, recommendations, strategies, and statistics) on school counseling.

This paper focuses on the exploration of the development of reflective ability as a core competence of prospective teachers. How can reflection and discourse competence be developed by teacher students during their teacher education studies? Currently a method that is experimentally applied in the field of teacher education at the University of Innsbruck is being designed as a module for teacher education to stimulate students' reflective competence. By using the method of the Pedagogical Reflective Interview (Christof, 2009) processes of teacher students reflecting on pedagogical crisis situations can be explored. The aim is to develop a new module for teacher education in order to continue the professionalization of the teacher education studies. A new model of teacher professionalism favors teachers as reflective practitioners (Schön, 1991; Moore, 2007) Reflection and discourse ability is therefore one of the core competences of the teaching profession. The reflection of one's own educational action serves to develop a professional teaching self. This refers to a professional teaching self with the important ability to reflect continuously at the moment of educational action and in retrospect. Teacher students learn to apply the method of the pedagogical reflective interview (Christof, 2009) and also gain experiences as interviewees as they are researchers and respondents at the same time. An example shows how to apply this method in the field of teacher education. [For the complete Volume 12 proceedings, see ED597979.]

Through the influences of our social environment, both boys and girls learn their sexual norms, specific rules and values from the early childhood. Hence, children grow up in the world of distinct sexual duality. In their efforts to act according to their sexual stereotypes, children adopt these widespread stereotyped conceptions in developing their self-image. This includes behaviour, emotions, and the role that each child connects with his/her own self - all in accordance with the accepted male and female image. In this comparative study, we tried to determine how fourteen-year-old schoolboys and schoolgirls in Slovene, Austrian and Croatian elementary schools evaluated the spheres of free time activities, domestic chores and schoolwork, and personal traits, characteristics and conduct. This study provides relevant information about the image of schoolboys and schoolgirls in the seventh grade, and shows the answers given by the girls are closely related to the sexual tendency of self-image and the image of the opposite sex. [For complete volume, see ED567040.]

In the academic environment the reputation is linked to research performance. However, the questions "what reputation actually is, how it is formed and which are the best ways to measure it?" still remain and they raise tension and confusion between academics. The evaluation methods tend to over emphasise research and fail to address the quality of teaching, mostly because measuring teaching quality is complex and difficult. Teaching matters in higher education institutions (HEIs) and the quality management system must be committed to capturing all the dimensions that affect quality teaching. [For complete volume, see ED567040.]