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The paper discusses the role of the government of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia as a self-governing unit within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy within creation of a public, general and compulsory system of public education. Based on the analysis of various statistical data, an attempt is made through selected indicators to establish basic theses about whether the initiated educational and school reforms were successful or unsuccessful in practice. An additional task of the paper is to provide more detailed indicators of the structure of education and schooling in the area of north-western Croatia by means of analysing statistical data. Although the emphasis is on public education, the paper presents basic data for other school and educational levels of secondary education as well, so that we can get the most complete picture of education as one of the most important areas in shaping a modern state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the role of the government of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia as a self-governing unit within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy within creation of a public, general and compulsory system of public education. Based on the analysis of various statistical data, an attempt is made through selected indicators to establish basic theses about whether the initiated educational and school reforms were successful or unsuccessful in practice. An additional task of the paper is to provide more detailed indicators of the structure of education and schooling in the area of north-western Croatia by means of analysing statistical data. Although the emphasis is on public education, the paper presents basic data for other school and educational levels of secondary education as well, so that we can get the most complete picture of education as one of the most important areas in shaping a modern state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an application of the explanatory model aimed at formulation and institutional development in the field of the Croatian upper secondary vocational education. Data was collected via 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with informants directly involved in formulating relevant policy documents from the independence onwards. Informants were affiliated with competent central state entities, counties, employers’ associations, trade unions and relevant international organizations. The overall thesis that central state actors hold the greatest positional power over key institutional features such as financing, learning content and standards of delivery, is but partially validated. Indeed, central state actors represent the most powerful group. However, dynamics are predominantly structured around workings of two relatively stable and competitive coalitions: “the educational” vs. “the economic”, with the affiliation of central state actors commonly split between these two coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One's socio-economic status affects almost every aspect of his/hers life, including education. The main objective of this paper is to determine the relationship between familial socioeconomic status and students' educational achievement. The paper is based on the OECD - PISA international study carried out in Croatia in 2006 on the sample of 5 209 15-year-old students involved in secondary education. Students' results in scientific literacy, as well as variables and indices constructed by OECD, were used in analyses. The distributions of selected variables linked to socio-economic status definition, such as parental education, monthly household income, educational expenses and home educational resources are presented, as well as their regional differences. Multiple regression analysis proved the relationship between socioeconomic factors and students' science test accomplishment. Regression model which includes three indices (Highest International Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status, Index of home educational resources and Index of cultural possessions) and four variables (average monthly household income, average monthly educational expenses, household book number and highest educational status of parents) explain 23 per cent of the total variance of students `achievement in scientific literacy. The second regression model with the region of residence additionally contributes to variance explanation by 1 per cent, indicating significant relation between living in specific Croatian region and science achievement. The main conclusion of this paper is that socio-economic status (along with the region of residence) represents a significant predictor of the educational achievement, and that it is relevant in analyses and interpretations of PISA results, even though Croatia could use an adaptation of PISA indices in order to trustworthy represent the data. It is advisable to continuously analyse the test results and, besides some general indicators of educational success, such as educational system, teacher qualifications and school infrastructure, also to consider the effect of students' socioeconomic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a series of research studies of the process of social reconstruction conducted in the period from 2000 to 2004 in Vukovar. The framework consists of five basic studies: (1) survey of the opinions of citizens, Croats and Serbs, conducted in 2000 and repeated in 2002, about mutual relations before, during and after the war, and the possibilities of reconstruction of social relations and reconciliation, (2) research of attitudes towards education and interethnic relations from 2001, in which the participants were primary and secondary school students, their parents and teachers, (3) ethnographic research of the process of social reconstruction of the community in the period from 2000-2003, (4) qualitative research of socio-psychological consequences of the war and consequences for interethnic relations from 2000, and (5) the research on the breakdown of long-standing friendships between members of opposed ethnical groups. Approximately 2,300 participants directly participated in the research studies, and the ethnographic study enabled a wider and deeper analysis of the social reconstruction process that transcends the framework of the directly surveyed sample. The results indicate a slow recovery of the community multiply traumatised by the war events, which left deep, long and in many aspects probably permanent consequences on interethnic relation in once highly homogenous and functional multiethnic community. The paper proposes the model according to which the social recovery of the community simultaneously takes place on four levels: individual-psychological level, community level, social level and structural level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]