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This paper discusses the duality between global perspectives and local realities that have influenced the design of the school architecture by examining and comparing state school projects in two geographically distant countries: Chile and Portugal. The proposals and experiences of the "Society for the Construction of Educational Facilities" (1937-1987) in Chile and the "Board of Constructions for Technical and Secondary Education" (1934-1969) in Portugal are analysed. Established in the 1930s, these centralised bodies managed, organised, and controlled state school building projects in such a way as to achieve uniformity in design, creating architectural identities that embodied both the educational values and the representative character of the State. These bodies were influenced by similar global circumstances, and their activities were guided by the recommendations issued by intergovernmental organisations of the time. Such a situation brought their projects closer together in terms of their functional, aesthetic, technical-constructive characteristics. After examining and identifying the international influences which brought them closer in terms of the educational meanings and values associated with school architecture, the paper identifies the local circumstances that guided the design and construction processes of schools in both countries, bringing fresh geographical insights to school architecture discussion. At the same time, possible global readings of strategies, influences and results are explored, enabling us to understand school architecture as part of a nation's cultural values and as a material expression of the social model of modernity, which will continue to meet the challenges that schools face in twenty-first-century society.

This paper aims to evaluate and discuss the digital competence of academics at universities, to identify challenges and define recommendations for policy. This study was conducted through collaboration between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and Metared of the Universia Foundation, surveying 30,407 participants who present the perceptions of their own digital competence levels. These self-reflections took place in universities in seven countries, namely Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Portugal, and used the Check-In tool, which consists of 22 questions based on the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators--or 'DigCompEdu' framework. A descriptive statistical analysis was performed, followed by a qualitative evaluation. Almost 70% of the academics have an average intermediate level of competence when the data is aggregated, with results varying in each DigCompEdu area according to the specific question asked. There is no significant difference between young and senior academics, as well as between men and women. The results present a discussion of whether the age and gender of educators and their work environment have an impact on their digital competence level, and at the same time highlights the areas in which educators perceive themselves to be most and least competent. It shows how the amount of institutional support that is offered affects the academics' perceptions of their level of digital competence. On the basis of the results, recommendations are presented for higher-education institutions, with the aim of supporting the professional development of their academics.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

This paper explores parental involvement using principal and parent survey reports to examine whether parents' involvement in their children's schools predicts academic achievement. Survey data from principals and parents of seven countries from the PISA 2012 database and hierarchical linear modelling were used to analyse between- and within- school variance in students' math achievement. Factor analysis of both principal and parent responses revealed three dimensions of parental involvement with schools: parent-initiated involvement, teacher-initiated involvement and parent volunteerism. Principal reports of parent-initiated involvement positively predicted between-school differences in student achievement. Within schools, parent reports of teacher-initiated involvement negatively predicted student achievement. The paper shows the importance of understanding the source of information for survey measures. Information on parental involvement from the parent surveys of the PISA study is suitable for describing within-school variation in student achievement, whereas principal reports can be used to predict variation between schools.

Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women's participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher education in 27 OECD countries between 1971 and 2015. While increased participation by women was thought to be part of the solution to persistent gender inequalities we argue that this is not an inevitable outcome. Our argument is based on an analysis of changes in the gender composition of the student population, using available secondary data. We explore how changing gender differentials are linked to the concurrent massification of HE, changing distribution of enrolments by field of study, changes in sex segregation by field, features of national education systems and wider social structural differences related to gender. Our analysis examines the complex interaction between discipline-specific levels of sex segregation and overall levels of gender parity. We argue that that sex segregation needs to be considered alongside women's long-standing higher participation rates to understand why the latter has not triggered a transformation in the gendered division of labour.

Purpose: This paper aims to present an approach to achieve accessible and inclusive Virtual Education for all, but especially intended for students with disabilities. This work proposes main steps to take into consideration for stakeholders involved in the educational process related to an inclusive e-Learning. Design/methodology/approach: The paper pays particular regard to accessibility in Virtual Education. This work is based on the activities prepared from years 2012 to 2015 within the initiative called ESVI-AL. This initiative was carried out in conjunction with Latin American and European Universities; for this paper, experiences and best practices from the initiative were used to prepare the proposed approach. Findings: The aim of ESVI-AL initiative was to offer products that can help in the development of an accessible and inclusive e-Learning education. Among the main results were reports, case studies, practical guidelines, training courses and software to install virtual campuses with accessibility features. Social implications: Nowadays, few countries have laws promoting and enforcing accessibility for e-Education and e-Society. This work aims to sensitize educators from different countries and raise awareness on the importance of working together toward an inclusive society based on accessible e-Learning. Originality/value: Based on a literature review and ESVI-AL initiative results, a descriptive overview was prepared as a starting point for the four identified main actors of an educational project, namely, educators, technical staff, quality auditors and students, with special emphasis on students with disabilities.