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We analyze the role of institutional founding conditions and institutional legacy for universities' self-representation in terms of diversity. Based on 374 universities located in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, we can differentiate between a more idealistic understanding (logic of inclusion and equality) and a more market-oriented understanding (market logic) of diversity. Our findings show that the founding phase has no significant effect on the likelihood of a university focusing on a market-oriented understanding of diversity--however, we observe an imprinting effect with respect to the adoption of a diversity statement in general and an equity-oriented statement. Moreover, our findings show that there is a socialistic heritage for universities in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that is at work and still influences universities' understandings of diversity today.

What do pupils learn from bilingual interventions of civic education? This paper addresses this question by analyzing survey responses of 301 pupils who participated in a bilingual role-play about a televised debate on the 2022 French presidential election in French foreign language classes. The study shows, first, that the intervention significantly strengthened the specific interest in the election campaign. Second, both internal efficacy and subjective knowledge increased, as did, third, pupils' actual knowledge about the election. Fourth, it appears that the pupils were able to sharpen their understanding of French political culture. However, it should also be noted that all other constructs that can be attributed to intercultural learning did not experience any changes as a result of participation in the intervention. This is also true for participants' general interest in politics, basal and advanced participation intentions, and external efficacy. I identify subjective knowledge about the French presidential election, internal efficacy, advanced participation intentions, and pupils' cultural self-reflexivity as key drivers for strengthening intercultural understanding about the French political culture. Our paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the study and its implications for empirical research and practice in bilingual civic education.

Purpose: This paper aims to ask how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has orchestrated a sustainable development (SD) agenda in its international policy since 2020. Design/methodology/approach: By drawing on theoretical ideas around policy orchestration as a key UN governing strategy and applying them to the analysis of the progression of the SD agenda in the EHEA, the paper conducts a thematic analysis of six recent key EHEA international policy documents and 19 interviews with key Bologna stakeholders in France, Germany and Italy. Findings: The resultant analysis uncovers three overarching key themes that show the EHEA has the capacity to mitigate pitfalls in the UN's SD agenda; some weaknesses of the UN's orchestration of SD are translated into weaknesses in the EHEA's formulation of its SD agenda; and the further development of an SD agenda as an essential direction of EHEA's work. The paper then goes on to discuss how EHEA policies only mention SD discourse, omit concrete plans for its implementation and keep the very meaning of SD ambiguous throughout international policy documents. Originality/value: The authors offer three original recommendations that the EHEA should adopt in an attempt to mitigate the issues raised in the run-up to its 2030 deadline for implementing its policies--the EHEA should develop an explicit definition of SD; recognise the Euro-centredness of EHEA policies and open them up to other voices; and cite academic research when developing policy documents.

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, European governments have increasingly implemented performance-based funding systems for higher education. While a focus on the transnational pressures that contributed to the widespread adoption of performance-based funding in Europe accounts for the impetus for performance-based funding policies, it fails to address how and why the resultant performance-based funding policies are as distinct and different as they are. In this paper, I argue that an institutional logics perspective offers a theoretical account of the performance-based funding policy formation process. I use the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and France as case studies. I contend that in these three cases, different local logics drove the performance-based funding policy formation process.

This study explores the relation between risk of job automation and participation in adult education and training (AET) and examines variation in that relation across welfare regimes distinguishing between situational and institutional barriers. Using microdata of PIAAC, we analyze participation in formal or nonformal AET for job-related reasons in relation to the risk of automation of the respondents' occupation after controlling for main sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression models are run on respondents from 14 European countries representing different welfare regimes: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (Scandinavian countries); Italy, Greece, and Spain (Southern European); Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland (Central and Eastern Europe), Belgium, France, and Germany (Continental); and United Kingdom and Ireland (Anglo-Saxon countries). Our findings confirm that workers in occupations at high risk of automation were found to be consistently less likely to participate in job-related AET, quite irrespective of welfare regime. [The paper was presented at XIII Conferenza Espanet Italia--Il welfare state di fronte alle sfide globali (Venezia, 17 September 2020).]

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

Lockdowns imposed by many countries on their populations at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis forced teachers to adapt quickly and without adequate preparation to distance teaching. In this paper, we focus on one of the most formidable challenges that teachers faced during the lockdowns and even in the post-lockdown emergency period, namely, developing assessment that maintains the pedagogical continuity that educational institutions typically require. Based on the results of a previous study, focused on the analysis of answers to an open-ended questionnaire administered to a population of 700 teachers from France, Germany, Israel and Italy, a semi-structured interview series was designed and implemented by the authors of this paper with a small group of teachers. The transcripts of these interviews were analysed according to the interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, with the aim of investigating teachers' own perspectives on the following: (a) the difficulties with which they had to contend, with respect to the question of assessment; (b) the techniques adopted to deal with these difficulties; and (c) the ways in which the lockdown experience could affect the future evolution of teachers' assessment practices. This analysis supported us in formulating hypotheses concerning the possible long-term effects of lockdown on modes of assessment in mathematics.

Self-regulation in the governance of higher education systems is often assumed to improve institutional performance, accountability, and responsiveness. Although studies of higher education governance have addressed the extent of self-regulation across national systems, there has been less investigation of the links between self-regulation and quality and equity. Nevertheless, the universal adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commits all countries to equal access to affordable and quality education, including higher education, by 2030. To assess the relationship between self-regulation, quality, and equity, this paper presents a novel higher education self-regulation index trialed using the cases of England, Finland, France, and Germany. The index compares self-regulation, based on the respective national legal and policy frameworks, in core higher education functions: control and evaluation, funding, strategy and structure, personnel, and teaching and research. Each area is analyzed using six conditions reflecting the level of autonomy of an institution which could be met in full, in part or not met and assigned to a proxy number ranging from 0, 0.5 and 1 respectively. Each of these areas is summarized with a level that is either High, Medium, or Low and these are the levels then shown in the composite index. The impact of varying levels of self-regulation in a higher education system on quality and equity is then analyzed. Whereas higher levels of self-regulation do appear to have some impact on quality, the study found that a mix of policy steering, and institutional initiatives are needed to improve equity. Further refinement and testing of the self-regulation index would improve its utility as a tool to support governments and institutions to enhance higher education governance in support of the SDGs.

In this work, a bibliometric analysis of the investigations of the last 54 years focused on the teaching of topology and its applications in the learning of other areas of knowledge was carried out. The articles that appear in the SCOPUS database were taken into account under the search criteria of the words topology and teaching, connected with the Boolean expression AND in the search field ABS. As a result, 329 articles were obtained which, based on the PRISMA methodology, were reduced to 74 papers. In them publication trends, impact of publications, citation frequencies, among others, were compared. In addition, its use was identified for learning topology at different levels of training, areas of knowledge where this discipline is most applied and strategies used to teach these applications.

The genesis and spread of COVID-19 around the world since 2020 have caused severe impacts in every aspect of people's lives, from work life to recreation, social activities to physical health. Higher education has not been excluded. Universities have altered curriculum, changed delivery methods, provided more counseling, purchased new technology, and altered attendance policy for classroom, athletic, social and artistic events (Hamlin, 2021). To assess the impacts of these changes on college students, the authors created a questionnaire to ask students about their perceptions of these COVID-related impacts on their own personal lives. The survey had 56 questions about how the virus affected their academic, social, financial, physical and emotional lives. Over 800 students responded with objective input and subjective comments. Due to the volume of data, the authors have split the study into two parts. The survey results for the first part, academic and social aspects of the survey, were published in "Understanding the Impact of Covid-19 on College Student Academic and Social Lives," Research in Higher Education Journal Volume 41 (see http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/213347.pdf). It will sometimes be referred to herein to provide clarity to the reader. The actual survey itself can also be found at that site. This paper focuses on the impact of the coronavirus on student financial and physical well-being, which have become major stressors to this age group and have contributed to higher levels of anxiety and depression. It also examines how the virus has affected their social and emotional well-being. Lastly, recommendations are made to help educators understand the severity of the problem, and to take action to provide assistance for those students who have been adversely affected.

This paper examines fundamental assumptions about the notion of transforming subject matter, which is widely regarded as a core practice of teacher work, a crucial feature of teacher knowledge and a measure of teacher expertise. First, the notion of transforming subject matter and the ways it has been taken up in Anglo-American discourses of teacher knowledge are discussed in relative detail. Second, the paper examines and questions fundamental, yet mostly unexplored, assumptions, including the individual teacher as the locus of transformation, the possessor of the content knowledge at stake and the gatekeeper who enables students to access subject matter content. Finally, these widespread assumptions are problematised against the background of French and German traditions of didactics. These traditions do not regard the capacity to transform subject matter as a characteristic of an individual teacher, but rather of social and cultural systems that are institutionally contextualised and oriented towards normative conceptions of education.

Purpose: Free and open-source software (FOSS) has been used worldwide because of the advantages of user control, cost-saving, flexibility, openness, freedom, more security and better stability. The purpose of this study is to explore the status quo of educational application of FOSS and the trends from international perspectives and its implications for higher education in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach: The method of cluster analysis was used in this study. The Web of Science database was used as the data source and all relevant literature for the year 2010-2020 on the theme of "FOSS" was collected for analysis. The information visualization software CiteSpace was used for citation visualization analysis, revealing the research results of FOSS worldwide, including hot spots and development trends. Findings: This paper found that FOSS has become an important research area and is playing an important role in the reform and development of education. Meanwhile, the development and application of FOSS have regional imbalances and strong differentiation, including the educational sector. The paper also found that although FOSS has entered the stage of interdisciplinary development, the research and development of FOSS in the field of education is insufficient, which poses a huge challenge to decision-makers, teachers and students. Originality/value: Implications for higher education in Hong Kong including: attach importance to and vigorously promote FOSS research and practice to benefit more teachers and students; teachers and students need to be trained for acquiring the awareness and skills of FOSS applications and formulate different strategies; the government should provide greater support to formulate and implement a short and middle-term development plan to facilitate the application of FOSS; and Hong Kong higher education institutions may strengthen exchanges and cooperation with counterparts around the world to jointly promote the development of FOSS. It is hoped that the findings will provide a reference for the study and application of FOSS in higher education in Hong Kong.

Purpose: Virtual collaboration provides students with an opportunity to develop cultural intelligence while fitting into the team where the members are from diverse cultures. The purpose of this study is to explore whether global virtual team (GVT) projects raise students' understanding of cultural differences. In addition, it is interesting to know how internationally disruptive events such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic influence GVT projects. Design/methodology/approach: The research involved two parts--In the first part, a two-wave longitudinal study was conducted to investigate how intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence coevolve within a group of international students enrolled in a virtual business professional project. In the second part, using word clouds and topic modelling on the participants' perceptions, the study investigated whether the sudden disruption caused by the pandemic show similar results in performance, focussing primarily on the resilience of virtual teams. Further, the study explored participants' perceptions towards online learning in higher education institutions as well as the attitude of corporate organizations towards remote working in the post-pandemic years. Findings: The results confirmed that GVT projects, in fact, do raise students' understanding of cultural differences and the need to adjust their behaviour accordingly in order to engage with their culturally different counterparts effectively. Participants reported an increase in their cognitive, behavioural and affective attributes. Research limitations/implications: Among the limitations of this study is the relatively small number of student participants. Furthermore, the number of respondents from India dominated the sample. Since the Indian students were disproportionately affected by the shutdown, causing them to return often to rural areas with poor Internet connectivity, responses concerning the disruption caused by the pandemic may be overriding negative. The same could be said of responses from US-American students, who often rely heavily on-campus employment or whose parents became unemployed during the pandemic, and thus were faced with disproportionate economic insecurity. Practical implications: This paper provides insights to the educators and international organizations on how such projects provide the skills essential for reducing costs, accessing knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) across borders, maintaining flexible work schedules and arrangements, and taking advantage of multiple time zones to increase productivity. Originality/value: While highlighting the significance of cultural intelligence, this paper investigated how the sudden disruption caused by a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts performance, focussing primarily on the resilience of virtual teams.

This is a conceptual paper that examines the origin and development of universities and their current role in global society. There has been an unprecedented and exponential growth of technology and artificial intelligence capabilities over the past ten years which is challenging current working practices and affecting all areas of society. The paper examines how this role may change to match the new demands placed on them by a digitally enabled society that has greater leisure time. The design of the paper is first to detail some of the changes in work practices that are taking place and how these will impact on society. It then offers several ways in which universities could modify their role to respond to these emerging challenges. This could include new courses, new organisational structures and new pedagogical practices. The paper provides a platform for discussion and debate around the strategic vision and direction of travel for higher education.

Academic libraries, apart from their main function, which is to provide information services to academic communities, may also perform a number of social roles in the broad meaning of the term. Accordingly, they now tend to serve as the third place offering inclusion and animation activities to academic as well as local communities (including potential students) and to groups in risk of social exclusion (immigrants, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, etc.) or in need of various kinds of care and support. However, for libraries to be able to fulfil those tasks, they need properly trained staff who not only have the required competencies but also the right social attitudes. The paper presents an analysis of the social attitudes of academic librarians from twenty countries across the world as compared to the personnel of other types of libraries. The level of individual social capital, activity in social networks, aspirations in life and social and civic engagement were investigated. It was noted that the respondents tend to undervalue the importance of the work done by libraries for local communities. At the same time, the research showed that academic librarians have a somewhat lower level of individual social capital and trust than public librarians and less extensive social networks. Nonetheless, they are open to relationships with others, which enables them to engage in various social projects.

In this paper, we provide an overall perspective on the teaching and learning of discrete mathematics. Our aim is to highlight what research has been conducted in this area and to connect it to existing research ideas for future work. We begin by characterizing discrete mathematics and its role in the school curriculum, highlighting themes, topics, and mathematical practices that distinguish discrete mathematics. We then present potential benefits of focusing on discrete mathematics topics for mathematics education; in particular, we discuss the accessibility of topics in discrete mathematics, the connection to mathematical processes and affect, and the relevance of discrete mathematics in our current society. We also emphasize discrete mathematics from an international perspective, highlighting studies from the US, Italy, France, Chile, and Germany, which are across all school levels--primary, middle, and secondary school, and with some implications for post-secondary education. We particularly discuss discrete topics including number theory, combinatorics, iteration and recursion, graph theory, and discrete games and puzzles; we describe and situate these topics within literature. We also suggest the additional topics of game theory and the mathematics of fairness that we hope to see addressed in future studies.

Although it is well-established that female participation in study abroad programmes is higher than the male participation, less is known about how this gap has changed over time. Using student-level data from the nationally representative surveys of three European countries (France, Germany and Italy), this paper begins by examining changes in the relationship between gender and participation in study abroad programmes between the beginning of the 2000s and the mid-2010s. It then explores to what extent these changes can be explained by different characteristics of men and women. The results suggest that in none of the countries there is evidence of a systematic decline over time in women's over-representation in study abroad programmes. However, the size of the gap is consistently significantly reduced (or even the sign of the gap reversed) once gender differences in observable traits are accounted for. Field of study and academic performance are important factors contributing to the gender disparity in study abroad.

International comparative ethnographic studies of ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) are difficult to conduct but worth the effort. Comparative studies featuring thick description and polysemic interpretations can challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, expand the menu of the possible, expose the provincialism of national approaches, and illuminate the global circulation of ECEC practices and ideas. Based on reflections on four major comparative international studies I have led, in this paper I describe effective strategies for conducting comparative ethnographic research in ECEC settings, explicate the rationale for doing so, and provide examples of how this approach can impact research, practice, and policy. Issues I address include the rationale for selecting countries for comparison, the formation of a research team, and distributing interpretive voice and power.

Today, the term 'global' has become a pervasive description of universities that aim to alleviate their importance and reach. The global looks inherently big. By relating to a spherical shape it attributes size in two distinct ways: it signifies the comprehensive and extensive reach of a theme or issue as well as the spherical centrality of an organisation. The paper argues that such perceptions of the global as big do not simply derive from the size of a terrestrial body. Rather, it excavates the historic roots of global size-building and the complicity of science and the university therein. It draws on two historic case studies: the formation of globality in the 'cordial agreement' between the "Hohenstaufen" emperors and medieval scholars and the conquering globality in the 'symbiotic relationship' between the Spanish Empire and cosmography. While distinct as historical cases they structure globality in a way that nurtures contemporary perceptions of the global. The historic genesis shows that the university is not merely sized through the global but that the university establishes a common knowledge space that makes the global emblematically big. The global sizing of the university today is just as much the story of the academisation of the globe.

In this paper we provide a description of the project DrIVE-MATH, highlighting the main goals, intellectual outputs, outcomes, the involved partners, and activities and reports from the three-years' project. At the end we discuss the impact of the new proposed Education models at various levels, from students, to HEIs, to stakeholders.

Football stadiums have traditionally been named after local sites (e.g. "Goodison Park," Everton FC) or regions ("Ruhrstadion," VfL Bochum). As big business takes increasing precedence in decision making in football at large (e.g. associations and leagues, regarding fixtures, media coverage, kick-off times, player transfers, etc.) and within individual football clubs (e.g. regarding kits and sponsorship), such toponyms are more and more being replaced by company or product names (e.g. "bet365 Stadium," Stoke City). In this paper, we will consider corporate renamings from the German Bundesliga, the English Premier League and the French Ligue 1 and particularly fan reactions to controversial, badly received corporate renamings. As revealed by earlier studies, in our data here we also find the discourse and practices of the fans celebrating local identification with their city or region, often with the stadiums constituting the homestead of a tradition. Where corporate stadium renamings are badly received, this discourse clashes with the discourse of big business and thus a number of tensions are revealed. More specifically, in fans' reactions to controversial corporate stadium renamings, we find a number of recurrent themes -- for example, concerning consequences to fans' identity to the club; in managing (anticipated) humorous retorts from rivals consequent from the stadium renaming; in resisting, but also feeling resigned to, financial pressures in selling the stadium name; etc. -- some of them across our three national contexts and others specific to one national context.

The construction industry is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In view of resource scarcity, climate change, and rapid global population growth, the industry faces the urgent challenge of a sustainable transition. The renaissance of timber as a renewable, carbon-neutral construction material could pave the way for more sustainable modes of building. Taking France and Germany as examples, and based on a sociological discourse analysis, this paper reveals four different and conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of the future built environment. The four imaginaries show specific characteristics depending on the respective national, political, and cultural contexts. Moreover, they include partially incompatible objectives and compete for discursive hegemony, and thus implementation. Scrutinizing the four competing visions and their approach to conflicts and scarcities raises profound questions about their political, technological, ecological, and social implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to better understand the paradigm shift towards ‘networked governance’ in digitalisation discourse. Little is known about the link between digitalisation reforms and the main reform paradigms in public management studies. By analysing French and German national digitalisation strategies over time, we find that neo-Weberian, new public management, and networked governance discourses co-exist within the digital era, although networked governance rhetoric is increasingly influential. However, a closer examination reveals that this shift in discourse is unrelated to the increased integration of nonstate actors in actual decision-making and service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Great War, many European countries embarked upon a voluntarist policy to promote physical education and, more broadly, the bodily strengthening of their population. Nevertheless, this movement was marked as much by singular national variations as by the observation of foreign programmes and practices. The aim of this paper is to study the German perception of French initiatives in the light of the fragile Franco-German relations. It analyses a brochure published in 1921 by the Deutscher Reichsausschuss für Leibesübungen (DRA), the most important sports federation under the Weimar Republic. This exceptional 11-page document has an emblematic title: Frankreich und wir! (France and us!) It presents the 1920 French government's bill in favour of bodily strengthening and compares each point with claims made by the German leaders. In this way, it highlights the tireless voluntarism of German sports leaders and the international competition in the development of sports and physical education movements. Finally, this brochure is an exemplary testimony to the development of physical activities according to national models and the growing influence of foreign exemplars in the diffusion of physical education models in connection with national reconstructions. The sources used include historical publications and archives from Germany and France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses several preliminary stylistic elements concerning the interpretation of the Baroque repertory for bassoon. The score of a Baroque music piece is a frame that the musicians-interpreters decorate with improvisations and ornaments. The rules to apply differ from one stage of the Baroque to another, from a geographic area to another, from a composer (interpreter) to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the onset of the Greek sovereign debt crisis in early 2010, the French government asked French banks to retain plummeting Greek bonds on their balance sheets. And the French banks did exactly that. At around the same time, the German government also asked German banks to retain plummeting Greek bonds on their balance sheets. Yet German banks sold the bonds abundantly. Both governments depended on profit-oriented banks to fulfil a mission of public interest, but neither had formal levers to ensure that banks would do as they were told. Why did the French banks comply with their government's request while their German counterparts did not? Taking advantage of an opportunistic design and building on data gathered in newspapers and through 20 in-depth interviews, this paper argues that banks' decisions are the result of long-term institutionalized state-bank modes of coordination in France and Germany. In France, bankers understood the government's request as being embedded within a long-term relationship of reciprocal favours, which led them to comply. In Germany, state officials resorted to straightforward pressures such as naming and shaming banks. But as soon as the pressure died down, the banks sold out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy transition is a major challenge for both Germany and France. This Weekly Report provides an overview of the short- and long-term goals as well as current developments and trends in France's energy and climate policy. It reveals that France is largely on track with its greenhouse gases targets and is also making good progress on installing heat pumps. However, its expansion of renewable energy capacities is falling short. Differences in the energy policies of France and Germany are most apparent in the power sector: While France is prioritizing nuclear power, Germany is relying heavily on renewable energy. For France to achieve its climate goals, it will have to expand renewable energy faster. One challenge faced by both countries is their planned electrification of mobility and space heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose is to investigate the peculiarities of the formation and implementation of the European regional security concepts of France, Germany, and Great Britain in their comparison in the historical context of the foreign policy of these states with an emphasis on the period 2014--2022. The research methodology was formed by the principles of historicism, systematicity and impartiality, general scientific methods of logic, comparative analysis, and special historical methods (historiographical analysis, historical-systemic, chronology, historical-genetic, retrospective analysis, comparative-historical). The scientific novelty lies in the study of the implementation history of the theoretical approaches of France, Germany, and Great Britain to the European regional security policy in the context of the history of their foreign policy in a comparative dimension. The transformation of three national paradigms of European security in the context of changes in the system of modern international relations in the conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which actually began in 2014, was traced. Particular attention is paid to the influence of these paradigms on Ukraine's international position and changes in the system of international relations and European security. Conclusions. Th roughout the entire history of European integration, each of the three leading states of Western Europe tried to realize leadership ambitions in regional politics in their own special way, compensating for the loss of global status. France, Germany, and Great Britain represent diff erent paradigms of foreign policy -- Eurocentric, Euro-Atlantic (intermediate), and Atlantic, respectively. Th roughout the development of the EU's security policy, France and Germany played the role of apologists and initiators of reforms, while Great Britain played the role of an antagonist of integration. The process of forming the EU's foreign and security policy was reduced to the search for a compromise, which led to its incompleteness. Diff erences in views on the European integration of political elites did not allow the three states to form an eff ective regional security core without the participation of the United States. Even in the studied period of 2014--2022, marked by a sharp aggravation of the crisis of the European security system, diff erences between Great Britain, France and Germany remained insurmountable regarding the current problems of international relations. Current events related to Ukraine and the mechanisms of their resolution were no exception. Although the large-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine in 2022 contributed to the consolidation of the views and approaches of the politicians of the vast majority of Western states regarding the need to review the system of regional policy and oppose Russian aggression, the Russo-Ukrai nian war illustrates the problems of preserving the conflictual nature of the interaction of existing European security paradigms and leaves open the question of the possibility of forming a new, eff ective comprehensive system of regional security in the short term without a final answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest dieback due to climate change has severe consequences for the sensitive environments of mountain forests which provide important ecosystem services for local communities, lowlands inhabitants, and visitors. However, this phenomenon is sometimes hard to identify for the lay public as it can manifest as a slow-onset phenomenon with rather inconspicuous signals or as large-scale disturbances like in the case of bark beetle outbreaks. The aim of this contribution is to analyze whether lay people perceive climate change-induced forest dieback in the landscape or not and what kind of damage they identify. To address this issue, we carried out a cross-comparison case-study in two mountain areas in France and Germany. To analyze the data, we introduce an innovative variable clustering approach to identify different groups of respondents based on their perception of climate change and forest dieback. Five groups of respondents—illustrating different degrees of worry—were identified in each case study: the non-alarmist, the carefree, the least informed, the worried, and the alarmist. These results show that both phenomena are not perceived as distant but as happening here and now; and that their perceptions are influenced by local contexts and personal experiences. We finally show that public perception of forest dieback has influenced the agenda setting on the enactment of new forest policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how subsidiaries in a high-trust (Germany) and low-trust (France) country adopt the performance appraisal (PA) system from their US-headquarter. In-depth interviews with 30 informants illustrate trickle-down effects of trust from the national level to the organizational and individual levels shaping processes, outputs, and interactions of PA. While German informants expressed trust in the overall PA practice of the US-headquarter, French informants reacted with mistrust to PA manifested in different processes, rater and ratee attitudes, outcomes of PA, as well as the role of HR. We add to the comparative HRM literature by untangling, within an MNE context, the interaction of societal, organizational, and individual trust with the overall PA to provide a more holistic explanation for cross-national variations in PA beyond the mere assignment to separate cultural categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the co-movements of gasoline and diesel prices in three European countries (i.e. Germany, France, and Italy) with different fuel tax systems in place. The methodology follows a time–frequency approach, allowing us to analyse the co-movements at different frequencies and moments in time. As a novelty, we study the impact of fuel tax systems and international oil price dynamics on gasoline and diesel price co-movement. Using weekly data spanning the period from January 2005 to June 2021, the wavelet coherence analysis shows co-movements between gasoline and diesel at all frequencies, as well as during specific periods, but stronger in the long run. This evidence is recorded across all three countries, regardless of their tax systems. However, in decoupling the effect of international oil prices, the partial wavelet coherence analysis shows co-movements emerging also in the short run, with them being stronger around the global financial crisis (2008–2009). Although gasoline taxes are generally higher than diesel taxes, the analysis highlights that fuel tax systems do not influence the co-movements of fuel prices. Thus, shedding new light on the co-movement between commodity prices is fundamental, particularly in light of the current international geopolitical scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defence integration is frequently in demand but hardly supplied. Sovereignty concerns and a desire for national control constrain integration of the core state power of arms production. The European Aeronautic, Defence and Space (EADS) company (today's Airbus Group) stands out as an exception to this rule. How was this instance of defence integration supplied? We suggest a two-step network mechanism. First, the structure of national networks shapes the capacity for collective action. Centralised networks are better in forming a joint national position than fragmented networks. Second, networks also operate at the transnational level, shift domestic power balances, and enable agreements. Our process-tracing analysis demonstrates how Germany's centralised network smoothly adopted a stance on a European firm under private control, whereas domestic negotiations stalled in France. However, a transnational alliance ultimately posed credible threats of exclusion and could overcome this deadlock. Therefore, EADS was both European and predominantly private. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the creation of the EU corona recovery fund? Why did the Union agree on a large‐scale financial response to the corona pandemic, despite member states' very different immediate reactions to the crisis and their opposing attitudes towards common debt? This article argues for the decisiveness of France and Germany's role within the Union and their tight bilateral political cooperation. The 'embedded bilateralism' approach to European integration and EU politics explains how and why France and Germany, starting from different poles, came together and established joint positions, paving the way for an overall European compromise. Focusing on these two countries' particular leadership role advances the theoretical debate about the actors most crucial for driving European integration, especially in times of severe crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a French-German study including a large survey of adolescents in four cities, we analyze the interaction patterns during stops. Based on the respondents' reports of their last experience of a police stop/encounter, we look at the likelihood that they assessed the interaction as respectful or disrespectful, conflictual or even violent, and how either the police officers' or their own behaviour contributed to this outcome. The comparative design of the survey allows us to examine differences in the institutional patterns of use of force during stops of adolescents by the French and German police (where, when, against which groups). Using multilevel regression analyses, we compare the individual and spatial predictors of disrespectful or violent interactions, in particular with regard to ethnicity and urban segregation in the two countries. While discrimination in the selection of targets is found in France, it is not in Germany. In addition, interactions are much more frequently reported as disrespectful and violent by French compared to German adolescents. These results align with previous research showing that France has a more confrontational policing pattern of work, with more stops, more racial profiling and more tensions during stops. We contend that an institutional theory of policing (ITP) is needed to account for the repeatedly found differences in how much force is used and how it relates to the use of stops and their modalities across the two states. We propose that ITP is made of the 'pillars of institutional order' as a theoretical framework for explaining those differences in police practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France experiences catastrophic floods on a yearly basis, with significant societal impacts. In this study, we use multiple sources (insurance datasets, scientific articles, satellite data, and grey literature) to (1) analyze modern flood disasters in the PACA Region; (2) discuss the efficiency of French public policy instruments; (3) perform a SWOT analysis of French flood risk governance (FRG); and (4) suggest improvements to the FRG framework. Despite persistent government efforts, the impacts of flood events in the region have not lessened over time. Identical losses in the same locations are observed after repeated catastrophic events. Relative exposure to flooding has increased in France, apparently due to intense urbanization of flood-prone land. We suggest that the French FRG could benefit from the following improvements: (1) regular updates of risk prevention plans and tools; (2) the adoption of a build back better logic; (3) taking undeclared damages into account in flood risk models; (4) better communication between the actors at the different steps of each cycle (preparation, control, organization, etc.); (5) better communication between those responsible for risk prevention, emergency management, and disaster recovery; (6) an approach that extends the risk analysis outside the borders of the drainage basin; and (7) increased participation in FRG from local populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the French government delay its endorsement of the Hoover Moratorium in the summer of 1931? Key policymakers were fully aware that their stance would exacerbate the German financial crisis, which ultimately dragged the European economy into the abyss. Most historical accounts identify the plan for an Austro-German customs union, which became known publicly in March 1931, as a major cause for the French 'non'. We suggest a different chronology by showing that the French government was reluctant to help Germany as early as the fall of 1930 when, in the wake of the Nazi victory in the Reichstag elections, a currency crisis threatened to ruin the German monetary and financial system and bring down the government. We also argue that the reason for this French reluctance to extend financial help to Germany was the traumatic experience resulting from the evacuation of the Rhineland in June 1930. This chauvinistic outburst in Germany not only frightened the French public, but also made it clear to French politicians how the lack of military cooperation with the Anglo-Saxon powers had made France highly vulnerable on its Eastern front. After June 1930 a financial bargain with Germany became unrealistic, due to domestic opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: Improving the knowledge and attitudes of people facing an opioid overdose is one of the key prevention measures for reducing overdose occurrence and severity. In this respect, the Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS) and Opioid Overdose Attitudes Scale (OOAS) have been developed and validated in English to assess and improve knowledge and attitudes of opioid users and their families and care providers, in case of an overdose. Here, the OOKS and OOAS scales have been translated into French, Spanish, and German, and the different versions of the 2 scales have been assessed regarding their psychometric properties. Methods: The translation procedure of the scales was based on the international recommendations, including a back translation by a native English speaker. Subsequently, 80 (Spain: 29, France: 27, Germany: 24) former or current heroin users, aged from 20 to 61 years (M = 39.4 ± 9.23), completed the OOKS and OOAS versions of their native language, in test-retest, without specific between-assessment training. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's α, while test-retest reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The correlation between the OOKS and OOAS scores of a same language was assessed using Spearman's (ρ) coefficient. Results: Internal consistency of the OOKS was found to be good to very good, with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.62 to 0.87. Test-retest reliability was also very good, with ICCs ranging from 0.71 to 0.82. However, results were less reliable for the OOAS, as internal consistency was questionable to acceptable, with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.12 to 0.63, while test-retest ICCs were very good for the French (0.91) and Spanish (0.99) versions and barely acceptable for the German version (0.41). No significant correlation was found between the OOKS and OOAS scores, irrespective of the version concerned. Conclusion: While satisfactory results were found for the 3 versions of the OOKS, results on the OOAS were relatively inconsistent, suggesting a possible gap between knowledge and attitudes on overdose among opioid users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour courts in many European countries have a tripartite structure, with a professional judge sitting with employer and employee lay judges. This article focuses on employee judges, who face a potential conflict between their partisan role defending workers and their role as an impartial judge. Using cognitive dissonance as our theoretical framework and drawing on over a 100 interviews in three European countries, we found that many British and German interviewees said that they had not experienced any conflict of interests. Others, however, reported such conflict, especially initially, and demonstrated adaptation strategies that appeared consistent with cognitive dissonance theory. Moreover, there were national variations: conflict in France appeared more pervasive and enduring than in Britain or Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution deals with the evolution of public finance in two selected European countries. France and Germany were selected as countries to compare their evolution of public finance. The reason why the two countries were chosen is their general proximity to each other in many respects. From a professional point of view, i.e. from the point of view of the discipline of public finance, however, these are countries with different concepts of public finance disciplines. The contribution presents the historical background, context and consequences of this evolution. The relevant public finance evolution is divided into several historical stages in each country. The contribution focuses on each stage separately and points out solutions and effect of each stage. The main aim of the contribution is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis that the evolution of the public finance discipline was different in each of the selected countries. The scientific methods used in the article are analysis and synthesis, description and comparative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]