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The 'Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies' (PIAAC), developed and managed by the OECD, is an important source of knowledge about adult skills as well as an intervention in the field of education policy. One level of the intervention is the presence of PIAAC results in public media and debate. This article presents a comparative analysis of the way major newspapers in Italy and Denmark presented and used PIAAC over the period 2013-2019. The press contributes to constructing knowledge and setting agendas for education by presenting information structured from criteria of news value and from ideological stances. The analysis, done as part of the ENLIVEN research project (Milana et al., 2020), traces how PIAAC results were covered in Italian and Danish newspapers and used in the construction of themes, angles and 'truths' on skills and adult learning.

Like other Nordic countries, Denmark is a mixed-economy welfare society, where capitalist production and market logics coexist with public policy having social cohesion and equality as important priorities. Educational and pedagogical research, which is a main knowledge base for policy and practice in schools and the education system, is also seen as a field of public responsibility, carried out mainly in universities and other public research institutes. In recent years, however, a number of private actors have engaged in funding research related to education and learning. The actors include private organizations doing research in connection with product development and privately established foundations initiating research and development projects. The interplay between public and private funding and management can promote quality research combining new general knowledge with societal relevance; but it can also lead to narrow criteria for topics and methods, unsettling important balances in the field of educational research. The article examines and discusses these developments, especially the role of private foundations, as well as the conditions for fruitful interaction between the public sector and private actors in educational research.

In recent decades, the concept of accountability has attracted more and more attention in public governance and management. The management of education is no exception. This article presents and discusses the evolution and current status of educational accountability in two different national contexts, China and Denmark. Two main sectors of education are covered, general school education and higher education. It is shown that both countries are marked by an increasing concern with educational accountability, that differences in history and culture between the two countries are reflected in the approaches to accountability, but that there are still considerable similarities in the types of accountability pursued. Under the influence of a transnational regime of policy development both countries seem to be moving towards output-based accountability, but more traditional inspection continues to have a role.

Denmark has a strong and versatile tradition of adult education. Over a long historical period, adult education for public enlightenment and leisure, for continuing study and for vocational and professional competence have been developed, been made part of state policy and been used by citizens. But in recent years the public and political presence of Danish adult education has changed. While education policy issues generally abound in public and political debates, adult education is given much less attention than earlier. In this article, we trace the causes of this and conclude that it reflects a turn towards focusing on vocational types of adult education and a relocation of adult education policy to networks linking the state and the social partners. Drawing on theories of policy streams, policy networks and the competition state, we provide a historical analysis of Danish adult education reforms during the past two decades and document how the vocational turn has manifested itself.

The Nordic countries are often perceived as a coherent group representing the Nordic model of welfare states, with a strong emphasis on the public provision of universal welfare and a strong concern with social equality. But today we see a change in the Nordic model as part of a global knowledge economy. The aim of this article is to examine education in the five Nordic countries utilising three dimensions of political change: deregulation, marketisation and privatisation. We also analyse the parallel changes in relation to segregation and differentiation in education. The analysis shows that the themes related to deregulation seem to show fairly similar patterns and structures in all contexts. The emerging differences were discovered mainly in the themes of marketisation and privatisation. Institutional segregation emerges in all Nordic countries to different extents along the lines of these three processes, and we observe a simultaneous social segregation and differentiation with an ambiguous connection to them. Based on these findings, the question of what is left of the "Nordic model" could be raised.

Adult education is governed at many levels--internationally, nationally and locally. The authors of this paper look at the challenges, structures and practices of adult education policy at the local level, more specifically in North Denmark (Northern Jutland), one of the five administrative regions of the Danish nation-state. In many ways, the current educational challenges in this remote region of Europe are similar to what can be observed worldwide and especially in countries which are generally considered welfare states. The authors see the growing social and educational divide between the region's peripheral areas and its largest city centre as a major challenge--for society as a whole and for adult education in particular. It is from this perspective that the authors describe the present structures of adult education in the region and the strategies employed by local authorities and educational institutions. This is followed by an evaluation of both structures and efforts in terms of their ability to cope with the challenges.

The idea of "sustainability" as a core value has slowly permeated policy and practice at governmental and institutional levels, in public and private policy. However, at times when social and economic crises have revealed the fragility of existing institutions and policies, it is important to consider how sustainability is -- and could be -- integrated into educational policies. In this theoretical contribution to a special issue on "Societal sustainability", the authors draw on available literature and knowledge. They begin their paper by summarising the conditions under which the concept of "sustainability" entered political discourse in the early 1970s and outline how it has influenced educational research. They then introduce the longstanding debate about the relative role of tradition (in terms of traditional cultural and social order) and change (in terms of efforts to provide learning opportunities for everyone) in adult education. Finally, they argue for a rethinking of the ontology of sustainability: this, they suggest, can shed new light on its relationships with adult education and learning and social justice. [This article draws and further elaborates on ideas expressed in Milana, M., Rasmussen, P., & Holford, J. (2014). "Public policy and the "sustainability' of adult education." "Encyclopaideia," 18(40), 3-13. DOI: 10.?6092/?issn.?1825-8670/?4658.]

This article uses a multi-level framework to investigate for 17 European nations the links between forms of work organisation and style of employee learning at the workplace on the one hand, and the characteristics of national educational and training systems on the other. The analysis shows that forms of work organisation characterised by relatively high levels of employee discretion and learning are more likely to be adopted in nations with broad-based systems of education and training that recognise the value of both academic and vocational training and provide ample opportunities for continuing adult education. Furthermore, it shows that employees with low levels of formal education have better access to jobs involving organisational learning in countries with more developed adult education systems. The results point to the need to balance policies designed to increase tertiary education rates with a commitment of resources at both the EU and national levels to develop broad and inclusive systems of lifelong learning.

The globalising learning economy driven by more intense competition and the wide use of information and communication technologies is characterised by rapid change in technologies and markets. At the level of labour markets and within enterprises, this is reflected in continuous change in skill requirements for employees. This is true for all parts of the world economy. In this paper, the focus is on Europe and developments in the first decade of the new millennium. The major challenge for Europe is to counter the inherent trend, reinforced by the crisis, towards unequal access to learning both in work and in education. Without a new new deal that gives privileged access to vocational education and training for those with little education, the economic performance of Europe will be undermined. Such a new new deal must be a fundamental element in the effort to lift Europe out of its current crisis.

This paper reports from a case study of a "talent class", a special development programme for talented pupils, established in a Danish municipality. It analyses student backgrounds and motives for joining this talent class programme, which is seen in relation to ordinary schooling in Denmark. Drawing on Bourdieu, the paper links social background resources and success in school via the concepts of habitus and capital; it views talent as the product of an investment of time and cultural capital, which is easily accumulated by children of resourceful families. Based on the analysis and its discussion of school talent, the paper proposes a typology of talented students, encompassing the distinguished, the quiet, the versatile and the industrious students. For each type of talent, a student narrative illustrates the link between social backgrounds and student approaches and understandings of their own talents.

This article describes and discusses the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal. The purpose is to show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of lifelong learning policies, even though these policies have significant common elements. As a basis for the discussion an inventory of policy elements is presented. Denmark and Portugal have been chosen as examples of smaller EU member states with different historical, social and cultural characteristics. Developments and policies in the two countries, including the links with EU education policy, are described. The discussion includes comparison drawing on the inventory of policy elements. A main conclusion is that the different historical trajectories of the two countries remain very important for present-day education and for the advancement of lifelong learning policy. Early development of public primary education and popular adult education has provided a strong foundation for lifelong learning policy in Denmark while in Portugal not only institutional provision but also popular demand for lifelong learning has had to be built up relatively recently. EU education policy has had much more impact on lifelong learning policy in Portugal than in Denmark, because Portugal has had to depend much more on economic support from the EU social fund.

The activities of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the yearly European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) are mainly organised in standing networks. Through the example of the Policy Studies and Politics of Education network, this article takes a closer look at network activity and the ways in which it contributes to the development of educational research. Since most network activity is focused around the yearly conferences, the first part of the article discusses the conference session space, its forms and its links to the broader community of educational researchers. The second part of the article traces the origin and development of the Policy Studies and Politics of Education network, emphasising how the network has provided a space for critical analysis and discussion of education policies and forms of governance being pursued by national and trans-national actors in and beyond Europe.

In most developing countries, as the young population increase in number and consequently, the demands for higher education rise, the governments cannot respond to all demands. Accordingly, they develop private higher education sectors as an alternative solution. In developed countries, some moving factors are influential in creation and the increase of private institutions but there are scarce evidences and comparative results about developing countries. The current comparative study seeks to investigate and analyze the main factors of privatization in higher education of three developing countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Kenya. After a short outline of theoretical foundations, this study provides more in-depth explanations of the principal and common effective factors.

Based on a study of Chinese university self-evaluation reports, this paper argues that higher education institutions are trying to manage the tensions between educational and organisational quality and the increasing and worldwide concerns about quality assurance. After 30 years of dramatic educational reform, China has established a nationwide evaluation system for assessing its higher education institutions. This comprehensive system includes a series of procedures for both internal self-evaluation and external peer reviewing, among which self-evaluation reports prepared by each institution remain an important basis for external review. In an attempt to examine the institutional understanding of quality in higher education, the authors conducted a content analysis study of 53 self-evaluation reports written by a wide range of higher education institutions in China. This study concludes that the self-evaluation reports have a greater tendency to demonstrate their organisational quality to the external world than reflecting on the internal teaching and learning quality. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Innovation is crucial to the competitiveness of the economies of Europe, and learning is crucial to innovation. The most important trend shift is not that knowledge is becoming more important but that it is becoming obsolete more rapidly than before, so that firms and employees constantly have to learn and acquire new competencies. This involves different types of knowledge of which the less formalised, learnt through experience, are often just as important as the formalised, learnt through exposure to teaching. The article opens with a presentation of different categories of knowledge, their consequences for approaches to education and the concept of the learning economy. Drawing on cross-national data it is then shown how European economies are characterised by dramatic differences in work organisation and learning at the workplace. The authors illustrate how such differences are linked not only to inequality of access to workplace learning but also to institutional and cultural differences between different national school systems in Europe. They argue that traditional schooling, isolated from society and organised according to traditional disciplines and educational methods, is insufficient in the context of the learning economy. Educational principles and cultures focusing on collaboration, interdisciplinarity and engagement with real-life problems are needed to prepare people for flexible and innovative participation in the economy and society. (Contains 4 tables, 2 figures, and 6 notes.)