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The attention deserved to the recognition of qualifications (degrees) and competencies acquired elsewhere, as a means for equity and inclusion in education has progressively influenced educational research and also educational policy and decision-making. Different European countries, agreeing with the importance of valorising informal learning, have expressed the need to make learning 'beyond the classroom' visible and to assess it in a more responsive and effective way. Despite the common educational policy framework, in the European area, students with a migratory background (i.e., migrants and/or refugees) continue to struggle in accessing university paths. Given the persistent difficulties in ensuring migrants and refugees equal access to education and training opportunities, this article reports a systematic review study focused on recognition practices realized, over the last 5 years, in the European higher education context. Against the backdrop of the learning recognition debate, the results of this literature review study show a scattered landscape of local practices, sometimes, misaligned with the educational policies defined at the European level. The present study represents a useful step in reflecting on what actions are expected to be designed and implemented by higher education institutions in order to ensure a culturally responsive and equitable education for all.

This article focuses on the role of student feedback in the process of higher education quality assurance. The most recent reforms of the educational systems encourage teachers to enlarge their educational paradigm by experimenting with assessment practices that would go behind accountability and be more responsive to students' learning needs. In Italy, despite the widespread acknowledgment of the role played by students' feedback in providing information about the outputs of their education, the quality assurance process has remained, thus far, largely unchanged. Student compliance with rather traditional academic teaching practices and a diffused sense of uselessness of the results coming from end-course surveys represent increasing malpractices in the Italian quality assurance system. In view of the above, the article reports an explorative study aimed to develop a mid-term survey for student feedback. Implications for future research are discussed.

This paper suggests some considerations regarding the relationship between evaluation and making decision processes, through the description of an evaluation experience of some formative projects orientated towards unemployed young people living in Apulia Region. After the definition of evaluation question, made together with Educational Local Authority, we have preferred a qualitative research approach. Sharing a participative approach, we have chosen a multistakeholder research design as instrument to catch the representations of actors involved regarding the evolution of projects, the weak and strong aspects, through to focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews respectively administered to actuators and beneficiaries of these projects. Interviews have been analyzed first trough content analysis of relevance and in a second moment trough associations analysis between words, by the use of T-Lab software. Highlighting stakeholders' suggestions and recommendations and giving back them to the decision maker confirms the utility of evaluation as instrument to supporting making decision processes, with the aim of improving policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]