This unique handbook offers an analytical review of the education systems of all European countries, following common analytical guidelines, and highlighting the paradox that education simultaneously pursues a universal value as well as a national character. Coverage includes international student performance studies, and a comparison of education dynamics in Eastern "new Europe" with "older" western EU members. The book provides a differentiated analytical data base, and offers suggestions for further research.

Higher Education System Reform provides a comparative analysis of the position of 12 Higher Education Systems since the Bologna Declaration of 1999. It discusses and reflects on the original Bologna goals, the adopted paths of reform and the achieved results.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This open access book examines the modern role of the European School system within the European Union, at a time when the global economy demands a new vision for contemporary education. The European schools are currently in a state of crisis: their 60-year-old tradition of bilingual and multilingual education is being strained by rapid EU expansion and the removal of English speaking teachers as a result of Brexit. Their tried and tested model of mathematics and science education has rapidly been overtaken by new developments in pedagogy and assessment research, while recruitment and retention of students and teachers has become increasingly fraught as European member states review what they are, and what they are not, prepared to fund. The authors draw on original and empirical research to assess the European Schools’ place in a new Europe where the entire post-war European Project is potentially at risk. This well-researched volume will be of interest to practitioners working in European schools as well as students and scholars of EU politics and international education.

This book addresses central questions regarding parental involvement across European educational systems; exploring the commonalities and differences across European countries and the extent to which current policy and practice pertaining to parental involvement is inclusive of diversity. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws from the fields of education, sociology and psychology, it presents a description of the policy context and empirical research on critical perspectives relating to parental involvement. Comprising a rich varied cross-section of national experiences from eleven European countries and the contexts surrounding them, case studies provide insights into parental involvement across Europe and identify challenges in the field. This volume’s in-depth approach and comprehensive interrogation of parental involvement across European education systems make it an ideal resource for parents, teachers and academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of education policy and comparative education, as well as teacher educators and policy makers.

Based on empirical analysis using configuration theory and multi-dimensional scaling, this book provides insight into types of relationships that can be found between groups of countries with certain institutional context features, and into the quality and equity of their education system. In this volume, the authors take up the challenge of considering what a European ‘settlement’ might look like. In doing so, they take into account worldwide trends and the increasing evidence of convergence across educational systems. The outcomes of comparative analyses seem to suggest that strong education systems in terms of finance, governance and choice could be preferable. To a greater or lesser extent, therefore, all the systems of education currently in use in Europe face some common challenges. The way in which these challenges are addressed will determine the future of these systems. Key elements in the current debate that are considered in greater detail in this volume include changing views on (a) centre-local relations with signs of an increasing commitment to decentralisation as a guiding principle for developing school governance; (b) school autonomy which is now increasingly regarded as the engine-room for school improvement, especially in relation to sustaining it; and (c) the celebration of community and school choice as a means of securing higher levels of parental involvement. This volume will be of interest to researchers and practitioners working in education, educational research and sociology of education. It will also be of relevance to those interested in the comparison of various education systems and in governance, funding of education and school choice.

Papers from the March 1994 German Association for Educational Research annual congress explore issues in education and training in post- Maastricht Europe. Subjects include Hungarian adolescents of the 1990s; attitudes and values among young people in Europe; school reform in the early years in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany; challenges to the Spanish education system since 1970; and the state of research into economic education from a French perspective. No index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book provides authentic accounts of the effects of the revolutionary political reform experienced in the past half century on education in Europe’s considerable rural hinterland. These reforms include the liberation of the Baltic and Eastern European states from Soviet communist domination, the ‘eurozone’ economic crises, and the current and future migration of people fleeing war and poverty from the Middle East and Africa. Overshadowing these events are so-called global forces which champion economies of scale and pressurize academic performance as keys to economic success. Trapped in this distal whirlwind of change are 1000s of small and/or rural elementary schools and the life chances of more 1000s of young children. The research presented here unveils the unseen and under-reported consequences of top-down, urban-oriented educational policies on children’s and communities’ experience of place and space. Exposure of these conditions in rural Europe is long overdue, but obscured for decades by political extremes of left and right. Yet, the lived reality of peremptory and swathing school closure programmes, and poverty inflicted on rural populations in parts of Eastern Europe is relatively unreported in the western educational literature – a situation exacerbated by the virtual invisibility of rural educational research generally. The chapters in this book reveal the insights of social science scholars from 11 European countries including those from low GDP, formerly soviet bloc countries, recently enabled to present their research at western European conferences such as the European Educational Research Association. Their research will inform and alert education academics, researchers and professionals to these rural European educational contexts. The research methodologies reported are diverse and innovative. The national context chapters are complemented by overview chapters which survey and synthesise (i) definitions and conceptualisations of rural, (ii) pan-European appraisal of educational, structural and geospatial statistics on small and rural schools, and (iii) identify key messages for better understanding of the rural situation in European research, policy and practice. Crucially, despite the gloom, the authors report positive strategies for rural school survival at governmental and/or school and community levels, that include community involvement, rural educational tourism, and deliberative inter-community school network planning.