The volume provides a comprehensive reference resource for education in the countries that joined the European Union between the signing of the Treaty of Nice to the present time: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Many of these countries have previously been under the influence of the Soviet Union and are moving through transitional phases towards more western models. The chapters in this volume, written by regional experts, examine the educational heritage of these countries and how these education systems evolved in response to changing national needs, European agreements including the Treaty of Nice and The Bologna Process, and international evaluations such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The chapters on Cyprus and Malta show the very special circumstances of these two Mediterranean islands and the international influences that have underpinned their developments in education.

Exploring the development of educational provision and contemporary issues, this book covers the countries that made up the European Union from its foundation to the signing of the Treaty of Nice: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands. The chapters, written by regional experts, offer a review of contemporary national and regional educational structures and policies, research innovation and trends, as well as covering selected issues and problems including the effects of educational reform and systemic changes within the school and university systems, minority languages, and intercultural changes for indigenous and new immigrant populations.

Education in Non-EU Countries in Western and Southern Europe is a critical reference guide to the development of education in Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and the Vatican City. The chapters, written by regional experts, provide detailed studies of educational systems, which are considered in the light of the broader international trends and developments. Key themes include educational reform and the quality of education, educational change processes in post-socialist transition, the Europeanization of higher education, and the unique challenges of educational provision faced by microstates. Including guides to available online datasets, this book is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers.

The volume provides a comprehensive reference resource for education in the countries that joined the European Union between the signing of the Treaty of Nice to the present time: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The chapters in this volume, written by regional experts, examine the educational heritage of these countries and how these education systems evolved in response to changing national needs, European agreements including the Treaty of Nice and The Bologna Process, and international evaluations such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

This book discusses national school policy reforms in a number of key European countries and shows how these are framed in transnational collaborations that meet with national particularities and contestations. It gives an overview of school policy developments that represents the diversity of Europe within a comparative framework. It takes point of departure in the fact that European countries in their school and education policies have been increasingly aligning with each other, mostly via transnational collaborations, the OECD, EU, and the Bologna Process. Even the IEA has been instrumental to motivate alignments by means of influential surveys, knowledge production and methodological development. This alignment in terms of common standards, social technologies, qualification frameworks and so forth have aimed at facilitating mobility of students, workers, business and so forth as well as fostering a European identity among citizens from Europe’s patchwork of small and medium-size countries, representing a patchwork of different languages, cultures and societal contexts. In national recontextualizations, however, alignments have been continuously contested according to the particularities of what has been possible educationally and politically in the different national contexts. Furthermore, the return of national(isms) as well as the rise of edubusiness and digitalization have been increasingly influential. This book thus concludes that increasing transnational alignments have to be observed with meticulous attention to different national contexts that matter greatly.

Geography of Education sets out the scope of this emergent, interdisciplinary field. It illustrates the essential affinity of geographical and educational studies, by emphasising the geographical factors influencing formal education systems and other forms of knowledge transfer. Colin Brock begins by arguing the theoretical synergy that exists between the nature of both geography and educational studies as disciplines. This is then exemplified by an analysis of the emergence of systems of schooling under the influence of religious, political and economic forces. The author also considers informal and non-formal modes of education, and argues that the huge diversity of such provision creates a rich resource for research into geographies of education. In the final chapters the author turns his attention to the role of cyberspace, which has its own geography, in learning, and considers education as a form of humanitarian response to issues of environmental sustainability. By bringing together a wide range of themes and topics relating to both education and geography, Colin Brock argues that the geographical approach should inform the evolution of all types of educational provision around the world.

Austerity and the Remaking of European Education offers historically and empirically grounded accounts of national educational formations in Europe, at a specific time in their reshaping through encounters with global policy frameworks, and social and economic developments. The authors explore these issues in the context of different pressures that impact on European education systems - from the constraints established by the European Central Bank and the European Commission across Southern Europe, to the 2008 financial crisis and the increased migration. The book provides a rigorous theoretical approach to European and national policies, combined with detailed analyses of national educational contexts in England, France, Greece, Hungary and Sweden. These in-depth studies identify major issues of national education policymaking, and explore the complexities of global/national relationships. The economic crisis, the rise of the Left in Greece and of the populist Right in many countries in Europe, questions of cultural and religious diversity, tensions between marketization and inclusion are all brought into focus, offering findings that are of great interest to researchers of education policy, politics and sociology of education alike. In the final section of the book, the authors explore policy alternatives, as embodied in the activities of both governments and non-state actors, such as trade unions and social movements.