This book provides a thorough and detailed analysis of how the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ shapes educational practices. It unpacks the impact of current educational reform discourse that focuses on the individual pupil as a learner, while neglecting the social dimensions of classroom practices. In view of the yet unknown requirements of the knowledge economy, students are demanded to take more responsibility for their learning and to become self-reliant, independent, lifelong learners. In turn, teachers are asked to tailor education to the individual needs of their students and to foster their individual learning trajectories. Based on in-depth fieldwork and long-term observation of interactions in classrooms and other scholastic settings, scholars from three European countries – France, Germany and Switzerland – show how the translation of the figure of the ‘autonomous learner’ into classrooms is shaped by distinct cultural traditions. Chapters analyse teaching routines and conceptions of self-reliance involved in autonomy-oriented settings and discuss how these change the sociality of the classroom. They scrutinize how autonomy is used to differentiate between students and how it contributes to the reproduction of social inequality. The book brings into dialogue two neighbouring research traditions that research autonomous learning from a sociological perspective and which have largely ignored each other until now. In so doing, the contributions engage a critical perspective for a careful empirical analysis in order to better understand what is being done in the name of autonomy. Providing insight into the many facets of developing and nurturing self-standing pupils across various educational contexts, this is ideal reading for scholars in the field of education, as well as teachers and decision-makers across the educational sector.

In the early stages of planning the Third International Conference in System Science in Health Care, the steering committee members, most of whom had participated in the first conference in Paris (1976) and the second in Montreal (1980), made some basic decisions about organization of subject matter. The earlier meetings had been very successful in bringing together specialists from the health professions and the traditional sciences. In addition to physicians and nurses, these were representatives of the disciplines of the behavioral sciences, system theory, economics, engineering, and the emergency fields of management science and informatics -all concerned with the development of health resources in a broad system context. The reported research and experience of the many disciplines represented had dealt with one or more of three concerns: 1) a major health problem, such as cardiovascular disease, or an important popUlation at risk, such as the elderly or children or workers; 2) some generic aspect of organization and decision making, including trial and evaluation ofinnovative health strategies; and 3) the methodology of research and analysis in system of health service. The challenge to the conference organizers lay in the eliciting and arranging of experiences in such a way that the health services could be seen as purposeful,living, evolving systems.