The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language. This policy trajectory has taken…

The recent establishment of the European Higher Education Area and the ongoing monitoring carried out by the Bologna Follow-up Group raises the question: to what extent have the objectives of the Bologna Process been implemented in the varied higher education systems of the 47 signatory states, including the former Soviet Union states? This…

This article describes a research project developed at the University of Cordoba during the academic year 2007-8, in which 2414 students took part, all studying courses included in a pilot scheme for the implementation of European Credit Transfer System credits. The aim was to ascertain the opinions of students in relation to their grasp and…

Strategies of "employability" and "activation" are increasingly favoured in the European Union policy context. These strategies are aimed at fostering inclusion by stressing the responsibility of the individual to participate in education and employment. Similar tendencies can be observed in the United Kingdom (UK) over the last decade, among them…

Now that universities have shifted their priorities to those of the "cash nexus", they increasingly articulate their accomplishments and validate their existence in business terms for a globally competitive academic market. But corporatizing trends and the use of bibliometric tools that rank publication and quantify scholarity impact a…

This article presents the results from a mainly statistical and comparative analysis regarding the communicative competences and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) of German exchange students. The data was extracted from two exhaustive, rigorous and methodical questionnaires related to communicative and ICT competences,…

In order to illustrate and discuss the impacts of neo-liberal educational policies on equity, this article analyses the effects of different kinds of decentralisation strategies on the implementation of children's right to an equitable education in Sweden. It begins with a comprehensive overview of the changes implemented in the Swedish compulsory…

This article concerns issues of classroom management in heterogeneous classrooms. Although research in the field of learning styles has yielded mixed results, there is a call for information about how they could be used to individualize instruction, especially in primary schools. This article is part of an ethnographic study aiming to examine…

The experience of initiating and sustaining a research-based dialogue on social justice and intercultural education in Europe requires both flexibility and focus. This article highlights the challenges facing convenors of one network, who wish to include researchers from diverse backgrounds, while at the same time enhancing the academic quality of…

Prior professional development studies have identified discrepancies between what teachers' report (espoused practices) and demonstrate (enacted practices) during classroom teaching. This has proven particularly evident in studies examining classroom implementation of standards-based practices such as learner-centered instruction. The authors…

The authors extend their understanding of learner motivation by addressing questions around the construct of classroom need for closure in a high school sample. First, they established that their classroom need for closure measure demonstrated adequate psychometric properties when used with high school students. Subsequently, they explored…

The authors attempted to examine how Taiwanese junior high school students' perfectionistic tendencies and implicit theories of intelligence were related to their academic emotions and approach versus avoidance self-regulation, and to determine differences in contingent self-worth, emotions, and self-regulation among students with different…

Considerable research has investigated the link between academic achievement and social behavior. The authors set the context for their work by reviewing some of the research that has been done. To address similarities and limitations in previous research, they included concurrent ratings of behavior from teachers and children's performance on…

The authors examined the differential effects of teachers on female, minority, and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students' achievement in Grade 4. They used data from a randomized experiment (Project STAR) and its follow-up study (LBS). Student outcomes included Grade 4 SAT scores in mathematics, reading, and science and student demographics…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Teacher Advisory Center (TAC) tutors in curriculum implementation of secondary schools in Chepalungu District. The study aimed at determining ways in which TAC tutors, participate in implementation of secondary school curriculum and to establish whether teachers in secondary schools…