Drawing inspiration from the research conducted in Italian schools involved in the reform process, the article proposes to investigate two visions in the research on Sociology of Education: one distal and the other proximal. The distal vision is offered by quantitative research nowadays supported by extensive public funding and framed as…

Low school achievement and frequent dropout of Hungarian Roma students from primary education is mostly an effect of inadequate curriculum content and teaching methodology. Between 2004 and 2011, the UNESCO affiliated Research Centre for Multimedia in Education at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE University) in Budapest, Hungary coordinated a series…

Among the many arguments against affirmative action discussed in the academic literature, there is one stating that affirmative action fails to target the most marginalised members of a disadvantaged group, and instead it supports the group's most affluent members whose socio-economic position may be comparable to that of the mainstream…

This study analyses and evaluates the impact of two recent (2001 and 2010) education reforms on Ukrainian secondary schools, and, in particular, on science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology and Earth science), in terms of the structural, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the reformed disciplines. It also examines societal…

Educational researchers and academics cannot ignore the ever-present call for education, and schooling in particular, to reflect the needs of the twenty-first century knowledge economy. Since the 1990s, national curricula and education systems have reflected this call in their focus on technology and shifting pedagogy to increasingly…

A total of 12 European countries with significant Roma populations are taking part in the Decade of Roma Inclusion, 2005-2015 (the Decade). Each of these countries developed a Decade Action Plan with the aim of eliminating the marginalization and discrimination of Roma in the areas of housing, health care, employment and education. Nonetheless, as…

Scrutiny of the socio-economic exclusion of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe has brought attention to the widespread practice of school segregation of Romani children who are automatically placed in classes for the mentally disabled or shunted into separate and inferior schools and classrooms. It is now widely recognised that such practices…

European Roma are often associated with social problems and conflicts due to poverty and low formal education. Nevertheless, Roma communities traditionally develop expertise in ethnically specific domains, probably by alternative, informal ways, such as situated learning in communities of practice. Although predictable, empirical evidence of…

The creation of a European education space has been extensively discussed in Europe. Many scholars are concerned about the way in which the emergence of "global governmentality," such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has produced a "soft…

The aim of this article is to explore how neo-institutional theory may be applied as an analytical framework to investigate the relationships between teachers' perceptions on their professional change on the one hand, and the numerous change efforts embedded in recent neo-liberal educational policies in Norway on the other. Based on…

The activities of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the yearly European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) are mainly organised in standing networks. Through the example of the Policy Studies and Politics of Education network, this article takes a closer look at network activity and the ways in which it contributes to…

Drawing on their personal experiences, the authors reflect on the relationship between the European Educational Research Association (EERA) Council and the National Educational Research Associations (NERAs). The article will argue that while much of the work undertaken by the EERA Council is hugely valuable, at times it can be difficult to see a…

The purpose of this article is to explore the extent to which European Union (EU) policies impact upon the activities of associations such as the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the experiences of emerging researchers aligned to such associations. In essence, the authors explore potential tensions between policy and the lived…

Transnational collaboration by educational researchers in Europe has grown fast since the mid-1990s and the means to support it have become more easily accessible. A study of the growth of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) since its foundation in the mid-1990s shows how transnational research in European education began, and how…

This is a review of the "European Educational Research Journal" ("EERJ") since the start in 2002 and up to 2014. Three questions were put forward: what are the ambitions with the journal, how has the journal developed over time, and what are its possible futures? The review is based on minutes and emails from the late 1990s up…