This article draws on social realist approaches in the sociology of knowledge and in light of them constructs three scenarios for the future of education in the next decades. The primary focus of the article is on one of the most crucial questions facing educational policy makers--the relationship between school and everyday or common sense…

This article presents a horizontal perspective on the dynamics of governance sites currently active for the European of Knowledge and places the Bologna process in this wider European level context. It introduces two dynamics of change in political organisation: (a) institutional differentiation and specialisation and (b) the interaction between…

This article analyses the work of the Bologna Follow Up Group as the main institution of the Bologna Process and the perceptions of the policy actors involved concerning the character of the process in terms of its functioning in contrast to similar multi-level multi-actor European processes, its modes of communication and consensus seeking, as…

This article analyses one of the most important aspects of the journey towards the vision of a European Higher Education Area, namely the development of a "new architecture" in which compatible qualifications frameworks are one of the main building blocks. The overall question addressed concerns how and whether signatory countries of the Bologna…

The emergence of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) for Quality Assurance has been seen as an important step towards realising the European Higher Education Area by creating more transparency and accountability in the area of quality assurance. The ESG also include standards as to how quality assurance agencies should be reviewed. In a…

Since the beginning of the 20th century, integration with the Western world has been a determining driver of higher education policies, as well as many other policy areas in Turkey. Becoming a signatory country of the Bologna Process in 2001 brought a new impulse to the higher education policies in this direction. The Bologna Process reforms…

The Bologna Process is one of the major developments to have taken place in higher education in recent centuries. It has had an impact beyond European borders and repercussions in other parts of the world. Ibero-America has also sat up and taken note, even though scholars agree that there would be difficulties with its direct implementation in the…

The roads of incoming information to the US higher education system about the Bologna Process are varied and numerous. They include not only the on-line and traditional trade press, but also conferences of national organisations. Whether anyone remembers much of that information, on the other hand, is an open question, as a limited survey…

As communities respond to challenges, threats and opportunities, organisations are changing in significant ways--new organisational designs, new communities of practice, new skills and new forms of human capital are sought. Yet K-12 school systems appear to be permanently failing organisations, not changing despite being shrouded by the rhetoric…

A growing number of governments, seeking to modernise their country's education system, adapt cooperative learning (CL) as a major component of their educational policy. Since the 1960s, when CL re-emerged to become a systematic pedagogy, CL practice has been constantly refined on the basis of ongoing research. Research results have consistently…

There is an ongoing discussion about teacher education today: its organisation, its academic status and the competence that results from different programmes. There is no one best way to organise teacher education. Rather, the appropriateness of organisation is related to the desired aims. In this article, we discuss one way to organise and…

"Economic competitiveness" is at the top of national, regional and global political and economic agendas. Several countries in all regions of the world have established policies and institutions devoted to economic competitiveness, including in developing and transition countries. This leads to the question of how to define national economic…

There is little doubt as to the importance of creativity for both economic and social progress and of the need for educational systems to enhance and nurture it. However, are educational systems promoting creativity? The general feeling is that it is, in fact, being "killed" in schools. The educational systems were designed for a different type of…

This article takes up the issue of the internationalisation of Vocational Education and Training (VET) reforms, expressed in the way policy instruments such as National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) are introduced in the European Training Foundation's (ETF) partner countries. There is an international debate and different perspectives regarding…

Accelerating threats to a sustainable relationship between economic growth and the capacity of the global social-ecological system to support it require that the implications of competitiveness be reassessed. Today, the capacities that underlie economic competitiveness must also be brought to bear on policy and pedagogy to prepare the coming…