This article uses neoinstitutional theory to comparatively analyze different actors' institutional work with "problematic school absenteeism". Data was generated around four cases, each consisting of absent students and actors who work with absenteeism. The results describe how a dichotomous view of students' well-being and knowledge…

The theoretical and empirical foundations of research on trust in education are still weak. To contribute to a better understanding of the role of trust in educational systems, this final article of the special issue "Trust in educational settings. European perspectives" highlights the findings from the contributions in this special…

Emphasizing the important role of "history" within comparative education is the classic way, much celebrated in the writings of Andreas Kazamias, to treat this theme. This article uses a different perspective. The argument is that "comparative education" and "history" use two words as professional identifiers of a way…

This article uses a comparative historical approach to examine the Teachers for East Africa (TEA) and the Teacher Education in East Africa (TEEA) programs, an influential educational development effort that involved U.S. and British college graduates in East African schools and colleges during the decade of 1961-1971. Drawing on postcolonial…

Since the 1960s, comparative education in the United States, Canada, and Europe has shown considerable growth and vitality, in terms of membership in professional organizations, participation in international conferences, research, and publications. Epistemologically and methodologically, new modernist and postmodernist paradigms have been…

In this article we analyze a recent development in educational reform in Kazakhstan, which presents interest to researchers of policy transfer/borrowing. We argue not only that international policy transfer has become the main approach to educational reform, but also that the approach has been institutionalized by the establishment of a…

Over the past decades, educational reform has been one of the centerpieces of transition in Central and Eastern Europe. A huge degree of variability among countries exists, from sudden liberalization to securing the status quo previous to revolutionary political change. Reforms have ranged from institutional to instrumental changes. We argue that…

This article investigates the current state of faculty research activity within Tajik higher education institutions (HEIs), where the level of research productivity has substantially decreased in the past three decades. As part of a larger ethnographic study on professional lives of Tajik faculty members, we investigated and found enormous…

This article aims to assess whether differences in teacher characteristics vary with differences in socioeconomic compositions of schools. We conducted correlation analyses on administrative data from the French-speaking education system in Belgium. This database regroups more than 20,000 teachers in 1,630 elementary schools. We selected…

This article reflects on the authors' personal experiences with schooling in China from the 1950s to the 1980s. We discuss socially salient identities at that time period and how these shaped our lives, in schools and outside. Our analytical concern is the disciplining of childhood to align children's lives with the Party-state's political goals,…

The 2023 edition of 'Key data on teaching languages at school in Europe' depicts the main education policies related to the teaching of languages in schools in 39 European education systems. It answers questions about the number and range of foreign languages studied by students, the instruction time dedicated to foreign language teaching, the…

The diversity of the educational landscape is increasing; however, learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who experience discrimination or unequal treatment disproportionately underachieve in schools. Equality, equity and inclusion are fundamental principles of the European Union. They have also become key topics of the educational…

The concept of models-based practice has arguably provided the field of sport pedagogy with the means, lens, and tools with which to start to transform the discipline into a more desirable, equitable, and purposeful space. Despite this, there remains a need to experiment with this concept further in non-traditional ways and to continue to…

This Eurydice report focuses on the topic of equity and inclusion in higher education in Europe. It analyses the current level of alignment of European higher education systems with the ten 'Principles and Guidelines agreed by all EHEA countries' as a blueprint to take forward the commitment of improving the social dimension. There are ten…

This article explores the role of school staff in the accessibility of education with a focus on professional discretion and its relation with institutions and contexts. Drawing on the street-level bureaucracy approach it looks into different types of discretionary practices and asks how their legitimacy influences their success. The analysis is…