This article offers insights into what characterises innovative continuous professional development (CPD) in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) by analysing similarities and differences from case studies of exemplary approaches to innovative CPD in Denmark, Italy and Poland. The comparative analysis focuses on four features…

This article focuses on evidence regarding cross-national patterns of participation in adult education and an interpretation of these patterns from an institutional and public policy perspective. The interpretation follows from the perspective that sustaining high and widely distributed levels of investment in the development and maintenance of…

During the 1990s, the number of students enrolling in science subjects at universities was declining each year in Germany, France, Italy, amongst other countries. These decreases are too readily attributed to a general disaffection caused by the image that younger generations have of scientific studies: they are seen as being the most…

Educational attainment provides some indication of the extent to which a person will be "trainable" for professional purposes, with the result that preference is given to the more education. Unemployment rate trends among young people in France and Italy are analyzed and "under-utilisation" is described. (MLW)

A review of vocational education trends in Western Europe and Japan covers the following: curriculum and program structure, alternatives, cooperative education, on-the-job training, enrollments, admission, curriculum content, skills other than strictly occupational, mechanisms for curriculum development, and efficiency of training. (MSE)

The design and content of new undergraduate and graduate teacher-education curricula in Italy, mandated by a 1990 law, is discussed. The four-year university curriculum is designed to train infant and elementary-school teachers, and a two-year graduate program is designed for secondary-school teachers. (MSE)

Three different approaches to the evaluation of higher education in European and Scandinavian countries are examined: evaluation of a single discipline across institutions (Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, northern Germany); evaluation of several disciplines within certain institutions (France, Germany); and internal evaluation of…