With the rise of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in education systems worldwide, recent research has attempted to categorise its various types and orientations. There are, however, limited insights into how different education stakeholders perceive and implement GCE in pedagogical practice. To bridge this gap between theory and practice, we…

Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper investigates current views within society about what civic knowledge is important for students leaving secondary education. We combined questionnaire data from a representative national sample with data from a multiple-case study among several focus groups of stakeholders with various roles in society.…

This paper analyses how three European countries produce and use data within a specific educational policy field, that of school leaving and graduation. It compares how stakeholders in England, Finland and the Netherlands know what happens to the leavers from schools and universities. Through gathering evidence about the methodological…

In this paper, two researchers reflect on the institutional space for participatory governance in a participatory action research (PAR) process that was initiated by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (ECS) in the Netherlands. It was implemented in two schools by researchers contracted by the ministry. The project's aim was to explore…

User participation is a key element in decision processes concerning the accommodation of dynamic organisations such as schools. This article addresses the discrepancy between the perspectives of the architects and engineers, as the makers of school buildings, and school management, teachers and students, as the users of the buildings, and…

This contribution shows an example of how an assessment innovation can serve as a flywheel for changing teaching and learning. This article first explains the development of an authentic, competence-based performance assessment in pre-vocational secondary education (pre-VET). Using these assessments in "pre"-VET, that is preparatory to…

Based on detailed empirical analyses, we paint a layered picture of emerging steering dynamics. Inspired by Foucault, we put the focus on roles stakeholders define both for themselves and others, how they give sense to policy, how they work together in policy elaboration and implementation, and the subtle and sometimes deceitful function of soft…

In many countries the need for education systems and schools to improve and innovate has become central to the education policy of governments. School inspections are expected to play an important role in promoting such continuous improvement and to help schools and education systems more generally to consider the need for change and improvement.…

Prepared for a Strategic Education Governance learning seminar, this working paper analyses the ways in which the Dutch government tried to reach overarching goals in education, in a system characterised by a high degree of distributed autonomy of education institutions and the participation of multiple actors, and consequently a government highly…

This report reviews the use of loans for learning in 33 European countries and analyses the schemes in eight selected Member States: France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Finland, Sweden and the UK. The analysis shows that loan schemes vary considerably across Europe in terms of types and levels of learning covered, conditions of…

With decentralisation becoming increasingly widespread across Europe, evaluation and accountability are becoming key issues in ensuring quality provision for all (Altrichter & Maag Merki, 2010; Eurydice, 2004). In Europe, the dominant arrangement for educational accountability is school inspections. The purpose of this research is to identify…

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by…

Presymptomatic genetic testing generates socioscientific issues in which decision making is complicated by several complexity factors. These factors include weighing of advantages and disadvantages, different interests of stakeholders, uncertainty of genetic information and conflicting values. Education preparing students for future decision…

Recent developments in competence-based education have motivated institutions of vocational education and training (VET) to improve the links or connectivity between learning in school and learning in the workplace, which has been a problem for decades. In previous research, a theoretical framework describing the underlying aspects of…

Informatics is currently being taught in high schools all over the world. In the Dutch curriculum, computer literacy is taught in the lower grades as a compulsory subject, Informatics is taught as an elective in the higher grades of some schools. As a follow-up to the outline of Grgurina and Tolboom (2008), the discussion about the future of…