Finland's education system is regarded as one of the most effective in the world. Shared values of the Finnish welfare society continue to influence national education policies that determine how education is organized, governed, and led. Findings from a national study of the superintendency, however, suggest recent demographic and financial…

This paper is a retrospective descriptive content analysis of all identified school documents for 90 ninth-grade students with a history of truancy, collected from two Swedish compulsory schools. The study investigates individual, school, and psychosocial factors in the documents and three analyses are presented: (1) a general analysis of the…

Debates about school science, students' engagement with, and participation in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and the supply of suitably qualified people for STEM related fields have been ongoing in England since the early 20th Century. Recent key policy documents and STEM related organisations have highlighted a skills gap…

Irrespective of the grading system, grades are the most valid instrument for predicting educational success. Previous studies have shown that criterion-referenced compulsory school grades are multidimensional, reflecting subject-specific dimensions and a common grade dimension, both of which contribute to the predictive validity of grades. This…

Disadvantaged young people often inhabit a dangerous space: excluded from education, training and employment markets; constructed as disposable; and cast out as "human waste" (Bauman, 2004). There are many macro-level analyses of this catastrophic trend, but this article provides insights into some of the everyday educational…

The "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) examines the extent to which 15-year-old students who are near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the competencies essential for participation in the labor market and society. Given that this participation hinges on educational attainment, it is crucial to…

Counteracting upper secondary dropouts is an increasingly common issue across the Western part of the world. In Norway, the government has developed different measures to counteract dropouts, one of which concerns alternative educational courses involving increased workplace practice. This article is based on interviews with eight students who…

During his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama offered several recommendations on education policy, including one specifying that all states increase the age of compulsory school attendance to 18. Approximately 25 percent of public school students in the U.S. don't obtain a regular high school diploma, a tragedy for them and a…

Background: This study investigates the relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and cigarette smoking, alcohol use and illicit drug use. Method: The participants were 10,987 pupils in the final three years of their compulsory education in Iceland (ages 14-16 years). The participants completed questionnaires in…

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the role of word reading and mathematical difficulties measured in 9th grade as factors for receiving educational support for learning in upper secondary education in Grades 10 to 12 (from ages 16 to 19) and furthermore as predictors of dropout from upper secondary education within 5 years after…

This article describes how Norwegian compulsory education, both philosophically and practically, reflects the institutionalized democratic values of the larger social and political community of Norway. It examines, through the application of collective and structural lenses of analysis, how shifting demographics in this social and political…

Purpose: The EU-funded research project "Fifobi--Fit for Business--developing business competencies in school" (2009-2012) focused on the implementation of economic education in seven European countries. The purpose of the project and this paper is to investigate the current programmes that exist within the final two years of compulsory…

The rationale for the study is to enhance our understanding of how young people learn and engage with vocational subjects within the lower secondary years of compulsory education. The concept of pre-vocational education has recently emerged to describe the initial transitional phase of preparing young people for employment in specific occupational…

With the advancements of nine years of universal compulsory education, the development of China's basic education has resulted in new demands aimed at improving the overall quality of basic education in rural areas. Closings and consolidation are important measures in this regard. In the process of merging and consolidation, the construction of a…

The characteristics, experiences and long-term prospects of young people outside the labour market and education have attracted widespread international attention in recent decades, and the specific category of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has been a policy concern for the UK Government since 1997. This paper…