Technology presents incredible new potential in opening 'learning to earning' pathways for traditionally marginalised groups, such as displaced young people, adolescent girls and young women. Developing and scaling digitally powered learning for displaced populations can provide alternative opportunities to those who have lost access public…

Despite a global commitment to guarantee access to and participation in high-quality education for all, the acceptance of marginalised pupils into mainstream education and changing policies and practices to support the aim are still contested challenges. This article discusses how inclusive education policy is understood and applied by pedagogues…

Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its…

The recent refugee crisis has put many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries under considerable pressure to accommodate and integrate large numbers of refugees. Refugee students are a particularly vulnerable group due to their forced displacement, but their needs are not always met by education systems, which can…

According to globalisation theories, the importance of international organisations such as UNESCO and EU regarding processes of policy-making is increasing and it is no longer the nation state alone that is regulating policy. Focusing on equity and social justice as central topics of the global discourse, the article raises the question of how…

This book addresses central questions regarding parental involvement across European educational systems; exploring the commonalities and differences across European countries and the extent to which current policy and practice pertaining to parental involvement is inclusive of diversity. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws from the…

There is a global trend towards including children with special needs in mainstream schools instead of placing them in special schools. However, the numbers of students in special schools varies greatly among regions due to variations in educational systems, funding arrangements -- and the incentives that are associated with these arrangements --…

In the past few decades, the number of students attending segregated special schools in the Netherlands has risen considerably. In 1975, 2.2% of all students between 4 and 11 years old attended a special school, and this percentage almost doubled to 4.3% over the next 20 years. In order to stop further growth, two new education policies came into…

Educational policies and practices are influenced by cultural, political, and economic factors, and this is also true of specialized educational approaches such as gifted education. Factors such as a country's cultural tendency toward egalitarianism or meritocracy, whether the political system is centralized or decentralized, and the degree to…

Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more…

This publication is the outcome of the international conference organized by UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), in collaboration with the Centre for Validation of Prior Learning at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, and in partnership with the French National Commission for UNESCO that was held in Hamburg in…

Continuous and rapid developments in global higher education today more than ever before present new questions, greater challenges, and vast new opportunities for institutions, policy makers, scholars and students alike. This book is a collection of studies and essays by many of the leading experts in international higher education who share their…

Due to the broad acceptance of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other comparative studies as instruments of policymaking, its accuracy is essential. This article attempts to demonstrate omissions in the conceptualisation, and consequently in calculation and interpretation, of one of the central points of PISA 2006 and…