Wiljan van den Akker is a university professor, a respected academic administrator, and a published poet and writer. From a base at the Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, his three-decade long career spans three continents and includes one-on-one associations with Berkeley, UCLA and Oxford. Currently, he is the Vice-Rector for Research at…

This article concludes the issue, and reflects upon the main themes that unite the various contributions, namely the evolution of educational and legal competency; the complexity of European Union educational governance; the challenges of measuring and developing indicators for education; and the role of social justice agendas in EU education…

Beginning in the year 2000, higher education policies all over Europe were transformed by the launching and evolution of the Bologna Process, otherwise known as the process of creating a European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Initially, this process was flexible and informal, which makes the rapidity and scope of the changes it brought about…

This paper focuses on the analysis of student mobility in the EU as a means to stimulate convergence of diverse higher education systems. The argument is based on official texts and other texts of political communication of the European Commission. The following discussion is placed within the current context of the Bologna process and its aim to…

Addresses the implications of lifelong learning, development aid projects of UNESCO and the World Bank, transnationalism as a policy for education and development, and the position of ethnic minorities in a multicultural society. (SK)

The European Community must develop policies regarding a number of challenges: free circulation of people across borders, disadvantaged regions, economic restructuring, access to vocational education, and cooperation with Eastern Europe. (SK)

A renewed emphasis on arts education has come after a period of neglect during the 1980s and early 1990s when the arts were often slighted as school budgets grew tight and as educational priorities shifted to the basic academic subjects. Recently, results of several research studies have confirmed the advantages of student participation in arts…

The family is a context in which young children can acquire a sense of purpose, dignity and worth, if ideas of individualism and privacy are tempered by a sense of community. The school, the parents' places of work and community institutions should be used as extensions of the family setting. (Author/RH)

There was little or no involvement on the part of educators in the formative stages of the youth employment legislation of the 1970s. With an array of bills being introduced in Congress in support of reauthorization of youth employment legislation, it is time for our educational systems to trade nonparticipation for cooperation. (CT)

This article discusses some of the Government's current agendas for schools that appear to be in direct conflict with each other. For example, the positive effects of Every Child Matters, personalised learning, inclusion and collaboration are seen as complementary, but their implementation is viewed as being held back by the current regime of…

Many educators think of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on a disciplinary level--what is Environmental Education's (EE) contribution to a more sustainable future? Briefly, we describe differences and similarities between EE and ESD. Next, we examine four levels of activity--disciplinary, whole school, educational system, and…

This document outlines the importance of open distance learning in a broad range of education and training activities for the European Community (EC) and its Member States. It refers to actions in this area already taking place and shows how EC programs complement and are complemented by actions in the open distance learning field being taken…

Electronic mail and other telecommunications processes may prove to be valuable tools for the active involvement of educators in legislative and policy development. Involving educators in regulations development could reduce implementation problems significantly. Using electronic media to disseminate policy information to educational agencies and…

Several categories of problems affecting adult learning services in Colorado require state-level policy intervention for their solution. They include problems that limit adults' access to existing learning services, inadequacies in existing services, deficiencies in statewide planning and coordination of learning services, and financial…

Describes a collaboration among policy makers, test developers, curriculum specialists, researchers, and classroom teachers in Michigan that has produced a new interactive definition of reading, new statewide reading objectives, and efforts to develop statewide tests that are more consistent with current theory and research. (FL)