This article outlines the main assessment traditions in four countries -- England, France, Germany and the United States -- in order to explore the prospects for the integration of summative and formative functions of assessment during compulsory schooling. In England, teachers' judgments do feed into national assessments, at 7, 11, 14 and 16, but…

In both France and Germany, the government, employers' organizations, and unions all participate in defining vocational diplomas based on a national framework of procedures of elaborating and standardizing titles. Important differences between the diploma definition processes in France and Germany may be identified. In Germany, the issue is…

This article describes using a computer as a literary learning device and study aid to analyze prose. (JDH)

Describes the approach and computer programs used to analyze literature. The two aspects of text captured in the analysis are thematic segmentation and density. Shows how these methods may be applied to Balzac's short story, "Sarrasine." (JDH)