Background: Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued increasingly divergent education policies. This is true in England in particular, where diversity, choice and…

A comparative study was made on the education systems of Turkey, a developing country, and Canada, a developed country with a comparatively high living standard and successful education systems. While education is governed at the national level in Turkey, it is the individual responsibility of the governments of the ten provinces and the…

President Barack Obama's call for every state to require school attendance until age 18 may spark a flurry of action in some statehouses, but changing attendance laws will do little by itself to drive down the nation's dropout rates, experts on the issue say. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama said states should require…

This paper investigates whether mothers' participation in post-compulsory education impacts on children's relative inequalities across four developmental outcomes. The empirical analysis uses information from children born in 1958 in Britain. Mothers of the 1958 British cohort were affected by the 1947 school leaving age reform, which increased…

This study developed a theoretical model of the school-to-work transition and evaluated the effects of a transition support program designed to prepare compulsory school graduates to enter the Swiss dual vocational education and training system. A 13-session program was designed to improve teenagers' views toward the world of work and enable them…

This article aims to throw light on how the intentions behind inclusive and individually adapted education in Norwegian compulsory schools are followed up in practice with regard to central aspects of the roles of headteachers, teachers and curriculum planning. The study was carried out as a postal survey of compulsory school teachers in two…

This paper presents the findings of the qualitative component of a combined methods research study that explores a range of individual and school factors that influence the uptake of chemistry and physics in post-compulsory study in England. The first phase involves using the National Pupil Database to provide a sampling frame to identify four…

In October 2005, the Maltese Government embarked on a new phase of its national educational reform, which focuses on state compulsory primary and secondary schooling. A central part of this reform was the creation of state-maintained colleges. By February 2008 all state primary and secondary schools on the Maltese Islands were clustered into ten…

Using an equity perspective, this article compares the education systems of the United States and the Netherlands. Existing data examining student demographics, the organizational structures, curricula, funding, and student outcomes are examined. The Netherlands appears to be getting a "bigger bang for their buck." We make the case that…

Addressing school dropout has been one of the most controversial elements of policy since the introduction of free compulsory universal basic education (FCUBE) in Ghana. However, research that utilises qualitative biographical detail surrounding irregular attendance and the critical events in the process that lead to dropout in Ghana is limited. I…

This study is a contribution from the Eurydice Network to the debate on school failure and early school leaving within the framework of the European Commission's policy on education and training. In all education systems, in one form or another, pupil progress is assessed throughout the school year and various measures are put in place to support…

Compulsory education in America arguably originated with Massachusetts's legislative acts of 1642, 1647, and 1648; the 1642 act compelled education of children. Best known is the colorfully named Old Deluder Satan Law of 1647, famously declaring towns with populations of 50 must hire a reading and writing teacher, and those holding 100 requiring a…

Jones' (2002) discussion of polarised transitions and the "fast and slow lanes to adulthood" espoused by Bynner "et al." (2002) are good examples of how dualistic language often permeates youth transitions discourses. This often results in transitions research concentrating on a dichotomy of experience during the youth phase.…

The transformations that have taken place in the French "ecole maternelle" (nursery school) over the last 30 years may be characterised by a dual dynamic, internal and external, of scholarisation. Firstly, the analysis of its changing position with regard to primary school and within early childhood education and care shows a relative…

The greenhouse effect and the effects of the ozone layer have been in the media and public focus for more than two decades. During the same period, Norwegian compulsory schools have had four national curricula. The two last-mentioned prescribe explicitly the two topics. Media and public discourse might have been sources of information causing…