The aim of this paper is to analyze the selection process at work before and after compulsory schooling by assessing the determinants of school failures, dropouts, and upper secondary school decisions of young Italians. The data-set is built combining individual data by the Labor Force Survey and aggregate data on local labor markets and school…

The "two exemptions and one subsidy" (TEOS) policy presages the coming of an era of free education in compulsory education. Actually, the agricultural and pastoral districts of China's Tibet Autonomous Region had already experienced policies of free compulsory education in the mid-1980s, that is, the "three guarantees"…

This article provides an overview of the role that interdisciplinarity plays in the Spanish education system. With this aim, we first describe the main conception of the term "interdisciplinarity" in texts written in Spanish, including other terms that have similar meaning. Then we review the role of interdisciplinarity in the Spanish…

As state and national policymakers look for ways to improve the rigor of the high school curriculum and enhance student readiness for college, many are turning their attention to increasing course requirements in core academic high school subjects. Existing research shows that students who take high-level course sequences learn more in high school…

Compulsory education was legislated in Singapore in 2000. This came several decades after the attainment of universal primary education and after numerous assertions on the part of the government that such legislation was unnecessary. Also interesting is that the period of compulsory education was limited to six years. The article discusses the…

In 2004, history was introduced by a Parliamentary decision as a new core subject in the Swedish upper secondary school system. This event constituted a major break--history now became a compulsory subject for all upper secondary school students after having been subject to a continually diminishing number of teaching hours ever since 1945. This…

The history of education in France, with its inherited link between the Republic and the religion of knowledge, produces a specific form of educational functioning, consubstantial to a tradition of selection and a symptomatic lack of what elsewhere is called a curriculum. While the recent introduction of the "common grounding of knowledge and…

This paper examines educational practices in Spain and in particular Madrid. With this contextual frame as the starting point the following issues are discussed: the "official" conceptualization of cultural diversity, educational policies and resolutions related to cultural diversity, and school programs and resources facilitated by…

General cognitive ability ("g") does not explain sex differences in academic test performance by the end of compulsory education. Instead, individual differences in specific reasoning abilities, after removing the effects of "g," may contribute to the observed gender gaps. Associations between general or specific cognitive…

The role of curriculum in the official educational process is widely recognized by the international scientific community. Beginning in the 19th century, and perhaps even earlier, curriculum research began, not only to be systematized, but to also constitute an autonomous field of study. On the other hand, curriculum evaluation has captured the…

In the past decade, an increasing number of Danish public, private and independent schools have introduced regular compulsory education outside the classroom for children aged 7-16 as a weekly or biweekly "outdoor school" day--known in Danish as "udeskole." An analysis of this form of outdoor education, its impacts and…

This study examined what kinds of groups can be identified according to students' task-values across four subject domains (languages, math and science, social sciences, practical subjects) and the related gender differences using a person-centered approach. Latent class analysis was applied to classify 638 students (mean age = 15) into four…

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effects of the Swedish compulsory school reform on intergenerational mobility, and to assess the extent to which the effect operates through assortative mating. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying intergenerational mobility is important for the design of educational policies. In…

As J. Radford (2008) points out in "Psychology in its place," the question of what role psychology should play in Higher Education is merely a subsection of the question, what is (Higher) Education for? In light of the large number of psychology undergraduates who do not go on to pursue careers in psychology, Radford argues cogently for…

China's "Compulsory Education Law," determining the development of compulsory education, was first promulgated in 1986 and then amended in 2006. It has been a symbolic milestone in the history of Chinese education. During two decades, there have been totally 8 influential reforms in compulsory education funding policy. From the viewpoint…