The purpose of the paper is to develop the theory that structural or procedural changes in institutions precede changes in education in a society. It examines the development of pre-modern institutions in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and the influences this had on growth in literacy rates within these states. Literacy rates in…

This chapter summarises the rationales and impacts of the national reforms of the six countries selected (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) and complements it with a literature review on reforms in these and other EU countries. The reforms emerge as having been inspired by endogenous processes -- with or without a…

This article compares the discourses, practices and politics of film education in France and Germany, and outlines their historical development. The discourses on film education in the two countries are fundamentally different: whereas German film education is anchored in the global politics of media education and around notions of…

This paper describes the journey through France, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Belgium that was undertaken in August and September 1882 by Manuel Bartolome Cossio, the foremost Spanish educationist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in order to examine European education museums and schools with a view to preparing…

The French school system is a subjects-centred curriculum from the beginning of 1960s. This deep-rooted organisation tends to block the several attempts made to integrate the teaching of scientific school subjects. From an historical point of view, this paper describes the curricular system and the issue of its current change. It focuses on the…

Bourbaki, a professional mathematical society in France, was established formally in 1935. Throughout three quarters of a century, Bourbaki changed mathematics and mathematics education significantly. It was instrumental in the Moderne Mathématique movement that modernized French curricula. Bourbaki also provided philosophical support for the New…

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…

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support…

This paper argues that higher education has a long history of globalising, though the form of these processes has been different. Two are identified; first, a normative order based on common frameworks; second, the expansion of formal exchanges of inputs and outputs from higher education. Different countries, however, are positioned differently in…

This article analyses the specificity of the French accreditation system in higher education as regards lifelong learning. The changes in higher education may thus take on a new significance. The article describes the changes that could come from wider deployment of the system in higher education. The accreditation system introduced in France in…

UNESCO defines media education as the priority field of the cultural educational development in the XXI century. The article presents the development of media education since the beginning of it up to our days. The sections of the article are the main periods for the development of the media education. In each section more countries are mentioned.…

The Society of Mary's ministry in education needs to be placed in the context of the Marianist family. The Marianist family is comprised of men and women who are religious brothers, sisters, and priests and vowed and non-vowed members of Marianist lay communities. The implementation of the Marianist mission is the result of the collaboration among…

This article deals with the issues of access and expansion in France. It elaborates on the rationale and causes behind the expansion of higher education over the last 25 years and the impact this has had on the system, more particularly in terms of inclusion and exclusion. The article shows that, as in the United Kingdom, although expansion has…

The monitorial system of education was the most promising device in the field of primary education at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Its astonishing spread across the five continents represents one of the earliest processes of internationalization in the field of elementary schooling, which has rarely been analysed from the point of view…

This article provides a brief history of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). The CIES, initially the Comparative Education Society (CES), evolved from annual conferences at New York University begun in 1954 by William W. Brickman. CES was founded at the close of a subsequent conference (April 27, 1956), with Brickman as…