The reformed Finnish vocational education and training (VET) system is a competence-based, customer-oriented educational programme with two overarching aims: to develop a skilled labour force and to promote social inclusion. Support and guidance have become increasingly important in Finnish VET in recent decades. This study focuses on how…

The increase in nationalist tendencies around the world after 2001 signifies changes in the concept of citizenship as reflected in the discourses of the parties coming to power. How does this translate into changes in education? In this article, I analyse the case of Poland. The research is focused on finding an answer to the following question:…

Purpose: The overarching purpose of this paper is to explore the transformation of intercultural education in Cyprus in the context of European integration. More specifically, it indicates the ways in which intercultural policy has been formed by complex and often counteractive influences. The analysis draws upon policy documents collected from…

This paper describes how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Indonesia have implemented the recent character education policy within an era of school-based curriculum reform. The character education policy required all teachers, EFL teachers included, to instil certain values in every lesson whilst the school-based curriculum reform…

Research into the language socialisation of migrant-background children in new educational contexts has pointed to a complex relationship between language, identity, and social integration. This article helps us to further define this relationship in two main ways. Firstly, through focusing on the specific (and largely neglected) context of the…

The study presented in this paper focuses upon conceptualisations of language and identity in the institutionalised arena that emerged in the post-Second World War period with the specific intention of teaching Swedish to adult immigrants in the nation-state of Sweden. Our analysis focuses upon the development of the educational programme…

This article draws on data from an ethnographic study that begins with the experiences of educational professionals doing the "work" of educationally supporting students with long-term health conditions in a paediatric health-care setting in Victoria, Australia. The study was conducted over the same period of time but separately from the…

With its recent entry into the European Union (EU) and the adoption of multiethnic democracy as a national policy, a key challenge for Poland is to transform its education policy and practice in ways that are consistent with multicultural and pluralist values. This paper examines Poland's efforts to address these issues by exploring changes in the…

This paper will trace the adoption of a policy of Social Inclusion in schools in one Australian state in terms of the way in which the policy direction, its discourses and adoption reflect a rhetoric of what Ball has labelled a "paradigm of convergence". The analysis will show that the policy discourse, especially in its focus on school…

This volume is a collection of public discourses on European education governance, and social integration and exclusion, focusing in particular on changes in education governance in Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, England, and Scotland. Ten chapters include: (1) "Introduction: Research Problematics and…