Competition in higher education is intensifying worldwide and gaining increasing scholarly attention. However, it is not always easy to observe how competition actually takes place. Our research focuses on one example where competition becomes not only visible but also analyzable: State-led funding contests exemplified by the Excellence Initiative…

In Germany, penalties such as fines or police action are imposed for noncompliance with compulsory schooling. However, formal administrative procedures are often deemed inadequate by experts who advocate for school-wide multidimensional support in addressing school absenteeism. We analyze guidance documents of different federal states, examining…

In what are often described as modern Western school systems, the supervision of elementary schools generally shifted from the hands of clerical administrators to genuine state officials during the nineteenth century. The Prussian state, like other predominantly Protestant states, relied on clerical personnel and church supervision structures to…

This paper examines the role of institutional isomorphism in influencing digital transformation (DT) within municipalities. It addresses the gap in understanding how coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures shape municipal strategies and operations as they adopt and implement digital technologies. Through a systematic literature review and…

In some countries it is common for policy makers to advocate research use by practitioners as a means to bring about school development. Yet, despite their increasing sophistication, the enactment of protocols for using research is problematic and, even in optimal environments, practitioners have difficulty mobilising research findings to improve…

The development of the modern nation-state was an inherently centralising process. Education policy and the institutionalisation of mass public schooling played a key role in this process, facilitating industrialisation and the generation of mass loyalty toward the state. In almost all federal systems, however, education policy remained an…

To ensure that young people and adults acquire the skills they need to render them employable, vocational education and training systems around the world construct various forms of collaboration between the public and private sectors. Public-private partnerships that focus on skills development are one form of collaboration in the provision of…

As previous research has not addressed the relationship between university autonomy and university rankings within countries where the state control model is used, this study explores universities' strategies to achieve top university rankings in accordance with their autonomous rights and financial as well as political support. Specifically, this…

This article introduces a collection of papers comprising the special issue, "Competing interests: Parents, Schools and Nation States." Drawing on the seven papers in the collection, and situating them in recent developments in the sociological field, the article discusses globally shifting relations between families, schools and the…

A tiny section on the agenda of the National Assembly of the Weimar Republic from February to July, 1919 was entitled "Religious instruction and the public elementary school," part of the preparation for the new Constitution of the German Reich, the so-called Weimar Constitution [Weimarer Reichsverfassung; abbr. WRV], of August 11th,…

This article explores the changing character and consequences of state authorities' evolving relationships with universities in the United States, Germany, and Norway--typical cases for different national worlds of higher education. It argues that across the three OECD countries, welfare states have strengthened market principles in university…

This article seeks to shed light on current dynamics of stratification in changing higher education and proposes an analytical perspective to account for these dynamics based on Martin Trow's work on "the analysis of status." In research on higher education, the term "stratification" is generally understood as a metaphor that…

The first comparative study of the spread of mass education around the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this unique new book uses a bottom-up focus and demonstrates, to an extent not appreciated hitherto, the gulf between the intentions of the government and the reality on the ground. This book is divided into four…

In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011--2015), the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Education, the main body for the central government's innovation policy, highlights the strengthening of the scientific--technological base and the upgrading of domestic innovative competences, and places the industrial focus on seven new strategic…

This paper is a macro study on higher education R&D and its impact on productivity growth. I measure the social rate of return on higher education R&D in 17 high-income OECD countries using country level data on the percentage of gross expenditure on R&D performed by higher education, business, and government sectors over the period…