This paper engages with and reflects on the arguments developed by contributors to the special issue. These papers serve to provide a corrective to English and, on occasion, European perceptions, which often view the Nordic countries as being all of a piece and beacons of progressivism. The contributors provide analyses that not only point to the…

This study of rural stakeholders' perspectives related to college and career readiness exposes a nuanced dynamic that extends beyond pragmatic concerns for preparing rural students for the future. As college preparatory courses "crowded out" Career and Technical Education (CTE) offerings, stakeholders voiced a concomitant sense of losing…

This paper estimates the effects of attending a vocational higher track secondary (HTS) school compared to a general HTS school. It considers the case of Germany, where both schools provide access to tertiary education. Identification uses selection-on-observables and instrumental variables strategies. Attending a vocational HTS school has no…

While global citizenship education (GCE) becomes increasingly popular, the concept is still contested in definition and assumes different meanings in various contexts. Many countries have started including GCE-related concepts in national educational policies and school curriculum. However, not much empirical research has been conducted on GCE in…

Analysis of different forms of tracking reveal that they correlate with differences of pupils' SES and reproduce inequalities. Against this background, this paper examines the concepts of education and the 'virtual social identities' -- or visions what the individual pupil should be -- in school policy.. This is done by analysing and comparing…

This article engages with the teacher education (TE) reform approach adopted in India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It locates the policy recommendations in the context and challenges of TE in India and makes sense of the NEP's vision for the domain. It examines the knowledge traditions and global education policy (GEP) discourses that…

The article presents results of research into the media debate on education in the context of higher education reform in Poland. The body of press materials comprised 884 texts. The theoretical basis included critical and post-Foucauldian discourse analysis. The study revealed five themes: (1) mechanisms of economic thematization; (2) expanding…

Sweden has a long tradition of comprehensive upper-secondary education. This began in the early 1970s. It culminated in 1994 with all the programmes having a core curriculum that gave general eligibility to higher education. Conservative and liberal governments have introduced several neoliberal school reforms, which the subsequent social…

In the Dutch stratified secondary educational system, schools vary in how many tracks are offered. While the tendency in the Netherlands is for schools to become smaller, a relevant policy question is whether multi-track school settings promote equality of educational opportunity. Comparing single-track schools at the pre-university and…

Recent policy on careers guidance in England suggests a somewhat straightforward process. The assumption is that quality careers guidance will enable young people to make informed career-related decisions. However, the 'reality' of provision is far more complex, as highlighted by the findings from a small in-depth study of careers provision in one…

Education forms a very significant activity within the Roman Catholic Church. The cultural and ethical formation of young generations and thus the future of society and the Church depend largely on it. Catholic schools grant the opportunity to base formal education on Christian anthropology and to shape students' personality in the light of the…

One educational structure with its own grammar is the student-teacher relationship. The conventional relational grammar involves teachers and students connecting to pursue academic learning--a grammar rooted in both historic attempts to define the professional domain of teaching as the transmission of academic knowledge as well as current efforts…

In this paper, which takes the form of a dialogue, we discuss the possible directions that vocational education might take in the contemporary social, economic and technological context of the early 21st century. Taking account of the unresolved debates around vocational education internationally and future global economic demands for expertise we…

The formation and maintenance of friendship closeness is an important developmental task in adolescence. To obtain insight in real-time processes that may underlie the development of friendship closeness in middle adolescence, this preregistered experience sampling study [ESM] investigated the effects of social media use on friendship closeness.…

What impact did the 1988 Education Reform Act (1988 ERA) have on higher education from the perspectives of professors working in the sector at the time? How did it reshape the sector's structures? How did it contribute to the conditions that have unleashed the so called 'undergraduate monster'? These questions are addressed in this paper. I draw…