Expected And Unexpected Consequences Of The Educational Expansion In Europe And The Us

Presenting original contributions from the key experts in the field, the Research Handbook on the Sociology of Education explores the major theoretical, methodological, empirical and political challenges and pressing social questions facing education in current times.

Laura Zapfe’s aim is to explain how education system and school characteristics affect the gender gap in mathematics and reading competencies. She adapts the macro-meso-micro model. At the micro level, she uses theories, e.g., gender-specific socialization, highlighting how gender-specific expectations and stereotypes cause gendered interest and skills and therefore gender differences in mathematics and reading. Deriving a macro-meso-micro link, she explains how education system characteristics such as competition, differentiation, and standardization, and school characteristics could increase or decrease the gender-specific socialization effects, leading to larger or smaller gender gaps in mathematics and reading competencies. On this basis, she performs a cross-national comparison of 78 countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, combined with further researched macro data with three-level mixed-effects models. The results show that boys have an advantage in mathematics, girls have an advantage in reading, the gender effects are slightly higher for reading, and the gender effects at the school level are more pronounced than those at the country level.

How do education systems shape educational inequalities and differences in educational outcomes? And how do advantages and disadvantages in educational attainment translate into privileges and shortcomings in labour market and general life chances? Education systems and inequalities compares different education systems and their impact on creating and sustaining social inequalities. The book considers key questions such as how education systems impact educational inequalities along such variables as social origin, gender, ethnicity, migration background or ability and what social mechanisms are behind the links between education system and educational inequalities and provides vital evidence to inform debates in policy and reform.

Although late to industrialize, East Asia has witnessed rapid development whilst maintaining some of the highest educational enrollment rates and indicators of academic achievement globally. From major players, such as China, to small city-states, such as Singapore, economic success and the growth of education have seemingly unfolded simultaneously. This book seeks to better understand the relationship between these powerful economies and their commitment to educational expansion. Exploring the universalization of upper secondary schooling, it assesses the social foundations of the region’s economic development. Chapters covering each of the countries of East Asia trace how upper secondary school functions as the support for the mass manufacturing labor force, which has been instrumental in East Asian economic expansion. These analyses then compare the experiences of the different nations along two major axes: the relationship between public and private provision and the balance between general and vocational tracks. Finally, the analyses go on to examine recent trends, including the slowing of social development and declining fertility, and ultimately asks, can East Asia maintain its world leading development and educational standards in coming decades? Combining a wealth of quantitative data and policy analyses, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian and international education.

This book is an insightful meta-narrative about schooling which explores the global natural experiment of the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential impact on school culture. The proposed book discusses how the abrupt and somewhat forced digital transformation of schooling on a global scale (caused by the COVID-19 pandemic) did not change the educational status quo. It states that online teaching and learning failed to transform the role of the key school actors, students and teachers as well as the relationship between them, despite megatrends such as digitalisation, automation and the development of artificial intelligence. This focus text discusses why the global experience of distance education did not translate into a significant qualitative change and provides a theoretical framework which enables the reader to interpret and explain the processes that occurred during distance education, as well as understand why extraordinarily little (if nothing) has changed in school culture. It will appeal to scholars and students from the sociology of education and from education studies, particularly those interested in school culture, innovation in education, online teaching and learning, curriculum studies and education policy. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

A decade after the Bologna Declaration has called for the establishment of a cycle system of study programmes and degrees all over Europe the changes actually having occurred in this reform process can be measured and assessed. To what extent did the bachelor students gained international experiences during or after their study program? What is the proportion of bachelor degree holders who are employed about one year after graduation? What are the labor market experiences of those bachelor graduates who started to work? Was it difficult to gain relevant employment? What are the employment conditions for bachelor graduates in terms of income, position, working time, unlimited term contracts compared to traditional graduates? To what extent are bachelor graduates working in areas with close relation to their field of study (horizontal match)? Is their level of education needed for their work tasks (vertical match)? These are the key questions which will be answered in this volume based on surveys of graduates from institutions of higher education recently undertaken in ten European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, and United Kingdom). The bachelor-master-structure actually implemented varies substantially between the countries and also the consequences of these reforms differ strikingly. In some countries, more students spend a period of study abroad than the goal set for the year 2020 in the Bologna Process; in other countries, not yet a quarter of the expected rate is achieved. Also the frequency of bachelor graduates differs by country who opt for further study, transfer to employment or are both employed and students. The comparative study also provides a wealth of information about the employment and work situation of bachelor graduates as compared to other graduates from institutions of higher education. The book provides relevant information for students and teaching staff at institutions of higher education, employers and politicians and administrative staff dealing with higher education issues.

This book provides a dynamic and contextualized account of how young people's lives are shaped by economic instability and uncertainty.