A report examined the impact on students and higher education institutions of the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) exchange programme. It concluded that students who studied or trained abroad were more likely to improve their employment prospects, and were around half as likely to experience long-term unemployment as their graduate peers.
Source: Effects of Mobility on the Skills and Employability of Students and the Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions, European Union
Links: Report | EC press release | BBC report
Date: 2014-Sep
An article examined the consequences of the expansion of higher education in Europe on two goals of the education system – promoting equity of educational opportunities, and providing credentials that facilitated the matching of labour supply and demand. It tested the hypothesis that educational expansion could have different, and possibly opposite effects on the two goals.
Source: Fabrizio Bernardi and Gabriele Ballarino, 'Participation, equality of opportunity and returns to tertiary education in contemporary Europe', European Societies, Volume 16 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Jun
A special issue of a journal examined gender and educational achievement, presenting papers from across Europe that utilized a range of methodological approaches from different disciplinary backgrounds.
Source: Educational Research, Volume 56 Number 2
Links: Table of contents
Notes: Articles included:
Ruth Watts, 'Females in science: a contradictory concept?'
Gabrielle Ivinson, 'How gender became sex: mapping the gendered effects of sex-group categorisation onto pedagogy, policy and practice'
Birgit Spinath, Christine Eckert, and Ricarda Steinmayr, 'Gender differences in school success: what are the roles of students' intelligence, personality and motivation?'
Date: 2014-May
A new book examined the thoughts and feelings of young people in eight European countries (including the United Kingdom) about education. The book was based on questionnaires and interviews with different actors involved in young people's education, as well as essays written by students in their final year of compulsory school about their journeys through school education, the opportunities that had opened or closed for them, their feelings about the relevance of education for their lives, and their hopes and concerns for the future. The project also produced an accompanying video.
Source: Mirjana Ule, Alenka Svab, Andreas Walther, and John Litau, Far From Frozen: Creative strategies of young people in disadvantaged circumstances, European Union
Date: 2014-May
An article examined vocational education and training systems in 15 European countries, including the United Kingdom.
Source: Marius Busemeyer and Raphaela Schlicht-Schmalzle, 'Partisan power, economic coordination and variations in vocational training systems in Europe', European Journal of Industrial Relations, Volume 20 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Mar
The government began consultation on the balance of competences between the United Kingdom and European Union in the areas of education, vocational training, and youth. The consultation would close on 30 June 2014.
Source: Review of the Balance of Competences – Call for Evidence on the Government's Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union: Education, vocational training and youth, Department for Education
Links: Consultation document | Written ministerial statement
Date: 2014-Mar
An article examined the role of specific national contexts in determining the educational situation of migrants in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In all the countries, a major part of the relative disadvantage could be explained by the social composition of migrants in combination with general patterns of social inequality in education: but in some cases significant differences remained even when controlling for such group differences.
Source: Steffen Hillmert, 'Links between immigration and social inequality in education: a comparison among five European countries', Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Volume 32
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Feb
An article said that educational expansion in Europe had enhanced inequality of opportunity for tertiary education among cohorts born in the 1950s and 1970s, and enhanced inequality of opportunity at the secondary level for the cohort of the 1970s. Privileged social strata were better poised to benefit from educational expansion than lower strata. Expansion was not necessarily an effective tool for the reduction of inequality of educational opportunity.
Source: Eyal Bar Haim and Yossi Shavit, 'Expansion and inequality of educational opportunity: a comparative study', Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Volume 31
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Feb
