From sixth form to university: motivation and transition among high achieving state‐school language students

This paper reports on a research project involving a sample of 19 state‐educated students in their first year of a German course at Oxford University. The project is one of a number of research studies into widening participation issues funded by the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) and the Sutton trust. The paper describes the students' motivation for applying to study German at Oxford and their experiences of the transition from school to university. This is part of a larger scale study looking at access and transition data. The findings, based on data from semi‐structured interviews, suggest that the students had instrumentally oriented motivation for wanting to do a language course which was qualitatively different from the one experienced at A level. Although several factors might have alienated the students, most managed to adapt to the academic requirements at Oxford. It is argued that the students' ability to adapt and succeed is due to a high level of preparedness and to a flexibility of motivational orientation. The study contributes to the widening participation debate in general by commenting on issues of transition in terms of how well matched certain prestige university courses are to the aspirations of the applicants.     

Teaching children with Fragile X Syndrome

Suzanne Saunders, lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Special Education, Westminster College, Oxford, describes a small scale research project funded by the Mencap City Research Foundation into the practice of teaching children with Fragile X Syndrome, and suggests effective intervention strategies.     

The ‘Usefulness’ of Learning: the struggle over governance,meaning and the European education space

The creation of a distinctive and useful European education policy space is a necessary part of the project of Europeanization in the European Union. A ‘European education area’ is fundamental to the contemporary structuring of the European Union; it announces the arrival of a major discursive space, centred on education in which the legitimation, steering and shaping of European governance is being played out. This article explores the problem of governance and education, through its first stage, the construction of a European education project, based on cultural inheritance and then cooperation networks; then it examines, in the second stage, the determination of a new policy of lifelong learning. This new policy shifts the emphasis from formal institutional influence and centres on the individual learner, stressing performance and comparison. The article discusses the difficulty of this task, and its most important aspect, connecting governance and a meaningful project.     

EuroPro: A Project to Create a European Professional Development Degree

This paper describes the project EuroPro (European Professional Development), the objective of which is to develop a framework for continuing professional development of engineers. The aim is to establish a professional degree, which is recognized throughout Europe. The project is a joint effort of over 30 companies, universities, and organizations in 10 countries, and it is sponsored by the EC COMETT programme. It has been operating in its pilot phase in the petrochemical area since autumn 1990. For the academic year 1992–93, a COMETT application has been made to extend the concept into the telecommunications area.     

Self-Regulated Learning in Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments: lessons of a European peer review

This article first describes the state-of-the-art of model building and empirical research in the field of self-regulated learning (SRL) and then focuses on self-regulated learning in Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments (TELEs). We present recent research results obtained in a European project (TELEPEERS) in the context of which we evaluated TELEs in a peer review manner with respect to their potential for supporting self-regulated learning. In addition, data were obtained on a sample of TELEPEERS students working in these environments and comparative analyses were made across the European project partners.     

Impact of European projects on engineering education

Various European programmes represent invaluable help and source of experience for universities in Central and Eastern Europe. Being an emerging university that was established just 8 years ago, we welcomed the chance to be involved in numerous projects that introduced us to the area of European cooperation. Last summer two very interesting projects concerning our university were finished (in terms of financing from the sources mentioned above) and so it is a good occasion to evaluate the progress of our international co-operation in the last 3 years and to look forward towards further development of our established links. The first project was financed by The British Know How Fund and its aim was to bring together the University of Hull, UK, and the Faculty of Informatics and Management UHK in Hradec KrÁlové (FIM). The second project, called INSYPA, was a Joint European Project within the frame of the TransEuropean Mobility Programme for University Studies (Tempus). Both projects were extremely fruitful for us but so different one from another that we think it might be interesting to compare them. The contribution describes our original plans, their development, evolution of our partnership, the problems which arose and were solved. The main stress is given to expertise obtained, methods of assessment, persistent links and their influence on our integration to EU educational and research programmes.     

Occupational wellbeing in a school community—Staff's and occupational health nurses’ evaluations

This study is part of an action research project titled Promotion of School Community Staff's Occupational Wellbeing in Co-operation with Occupational Health Nurses (2001–04), which aims to promote occupational wellbeing by actions that maintain the staff's ability to work in 12 school communities in Eastern Finland. This paper describes occupational health nurses’ and school staff's evaluations of the occupational wellbeing of school community staff and some factors related to it. The study is part of the extensive European Network of Health Promotion Schools (ENHPS) programme, where one aim is to improve staff health and wellbeing in school communities. In any effort to establish and promote occupational wellbeing, it is central to see empowerment as a social and an individual process. It is also important to develop the school culture and to encourage choices that make empowerment possible, but also to recognise the significance of leisure time and family as social capital.     

School Self-evaluation Towards a European Dimension

This article describes the development of a Comenius project focused on school self-evaluation involving partners from four European countries and resulting in an international course which took place in Italy. The planning, the implementation and the evaluation of the course are presented, clarifying the difficulties and the constraints met and the solutions adopted, the weak and the strong aspects as they emerged from the evaluation undertaken, as well as some recommendations for improvement. In conclusion, some general observations are made on the project as a whole.     

The Emergence and Institutionalisation of the European Higher Education and Research Area

Since the European unification project started in the 1950s, rules, regulations and policies have been formulated by the European Union (and its predecessors) to facilitate the flow of products and people; those who benefited from the increasing transnational exchange urged European actors to remove remaining obstacles and further facilitate European trade and mobility. In the field of higher education and research, this transnational activity has led to the emergence of European rules, a strengthening of European institutions and the development of a European higher education and research community. In other words, it has led to the institutionalisation of the European higher education and research area (EHERA). The argument put forward in this article is that these three dimensions and the increase in transnational activity shape a dynamic process of which further integration of the EHERA is likely to be a result.     

Using Typical Infant Development to Inform Music Therapy with Children with Disabilities

This article illustrates some ways in which observations of typically-developing infants can inform music therapy and other work with children with disabilities. The research project that is described examines typical infant development with special attention to musical relatedness and communication. Videotapes of sessions centering on musical play with typically-developing infants and of music therapy sessions of children with multiple severe disabilities are examined in light of developmental issues, conceptual frameworks, and relationships between typical development and developmental issues of children with disabilities. Greenspan’s model of psychosocial development is used as a basis for analyzing observations. This research was conducted over a period of several years. Portions of what is reported here were presented at the European Music Therapy Congress, Naples, Italy (Wheeler and Stultz 2001) and the 10th World Congress of Music Therapy, Oxford, UK (Wheeler and Stultz 2002). Thanks to Elizabeth Rightmyer for very helpful feedback on the article.     

博洛尼亚进程:历程、进展与未来

到2007年,推动欧洲高等教育一体化建设的博洛尼亚进程已实施八年。针对2010年建成"欧洲高等教育区"的目标,对过去两年博洛尼亚进展中的成绩和问题进行了分项目的分析,指出了欧洲高等教育未来发展需要努力的十二个方面。     

Curriculum development and teacher education in New Zealand

When the National English Syllabus Committee (New Zealand) was established in 1970 to revise the existing English syllabus for the first three years of secondary school, it sought to evolve a model of curriculum development which was process oriented.

This article describes the bases of the teaching guidelines and the extensive and complex teacher‐education programme which accompanied the evolution of the project. It describes an attempt to alter teachers' ideas about what to teach in English, as mother tongue, how to teach it and within what administrative structures it could best be taught.     

Educational and Cultural Activities of the Council of Europe (1949-1969)

The cooperation of European educators has in recent years assumed a new dimension: it extends beyond the contacts between individual scholars or professional groups, and beyond the government-sponsored work of the Council of Europe. It is indeed a vast project of collaboration in which numerous scholars in education and the social sciences are exploring the long-range prospects of European society.     

Exercises in Integration

Questions about joint physical education activities between ordinary and special schools have still to be answered, particularly about the differing attitudes of boys and girls. Previous research in this journal and elsewhere has referred to sex differences in attitudes and interaction. Bob Evans, head of physical education, at Lawn Upton School, Oxford, and Dr Katy Simmons, senior lecturer, Faculty of Educational Studies, Oxford Polytechnic, describe a joint project and look further at attitudes and other issues which arise.     

Utiliser la Dimension Europe´enne Pour Faire Sortir l'Ecole de ses Murs ou 'Extra Muros'

Five European Institutions devoted to head teacher training developed the Comenius Project 'Extra Muros' between 1996 and 1999. The general objectives were, on the one hand, understanding the importance of the educative action outside the school premises if we wanted to offer equality of opportunity to everybody, and, on the other hand, promoting the school to spread into its local area and to discover Europe. Thus, the integration of school in its territory is favoured, and the interaction of students with their peers is facilitated. The article describes in detail the organisation, development and evaluation of the project, and also the impact it caused in teachers and pupils.     

Critical Communicative Methodology: including vulnerable voices in research through dialogue

This article describes how Critical Communicative Methodology (CCM) has been used successfully to analyse educational inequalities in ways that generate real transformation towards social justice. We begin by arguing that educational research today should employ new methodological approaches that can ensure the inclusion of different voices in social science research and the production of knowledge that transforms social exclusion. We then analyse the main epistemological positions of CCM, based on Habermas’ communicative action theory, and explain how it was implemented in the European Union-funded INCLUD-ED project. Finally, we illustrate how INCLUD-ED has had a social and political impact and we argue that research with vulnerable groups, based on the principles of CCM, can generate social and educational transformation.     

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ILLITERACY ‐‐ THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES RESEARCH‐ACTION: A PROJECT IN PROGRESS IN TOULOUSE

Under the sponsorship of the European Communities, an action project linking selected school districts and universities has been set up in order to combat illiteracy. This article describes the working of this project in a school in a difficult neighbourhood in Toulouse, France. The organizational aspects of the project and the pedagogical setting and processes are described in detail. The method presented of stimulating writing skills in early primary school children so that these skills may underpin the acquisition of reading has produced very good results as have also the methods described of inducing these children to work independently in small study groups in school.     

Cooperation in Teacher Education in the European Community

During 1977, the Commission of the European Communities offered for the first time a limited number of grants for short study visits in member states. These grants were introduced to enable teaching and administrative staff and researchers to undertake studies of aspects of the organization and administration of European Community higher education institutions. The central intention was the promotion of cooperation. This paper describes the strategies adopted in operating a study visit programme involving one institution in the United Kingdom and fourteen institutions in six member states of the European Community, i.e. Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy and West Germany, and presents an interim evaluation of the outcomes of this project.     

Expressing identity: the role of dialogue in teaching citizenship through art

Images and Identity (2008–2010, http://www.image-identity.eu/) was a Comenius funded project in which six European Union countries explored the cross-curricular links between Citizenship and Art Education with both primary and secondary age pupils. The aim of the project was to enhance and develop a sense of the pupils’ identity as European citizens using digital media as a means of expression and communication. As the project developed, it became evident that the role of talk and collaboration was a key element of supporting the pupils’ understanding of their European identity. This article explores that particular dimension in relation to the work carried out with two classes of culturally diverse 9 and 10 year olds in two inner-city primary schools in London, UK. As Zander argues, when working on an artistic production, a creative community is established whereby pupils develop a shared meaning through dialogue which in turn becomes an inherent part of the understanding of their own creative output. In this study, such a creative community was established and this supported the pupils’ emerging understanding of the EU and their own identity within it.