In brief

GROWING UP IN AMERICA by Fred M. and Grace Hechinger. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1975. 451 pp. $15.00.

FAREWELL TO ALEXANDRIA: SOLUTIONS TO SPACE, GROWTH, AND PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS OF LIBRARIES edited by Daniel Gore. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976. 184 pp. $12.50.

POLICYMAKING IN AMERICAN EDUCATION: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS by John Thomas Thompson. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1976. 278 pp. $10.95.

THE ORDINARY AND THE FABULOUS by Elizabeth Cook. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. xx + 182 pp. $15.95.

EDUCATING A PROFESSION by Robert B. Howsam, Dean C. Corrigan, George W. Denemark, and Robert J. Nash. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1976. 117 pp.

ON WRITING WELL by William Zinsser. New York: Harper&; Row, 1976. 151 pp. $5.20.

PRIORITIES FOR POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Regional Education Board, 1976. v + 36 pp. $2.00.

THE UNIVERSITY: THE ANATOMY OF ACADEME by Murray G. Ross. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1976. xii + 310 pp. $11.95.     

The French model of the educator state

The emergence in the nineteenth century of a centralized school system controlled by the state was one response to the need to stabilize government and legitimate a state model during a period of repeated revolutions in France. This is why French education has traditionally occupied a specific place in the political sphere: it has been at the heart of a political project of realizing national integration through the construction of a symbolic public space. There are signs today that this ambitious political construction may be coming apart.     

Advertising

Richard W. Pollay, ed. Information Sources in Advertising History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979---$22.50)

James H. Leigh and Claude R. Martin Jr., eds. Current Issues and Research in Advertising 1979 (Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.---$5.00, paper)

Charles H. Patti's Advertising Management: Cases and Concepts (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, 1978---$14.95)     

Institut Superieur de Technologie: Institution of Higher Technical Education of the Grand‐Duchy of Luxemburg

This paper gives an overview of the Institut Superieur de Technologie (Institution of Higher Technical Education of the Grand‐Duchy of Luxemburg): history, aims, courses, set‐up, external relations and R&D.     

DEVELOPMENT AND DIVERSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF FRENCH UNIVERSITIES

With special reference to the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, the authors trace the development of the French universities from the élitist Napoleonic institutions that they still were in the early 1960's to the mass, diversified institutions of today. They stress the importance of the events of 1968 as a major turning point which had a particularly strong impact because they occurred during a period of prosperity. Thus the wide‐scale expansion, democratization, diversification, and massification which occurred led to a positive reaction to the call for increased vocationalization and co‐operation with industry which characterized the lean years that followed. Other stimuli for change and adaptation have been modifications in the legal structure of higher education, the need to increase offerings in continuing education, policies favouring decentralization and regionalization, and the influence of European Union higher education policies. The need to provide high quality higher education in a number of areas to a very large proportion of the age cohort is understood to be a social and economic necessity. The evolution of French higher education since 1968 could offer lessons and examples to the higher education systems of eastern and central Europe in their efforts to cope with transition. The role of universities in the modern world has been greatly enhanced. Important changes have occurred in French higher education over the past twenty‐five years, the resultpartly of the adoption of new laws, of social evolution, of economic needs and challenges, and of individual initiatives undertaken and voluntary policies adopted by universities.