Book reviews

This paper explores the relationship between parents and schools. Over the last 30 years the importance attached to parents’ views on education has increased significantly throughout the Western world. Policy‐makers encourage parental participation and involvement through the creation of councils in which parents have a say. In Flanders in Belgium in 2004 a new participation law was passed. We study the impact of this law on the micropolitical relations between parents, school heads and teachers. We conducted in‐depth interviews with teachers, parents, school heads and members of the organizing body in four primary schools and observed parents’ gatherings. Starting from the partnership–conflict opposition, we focus on the functioning of the parents’ associations and the way parents’ associations, school heads and teachers are dealing with this new law. We found that the parent–school relationship differs greatly from school to school. While the socio‐economic middle class predominates in the four parents’ associations, the results show that parental empowerment is enhanced only in those schools with mainly socio‐economically weak families.     

School assessment policy and practice in Belgian secondary education with specific reference to vocational education and training

Based on a survey among 1274 secondary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium), this paper describes the relationship between the assessment practices and forms of assessment policy (testing culture or assessment culture) and between forms of general school policy (student‐oriented or achievement‐oriented) and forms of assessment policy that teachers experience. Reviewing teachers’ attitudes towards assessment policy, it is clear that teachers are not convinced that most schools have a clear concept of an assessment policy. This is the case even though about 82% of the teachers claim to know what the vision of the school on assessment is. The main characteristics of the assessment process lead us to conclude that teachers still live in the testing culture. Although the testing culture exerts a very strong influence over schools, the school policy shows an opening towards an assessment culture. Indeed, a student‐oriented policy is more present than an achievement‐oriented policy. This distinction is important because a student‐oriented policy might bring teachers closer to an assessment culture. Our data show that teachers have a different opinion about this depending on the education sector in which they work and the subject they teach.     

Flexible Learning in a Digital World

This article and the book around which it based [Collis & Moonen (2001) Flexible Learning in a Digital World: experiences and expectations (London, Kogan Page)] is about changes in learning, teaching, the support and enterprise of education, and the role of technology in those changes. It considers these changes in a broad and integrated way using flexible learning as the integrating concept.