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This brief discusses cases of neo-nationalist violations of academic freedom in Hungary and Poland. The most prominent case of neo-nationalist violation of academic freedom in Hungary is the fate of the Central European University (CEU). The circumstances of CEU's forced move out of Hungary came before the European Court of Justice regarding it a possible violation of EU law. The Court cited the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) under one of the three pillars of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) 1994 agreement, free trade, and the determination that CEU was a form of international educational services that should not be denied to the people of Hungary. Poland has a similar hostile environment to academics and academic freedom, although with a glimmer of hope following recent elections. The brief also discusses how such open breaches of academic freedom as in Hungary or Poland, in which politicians directly try to exert influence on research institutions and professors, are fortunately rather rare in Germany. However, a confluence of factors perhaps obscures the differences between "academic freedom" and the "freedom of opinion." In Germany, academic freedom includes the search for topics, rigorous methodical investigation, and professional norms to express findings and competent opinions, whereas the free speech is outside of these professional norms. The brief concludes with a discussion of the role of universities and the future of democracy in the context of ensuring a space for free and open debate.

The academic professoriate is a determinant of successful higher education systems. Yet, recently, worsening conditions of employment, deteriorating salaries, and threats to job security have made the academic profession less attractive, especially to young scholars, in several countries. This paper investigates the salaries as well as the recruitment and retention procedures in public higher education institutions from a cross country perspective. The UK, Germany, France, and Italy are adopted as case studies to determine the attractiveness of European higher education systems. The evolution over the last decade creates an extremely variegated picture.

This study compares the way IVET and CVET sub-systems interact to support the learning of adults, and thus facilitate lifelong and life-wide learning. By comparing the interaction between IVET and CVET sub-systems in the countries covered, the study analyses the extent to which IVET systems are opening up to adults, and questions whether national and regional policies and practices support or prevent a closer link between CVET and IVET. The study builds on concrete national case-studies, allowing for an in-depth, qualitative comparison and analysis of practices and policies. This allows for a better understanding of obstacles and opportunities in this complex area, directly supporting the stakeholders and policy-makers responsible for taking lifelong and life-wide learning in Europe forward. [The research was carried out by a consortium led by 3s Unternehmungsberatung GmbH (Austria). The consortium includes Ockham IPS (the Netherlands) and the Fondazione Giacomo Brodolino (Italy). The German Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) supported the project as sub-contractor. For "The Future of Vocational Education and Training in Europe. Volume 3. The Influence of Assessments on Vocational Learning. Cedefop Research Paper. No. 90," see ED626202.]

We study whether female students benefit from being taught by female professors, and whether such gender match effects differ by class size. We use administrative records of a German public university, covering all programs and courses between 2006 and 2018. We find that gender match effects on student performance are sizable in smaller classes, but do not exist in larger classes. This difference suggests that direct and frequent interactions between students and professors are important for the emergence of gender match effects. Instead, the mere fact that one's professor is female is not sufficient to increase performance of female students.

We examine the role of universities in knowledge production and industrial change using historical evidence. Political shocks led to a profound pro-science shift in German universities around 1800. To study the consequences, we construct novel microdata. We find that invention and manufacturing developed similarly in cities closer to and farther from universities in the 1700s and shifted towards universities and accelerated in the early 1800s. The shift in manufacturing was strongest in new and high knowledge industries. After 1800, the adoption of mechanized technology and the number and share of firms winning international awards for innovation were higher near universities. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre's Growth Programme.]

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which were subsequently abolished until 2015. We exploit the unusual lack of grandfathering in these policies to show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among incumbent students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition. [Funding for this report was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).]

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

I study the effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement, exploiting institutional differences between German federal states. In all states, about 40% of students transition to separate academic-track schools after comprehensive primary school. Depending on the state, the remaining student body is either directly tracked between two additional school types or taught comprehensively for another two years. Comparing these students before and after tracking in a triple-differences framework, I find evidence for positive effects of prolonged comprehensive schooling on mathematics and reading scores. These are almost entirely driven by low-achievers. Early and rigid forms of tracking can thus impair both equity and efficiency of school systems. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre's Education and Skills Programme.]

This research paper is the fifth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). Based on comparative analysis of labour force survey data from 2014, the report analyses the vocational effect on labour market and education outcomes, asking whether any advantages conferred by vocational qualifications in early career would be offset by disadvantages later in life. The report explores the functioning of the safety net and the diversion effects across countries, demonstrating how these vary considerably with the specific institutional structure of schooling and work-based training. The results indicate that VET graduates are potentially sacrificing the longer-term gains associated with further education in favour of short-term benefits. [This research was carried out by a consortium led by 3s Unternehmensberatung GmbH and including the Danish Technological Institute, the Institute of Employment Research (University of Warwick), the Institute of International and Social Studies (Tallinn University) and Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Germany is supporting the project as a subcontractor.]

In a highly competitive global landscape, occupations are transformed, new jobs are created and the skills needed for the labour market are constantly changing. European countries are looking at redefining VET [vocational education and training] to respond promptly to such challenges and take advantage of the opportunities ahead. They are reforming to modernise their VET systems and strengthen the relevance of their national qualifications in an international context. This publication explores national responses to globalisation in 15 countries and five economic sectors. It aims to understand how European and international initiatives help VET renewal across Europe. It shows how countries' reactions are embedded in their national traditions but also depend on their interactions with European, sectoral and multinational players that provide training and award qualifications. [The research was carried out by a consortium led by IBE Educational research institute and 3s Unternehmensberatung GmbH.]

We study whether raising instructional time can crowd out student pro-social behaviour. To this end, we exploit a large educational reform in Germany that has raised weekly instructional hours for high school students by 12.5% as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that this rise has a negative and sizeable effect on volunteering, both at the intensive and at the extensive margin. It also affects political interest. There is no similar crowding out of scholastic involvement, but no substitution either. Impacts seem to be driven by a reduction in available leisure time as opposed to a rise in intensity of instruction, and to be temporary only. Robustness checks, including placebo tests and triple differencing, confirm our results. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre for Economic Performance's Wellbeing Programme. The project was funded by the German Ministry for Education and Science.]

In July 2010, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to adopt Common Core's standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in place of the state's own standards in these two subjects. The vote was based largely on recommendations by Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester and then Secretary of Education Paul Reville, and on the conclusions in three studies comparing the state's standards with Common Core's, all financed directly or indirectly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all issued by organizations that are among the primary boosters of Common Core (Achieve, Inc., Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education). Nevertheless, annual state testing for school and district accountability continued as part of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) mandated by the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA). To accommodate the adoption of Common Core's standards, tests were based on both the old standards and an annually increasing number of Common Core's standards until 2015, when all of the pre-Common Core standards in ELA and mathematics were archived, and the MCAS tests were presumably only Common Core-based. After the vote to adopt Common Core's standards in 2010, the state joined the testing consortium called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), funded by the United States Department of Education (USED) to develop common tests for its member states (about 25 initially), but with the costs for administering the tests to be borne by the states and local school districts. Since 2011, PARCC has been developing tests that BESE is expected to vote to adopt in the late fall of 2015 as the state's official Common Core-based tests in place of Common Corebased MCAS tests. (Indeed, the commissioner of education and his staff at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) have been implementing a transition to PARCC tests for several years.) BESE's official vote will be guided, again, by the recommendations of the same commissioner of education (who now also chairs PARCC's Governing Board), the current Secretary of Education James Peyser, and the conclusions reached in "external" studies comparing PARCC and MCAS tests as well as in about 20 studies directly authorized by PARCC. Two of the external studies are listed in the state's 2015 application to the USED for a waiver from No Child Left Behind Act requirements and are by organizations that had originally recommended adoption of Common Core. One, issued by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education in February 2015, claims that PARCC tests predict college readiness better than MCAS tests did. A second, to be completed by the Fordham Institute and a partner, is to be issued in time for BESE's vote. A third, issued in mid-October 2015 by Mathematica Policy Research (and requested by the state's Executive Office of Education) claims both tests are equally predictive of college readiness, although its report has major shortcomings. This White Paper will be a fourth external report on the question BESE's vote will address; it is motivated by our interest in providing an analysis of how MCAS and PARCC assess reading and writing. Much less national attention has been paid to Common Core-based assessments of reading and writing than of mathematics, yet reading and writing skills are just as important to readiness for college and career as is mathematics. This White Paper's central recommendation is that Massachusetts use a testing system for K-12 that is much less costly, more rigorous academically, and much more informative about individual student performance, and with much less instructional time spent on test preparation and administration, than the current PARCC tests. Both the PARCC tests and the current MCAS tests in grade 10 are weak, albeit for different reasons, and neither indicates eligibility for a high school diploma, college readiness, or career readiness. In essence, the authors recommend that BESE reject the PARCC assessment system and vote for the MCAS system but on the condition that the responsibility for developing and administering K-12 standards and tests be assigned to an organization in Massachusetts independent of DESE and the state's education schools. This organization must focus squarely on providing the best possible content standards from disciplinary experts in the arts, sciences, and engineering throughout the state and be capable of providing oversight of high school standards and tests. If carried out, these recommendations would ensure the legacy and future promise of MERA. The following are appended: (1) Critique of Criteria for Evaluating Common Core-Aligned Assessments, (2) Links to Public Hearings and Other Sources of Public Comment on MCAS or PARCC, and (3) A Randomly-Chosen Test Item Used on the 2014 Grade 10 MCAS Math Test. Also provided are additional recommendations, an about the authors section, and endnotes.

This paper investigates how legal cannabis access affects student performance. Identification comes from an exceptional policy introduced in the city of Maastricht which discriminated legal access based on individuals' nationality. We apply a difference-in-difference approach using administrative panel data on over 54,000 course grades of local students enrolled at Maastricht University before and during the partial cannabis prohibition. We find that the academic performance of students who are no longer legally permitted to buy cannabis increases substantially. Grade improvements are driven by younger students, and the effects are stronger for women and low performers. In line with how THC consumption affects cognitive functioning, we find that performance gains are larger for courses that require more numerical/mathematical skills. We investigate the underlying channels using students' course evaluations and present suggestive evidence that performance gains are driven by improved understanding of material rather than changes in students' study effort. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre's Education Programme. The Centre for Economic Performance is financed by the Economic and Social Research Council.]

Over the past two decades, public higher education has become widely recognized for its contribution to socio-economic adjustment. This paper probes its evolution in two large and affluent democracies, the United States and Germany, whose higher education systems represent distinct ideal types. The analysis argues that public authorities in both countries have liberalized their systems to spur innovation in the provision of higher education. Yet a broad convergence in associated market expansion has coincided with divergence in its modes and consequences. Tracing how the two countries' policy regimes have created path-dependent trajectories of reform, the paper contends that the institutions associated with each state's inherited role in higher education--"enabling" in the US and "constitutive" in Germany--have empowered different social groups to shape state action. Under the influence of investors and managers, institutional drift and conversion have pushed public higher education toward corporatization in the United States. In contrast, interventions by faculty and students have moderated the effects of institutional displacement and layering on the German system's stratification. Given the sector's growing importance, this analysis carries important implications for the comparative study of capitalist evolution. [A bibliography is included.]

This study investigated how firms in Germany and Australia compare when dealing with the institutional arrangements for apprenticeship training in their countries, with particular attention given to factors which may impact on their training motivation. Apprenticeships are a well-established pathway to employment across many countries, with a particularly long and enduring history in Germany and Australia. Apprenticeships are characterised by a tripartite relationship between employer, apprentice, and training organisation. The available international literature suggests that the institutional framework for training in a country is an important determinant of a firm's motivation to provide training, and it influences their willingness to bear (at least part) of the training costs. Key messages from this study are: (1) Employers of trades' apprentices in both Germany and Australia appear to bear substantial costs for training their apprentices; (2) Institutional frameworks in Germany foster an investment model, a model which emphasises the benefits of employing apprentices after training, while in Australia some firms adopt more of a production (that is, substitution for "regular" workers) model of apprenticeship training, although there is a relatively strong investment motivation for trade firms in Australia; (3) For firms focused on the short-term costs and benefits of training, the withdrawal of some national government incentive payments in Australia has led to a weaker commitment to training, most evident in non-trade trainee places being offered; and (4) By contrast, firms training in trade occupations appear to be more investment-oriented and are more inclined to continue training, or employ an apprentice after training, even with the withdrawal of incentives. Tables and figures are appended.

This report analyses how learning supports labour market transitions and career changes of adult workers across five countries (Denmark, Germany, Spain, France and Italy). To make the most of career and labour market opportunities, individuals have to rely on their own resources and their agency but also know how to navigate the institutional context. To make successful labour market transitions, individuals need to have a sense of direction, they need to learn about opportunities, and they need to learn skills. Education and training has a special role in supporting adult workers in their careers, providing them with the competences, qualifications and, in some cases, with the self-confidence needed for successful transition. Guidance services tailored to individual needs can help individuals find appropriate career trajectories in their search for suitable job opportunities, and can foster relational, emotional, cognitive and practical learning. [This report is the result of a team effort. Cedefop is grateful to Alan Brown, Jenny Bimrose and Barbara Merrill from the University of Warwick (Institute for Employment Research and Centre for Lifelong Learning) for coordinating the research teams and contributing to and editing project reports. The interviews were carried out and the country reports prepared by country teams: Massimo Tomassini from the Faculty of Education Science, University of Roma Tre and Silvia Zanazzi from the Faculty of Education Science, University of Roma La Sapienza (Italy); Rie Thomsen, Ida Juul and Pia Cort from Aarhus University (Denmark); Esther Oliver and Lena de Botton from the University of Barcelona and Itxaso Tellado from University of Vic (Spain); M'Hamed Dif from the University of Strasbourg (BETA-Céreq Alsace), Rachel Mulvey from the University of East London and Sophie Perdrix from the University of Lausanne (France); as well as Simone Haasler and Barbara Rinken from the University of Bremen (Germany). Cedefop experts Antje Barabasch and Giovanni Russo coordinated the study, under the supervision of the Head of Area Pascaline Descy, with a valuable contribution from Pedro Moreno Da Fonseca who reviewed this publication. The work was carried out under Cedefop's service contract No AO/RPA/GRUSSO-ABARA/Narrative learning transitions/015/11.]

This discussion paper presents an overview of key concepts, trends and issues in the field of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for sustainable development. It examines interlinkages between the world of work and environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development, as well as ways in which TVET can be reoriented to advance the transition to a more sustainable future. This paper is the result of collective brainstorming and was prepared in consultation with a number of UNEVOC Centres, partner agencies and several leading researchers, policy-makers and practitioners working in the field of TVET. It reflects the outcomes of discussions that took place at the UNESCO International Experts Meeting "Learning for Work, Citizenship and Sustainability" (Bonn, Germany, 2004) on the threshold of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, for which UNESCO is the lead agency. This paper appears as the first volume in the Discussion Paper Series, which is part of the UNEVOC International Library of TVET--an extensive publications programme prepared by the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Annexes include: (1) The Bonn Declaration; and (2) Suggestions to UNESCO for action planning in TVET for sustainable development during the United Nations Decade of Education for sustainable development. (Contains 53 footnotes.) [For Volume 2 of the UNESCO-UNEVOC Discussion Paper Series, "The Development of a National System of Vocational Qualifications," see ED495379.]

A strong VET system is increasingly seen as essential to overcoming the current economic crisis in Europe. VET is seen as a powerful tool to assist in balancing labour market inefficiencies, increasing youth employment possibilities, and reducing skills mismatch. Its inherent flexibility and closeness to the labour market place VET in a good position to contribute to a faster economic recovery and long-term sustainable development. However, crucial for this role is continuous and systematic VET renewal that assures its relevance for the labour market. This publication explores 15 European national approaches to feedback mechanisms between VET and the labour market. It illustrates the diversity of solutions currently applied across Europe and how they are embedded in national traditions and education philosophy. The study asks three fundamental questions: how inclusive are national mechanisms for feedback between the VET system and the labour market; how responsive are existing mechanisms; and how transparent? Three annexes provide: (1) Case Studies; (2) List of interviewees; and (3) List of experts responsible for the country overviews. Bibliography and references are included. [This paper is the result of a team effort reflecting the work of a research consortium led by Jörg Markowitsch from 3s Research Laboratory who together with Tanja Bacher, Carol Costley, David Etherington, Gerhard Geiger, Günter Hefler, Jelena Helemäe, Triin Roosalu, Ellu Saar, Auni Tamm, and Odd Bjørn Ure conducted the research and fieldwork and drafted the report. This work was carried out under Cedefop's service contract No 2011-0161/AO/ECVL/JB-IPS/Cooperation Labour market--VET/007/11.]

This paper explores the conceptual underpinnings of the routine disrespect shown to young children in everyday life in cultures around the world. General Comment 7 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child urges that the youngest children should be respected as persons in their own right, within an environment of reliable and affectionate relationships based on respect and understanding. This paper examines two case studies, from Germany and Israel, to show what such environments look like on the ground. A bibliography is included. (Contains 6 footnotes.)

In developed countries, obesity tends to be associated with worse labor market outcomes. One possible reason is that obesity leads to less human capital formation early in life. This paper investigates the association between obesity and the developmental functioning of children at younger ages (2-4 years) than ever previously examined. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study are used to estimate models of developmental functioning in four critical areas (verbal skills, activities of daily living, motor skills, and social skills) as a function of various measures of weight (including BMI and obesity status) controlling for various child and family characteristics. The findings indicate that, among boys, obesity is a significant risk factor for lagged development in verbal skills, social skills, and activities of daily living. Among girls, weight generally does not have a statistically significant association with these developmental outcomes. Further investigations show that the correlations exist even for those preschool children who spend no time in day care, which implies that the correlation between obesity and developmental functioning cannot be due solely to discrimination by teachers, classmates, or day care providers. Full text (English translation) of the SOEP questions that were used to create the measures of developmental functioning used in this paper is appended. (Contains 4 tables and 1 footnote.)

There is an extensive literature on the productivity of universities. Little is known, however, about how different types of leaders affect a university's performance. To address this question, this paper blends quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, I establish that the best universities in the world are led by respected scholars. Next, by constructing a new longitudinal dataset, I show that the research quality of a university improves some years after it appoints a president (or vice chancellor) who is an accomplished researcher. To try to explain why scholar-leaders might improve the research performance of their institutions, I draw from interview data with twenty-six university heads in the United States and United Kingdom. These findings have policy implications for governments, universities, and a range of research and knowledge-intensive organizations. (Contains 7 figures and 27 footnotes.)

Within the last 50 years, the work-family-household arrangements upon which social policy systems in industrial nations were formulated have disappeared. This briefing paper examines how social policies of the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, and France have responded. The paper is presented in two major sections. The first section describes family policies in each country concerning parental leave, child benefits/family allowances, child care, marriage/cohabitation, and divorce. The second section discusses the mixed effects of maternity leave on womens employment, the lack of a relationship between fertility and maternity leave and fertility and cash benefits, and factors that complicate the relationship between countries' social spending and child poverty. Job-protected maternity leave is described as the most basic entitlement reflecting public acknowledgment of the economic necessity of working motherhood. Analyses suggest that fertility rates do not seem responsive to cash benefits or other policies, such as extended maternity leave, that function as wages for motherhood. In countries where child care provisions are not widely available, lengthy paid leaves have the effect of bringing women into the home for long periods of time. The most important role of cash benefits is to reduce child poverty, as illustrated by patterns in the U.S., France, and Germany. The paper concludes by asserting that Western European nations family policy can be divided into two types, one in which the social welfare system provides a comprehensive array of universal family benefits and services, and the other in which benefits are nonuniversal and accompanied by higher child poverty rates. The United States fits neither of the European patterns and is characterized by several contradictions contributing to the lack of political support for families. (Contains 98 references.) (KB)

This paper investigates the impact of English as an international language on the German language and society. Even though English has influenced German linguistically for many years, the growing importance of English as a global language, and the increasingly dominant lingua franca in Europe, has drastically increased the presence of English in many domains of German life. This paper examines the role of English in contemporary German society, its impact on the German language, and attitudes toward English and the language change attributed to the influence of English. It concludes that, even though English has no official status in Germany, it plays an important role in many domains and is actively and passively used by many Germans. English has high prestige because it is considered a vital precondition for economic success. It is offered to most elementary school children at ever-younger ages as their first foreign language. English also serves as cultural identification in contemporary Germany. It is viewed as a symbol of internationalism and signals a new German identity that breaks with a nationalist past. German, like other languages, is undergoing rapid language change in response to fast technological, economic, and social change globally. An appendix presents examples of transference from English. (Contains 19 references.) (SM)

The ways in which children learn a language--be it their mother tongue or their second language--can have a strong influence on their success in school. Researchers in linguistics and early child development have tried to determine the factors that can help and hinder language acquisition in young children, with some conflicting results. In this article, the author reviews the research and existing theories on language development, focusing on how pre-schoolers' social environment affects their ability to learn languages and their subsequent reading and writing skills. Because children from immigrant families and those with a low socio-economic status often have difficulty with language acquisition, this review looks in particular at language development initiatives for disadvantaged groups in daycare settings. Beginning with an overview of theories on language development, the author examines the sometimes-conflicting hypotheses that attempt to explain how children acquire their first language and how some become bilingual. Next, the role of the social environment is reviewed, beginning with the importance of verbal input for first language development, then looking at the complex phenomenon of second language acquisition. The author provides an overview of research on bilingualism and its various forms, focussing on children who learn a second language after they are already established in their mother tongue, as opposed to the less common cases of children who acquire two languages from birth. Looking in particular at research on migrant children, the paper explores the course and duration of second language acquisition, as well as the common linguistic behaviours that may arise. Conditions that influence children's adoption of a second language and culture are then examined, as well as similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition. Factors that influence the development of a second language such as age, motivation, interaction, educational style, socio-economic status, and experiences in daycare are discussed, and the impact of early language development on school success is examined. Finally, the author reviews several programmes aimed at fostering language development and literacy in infancy and early childhood in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, and concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research, providing several recommendations for practice. A glossary is included. (Contains 24 footnotes.)

Children face many important changes in the first eight years of life, including different learning centres, social groups, roles and expectations. Their ability to adapt to such a dynamic and evolving environment directly affects their sense of identity and status within their community over the short and long term. In particular, the key turning points in children's lives--such as "graduating" from kindergarten to primary school or going through a culturally specific rite of passage--provide challenges and opportunities for learning and growth on multiple levels. This paper provides a review of the major perspectives in research on early childhood transitions and reveals the predominant areas of focus in both academic and professional studies, as well as important neglected viewpoints and study populations. Beginning with a broad and inclusive definition of the topic, the authors provide an overview of early childhood transitions research, highlighting the underlying assumptions that informed the studies. They assess concepts in the developmental theory that preceded transitions research as well as in the logic that determines how transitions are structured. More recent approaches are examined, including systems theories and the role of children as active participants in transitions. Several examples in this review show how multidisciplinary collaboration and culturally sensitive interventions can result in better participation of both parents and children in crucial early childhood transitions. Citing the need to harmonise early childhood education and care programmes with local education practices, the authors stress the value of greater transparency in the creation of policy and programming for children, in order to identify potentially limiting assumptions. Broadening and diversifying perspectives on transitions can lead to more integrated and culturally relevant rights-based early childhood programmes worldwide. A glossary and a bibliography are included. (Contains 7 footnotes.)