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Serious gaps are found when evaluating the recognition and inclusion of gender aspects in transport strategies, research and innovation. Similar issues can be spotted in the transport labor market, where only 22% of workers are women at the European level. The roots of these limitations are in the low participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) studies and, therefore, in the traditionally male-dominated transport field occupations. Stemming from the European project TInnGO, the current paper proposes a descriptive analysis to evaluate the gender gaps in educational provision and research in ten European countries. Specific indicators, such as percentages in the gender composition or the presence of university courses dealing with mobility and transport, have been defined and their availability in different countries is verified. In addition, a desktop review of practices for encouraging and supporting women in STEM studies is operated, underling characteristics such as the kind of initiative, the methods and tools used, the target group or the type of promoter. The results of this activity show that a wide network of associations and mentoring operates in various European nations, mostly targeting secondary school students, trying to make females aware of their potentialities in a deeply gender-biased field like the STEM one.

This paper presents the first phase of a study conducted to analyze Knowledge Building forums for evidence of second language acquisition. This study is an analysis of the posts within an existing forum in search of evidence of foreign language learning. The analysis found that the collaborative writing project shows evidence that the students passed through the stages of construction of knowledge within their foreign language classroom, however factors, such as confounding variables, inconsistencies in error types, and the small number of posts by the participants made it challenging to determine whether there is evidence of language acquisition for each student. The forum posts show evidence of knowledge acquisition, but further investigation is required to determine whether collaborative writing in knowledge forums is effective for foreign language acquisition.

Managing people requires ongoing living in a harmony and to educate citizens who would support this status. It is not easy to continue the existence of management which can perform different cultures. The different management style is different educational systems. The management style also directly affects the country's educational philosophy. Countries have differences in respect to economic, social and educational boundaries. In addition, globalization affects countries' management styles. Thus, governments of different cultures and educational systems need to recognize their own education system to compete with the world. In this study, Malta, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Finland, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Turkey, of which the educational systems structuring, financing, training programs, the school principal to choose the format of formal education objectives, admission requirements and funding are compared. In this study, education and training related to different education system managers will be introduced, and it is intended to gain different perspectives. (Contains 4 footnotes, 6 tables, and 7 figures.) [This paper was presented at XIV WCCES "Bordering, Re-Bordering and New Possibilities in Education and Society" Istanbul June 14-18, 2010.]

This paper explores linguistic landscapes and the enactment of public visibility and presence of non-majority linguistic groups in EU member states. Non-majority linguistic groups gain power, visibility and presence through the introduction of bilingual or multilingual signposts on roads, streets, squares, and public buildings in towns and cities where a given linguistic group represents a significant population share. The article offers a comparative analysis of language policies of EU member states regarding enactment of official bilingual or multilingual signs in public space. Twenty EU member states have signed the "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages," while 17 members have ratified it. In addition, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, an integral party of the Lisbon Treaty, stipulates that language diversity is one of the fundamental values respected by the EU. Hence, this comparative research assesses various practices employed by member states in relation to the proclaimed values of multilingualism. Consequently, the paper depicts and compares different language policies that produce linguistic landscapes in EU member states. Finally, it tries to determine whether there is a convergence towards a common EU policy on bilingual and multilingual signs in public space.

Despite the increasing demand for non-formal science learning activities, few studies report on practitioners' perspectives and experiences with designing and implementing such activities worldwide. This paper focuses on their challenges by drawing upon twenty-two interviews with practitioners involved in diverse science learning activities in various non-formal settings in seven European countries. By including diverse activities and settings, this study contributes to the existing knowledge base, addresses the aforementioned gap in the literature, and informs future practices. Our findings suggest that despite the existing and celebrated diversity, practitioners face similar challenges related to (a) the activities' organisation and management, (b) the competencies required to run such activities, and (c) the attitudes held by the parties involved in them. Direct interview quotes exemplify each theme, further pinpointing the interconnection of multiple factors that inform the organisation and implementation of non-formal science learning activities. The findings allowed for a deeper understanding of challenges reported in the literature and shed light on the challenges voiced by the practitioners including the multiple competencies required and the workload. We conclude with a discussion foregrounding the need to build a knowledge base of shared practices in the field of non-formal science learning.

This paper reports on an investigation examining provision of physical education continuing professional development (CPD) in European countries undertaken to identify the types of practices being employed. We begin by providing a brief overview of what we currently know about CPD internationally in general education and physical education. Data are reported to reflect Parker and Patton's (2017) key characteristics of CPD that highlight effective CPD, summarise current trends and issues in physical education, and are intended to serve as a guide to how teachers learn and how they might be better served in that learning in these European countries. Studying current practices in CPD provision identified in this study provided modest insight to inform teacher education programmes and CPD providers on the current status of physical education CPD currently being employed in Europe. We propose these findings might inform international and comparative education with respect to CPD and set the foundation for physical education colleagues in Europe to develop a CPD network where endeavours such as sharing of CPD practices, engaging in discussion of those practices, and the design of collaborative research on such CPD practices are based.

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the funding mechanisms for higher education across sixteen countries which builds upon existing work on educational institutions, educational outcomes, and welfare regimes. We focus upon the current financing dilemma within the Irish higher education system, seeking potential solutions within an international comparison. Our quantitative analysis identifies four clusters of countries: the Nordic, Continental-Europe, Mediterranean and English-Speaking; all of which are strongly correlated to economic and structural characteristics based on welfare state literature. Each education regime is associated with institutional, economic, and political factors. Our analysis presents evidence that Ireland does not possess the characteristics of a country that could benefit from an income-contingent lending structure to fund university education due to inherent sovereign characteristics. Further, Ireland could be better served through the introduction of free fee structures such as that found in Norway and Scotland or through the generation of state-sponsored lending facilities through private institutions like those already in place in Finland, Germany, and Sweden.

Social capital has recently emerged as an effective approach to rethink schools as wider learning ecosystems where students, teachers and families have greater access to learning resources through social interaction. Literature has not provided research-based assessment tools that document school leaders' abilities to weave social relationships between actors within the school and across the community. This paper presents an international experts' validation of the SchoolWeavers Tool, an online resource that supports school leaders to assess the health and potential of their school ecosystem and provides meaningful feedback to weave social and professional capital and lift learning opportunities and educational goals. Theoretical validation was conducted in the first round by 15 experts from 8 countries with prior experience in network leadership in education, and in the second round, with 54 school actors from the same 8 countries. The final model provides an internationally validated tool that supports school leaders' capacities to improve collective effectiveness, internal and external collaboration, innovation and equity. Furthermore, the Tool creates research opportunities by allowing school leaders and researchers to collaborate and support systemic impact and sustainable improvement.

In this paper we discuss social creativity in a particular professional context, that of education. We studied how collaborative design of educational digital resources inspired social creativity and the influencing factors during this collaboration amongst a group of designers made up of mathematics teachers, teacher educators and researchers with diverse expertise. The research was carried out in the framework of the MC2 European project (http://www.mc2-project.eu/, 2013-2016) aiming to develop a socio-technical environment for the design of digital resources fostering creative mathematical thinking. Through the functional combination of theories, we conceptualize and study the social creativity that occurs during the collaborative design process of a digital resource embedding mathematics into a story. The methodology comprises two main stages, one for setting the context and the other for studying social creativity. We bring to the fore the importance of the moderation of the group of designers, the ignition of ideas, the use of designers' complementary knowledge and expertise, and the limitation of our communication tool.

In this paper, we have employed data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, 2012 edition) on the EU-15 countries in order to investigate the effect of using ICT at home on achievement. By employing Propensity Score Matching, we provide robust evidence that in most countries there is a negative association between using computers intensely for homework and achieving lower test scores across all subjects. Such negative effect affects the achievement of both low- and high-performing students and is robust to a specification that consider unobservable self-sorting of students across schools. Our findings suggest that a more cautious approach should be taken with regards to the wide-spread use of digital innovation as a means to support students' out-of-school work.

This paper utilises qualitative and quantitative findings from the Facilitating Inclusive Education and Supporting the Transition Agenda (FIESTA) project that carried out a survey of professionals and focus groups/interviews with parents and children to understand the context of transition, inclusion and collaborative working. The paper contrasts parent, professional and pupil views of different approaches to transition for pupils with additional support requirements in the partner EU countries of the FIESTA project (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania, Catalonia/Spain and Scotland/the United Kingdom). Transition from pre-school to primary school and from primary to secondary school is a period where professionals begin to meet and exchange knowledge. Although many significant developments have taken place, transition remains very challenging for European countries. This paper differentiates between transitions led by professionals, parents and children. It analyses transition practices in order to make recommendations on how we can move beyond rigid approaches to inclusion, shift power relations in service settings and enable more flexible, participatory and inter-relational approaches.

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequality in educational scores and their evolution over time in four European countries. Using Programme for International Student Assessment data from the 2000 and the 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequality decreased in Germany and Spain (two "decentralised" schooling systems), whilst it increased in France and Italy (two "centralised" systems). The decomposition exercise shows that educational inequality not only does reflect the background related inequality, but also schools' characteristics especially. These characteristics are responsible for the observed evolution over time of inequality.

The CEFR encourages teachers to resort to task-based activities in the language classroom. However, some resistance has been offered to this approach, due to lack of appropriate training and difficulty in meeting some basic practical conditions, as well as in finding resources and examples of good practices, as shown in a survey conducted within the scope of ETALAGE. PETALL (Pan European Task-based Activities in Language Learning [2013-2016]) seeks to construct a transnational strategy for ICT-based task design management and aims to design tasks that can be implemented in different educational contexts. This paper offers an overview of the internal evaluation procedures to be followed at different levels and stages of the project, and discusses the objectives, underlying principles and criteria applied.

The paper reports on the experienced educator perspective regarding human-to-human connection in distance education. The research questions aimed to fill gaps in the existing research literature, to investigate the role of the educator, to discover how learning and subject content are affected by contextual factors, to find out if it enhances the sense of togetherness (immediacy and intimacy). The Informed Grounded Theory and the Community of Inquiry model provided a scaffolding framework for designing interview questions and analyzing findings. The outcome of the analysis formulated a new theory called tele-proximity, which gives an explanation of how presences could work in synchronicity. The findings may help educators gain insight into how to use Synchronous Video Communication (SVC) and lead future research to dig deeper into the field of synchronicity and the importance of audiovisual cues.

This study provides a systematic review on the Critical Thinking (CT) intervention studies reported in the national literature of the countries involved in the CRITHINKEDU project. The aim of this paper is to characterise critical thinking intervention studies in higher education institutions across different fields. The review process has been carried out by applying content analysis and it is comprised of five stages. A rubric was built in conjunction with a literature review on CT interventions and data analysis. Slight differences were identified among the examined fields. The main results show that immersion is the most frequent approach in all of the fields, followed by infusion, which is only implemented in STEM and social sciences. All of the interventions are short-term and address either CT skills exclusively, or deal with skills and dispositions together. Further research is needed in order to explore which aspects of the CT interventions are successful in the promotion of CT in higher education (HE), as well as the CT components, which are targeted during instruction.

This article presents results from an extensive systematic and meta-analytical review of the effectiveness of school-based bullying prevention programs. Its main aim is to explore the results of this meta-analysis specifically in regard to variations in the effectiveness of school-bullying programs globally and the effectiveness of specific anti-bullying programs. Our meta-analysis included 100 independent evaluations, and found that, overall, programs were effective in reducing school-bullying perpetration and victimization. In the present paper, we focused on 12 countries (e.g., Italy, Norway, USA, UK), three regions (i.e., Europe, North America, and Scandinavia) and four anti-bullying programs (i.e., KiVa, NoTrap!, OBPP, and ViSC) with multiple evaluations. Our results showed that anti-bullying programs evaluated in Greece were the most effective in reducing bullying perpetration, followed by Spain and Norway. Anti-bullying programs evaluated in Italy were the most effective in reducing bullying victimization, followed by Spain and Norway. Evaluations conducted in North America were the most effective in reducing bullying perpetration, and evaluations conducted in Scandinavia were the most effective in reducing bullying victimization. Evaluations of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program produced the largest effect sizes for bullying perpetration outcomes, but the NoTrap! Program was the most effective in reducing bullying victimization. We also systematically review the core components of the intervention programs and make recommendations for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.

The role of work-based learning is a pivotal part of developing the learning region. With rates of employment at their highest for many years across Europe, the need for up-skilling the workforce in many areas will be essential to retain competitiveness and employability. This paper will focus on quality management up-skilling in small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in five European countries. Recent statistics indicate that the role of quality management has become critical to the SME if they are to survive in the current economic climate. Results have shown time and again that a result of successful application of quality tools in any company is an increase in productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction. Key to the successful delivery of these quality management systems are the skills and aptitudes of the person responsible for their deployment, the quality manager. However it remains to be determined what makes up the key behaviors and characteristics that indicate an individual is at the level of "expert" practitioner and, if there are differences in opinion, to what extent. Also investigated are attitudes to requisite levels of education attainment for expert denomination and finally, whether the importance of expertise in other domains of practice is comparable between countries participating in the study (Ireland, Spain, Greece, Poland, and Sweden). The method of research chosen was qualitative interviews with senior management in SMEs in 20 companies across five countries. The rationale for the research design, method, and dissemination are discussed and an inventory of the characteristics deemed to qualify the practitioner as expert was then taken from the results. This was then compared across the participating countries. The paper concludes with recommendations for how educational institutions can facilitate full-time employees in achieving and maintaining the status of "domain expert" and also recommends a strategy for future research into the effects of culture on attribution of key behaviors and characteristics on the novice-to-expert trajectory deemed critical to fluid mobility of highly skilled employees, a critical component in support of the learning region. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 3 notes.)

This paper seeks to analyse the relationship between wages and education at a European level, using a quantile regression in order to be able to extend the study along the whole wage distribution. This analysis is carried out for a sample of 14 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom), using the European Community Household Panel data-set. The paper aims to investigate whether the relationship between wages and education at European level is homogeneous and stable through time by running regressions for average and current (log)wages. Policy implications are derived. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures, and 3 notes.)

Education is the main vehicle for empowering adults, and can contribute to community wellbeing. However, regarding mature adults (MAs) (over 45 years old), age has been identified in various studies as a significant barrier to accessing educational activities. This paper focuses on MAs' motivations to learn through an exploratory survey undertaken in six European countries. A K-means cluster analysis based on 16 variables has been run on n = 846 valid cases. Four clusters describing distinctive behaviours and attitudes of MAs towards learning activities were identified. The study confirms that MAs' motivations to learn are very diverse, overcoming some of the so-called "myths of global aging," such as the homogeneity of MAs or the correlation between age and a decline in motivation to learn. Furthermore, analysing the main motivations of MA learners can be useful for adapting education to cater to their specific needs, boosting a more inclusive education, and promoting MAs' empowerment.

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the estimated returns can be causally interpreted. Using the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, this paper explores several approaches that aim to address potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances. We address measurement error by exploiting the fact that PIAAC measures skills in several domains. Furthermore, we estimate instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment and parental education to circumvent reverse causation. Results show a strikingly similar pattern across the diverse set of countries in our sample. In fact, the instrumental-variable estimates are consistently larger than those found in standard least-squares estimations. The same is true in two "natural experiments," one of which exploits variation in skills from changes in compulsory-schooling laws across U.S. states. The other one identifies technologically induced variation in broadband Internet availability that gives rise to variation in ICT skills across German municipalities. Together, the results suggest that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to skills in the labor market.

Mobile assisted language learning (MALL) and open access repositories for language learning resources are both topics that have attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners in technology enhanced learning (TeL). Yet, there is limited experimental evidence about possible factors that can influence and potentially enhance reuse of MALL resources stored in open access repositories. In this paper the Mobile2Learn Framework is proposed, which aims at supporting sharing and reuse of MALL resources within the context of MALL courses development. Moreover, a quantitative analysis of the reuse of MALL resources developed with the proposed Mobile2Learn Framework is conducted. The results of this analysis provided with evidence that completeness of metadata fields related with educational objectives based on Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) can strongly influence reuse taking place among Mobile2Learn Framework users.

Understanding the role of social policies in intergenerational transfers from old to young people is especially important in times of population aging. This paper focuses on the influences of social expenditures and social services on financial support and on practical help from older parents to their adult children based on the first two waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, "N" = 60,250 dyads from 13 European countries). Multilevel models showed that social policy plays an important role for intergenerational transfer patterns: The more public assistance was provided to citizens, the more likely parents supported their adult children financially and practically, but this support was less intense in terms of money and time given. Thus, the analyses support the specialization hypothesis that posits a division of labor between family and state for downward intergenerational transfers. (Contains 3 tables, 3 figures, and 1 note.)

The level of similarity of knowledge work across occupations and industries allows for the design of supportive information and communication technology (ICT) that can be widely used. In a previous ethnographically informed study, we identified activities that can be supported to increase knowledge maturing, conceptualized as goal-oriented learning on a collective level. The aim of this paper is to investigate the current state of support and success of these knowledge maturing activities and to contrast them with their perceived importance, to identify those which have the highest potential for being supported by ICT. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through telephone interviews with representatives from 126 organizations throughout Europe in a sample stratified according to size, sector, and knowledge-intensity. The activities that appear to be most promising are "reflecting on and refining work practices and processes," "finding people with particular knowledge or expertise," as well as "assessing, verifying, and rating information." Rich empirical material about how these activities are performed and also the issues that emerged and need to be managed were collected. Three clusters of organizations were identified: best performing organizations, people- and awareness-oriented organizations, and hesitant formalists. It was found that a balanced knowledge strategy that leaned toward personalization outperformed a codification strategy.

This paper is a macro study on higher education R&D and its impact on productivity growth. I measure the social rate of return on higher education R&D in 17 high-income OECD countries using country level data on the percentage of gross expenditure on R&D performed by higher education, business, and government sectors over the period 1981-2006. Empirical results suggest that lagged R&D performed by higher education is positively affecting productivity growth in all specifications. The long-run propensity of productivity growth to R&D performed by the higher education sector is also found to be positive and significant while it is found be insignificant to business R&D. (Contains 13 notes, 3 figures and 8 tables.)

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in creating a dynamic and successful European economy. Time-poor managers in these organisations generally have fewer opportunities for training and development than their counterparts in larger organisations. As a result, different requirements are placed on training. The aim of this study was to test the principles of action learning in a virtual environment. The action-learning programme was based on virtual working but did also involve face-to-face workshops, thus providing a blended approach. The project was designed to be "evaluation-led", with evaluation progressing alongside the project from design to finalisation. The focus of this paper is on how the evaluation-led approach unfolded. To this end, we start by explaining our research approach, we then move on to an analysis of the project to conclude with a discussion of the findings and of the lessons learnt. We conclude by highlighting some further research needs. (Contains 1 table and 5 notes.)

One area where the financial crisis has shown the limitation of neo-liberal thinking is the area of educational reform. By studying the different ranges of national responses and by understanding the differing contexts for educational change in historical periods, we can begin to think differently about educational restructuring. In this paper I report on some of the findings from a four-year study of educational reforms in seven European countries undertaken for the European Commission. The countries covered are: England and Wales, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Greece and the research was conducted from 2004 to 2008. (Contains 3 tables and 1 note.)

This paper analyses and discusses the roles and participation of those involved in a collaborative action research project to highlight the factors that influenced their content, quality and intensity. Emphasis is given to the reflections of the facilitator (author) on the processes employed to achieve equal participation and roles in the action research. Meetings and interviews with teachers are content-analysed to provide descriptions of the timing, content and type of interactions among the members of the collaborative action research. Factors shown to influence the roles, participation and employed processes of interaction among the participants of collaborative action research include the time needed to develop shared understandings and collect adequate information; shared knowledge in order to challenge each other's ideas and interpretations; the flexible role of the facilitator; the avoidance of lead teachers' actions; and the trusting relationship among the participants in action research. (Contains 2 tables and 3 notes.)

While higher education is regarded a high priority for economic development in many countries, public budgets often fall short to support desired levels of expansion in higher education. This leads to cost-sharing: students and their families are required to contribute more to the costs of higher education. This paper explores worldwide trends to cope with this issue based on the following questions: Is it fair to ask for larger contributions from students? What are the global patterns and forms of higher private shares in the costs of higher education? And what is the impact of cost-sharing on higher education access and equity? (Contains 4 tables and 2 footnotes.)

This paper presents the rationale, development and application of "Unplugged', a new school programme for the prevention of substance abuse, which is based on the comprehensive social influence approach (CSI). The programme was developed, implemented and evaluated by a cross-disciplinary group of experts in the frame of a multi-centre study in seven European countries. The basic curriculum consists of 12 units, which are delivered by class teachers to a target population of 12-14 year-old students. Additional programme components were workshops for the students' parents and debriefing sessions led by class peers. The programme's application was monitored by means of structured report forms. This process monitoring allowed for the analysis of problems in implementation, as well as of participatory aspects. "Unplugged" is the first comprehensive social influence school curriculum in Europe of which the efficacy has been evaluated in a field trial, and it also constitutes an example of a theory- and evidence-based programme against youths' substance use. This report can provide public health and school decision makers with tools to make an informed choice on these kinds of programmes and to survey their application. (Contains 2 figures, 4 tables and 1 note.)

The contemporary university is an uncomfortable amalgamation of ambitions once held by a variety of educational institutions. It owes debts to the philosophical schools of Ancient Greece and Rome, to the monasteries of the Middle Ages, to the theological colleges of Paris, Padua, and Bologna and to the research laboratories of early modern science. One of the legacies of this heterogeneous background is that academics in the humanities have been forced to disguise both from themselves and their students why their subjects really matter--for the sake of attracting money and prestige in a world obsessed by the achievements of science and unable to find a sensible way of assessing the value of a novel or a history book. The author dreams of an ideal new sort of institution which could welcome Montaigne, or indeed Nietzsche, Goethe, or Kierkegaard--a University of Life that would give students the tools to master their lives through the study of culture rather than using culture just for the sake of passing an exam. This ideal University of Life (which would be equipped with an elegant logo, cafeteria, and headquarters) would draw on traditional areas of knowledge (history, art, literature) but would angle its material toward active concerns (how to choose a career, conduct a relationship, sack someone, and get ready to die). The university would never take the importance of culture for granted. It would know that culture is kept alive by a constant respectful questioning--not by an excessive and snobbish attitude of respect. Students in the ideal University of Life would end up knowing much the same material as their colleagues in other institutions, they would simply have learned it under a very different set of headings. Too often, head-on assaults on the great questions are abandoned to the second-rate efforts of gurus and motivational speakers. The author contends that it is time for high culture to reappropriate them and to consider them with all the rigor and seriousness currently too often lavished on topics of minor relevance.

This research provides policy-makers, researchers, and educators at all levels with a glimpse of the contextual influence on effective school improvement (ESI) in 8 European countries. What are the factors at the contextual level, particularly at the national level, which influence ESI? Are there any similarities or differences between the influences they exert on ESI in different countries? Can common traits be identified? These are the core questions this paper tries to explore. It has drawn on insights from 5 areas of research: school effectiveness; school improvement; curriculum; public choice (marketization); organization, organizational learning, and learning organization. This yields a "goal-pressure-support" conceptual framework accompanied by 10 contextual factors and 48 indicators. Given the original conceptual framework and the empirical support of 31 case studies contributed by 8 European countries, the findings of this study may have significant implications for policy, practice, school effectiveness, and school improvement. (Contain 1 figure and 2 tables.)

This paper examines the extent that material, social, and cultural resources and schools account for the relationship between socioeconomic background and student achievement among 15-year-olds in 30 countries. Generally, cultural factors play a more important role in most countries although in a small minority of countries, material resources have a substantial impact. Most often, social resources have little impact. In many countries, educational differentiation--that is, school tracks and school types, and curriculum tracking within schools--mediates the relationship between socioeconomic background and student achievement. Countries with highly tracked systems tend to show stronger relationships. On average, over 60% of the effect of socioeconomic background on achievement is accounted for by these factors. These findings are independent of whether achievement in reading, mathematics, or science is examined. The implications of this study for reducing socioeconomic inequalities in education are discussed.

This paper aims to describe and discuss the significance of the social policy measures implemented in Southern European countries—Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain—in response to the first wave of COVID‐19. Our analysis covers interventions from 1 March to June 30, 2020. Despite significant differences in how the COVID‐19 pandemic spread—with Italy and Spain experiencing much higher rates of infection and lethality—Southern European economies are among the most hard‐hit—and are likely to find themselves in the eye of the storm, once more. The paper shows that despite differences in how countries have countered the spread of COVID‐19, there are important commonalities in the actions governments took to counteract the economic impact of the pandemic. Foremost efforts were directed at wage subsidy schemes to contain mass job destruction, additional temporary benefits to compensate self‐employed and other non‐standard workers for the loss of earnings; the expansion of unemployment insurance; and finally, the introduction and/or strengthening of schemes to provide support to families with care responsibilities. The scale of the social policy and employment protection response has nevertheless been constrained by the fiscal position of each individual country in the post‐Euro crisis context. We argue that, in the long run, the response capacity of these governments and the social and economic consequences of this crisis will need to be contextualised against the backdrop of the deep and prolonged impact of austerity‐driven measures on public budgets, production and welfare regimes over the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper employs Hong's (2001) causality-in-mean and causality-in-variance tests to investigate the spillovers between business confidence and stock returns for the four economically distressed Southern European countries, namely Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The sample uses monthly data and covers the period from January 1988 to December 2010. Our causality-in-mean results indicate that there is feedback relationship between stock returns and business confidence in Portugal. The direction of causality-in-mean runs from business confidence to stock returns in Italy, but it is in the reverse direction in the case of Spain. Nevertheless, there is still evidence of a contemporaneous interaction between business confidence and stock returns in both Italy and Spain. On the other hand, causality-in-variance indicate the presence of volatility spillovers from business confidence to stock returns in Portugal, while a causal relationship is found in the current month in the case of Italy. Business confidence causes stock returns only in the mean in Greece. These results indicate that the stock market and business confidence relationship has its own idiosyncratic properties and that the stock market reactions to the current macroeconomic environment and expectations about the future developments might evolve differently in each country. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to analyse party attitudes towards the European Union (EU) and the issue of citizenship as voiced by the party central office in the official programmatic platforms. For this purpose, Euromanifestos have been coded by applying the common framework of the IntUne project. Accordingly, the article attempts to assess the degree of convergence between the attitudes of both the party central office and the MPs towards the EU in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The article attempts as well to assess the validity of the main theoretical arguments available in the literature that explain these attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market orientation is the evolutionary focus of EU food policy initiatives. In the context of this study, an example of this ethos is the legislative support framework for territorial food products. Whilst quantitative studies exist which examine the perceptual determinants of such products, exploratory research exposing the importance of symbolic connotations is largely the preserve of the qualitative literature. This paper seeks to generalise these tentative qualitative findings, whilst extending the dearth of quantitative literature by focusing in more detail on segment profiles, employing both an improved multivariate treatment and ‘pooled data’ from two Mediterranean countries to examine the significance of ‘citizenship’ on product perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The databases of children's anthropometric parameters are often outdated, rarely representative and are not always available at an international level. Objectives: To present children's anthropometric parameters in six European countries that contributed to the Feel4Diabetes project and find country-specific differences. Design/Setting: The Feel4Diabetes study was performed between 2016 and 2018, targeting children in Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary and Spain. The current study presents data from the baseline and the yearly follow-up anthropometric measurements. Subjects: In total, 20,832 measurements of children (48.7% boys) between 6 and 10 years of age were conducted. Main outcome measure: weight, height, BMI. Results: Belgian boys had the lowest body weight and height, while Greek boys had the highest body weight, and Finnish had the highest body height. The highest proportion of overweight (percentile above 85%) and obese boys (percentile above 95%) was in Greece, followed by Hungarian, Spanish, Bulgarian and Finnish boys. In contrast, Belgian boys had the lowest ratio in both categories. Among girls, Greece had the highest; Belgium had the lowest body weight; Finland was the highest in all age categories. The ratio in the overweight range was the highest in Greece, followed by Spanish, Bulgarian and Hungarian girls, who were second in the obese category. Finnish girls had lower and Belgian girls had the lowest ratio in both BMI categories. All the detailed data are presented in tables, and the trends are figures. Conclusions: Our study presents fresh and comparable anthropometric data of children between 6 and 10 years of age in six European countries, supporting the need for appropriate obesity prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) that address pertinent global issues. This study focuses on the need for access to clean and affordable energy consumption, responsible energy consumption, sustainable economic growth, and climate change mitigation. To this end, this paper evaluates the relevance of the renewable energy sector on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework in Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain for the period 1995–2015. As an econometric strategy, we adopt the use of panel data over the highlighted countries. In the first step, we apply the unit root test recommended by Levin, Lin, and Chu in conjunction with ADF-Fisher, and Phillips-Perron for robustness and consistency. We found that the variables used in this study are integrated I (1) in the first difference. In the second step, we apply the Pedroni cointegration test, and Kao Residual cointegration test, and we observe that the variables are cointegrated in the long run. The generalized least squares (GLS), the panel fully modified least squares (FMOLS), ordinary least squares robust (OLS), and panel quantile regression are considered in this research. The econometric results validate the assumption of the environmental Kuznets curve, i.e., and there is a positive correlation between income per capita and a negative effect of squared income per capita on carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, we observe that renewable energy reduces CO2 emissions. Finally, we also find a direct connection between the urban population and the environmental degradation in the examined blocs. These results show that in Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, more is required to achieve environmental sustainability in the respective countries growth trajectory. Further policy prescriptions are appended in the concluding section of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]