EUI - RSCAS - European Forum 2006-7

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European Forum, academic year 2006–7

2006/7 European Forum navigation

Education is one of the pillars of modern societies. That makes education and its quality such a salient topic, not only in the eyes of policy- makers, but even more in the eyes of parents. Indicators of the quality of education, schools, teachers, etc., have become important tools for the decisions of both parents and public policy-makers.

In the nineties the OECD took up an already established line of educational research by launching an ambitious collection of comparative data on the quality of schooling in various OECD countries. This now well-known PISA survey (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating countries and administered to 15-year-olds in schools. The aim of PISA is nicely summarized at its homepage:

'Are students well prepared to meet the challenges of the future? Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? Parents, students, the public and those who run education systems continually ask these questions. PISA, a three-yearly survey (2000, 2003, 2006) of 15-year-olds in the principal industrialised countries, provides some answers.'

More knowledge about the actual quality differences in education and their causes with reference to international standards and comparison has become vital for policy makers and multinational firms to guide their decisions. A side effect of the international benchmarking of the educational systems of countries is the free availability of a large cross-national data-set of the pupils of the involved countries, their parents and their schools for scientific analyses.

The Forum will be directed by Prof. Jaap Dronkers, a sociologist in the Social and Political Sciences Department at the Institute, and a leading expert on cross-country comparative social research.

The topic of this Forum is an example of the keen interest in the Centre in promoting cross-national European social research.


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				Assessing the Quality of Education and its Relationships with Inequality in European and Other Modern Societies PROJECT ENDED [this page is no longer updated] European Forum, academic year 2006–7 Directed by Jaap Dronkers 2006/7 European Forum navigation content and research questions activities and output Education is one of the pillars of modern societies. That makes education and its quality such a salient topic, not only in the eyes of policy- makers, but even more in the eyes of parents. Indicators of the quality of education, schools, teachers, etc., have become important tools for the decisions of both parents and public policy-makers. In the nineties the OECD took up an already established line of educational research by launching an ambitious collection of comparative data on the quality of schooling in various OECD countries. This now well-known PISA survey (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating countries and administered to 15-year-olds in schools. The aim of PISA is nicely summarized at its homepage: 'Are students well prepared to meet the challenges of the future? Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? Parents, students, the public and those who run education systems continually ask these questions. PISA, a three-yearly survey (2000, 2003, 2006) of 15-year-olds in the principal industrialised countries, provides some answers.' More knowledge about the actual quality differences in education and their causes with reference to international standards and comparison has become vital for policy makers and multinational firms to guide their decisions. A side effect of the international benchmarking of the educational systems of countries is the free availability of a large cross-national data-set of the pupils of the involved countries, their parents and their schools for scientific analyses. The Forum will be directed by Prof. Jaap Dronkers, a sociologist in the Social and Political Sciences Department at the Institute, and a leading expert on cross-country comparative social research. The topic of this Forum is an example of the keen interest in the Centre in promoting cross-national European social research.					Related Events held at RSCAS News Preliminary content and abstracts of the 2006–7 European Forum book online pdf [last update: 13/03/2008]