This article reports the findings of a PhD study, which offers comparative perspectives on teacher education in a period of reforms, inquiring into stakeholders' perceptions in English, French, Italian and Spanish contexts as case studies. The interaction of needs and constraints in European initial teacher education within higher education…

The paper opens with a discussion of some of the methodological difficulties inherent in comparative educational research, and outlines ways in which systemic inequalities in doing comparative work can be reduced. The social circumstances in Thanet and Lille are delineated, and the paper then considers structural differences in denominational…

In the post-Mao era, the Chinese government carried out a series of education reforms to modernise education provision. This paper explores two related aspects of these reforms through comparative case study research in three different school locations within the same region in China. The first focus is upon system reform initiated through…

This study draws together two research traditions: John Greer's pioneering research among pupils in Protestant and Catholic schools in Northern Ireland and Leslie J. Francis's research concerning teenage religion and values in England and Wales. A sample of 1,585 13- to 15-year-old male pupils attending Catholic schools (n = 712) and Protestant…