In this article, Ajay Chaudry and Heather Sandstrom review research on child care and early education for children under age three. They describe the array of early care and education arrangements families use for infants and toddlers; how these patterns have changed in recent decades; and differences by family socioeconomic status, race, and…

Purpose: This article focuses on recent developments in the domain of civic education in the French education system, the new programme on "Enseignement moral et civique" (EMC), and the debate about the relevance of the basic values of the Republic which came up after the terror attacks in January 2015. Method: The study is based on a…

This essay shares impressions from French and German higher education through a comparative US lens, with a special focus on internationalization and mobility. The author integrates the theoretical lens of Gert Biesta's Pedagogy of Interruption to posit that international experiences facilitate encounters with otherness that spark new ways of…

In this paper, I examine whether generalized trust and education, as well as social security policies of welfare state institutions matter for cross-national differences in subjective well-being (SWB), because knowledge on this issue is still lacking. For this purpose I integrated the insights of two sociological theories: Social Function…

The author analyzes the growth and nature of internal evaluation from the 1960s to the present and suggests that internal evaluation has been on the increase because of its perceived importance. Although the 1960s were characterized by a rich intellectual development of evaluation theory and practice, the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s ushered…

We provide an assessment of the French ZEP (Zones d'Education Prioritaire), a program started in 1982 that channels additional resources to schools in disadvantaged areas and encourages the development of new teaching projects. Focusing on middle-schools, we first evaluate the impact of the ZEP status on resources, their utilization (teacher…

Childhood and adolescent obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions in the United States and are growing. The sedentary routines found in schools and in the home as well as the overexposure to unhealthy snacks and nonnutritional foods contribute to the pervasiveness of this disease that afflicts America's children. Obese children face…

Conducted in Europe during the summer of 1971, the study attempts to show how three nations--Denmark, France, and West Germany--have taken steps to deal with the problems of economic growth in an advanced industrialized society by reconceptualizing the role of adult education. In the first four chapters the components of a new continuing education…

The increasing use of job training or retraining and employment programs in response to high rates of unemployment in France has spurred interest in program evaluation to see what results have been achieved. The contribution of traditional standardized evaluations and of emerging methodologies is being examined. Traditional evaluation methods…

Early childhood education has received an increasing amount of attention in the last two decades in the United States and in other countries. There is now a strong consensus on the many benefits of preschool. Studies have shown that attending a high-quality preschool program not only increases children's readiness for kindergarten, but also causes…

Provides English translation of a French study of legislation and programs providing preventive medical and social services to pregnant women and young children. Discussed are legislative objectives and organizational levels, strategies and modes of executive action, the contribution of social security to medical protection for mother and child,…

The final and fourth volume in a collection of papers on poverty issues, this document deals with studies of poverty and social welfare programs in five Western European countries, Canada, and Japan. Eight sections constitute the document: some cross-national characteristics of poverty; poverty and antipoverty in Britain (characteristics of…

For each of the countries, the current manpower policies are described, the development of manpower policy in relation to other national goals is explained, and major elements of manpower programs are discussed. Information was obtained from selected published materials. Some general findings are: (1) Measures to achieve full employment, economic…

This publication contains four national studies, conducted in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, that collected data on the role of training as an element of support for business start-up and as an essential factor for the survival of newly established businesses. The study of the Spanish situation examines public and private bodies…

In recent years, a number of analyses assessments used in different countries have appeared. Analyses emerging from international comparisons such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have focused on what might be termed "cross-sectional" comparisons;…