Institute of Education

The 50th volume in the book series ‘Global Perspectives on Higher Education' offers a stimulating and thoughtful assessment of higher education from a global perspective which addresses the challenges and prospects for the next decade. The challenges now faced by higher education and its likely future prospects and patterns are examined in terms of policy papers and case studies. Five broad topics are considered: the situation of academic faculty, the demand for access, the role of the university in society and its governance, funding trends, and higher education’s international dimensions.

We are pleased to present the issue of the JoSPoE dedicated to the initiatives for the international assessment in vocational and higher education. The choice of the topic is determined by the increasing attention to the learning outcomes assessment at both the national and supranational levels, caused by a need for the rise of efficiency and international competitiveness of national educational systems by providing objectivity and comparability. There is a broad discussion, various approaches and assessment tools are under development as part of this transformation.We are proud of the fact that the leading experts from different countries are participating in this issue, as well as that the issue reveals current projects and developments within this topic

Context is increasingly recognised as a critical explanatory variable in accounting for commonalities and differences in human resource management. Giving expression to it in research models holds the prospect of enhancing theory development, deepening our appreciation of embedded practices in diverse territories, and opening up new lines of enquiry. However, contextualisation presents a significant research challenge and increasingly, international academic research networks that bring together scholars from different countries in the co-production of knowledge represent a key approach to rising to this challenge. This volume documents aspects of the development of one such network, namely the Cranet Network on International Human Resource Management, and presents a series of recent contributions from the network. The chapters highlight, inter alia, the limits to convergence in human resource management as a result of contextual determinism, the role of institutional actors, markets, and work regulation in accounting for variations in practices, the contextual specificities and dynamics at play in transition economies, along with key methodological challenges that arise when seeking to build cumulative comparative knowledge via network collaborations of this nature.

Our research is dedicated to identifying what allows schools operating in difficult social conditions to show good academic results. We answer this question through the conjugation of two theoretical frameworks: academic resilience and school effectiveness. We analyze several models of school effectiveness and compare resilient and struggling schools through them. The study uses a quantitative and qualitative mixed-methods design. Our main arguments are based on an analysis of interviews conducted with students, parents, teachers, and principals in different schools—3 resilient and 3 struggling. We conclude that the schools differ in the strategies they implement; the main problem facing struggling schools is not the lack of effective elements, but the presence of negative ones; in further studies of school effectiveness, it would be worth using an integrative model that combines both poles.