Journal ESC – Education, Society & Cultures: Educational Policies and Early School Leaving in Europe

The journal ESC - Educacao, Sociedade & Culturas is calling for articles to be published in the special issue on development and implementation of education policies in European countries. 

Guest Editors

Helena C. Araujo, Cristina Rocha & Eunice Macedo, University of Porto, Portugal
Noel Clycq & Christiane Timmerman, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Issue Rationale

Early school leaving (ESL) has been increasingly recognised as one of the main challenges faced by European societies. For the majority of young people, leaving education and training prematurely is in general both a result of educational and social problems and a cause of continuous social insecurity. European education and training systems lose hundreds of thousands of young people each year, equipped with inadequate skills for later life. Education and training are not only considered important for further economic growth and the creation of new skills and jobs. They also have an important role to play in promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship in a social landscape that is continuously changing due to processes of migration, demographic evolution, economic and financial crisis, etc.

In response to the economic crisis of 2008, the EU is coordinating policies in education and training to withstand sudden adverse conditions. Reducing ESL to less than 10% is one of the headline targets from the Lisbon Strategy (2000) and Europe 2020 Strategy to improve education and training levels and to contribute to inclusive growth. Reducing the rate of ESL requires the implementation of strategies, providing a range of school and systemic policies targeting the different factors leading to ESL. Making and implementing evidence-based policies to tackle ESL demands wide and in-depth comparative knowledge about groups at risk at all levels, about significant trajectories leading to ESL and about the development and implementation of possible tailor-made prevention, intervention and/or compensation measures to counter the phenomenon under study. These are aims of the project Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe: A Comparative Analysis (2013-2018, RESL.eu), funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme.

The focus of this issue of ESC is on the development and implementation of education policies in European countries, in particular to reforms of the education system and policy, targeting vulnerable groups and stimulating prevention, intervention and compensation measures targeting ESL. The following questions are relevant: How were educational policies on a national, regional and/or local level developed since 2000 within the EU? How do the education and training systems adapt to changing socio-economic, political and/or cultural realities? Who were the main actors and stakeholders? Was there a shift from state to private funding in education? What is the status of the Europeanization of education? What are the effects in terms of equity of the changes envisaged by European policies?

Guidelines for Submission

Manuscripts must be sent by email attachment, in Microsoft Word, to ciie_edicoes@fpce.up.pt. Articles are accepted and published in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish.

In the cover letter, please specify that your manuscript is being submitted for the special issue Educational Policies and Early School Leaving in Europe.

Submissions will follow the Journal's regular blind review process. The guest editors and ESC editor-in-chief will make the final acceptance decisions. Accepted manuscripts that are not included in the special issue (because of space restrictions) will be published in a future issue of the journal.

Authors should carefully make sure that have prepared their manuscripts in accordance with the instructions provided at ESC website.

Articles should be between 6000 and 8000 words in length, including abstracts, keywords, tables, footnotes, reference list, and appendices. Each manuscript should include the title, abstract and keywords in Portuguese, English and French. Understandably, for Spanish articles, the title, abstract and keywords are also displayed in Spanish language.

Submission deadline: April 15, 2015

Call for paper (Download)