Restructuring public schooling: Europe, Canada, America

This volume ‘offers an overview of educational restructuring, its aims and possibilities in the European and North American context. A conceptual analysis of educational policy systems and development in both continents is provided and empirical cases are presented within this framework. Overviews are given of the national stage in Canada. Problems with the public debt are driving change in Canada, but the issue of developing an internationally competitive work force is the main objective. A synthesis of continental European development is provided in which the distinctly different perspectives in northern and southern Europe are compared. Assessments of reforms in the United States are presented. Some reforms are driven by a vision of decentralization and democratic localism, and others by pragmatism and a desire to do the least harm to the classroom as cutbacks are made. Analyses of the impact of school-site management complement these system-wide analyses.