The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organisations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed.To address th...

This volume addresses questions that lie at the core of research into education. It examines the way in which the institutional embeddedness and the social and ethnic composition of students affect educational performance, skill formation, and behavioral outcomes. It discusses the manner in which educational institutions accomplish social integration. It poses the question of whether they can reduce social inequality, – or whether they even facilitate the transformation of heterogeneity in...

Over the last four decades the sociological life course approach with its focus on the interplay of structure and agency over time life course perspective has become an important research perspective in the social sciences. Yet, while it has successfully been applied to almost all fields of social inquiry it is much less used in research studying migrant populations and their integration patterns. This is puzzling since understanding immigrants’ integration requires just the kind of dynami...

In this open access volume, the editors identify the trajectories and patterns displayed by education systems and investigate the causes of change from a global and historical perspective. The contributors argue that the emergence and development of education systems can be traced back to inherent national factors, as well as to the international diffusion of ideas.The research presented in this volume is a wide-ranging analysis and explanation of the dynamics of emergence, diffusi...

This open access book analyses the global diffusion of social policy as a process driven by multiplex ties between countries in global social networks. The contributions analyze links between countries via global trade*,* colonial history, similarity in culture, and spatial proximity. Networks are viewed as the structural backbone of the diffusion process, and diffusion is anlaysed via several subfields of social policy, in order to interrogate which network dimensions drive this process.

In this important book, pre-eminent economic sociologist Volker Bornschier analyzes growth and development in the Old and New Worlds - the so-called 'developed' countries. He shows how sociological and political factors have a massive impact on economic change in those countries.The book is a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on social capital, trust and democracy and will be of interest to those in the fields of economics, sociology, politics and development st...

For a very large part of the world’s population, poverty and war are still part of everyday life. Drawing on insights from several disciplines, this book attempts to find scientific answers to explain the relationship between conflict and poverty.This interdisciplinary volume brings together a range of arguments that synthesize both democratic and capitalist peace theory. Supported by a large body of research, contributors contend that nations with institutions that maximize indivi...

It has been argued that the emergence of a European collective identity would help overcome growing disparity caused by the increasing diversity of today’s European Union, with 28 member states and more than 500 million people.Research on European integration is facing the pressing question of what holds ‘Europe’ together in times of crisis, growing distributional conflict and instability in its neighbourhood. This book departs from the ideas of group cohesion in the EU, and reflec...

Democracies are transforming worldwide, but at the same time political inequality is increasing. This development threatens to leave growing portions of mass publics effectively ‘outside’ the political process.This volume brings together leading authorities in the field of democratic citizenship and participation to address pertinent questions concerning the quality of the democratic political process at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Analysing causes and consequences o...

This original work explores the increasingly important phenomenon of the formation of transnational identity. Considering the ongoing relevance of the European Union, the contributors ask a series of intriguing questions: Is a European identity possible? How are the various types of European identity formed and maintained? How are these identities linked to the process of European integration? Examining the psychological, institutional, and political mechanisms that encourage or impede ide...

Concerns about immigration and the rising visibility of minorities have triggered a lively scholarly debate on the consequences of ethnic diversity for trust, cooperation, and other aspects of social cohesion. In this accessibly written volume, leading scholars explore where, when, and why ethnic diversity affects social cohesion by way of analyses covering the major European immigration countries, as well as the United States and Canada. They explore the merits of competing theoretical ac...

Modern capitalism favors values that undermine our face-to-face bonds with friends and family members. Focusing on the post-communist world, and comparing it to more "developed" societies, this book reveals the mixed effects of capitalist culture on interpersonal relationships. While most observers blame the egoism and asocial behavior found in new free-market societies on their communist pasts, this work shows how relationships are also threatened by the profit orientations and personal a...