Paul Mahieu

Publishing Information on Individual Schools

Publishing data on individual schools is becoming a common practice in more and more countries. Based on an extensive study of literature and interviews with experts in England, Scotland, The Netherlands, and France, this article reveals that publishing individual school data is not only a contested but also a very complex affair. Different stakeholders may benefit from the availability of individual (comparative) school data under the condition that some prerequisites are met. The publication system must prevent unintended effects from occurring. Additionally, criticisms on existing publication systems should be taken into account. Providing informative, correct, and comparative information is primordial. Value added measurements are explored as a promising approach.

School leadership and equity: the case of Antwerp: a report on good practices in three primary schools

This article focuses on the good practices in three primary schools in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. First we start with a walk through the Flemish educational system and sum up the legislation concerned. After that we give a detailed overview of the pupil population of the three schools selected. Finally, the data from the interviews are analysed on three levels: the public, the school and the classroom-level. We study the impact of the Equal Educational Opportunities decree on the Schools and the initiatives taken by the school personnel to meet the needs of a multicultural pupil population.

Undocumented children and the right to education: Illusory right or empowering lever?

In migration control policies, social rights are often restricted in order to discourage immigration. The right to education seems to be the exception to the rule. This paper examines whether the right to education – beyond legal technical questions of the personal scope of application of human rights treaties, and the nature and the meaning of the right – is able to provide empowering leverage to undocumented children, or rather remains a lofty ideal on paper. Empirical data are drawn from the Belgian situation. Sociological research has shown that while quantitative educational democratisation has been highly successful, qualitative educational democratisation remains problematic. With regard to undocumented children, real-life limitations to school access (both individual and institutional), as well as psycho-social and institutional impediments during the schooling process seriously limit equal schooling and life opportunities. Unequal responses to organisational and pedagogical challenges that the presence of mobile students puts to schools, reinforce institutional factors of educational inequality for undocumented children. A key factor in understanding the tension between the legal recognition of the human right to education and daily realities is the outright contradiction between the approaches towards education on the one hand, and to migration more generally on the other hand. The latter is increasingly dominated by a securisation ideology.