Suchergebnisse

One might expect governments to react to deepening European integration since the mid-1980s by updating national school curricula in social science subjects such as history and geography so as to reflect the new realities. France has done so, whereas England has not. This study asks how one explains this variation in outcome. Established explanations for why Britain has been a more reluctant European than France on other issues provide a useful starting point. However, a more thorough explanation for the outcome on this issue is gained by instead looking at the role of historical legacies in education ("laissez-faire" and decentralization in England and "faire" and centralization in France) that date back to the beginnings of the spread of mass education in the 19th century. These unique national legacies served as a prism through which Europeanization was filtered, and this contributes to an understanding for the variation in contemporary curricula content.

Faced with similar economic circumstances, France and the United States adopted different immigration policies at various times in the twentieth century. Jeffrey Togman asks why. To account for this variation in public policy outcome, he points to the different structure of political institutions in the two countries.