Abstract

AZEVEDO, Joaquim. What have Europe to offer to the new commers to the long compulsory education?. Espac. blanco, Ser. indagaciones [online]. 2012, vol.22, n.1, pp.41-76. ISSN 1515-9485.

In this paper I aim to discuss the great question of the extension of compulsory education in European countries; this extension is politically presented as a greater benefit for all citizens. Although public policies that intend to implement a longer school are focused on the compulsory aspect, this new education requires an appropriate response to its inherent and less focused universality: a time of quality education for all children and young people, without exception. In order to think about that, first I update the data relating to compulsory schooling in Europe and the relative degree of compliance, and then discuss the issue of universality versus compulsory, arguing that the guarantee of the first precedes the application of the second and, in educational terms, that one is the larger issue; thirdly, I present some of the main measures taken in various European countries to welcome newcomers to schooling , to combat drop-outs and lack of compliance with the new compulsory education; fourthly, I discuss the relevance of these measures in light of the ultimate goal of greater universality of an quality education for all, especially for those newcomers to the compulsory schooling of more than nine years' duration. In this discussion I adopt a three-dimensional perspective: ethical and epistemological, socio-political and polycentric and finally academic. With this I advocate the need to use any strategy of school diversification and flexible curriculum as a springboard for more and better education for each and every one, through increased educational personalization, avoiding the easy fall on reproduction in school environment, of the starting social stratification, poverty and exclusion.

Keywords : Universal and compulsory schooling; Compulsory school; Schooldiversity; Pedagogical flexibility; Europe.

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