Sjoerd Karsten

University of Amsterdam | UVA · Department of Education

Home education in Europe presents a fragmented picture, according to an analysis of regulations and practices in a sample of fourteen European countries. In ten of these, home education is a legal right. But regulatory, inspection, and monitoring regimes vary considerably. In other countries home education is not mentioned in law, but is still tole...

This study aimed to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceived psychological distance and structural distance from management and teachers’ affective organisational commitment (AOC) and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Teachers’ trust in management was expected to mediate these relationships. Furthermore, the adequacy and openn...

In this study we examined the role of trust as a mediator in social exchange between teachers and their school, particularly between perceived procedural justice and perceived organizational support, on the one hand, and teachers’ affective organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour, on the other hand. A model was developed...

Education during World War I has been a relatively unexplored field of research, especially in the case of countries with a neutral stance in that war. The Netherlands is one such country. This article argues that even though the Netherlands was politically neutral, it was and considered itself a part of western civilisation and shared in the exper...

The study of social relationships using a social network perspective has recently gained popularity among policy makers and educational researchers around the world. Yet, while literature associates strong social networks with trust among educators, the relationship between social networks and trust in school teams has received limited empirical at...

Relationships among educators are more and more regarded as an important element to schools’ functioning, and a potential source of school improvement. Educational practitioners and scholars around the world are targeting teacher interaction as a way to facilitate knowledge exchange and shared teacher practice through a variety of collaborative ini...

While researchers are currently studying various forms of social network interaction among teachers for their impact on educational policy implementation and practice, knowledge on how various types of networks are interrelated is limited. The goal of this study is to understand the dimensionality that may underlie various types of social networks...

This study examines the emotional engagement with school of a diverse sample of 909 students in post-secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. Using multilevel regression analysis, we assess the role of students' background characteristics and school experiences, and their interaction, in students' emotional engagement with school. At-risk...

In many European countries and in North America, home education is a viable alternative for education at school. Parents who want to home school their child are legally allowed to do so, although some countries impose rather strict conditions. This article concentrates on the way authorities supervise or inspect the quality of home education. A com...

Volgens Bovens en Wille is Nederland een diplomademocratie geworden, een land dat bestuurd wordt door burgers met de hoogste diploma’s. Zij zijn van mening dat het verdwijnen van ‘leken’ uit het bestuur van ons land een bedreiging vormt voor de democratie. In het onderwijs, de wetenschap en sport zou een meritocratie nog wel passen, in de politieke...

In this paper the authors carefully study the problem of liberty as it applies to school choice, and whether there ought to be restricted liberty in the case of homeschooling. They examine three prominent concerns that might be brought against homeschooling, viz., that it aggravates social inequality, worsens societal conflict and works against the...

Many OECD countries have recently experienced a rapid increase in immigration, and concomitant changes in the ethnic-social mix in their neighbourhoods and schools. The position of these immigrants in education is generally a major cause for concern because of their low performance levels, poor participation in higher education and high dropout. Co...

Since the 1990s, the media and public authorities in many developed countries have published data on the quality of public services such as schools, hospitals and police. In the education sector the publication of performance indicators and league tables generated considerable debate. In this article, the policy context of this development in the e...

Het rijkstoezicht op thuisonderwijs is van andere aard dan het toezicht op schoolonderwijs. Bij thuisonderwijs zijn alleen de rechten van het kind in het geding, vinden Henk Blok en Sjoerd Karsten.

This article describes the results of a study into the utility of the SVI model, a model in which internal and external evaluation are balanced. The model consists of three phases: school self-evaluation, visitation and inspection. Under the guidance of school consultants, 27 Dutch primary schools have built up two years of experience with the SVI...

De afgelopen jaren wordt in Amsterdam geconstateerd dat het aantal leerlingen dat niet het beoogde eindniveau van het basisonderwijs haalt onaanvaardbaar hoog is. Het gaat hierbij jaarlijks om 20 procent van de leerlingen in groep 8. Van alle leerlingen krijgt 18 procent het basischooladvies vmbo + leerwegondersteunend onderwijs (lwoo). Deze leerli...

Onderzocht werd in welke mate onbevoegd lesgeven in de onderbouw van het Voortgezet Onderwijs voorkomt en welke problemen zich hierbij voordoen. Een internet-survey onder leden van de vakverenigingen, aangesloten bij het Platform VVVO, leverde respons op van 974 docenten van wie 553 lesgeven in de onderbouw. Tevens werden op zeven scholen verdiepen...

Significant educational reforms have resulted in Dutch schools for vocational education and training having to operate in a complex, more market-oriented environment, as if they were entrepreneurial organizations while remaining in the public sector. That makes these schools hybrid organizations. To get a better understanding of the phenomenon of h...

This article reviews the policies for disadvantaged children in western countries since the mid‐sixties. First, it analyses the design and results of the ‘classic programmes’ of positive discrimination such as the American Title I programme, and the English, Dutch, Flemish and French priority areas policies. It discusses the differences and similar...

Across Europe, urban education systems are struggling with the process of integration of immigrants in schools. The process of inclusion and exclusion in European cities shows many similarities with earlier experiences in U.S. cities. This article explores the most important aspects of this new urban phenomenon and its impact on urban school system...

Unlike parents in most areas of the United States, parents in different European societies have a real choice of comparable schools, both public and private, and they can exercise their options without paying very high fees. Most often the private schools are Catholic or Protestant schools that operate within the national educational system and rec...

Since the 1980s, ethnic segregation has become a feature of the educational landscape in many European countries. The article explores how school choice has influenced this stratification in Dutch primary schools. In contrast to earlier research, the authors found that the ethnic composition of schools plays an important role in the school choice o...

This study examines the views of future teachers of social studies regarding significant global trends, required citizen characteristics, and necessary educational strategies to develop the said characteristics. The study builds upon the landmark work of the nine-nation Citizenship Education Policy Study (CEPS I) carried out in the late 1990s that...

Examines a study which attempted to answer the question whether pupils with problems are better off in special education where there are more resources and they can get more attention than in mainstream schools. The authors used a database containing longitudinal data on 40,000 pupils in Dutch primary schools. It was expected that the pupils in spe...

Large-scale longitudinal data on differences in pupils' cognitive and psychosocial development in various types of special and mainstream schools are reported in this article. The study focuses on comparing the development of matched pairs of primary-aged pupils in mainstream and special education over periods of 2 and 4 yrs. After 2 yrs, pupils ma...

Educational performance tables have become a feature of the educational landscape in a number of countries in the 1990s. These tables have been published on the assumption that they will help to inform parental and pupil choice, school improvement and will make schools more accountable. This article explores the uses and (negative) side-effects of...

This paper reports on a study (literature review, interviews, expert discussion) on the experiences in England and France of publishing school performance indicators (SPIs) as far as the nature of the published information, the form of publication, and the effects of these publications on schools and parents are concerned. After presenting what is...

Since the 1990s the concept of the learning organization has been promoted as a way to restructure educational organizations to meet new challenges such as more autonomy, school improvement and better performances. Gradually, schools have started to use the concept and are developing tools and processes for testing the ideas in practice. This artic...

Until recently the Dutch education system was determined by the historic compromise of 1917, after which private schools were supported by the state on an equal financial footing to state schools. The consequence of this compromise was a mainly privatised and centralised system with a corporatist policy structure. In the mid-1980s The Netherlands,...

Important changes are taking place in the ways schools are funded in a large number of countries. In by far the majority of cases, these changes involve more freedom at the school level to decide how money should be spent. The Netherlands has had lump-sum funding in vocational secondary education since 1992. This has recently also been in operation...

The basic steering model underlying educational policy has drastically changed during the last two decades from a centralized highly regulating one to a decentralized less regulating one providing for more autonomy at the local and school level. In this chapter it is shown how different concepts of governmental steering relevant in the Dutch contex...

Since the 1980s, confidence in the government's ability to govern has in the Netherlands been under fire from many directions. This has resulted in an educational policy which favours deregulation and increasing levels of autonomy for school boards and their schools. This paper demonstrates that, despite the pursuit of administrative reform, an int...

Incl. bibl., notes on the contributors

This paper examines the implications of the uneven distribution of minority pupils and the Dutch system of choice for policies on ethnic segregation at both the local and school level. The analysis is based on a sample of 27 municipalities serving 23% of all Dutch primary school pupils. Segregation to a large extent can be found in The Netherlands...

In the international discussion about enlargement of parental choice and private deliverance of education, the Dutch arrangement is quite often regarded as a 'unique' system. This paper discuss the features of this Dutch arrangement as a variation of comparable arrangements within European Union, wherein parents can make a real choice between compa...