Religious-philosophical diversity was a characteristic feature of Dutch schools. Secondary education comprised four main types: preuniversity, general, vocational, and miscellaneous, which might be part-time. Selection decisions were strongly influenced by examinations. Preprimary and primary schools were later combined into single eight-year schools for children aged 4 to 12. Other changes included the growth of vocational education at the postsecondary level and the increase in opportunity for females, as indicated by increasing enrollment at higher levels and by the establishment of special programs, such as those giving women whose schooling was interrupted the chance to return and finish their education. Switzerland
The Swiss constitution of 1874 provided that each canton (state) or half canton must organize and maintain free and compulsory elementary schools. The federal government exercised no educational function below the university level, except to help finance the municipal and cantonal schools. The Swiss school system thus consisted of 26 cantonal systems, each having its own department of education, which set up its own school regulations. The Swiss Conference of Cantonal Directors of Education increased its efforts to achieve some educational unity, but great diversity remained.
In general, schooling was compulsory for eight or nine years, beginning at the age of six or seven. The elementary and lower secondary curriculum continued to stress mathematics and language. Cantonal differences in the training of elementary school teachers remained a matter of concern, but provisions for additional training of in-service teachers were good. Each cantonal system began to diversify at the lower secondary level and was even further differentiated at the post-compulsory upper secondary level. The pupil’s future professional life was a decisive factor in the selection of post-compulsory schooling. Most pupils entered one of the many vocational courses, in which apprenticeship had long played a serious role. Among preuniversity schools, three types were added to the two traditional ones emphasizing Classical languages; the new schools stressed mathematics and science (1925), modern languages (1972), and economics (1972). Later proposals favoured the consolidation of the preuniversity schools. Sweden
After World War II the Swedish government began to extend and unify the school system, which had historically been the domain of the Lutheran church. In 1950 the National Board of Education introduced a nine-year compulsory comprehensive school, with differentiation of pupils postponed until late in the program. This grundskola replaced all other forms in the compulsory period by 1972–73. Following the unification of the elementary and lower secondary levels was the systematic integration of the upper secondary level, spanning ages 16 to 19. This gymnasieskola used organizational and extracurricular means of integration, but students were separated into 25 “lines,” many of which were general-academic, though most were vocational. Reforms were implemented to make higher education available to more people, and adult education was encouraged.
The Swedish reform attracted much attention in Europe for several reasons. It achieved the earliest unequivocal unification of the compulsory-school sector. While moving toward increased levels of integration in the system, the reciprocity of differentiation and integration was used as a principle of school development. As a result, the vocational sector was incorporated into the general upper secondary school. Theory and practice were recognized as components of all programs. The reform process, which specified a long period of experimentation and voluntary action (1950 to 1962) and a correspondingly long period of implementation (1962 to 1972), was singularly well conceived to build planning into participation and practice. The resultant organization was stable but open to change on the same principles. Thus, the new equality thrust went beyond establishing equal opportunity to providing compensatory measures, even though they sometimes limited free choice—as, for example, in the use of sex quotas to bring women or men into occupations where they were underrepresented.
Attention also focused on the Swedish approach to recurrent education, which introduced the idea of interchanging school and work as early as the secondary level. The coordination of school and work life, which was a worldwide goal, was not only built into institutional programs in Sweden but also pursued there at a grass-roots level through local councils. Joseph Albert Lauwerys Roland Lee Swink Robert Frederic Lawson The United States
As the United States entered the 20th century, the principles that underlay its educational enterprise were already set. Educational sovereignty rested in the states. Education was free, compulsory, universal, and articulated from kindergarten to university, though the amount of free schooling varied from state to state, as did the age of required school attendance. Although a state could order parents to educate their children, it could not compel them to send their children to a public school. Parents with sectarian persuasions could send their offspring to religious schools. In principle, there was to be equal educational opportunity. Expansion of American education
Although such principles remained the basis of America’s educational endeavour, that endeavour—like America itself—underwent a vast evolution. The once-controversial parochial schools not only continued to exist but also increasingly drew public financial support for programs or students. The currency of privatization, carrying the idea of free choice in a private-sector educational market, strengthened the bargaining position of religious as well as other private schools. The issue of equality succeeded the issue of religion as the dominant topic of American educational debate.
Conditions varied markedly among regions of the country. Definitions of equal opportunity became more sophisticated, referring increasingly to wealth, region, physical disability, race, sex, or ethnic origin, rather than simply to access. Means for dealing with inequality became more complex. From the 1950s, measures to open schools, levels, and programs to minority students changed from the passive “opportunity” conception to “affirmative action.” Measured by high school completion and college attendance figures—both generally high and continually rising in the United States—and by standardized assessment scores, gains for African American and other minority students were noteworthy from the 1970s.
Although state departments of education used equalization formulas and interdistrict incentives to reach the poorest areas under their jurisdiction, conditions remained disadvantageous and difficult to address in some areas, particularly the inner cities, where students were mostly minorities. City schools often represented extremes in the array of problems facing youth—generally drug and alcohol abuse, crime, suicide, unwanted pregnancy, and illness—and the complex situation seemed intractable. Meeting the needs of a racially and ethnically mixed population, however, turned from the problem of the cities and from an assimilationist solution toward educational means of knowing and understanding the disadvantaged groups. States mandated multicultural courses in schools and for teachers. Districts introduced bilingual instruction and provided instruction in English as a second language. Books were revised to better represent the real variety in the population. The status of women was given attention, particularly through women’s studies, through improved access to higher education (women were now a majority of U.S. college students) and to fields previously exclusive to men, and through attempts to revise sexist language in books, instruction, and research.
A persistent idea in American democracy is that everyone, regardless of condition, should have a fair chance. Such is the tenet that underlay the establishment of the free, tax-supported common school and high school. As science pointed the way, the effort to bridge the gulf between the haves and have-nots extended to those with physical and mental handicaps. Most states and many cities undertook programs to teach the handicapped, though financially the going was difficult. In 1958 Congress appropriated $1 million to help prepare teachers of mentally retarded children. Thenceforward, federal aid for the handicapped steadily increased. With the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975—and with corresponding legislation in states and communities—facilities, program development, teacher preparation, and employment training for the handicapped advanced more rapidly and comprehensively than in any other period. In 1990 the act underwent revision and was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA); the law was significantly updated again in 2004. Reforms aimed to place handicapped children in the least-restrictive environment and, where possible, to “mainstream” them in regular schools and classes.