This chapter discusses seven key issues of how European school systems address, or fail to address, special needs of young adolescents, in particular of the kind identified in the American context by the Carnegie Council's report, Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century. The middle years are here defined as approximately ages 10 to 14. A background understanding of how various European countries structure educational provision for children in the middle years of schooling can be found in Schooling for the Middle Years: Developments in Eight European Countries (Hirsch, 1994).

Key issues

In 1989, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development published a report, Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century, demonstrating that schools attended by most young American adolescents were strikingly out of phase with the developmental, social, and academic needs of their students. The report advocated measures that would make schools into more sensitive “communities for learning,” with a stable core of academic programs, measures to ensure success for all students, links with communities, and a focus on the specific problems of adolescents.

In many European countries, schooling in the middle years is similarly seen as a weak link in the educational system. Although the reasons are not always the same as those cited in the United States, there is much overlap. Most notably, the lack of a specific philosophy of education for the middle years has created difficulties, in particular for weaker students making the transfer from a protected elementary school to the “jungle” of the secondary school.