It is frequently argued that changes in the occupational structure and labour markets of European cities have the potential to undermine social cohesion. The term ‘social polarisation’ has been widely employed to characterise this effect, either in a broadly descriptive manner or in...

The article reports results from an evaluation of Springboard, a family support programme introduced in Ireland during 1998. The evaluation is based on a non‐experimental design involving a pre‐post comparison of 319 children and 191 parents who participated in the programme. The two main...

Pratschke J. and Haase T. (2007) Measurement of social disadvantage and its spatial articulation in the Republic of Ireland, Regional Studies 41, 719-734. This paper contributes to policy research by developing a reliable aggregate measure of social need in small areas and by describing how this...

We evaluate the effects of an online self-assessment tool on teachers' competencies and beliefs about ICT in education. The causal impact of the tool is evaluated through a randomized encouragement design, involving 7,391 lower secondary teachers across 11 European countries. Short-run impact...

Background:Italy is a country showing low math achievement, especially in the Southern regions. Moreover, national student assessments are recent and rigorous policy evaluation is lacking. This study presents the results of one of the first randomized controlled trials implemented in Italian...

This paper investigates the short-term effects on achievement, study behaviours and attitude of an intervention providing extra instruction time to students in lower secondary schools in southern Italy. We use a difference-in-differences strategy and compare two contiguous cohorts of students...