This open access book challenges dominant understandings of learning outcomes and educational (under)achievement and examines the quality and construction of learning outcomes across Europe.

Educational achievement is considered central to economic development and social inclusion, yet its measuring is not a straightforward task, as the controversial discussion on defining learning outcomes show. Rather, they result from a complex process of constructing learning outcomes and entails manifold intersecting factors and actors. This volume argues that gaining an in-depth understanding of educational achievement requires re-thinking and re-conceptualising learning outcomes and their construction processes in a holistic and context-sensitive manner.

Organized along three thematic parts, the chapters in this volume challenge dominant understandings of learning outcomes and educational achievement in research and offer a reconceptualization of learning outcomes by drawing on three major theoretical perspectives, Life course, Intersectionality, and Spatial justice, thus bringing together different disciplinary approaches in a dynamic manner. Importantly, the book does not only offer new approaches and rethinking of learning outcomes, but also a critical reappraisal of the methodological frameworks used to research them, offering new tools for not only overcoming some of the major shortcomings and problems of the currently dominating approaches, but also tapping on the potential of participatory methodologies to facilitate the formulation and implementation of more effective, context-sensitive, and evidence-based policies. Drawing empirical evidence from a European research project, the volume offers novel approaches to conceptualising, understanding, and researching learning outcomes and educational achievement that can promote inclusiveness of education.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Horizon Europe.

Jenni Tikkanen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Sciences (TIAS) and a Visiting Researcher at the research flagship centre INVEST Inequalities, Interventions and New Welfare State at the University of Turku, Finland.

Marcelo Parreira do Amaral is Professor of International and Comparative Education at the University of Münster, Germany, and Visiting Professor at the University of Turku, Finland.

Tero Järvinen is Professor of Education at the Department of Education/the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Education (CELE) in the University of Turku, Finland.

Natália Alves is Professor of Sociology of Education and Adult Education at the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, Portugal, and Visiting Professor at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany.