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There are an increasing number of educational policies in industrialized countries, but they seem to run into serious problems in terms of achieving real and satisfying results. The implementation of a policy, including selected “hybrid” government strategies, such as those that focus on both “top-down” and “bottom-up” strategies, seem to be a key consideration for effectiveness. However, knowledge about these implementation strategies is sparse and partial. This article therefore presents the problem of implementing educational policies in relation to the government strategies used. With the aim of understanding their details, contributions and limitations, it presents the historical evolution of different analytical perspectives for implementing educational policies and selected government strategies. Based on two extensive literature reviews on the implementation of government strategies in the field of public policy and educational policy, this article provides a summary of the most recent information on effective government strategies, and an innovative model for addressing and studying these government strategies during the implementation of changes in education.

AbstractThis article is based on a field survey in Granada's Zona Norte (Andalucia, Spain) between 1999 and 2006 which had as a starting point the mobilization of the district's unemployed. The article looks at local policies adopted afterward in the areas of employment, training and social inclusion. The mechanisms that were set up are based on the definition of “target publics”. The ethnicisation of social relations and other forms of social categorization are analyzed in light of the reconfiguration of the Welfare State: decentralization, externalisation of policies to the “Third sector” and instituting social protection (from welfare to workfare). Cases of discrimination are examined according to how they came about and how they were treated.

Keywords: État social, discrimination, politiques d'emploi, Europe, minorités ethniques, Welfare state, discrimination, employment policies, Europe, ethnic minorities

Research in biotechnology and genetics is often characterised by its large research teams and its preoccupation for the commercialization of its foundings. This study examines the discovery of the two genes responsible for breast and ovarian cancers (BRCA1 et BRCA2) in the nineties. These genes were the first two to be identified in relationship with such a well-known and severe disease. Our goal is to understand the constitution of those large research teams, especially when firms are involved. Three dimensions are emphasized: first, the specificity of the research subject are very important; Second, researchers' strategy and objectives are a determining factor, when nearing major scientific breakthrough, networks were more unstable and conflicts more frequent; Third, the researchers' strategies could partly be explained by the set-ups, including the funding policies aspect.

Keywords: éducation, régulateur de l'éducation, politiques éducatives, aolternance, relation économie-éducation, Education, education regulator, educational policies, alternation, economy-education's relationship, educación, regulador de la educación, políticas educativas, alternancia, relación economía-educación

AbstractJobs providing personal services for daily living have grown in number recently. The public policies encouraging this expansion always present the jobs in a gender-neutral way, in part because 99 per cent of those holding such jobs are women and in part because they locate outside of the household the domestic work usually done by women inside the home. These supposedly gender-neutral policies are based on a number of unstated assumptions about women's relationship to work and to employment. They also contribute to feminizing (albeit invisibly) precarious employment relations. This “women's work” replaces the traditional notion of “giving”, draws the general boundaries around female employment, essentializes the skills needed, and makes it more difficult to have professional qualifications and equality recognized

Keywords: Parcs nationaux, gouvernance, territoire, autochtone, Inuit, Nunavik

This article suggests a new approach to the problem of authors' fair remuneration for the use of their work. The author reminds us that the “Public Lending Right” movement has already concerned itself with the issue by claiming that authors be paid by public libraries for each loan. Nevertheless, she believes that those who really profit from universal availability of intellectual works are the producers of data banks and hardware/software and that a percentage of their revenue should go to authors.

During the last decade, the notions of environmental services and ecosystem services (ES) experienced a rapid development of attention from scholars and development actors. These notions have been mobilized to develop new instruments to face environmental problems such as deforestation: the Payments for Environmental Services (PES). Nevertheless, the integration of these concepts in public policy is still limited. In this regard, Costa Rica is considered as a pioneer since it has integrated the ES notion in its forest law since 1996, setting the ground for the implementation of the national Program of PES (PPES). Although the nature and efficiency of the PPES has been largely discussed, the policy process has been poorly documented. In this article, we aim at understanding how and why the concept of ES, then poorly known at international level, was integrated at this specific moment in the Costa Rican forestry law #7575. Based on a review of existing documents and interviews of actors involved directly or indirectly in the policy process, we analyze the formulation and adoption of the forestry law #7575. We show that the introduction of the notion of ES resulted from an original policy windows, which derived from 4 factors: 1) the pre-existence of an identified problem of deforestation, 2) the existence, for more than two decades, of instruments supporting forestry sector and of interest groups structured in the forestry sector, 3) the development of flows of ideas inside Costa Rican elites inserted in international networks, 4) the presence of policy entrepreneurs that were able to take advantage of the national and international context to build a compromise leading to the new Costa Rican forestry policy.

Keywords: services environnementaux, paiements, Costa Rica, environmental services, payement, Costa Rica

AbstractFor more than 10 years most countries have promoted the employment of social assistance recipients, that is activation. Any assessment reveals common characteristics as well as continuing and large diversity across Europe and between Europe and the United States. Activation of social protection is part of an historical logic even as these reforms have had both ideological and institutional consequences and have altered political strategies. Everywhere the promises that legitimated the reforms were both access to paid work and elimination of poverty and social exclusion. As we now know, these promises have not been met. While levels of spending have been contained, we know less about the effects on the lived experiences of individuals, these being so hard to compare across countries.

The old age policy is the result of narrow interactions between the local level and the national level. Paradoxically, the decentralization did not give more weight to the local actors. On the contrary, the State always exercises a strong supervision on the medical and social sector to the detriment of communities and local actors. Nevertheless, our researches led on the evolution of the old age policy, just like our local monographs, show that, these last years, numerous initiatives emerge locally. They are characterized by a great diversity of shares which borrow logic escaping widely the control of the State. The old age policy so seems to lose coherence. Then it is possible that throughout the action carried out of the coordinated way on the local territories takes shape a redefining of the bases of the old age politics. As a matter of fact many local initiatives are born intended to better take into account the aspiration of the ageing people and to invent more transversal answers. But they would involve dissociating more strongly the “young old” of the “old-old.”

Keywords: territoires, vieillissement, décentralisation, politique de la vieillesse, habitat, territories, ageing, decentralization, old age policy, habitat