At the core of the educational cosmos stands the pupil, the student. He or she has rights sanctioned by a national and international judicial apparatus. The freedoms of parents, teachers and educational establishments are functional in the service of the `user of education'.
Educational sociologists have for some time been interested in the relationship between the behaviour of pupils and the quality and the effectiveness of the school. Practitioners of law in general, and education law in particular, cannot ignore the legal status of the education user. Education is interwoven with a diversity of disciplines within the legal domain, as well as with other scientific disciplines.
Based on the papers and discussions which arose from the 1996 annual conference of the European Education Law and Policy Association, held in Dublin, this volume contains a combination of in-depth thematic articles, synthetic reports of comparative international research and country reports on the legal status of pupils in Europe.
Together they offer the reader a wide-ranging analysis of this complex and timely topic. Yet there is a common theme which runs throughout this collection--that of the ethical relevance of the law, alongside a concern for the social and cultural equality of every child.