ABSTRACT
The pace of social, family and cultural change, and the emergence of the 'youth society' that is one of its expressions, do not in fact fit well into such a rigid temporal framework for schooling. Without of course forgetting this differentiated vision of reality, which renders it necessary to make allowances here and there, it seemed more fruitful to direct attention, through examining the 'context of primary education', to what unites the European education systems rather than to what sets them apart. Conversely, access to formal education is indeed the first step towards achievement of the democratic principle of equal opportunity and equal fulfilment of individual potential. The evolution of the population in European countries is generally comparable, the principal differences deriving from the period at which they entered the process of crisis that characterises that evolution. The 1980s have been years of demographic recession; they have also been years of questioning about quality.
