This mixed method study analyzes rural migrant children's academic experiences in two Shanghai public schools when 2012 PISA scores were administered. It contributes empirical evidence on how hukou status shapes educational inequality in contemporary China. Since rural migrants are ineligible for the high-stakes test for Shanghai's senior…

Large-scale international assessments, such as PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) or PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), have heightened interest in the comparative analysis of factors influencing the formation of skills and their change over time. However, such comparison has been hindered…

Using data from 37,570 students in 23 OECD countries in PISA 2006, we examine how national contexts shape the expectation of being a teacher at age 30 among high achieving students in secondary schools. Our results show considerable between-country differences in the degree of students' expectation of a teaching job. To address sources of this…

This study investigates the extent to which national educational policy factors can explain differences in the probability of students repeating a grade in primary and lower-secondary education across OECD member countries. Data from the PISA 2009 study, the OECD "Education at a Glance" brochures, and the TALIS 2007 study were analyzed…

This article examines how international differences in age-grade distributions and grade effects contribute to science scores among 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. As shown in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, countries vary substantially in the grade distribution of 15-year-olds. The costs…

Gender gaps in academic achievement have long captured the attention of educational researchers. Although studies from laboratory experiments have reported relatively consistent gender differences in cognitive skills over the decades, investigations done in schools have uncovered dramatic changes. In the United States, educational studies from the…

In recent decades, a dramatic shift has occurred in higher education throughout much of the industrialized world. For the first time in history, women are completing more education than men. Through the 1970s, women lagged behind men in the number of tertiary degrees completed in most nations. Since the 1980s, women have begun to reach parity with…

In this article, the author compares the ways in which parent-child communication--a major indicator of parental involvement--influences children's educational achievement across 14 countries. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the author examines the extent to which social class differences in the effect of…