The Organization of Economic, Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD's PISA) is explored as a site of science as an actor managing a social life. Its calculations form at the interstices of multiple historical lines as a comparative reason about nations, societies, and populations. That reason is…

The demand for in-depth studies on educational data presupposes the application of technologies that allow data analysis of vast quantities, and subsequently, drawing relevant information and knowledge. The research objective herein is to employ data mining techniques on PISA databases to identify potential patterns that may explain the…

In this study, a historical and international analysis of early childhood education in Turkey is made. More specifically, we explore the trend in pre-school enrolment, compare Turkey's enrolment rate with other countries, study whether access to pre-school is related to social class and gender, and investigate the impact of pre-school attendance…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to combine seemingly unrelated factors to explain global competitiveness. The study argues that school discipline and education investment affect competitiveness with the association being mediated by educational performance. Crucially, diachronic effects of discipline on performance are tested to demonstrate…

The present study addresses the issue of how different forms of cultural capital may influence children's mathematics achievement in economies with different socioeconomic gradients. Data from 73,178 parent-child dyads from 10 economies with different socioeconomic gradients who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment…

As expectations of the economic impact of educational attainment are soaring (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2009) and conjectures about successful national educational reforms (Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber, 2010) are welcomed by educational policy-makers in many countries, a careful assessment of the empirical evidence for these kinds of claims is…

Considering the great impact the first PISA-results caused in Germany and Japan, this study seeks to provide an explanation for the continuous higher achievement rates of students in the PISA-winner country Japan compared to their German peers. Another great difference between the two participants that was detected in PISA is the correlation…

International assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) have exhibited United States students specifically in the fourth and eighth grades, are not performing well when compared to their international peers. Educational stakeholders including…

Using national teacher salary data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and student achievement data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this study compared secondary school teacher salary in 30 countries and examined the relationship between average teacher salary and national…

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequality in educational scores and their evolution over time in four European countries. Using Programme for International Student Assessment data from the 2000 and the 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequality decreased in Germany and Spain (two "decentralised" schooling…

We estimated the invariance of educational achievement (EA) and learning attitudes (LA) measures across nations. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the invariance of educational achievement and learning attitudes across 55 nations (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2006 data, N = 354,203). The…

In most PISA-participating countries and economies, the average socio-economic background of students who attend privately managed schools is more advantaged than that of those who attend public schools. Yet in some countries, there is little difference in the socio-economic profiles between public and private schools. Why? An analysis of PISA…

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (DDD). It highlights the number of students involved, where they are educated--special schools, special classes or regular classes--and in what phases of education--pre-primary,…

This article discusses educational inequalities within the territorial context of Spain, and more particularly in the autonomous community of Catalonia. The analysis, which takes a comparative international approach, looks at the question from two points of view. First, from the angle of students, an analysis is made of the impact produced by…

In 1999 Ministers responsible for school education agreed to the new set of "National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century," with the aim of providing high quality schooling in Australia which would secure for students the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life. As a…