This study determined the relationship between regional PISA-scientific literacy and socio-demographics in the Philippines, specifically in terms of household-related socio-demographics, school-related socio-demographics, regional competitiveness, and regional budget allocation on education. Utilizing quantitative descriptive causal-comparative…

Purpose: Given the scientific and practical difficulties inherent in measuring and comparing socioeconomic deprivation (SED), and the further complexity added in cross national measurements, the main aim of this paper was to check the validity of SED measures used in PISA 2018 dataset. The SED measure used in PISA 2018 was the PISA index of…

Teacher leadership (TL) research has often failed to investigate equity and social justice as well as to consider national contexts and cultural differences. This study examines the relationship between TL and student achievement while investigating the moderating role of TL on the association between school poverty and student achievement in two…

Rising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socio-economic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP [Long-Term Trend assessment administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress], Main-NAEP, TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study],…

If there are areas that have received significant impacts of ICTs, education is one of them as ICTs have stimulated major differences in the teaching approaches and the ways students learn (Yuen, Law, & Wong, 2003); however, World Bank unexpectedly excludes ICT from the key focus areas in their ESS 2020, a guideline that may be adopted by…

At a time when the national conversation is focused on lagging upward mobility, it is no surprise that many educators point to poverty as the explanation for mediocre test scores among U.S. students compared to those of students in other countries. If American teachers in struggling U.S. schools taught in Finland, says Finnish educator Pasi…

It is no secret that disadvantaged children are more likely to struggle in school. For decades now, public policy has focused on how to reduce the achievement gap between poorer students and more-affluent students. Despite numerous reform efforts, these gaps remain virtually unchanged--a fact that is deeply frustrating and also a little confusing.…

The poverty-related attainment gap is an internationally recognised problem. It resides within a culture of performativity in which international comparators, underpinned by neo-liberal ideology, drive national policy. This conceptual paper interrogates the relationship between poverty, attainment and children's mental health and wellbeing to…

International studies show that the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on learning has increased in a number of countries and that poverty is a risk factor that puts children's academic performance at risk. However, there are students who, despite living in impoverished conditions, achieve solid academic performance. How they do so is a question…

Pundits and bureaucrats use the results from international tests, particularly the PISA, to make claims about the quality of the public education system in the United States and make policy recommendations. In this article I argue, with evidence, that the scores and rankings from PISA are not important and that they cannot give policy makers or…

In this paper, we analyse the gender differences between the educational performance of 15-year-old children of migrants from specific regions of origin countries living in different destination countries with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 wave. We study whether this gender difference of migrant pupils deviates…

Educators are increasingly recognising the importance of improving students' mathematics achievement. Much of the current research focuses on the impact of instructional variables on mathematics achievement. The goal of this study was to examine the influence of less researched variables--family and student factors. Participants were 747…

In 19 (sub)samples from seven countries (United States, Austria, Germany, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Vietnam, Brazil), we analyzed the impact of parental education compared with wealth on the cognitive ability of children (aged 4-22 years, total N = 15,297). The background of their families ranged from poor indigenous remote villagers to academic…

Examining a popular political notion, this article presents results from a series of Spearman Rho calculations conducted to investigate relationships between countries' rankings on international tests of mathematics and science and future economic competitiveness as measured by the 2006 World Economic Forum's Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI).…