Many education systems aim to provide learning opportunities to all students regardless of their backgrounds in order for them to realise their potential. Education systems are expected to break down barriers to social mobility. However, too often, children are not given enough opportunities to succeed, to pursue their interests, or to develop…

Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds tend to have more negative self-perceptions. More negative self-perceptions are often related to lower academic achievement. Linking these findings, we asked: Do children's self-perceptions help explain socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement around the world? We addressed this…

There is a persistent stereotype that gifted students feel ostracized and have less sense of belonging than their normative peers. To explore this stereotype, data from 9251 15-year-old students in the U.S. were used to explore differences in the sense of belonging across achievement levels in various domains (i.e., mathematics, science, and…

There is evidence of the impact of school segregation on students' academic achievement, but it is debated whether the extent of this impact is dependent on students' socioeconomic status, or on their native or non-native condition. This research addresses the problem in Spain, seeking to determine how immigrant and socioeconomic segregation…

This study investigates the multivariate relationships among socioeconomic factors, special education coverage (SEC), and reading across countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Three socioeconomic factors were considered: (a) gross national income per capita, (b) income inequality via the Gini index, and…

Building on the experience of working with middle-income countries in PISA since 2000, and in an effort to respond to the emerging demand for PISA to cater to a wider range of countries, the OECD launched the PISA for Development (PISA-D) initiative in 2014. This one-off pilot project, spanning six years, aims to make the assessment more…

Research provides evidence that gender, immigrant background and socio-economic characteristics present multiple disadvantaging characteristics that change their relative importance and configurations over time. When evaluating inequalities researchers tend to focus on one particular aspect and often use composite measures when evaluating…

Has the gap in average standardized test scores between students from high- and low-income families widened, narrowed, or remained stable over the last 3 decades? The question is important both because the achievement gap is measure of how (un)equally educational opportunities are distributed in the US, and because the disparity in educational…

Few developing countries participate in external educational evaluations. Information gaps on education quality make it imperative to expand such evaluations. Furthermore, international comparability across different evaluations should be improved. In addition, data from evaluations must be combined with data on access or coverage. Finally,…

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

Over the past few decades, the figure of the market has clearly made its way into the field of education. For some authors, it represents an alternative to regulation by the public authorities, a different form of co-ordination which is better able to meet the objectives of the education systems. Through a secondary analysis of the PISA 2006…

Why does the United States lag behind so many other countries on international education assessments? The traditional view targets school-based explanations--U.S. schools attract poorer teachers and lack the proper incentives. But the U.S. educational system may also serve children with comparatively greater academic challenges as a result of…

This paper examines changes in demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement over the school career, and the extent that these inequalities are accounted for by other influences such as, region and socioeconomic background (where appropriate), school differences and prior achievement. The data analysed are from a longitudinal…