Herein we examine the dominant image of East Asian schools as marked by a darker side of widespread bullying, leading to high rates of youth suicide. First outlining the substantial literature on bullying in the English language, we turn to show how -- paradoxically -- the rates of bullying and suicide are no higher, or in nearly all cases, lower…

Most national assessments in education focus on the curriculum to identify the knowledge and skills students should have acquired. Applying this approach to international assessments poses several challenges that need to be addressed in the design and implementation of international studies. This Compass Brief explains the advantages and…

Families are active agents in school systems and apply different strategies of educational advantage to help their children succeed at school. These strategies are planned and enacted by families with their children in mind, but they are always a response to the broader education system design. This article explores how through their strategies…

The OECD's PISA exercise has by now been widely critiqued. Whilst we agree with most concerns, we begin with the assumption that PISA will remain an enduring and powerful feature of the global educational landscape. Even if the PISA test itself were discontinued, a similar large-scale quantitative assessment exercise would soon arise to take its…

Over the past few decades, researchers, policy makers, educators and the general public, who have an interest in mathematics education in different countries, pay a great deal of attention to the results from international comparative studies. Of great interest to the international studies is the results of Eastern students consistently achieving…

This article addresses the conceptual question "what is lesson study?" as an issue that arises in the context of the globalisation of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning beyond its presumed origins in the Japanese education system. To what extent can adaptations of the method in different national settings be…

This report provides an overview of education structures and policies that influence equity in school education. It connects these system-level features to student performance in international student assessment surveys (PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS). Looking at 42 European education systems, the report identifies which policies and structures are…

Expanding numbers of researchers are focusing on the scale and impact of private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring is widely called shadow education, since much of its curriculum mimics that of regular schooling. Although shadow education has expanded significantly worldwide and is now recognized to have far-reaching significance, research…

The present paper aims to discuss how data from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) can be utilized and combined, even with other existing data sources, in order to monitor educational outcomes and study the effectiveness of educational systems. We consider different purposes of linking data, namely, extending outcomes measures,…

School issues have become increasingly important in public elections and political debates, leading to increased focus on the results students achieve in international large-scale assessments and in the rankings of the involved countries. One of the most important studies of scholastic performance is the Programme for International Student…

This Brown Center Report (BCR) on American Education is the sixth and final edition in the third volume and the 16th issue overall. The series began in 2000. As in the past, the report comprises three studies. Also in keeping with tradition, the first section features recent results from state, national, or international assessments; the second…

This paper examines how international, large-scale skills assessments (ILSAs) engage with the broader societies they seek to serve and improve. It looks particularly at the discursive work that is done by different interest groups and the media through which the findings become part of public conversations and are translated into usable form in…

In this article, the authors review International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA)-based research over the last several decades, with specific attention on cross-national analysis of mean differences between and variation within countries in mathematics education. They discuss the role of sampling design and "opportunity to learn" (OTL)…

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) play a distinct role in the United States' decentralized federal education system. Separate from national and state assessments, they offer an external, objective measure for the United States to assess student performance comparatively with other countries and over time. The US engagement in ILSAs…

Germany has relied on its well-established tradition of preparing the workforce through the so-called dual system of practical in-firm training (apprenticeships) and theoretical foundations conveyed by vocational schools. Believing in the high quality of academic school programmes that prepare a small elite for university studies, the German…