It has repeatedly been documented that there are cross-sectional gender differences in adolescents' science interest, and these differences are often considered the main factor behind the gap in enrolment rates in higher education STEM programmes. Based on expectancy-value theory and interest theory, this study models interest and tests how…

While in most countries today women attain higher levels of education than men, on average, they are less likely than men to be employed and they earn less. There are many reasons why these gender gaps open; some are apparent in secondary school. For example, even when they outperform boys academically, girls are less likely than their male peers…

Past studies have supported the view that parent background and family socioeconomic status determine the post-secondary educational expectations of adolescents. They build on Pierre Bourdieu's social reproduction theory, but do not fully explain why some adolescents aspire to post-secondary education and some do not. The capability approach…

Drawing on data from the fifth cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors examined the relations of reported acculturation orientations--heritage as well as host culture-orientations--and perceived cultural distance between host and heritage culture with academic performance among 399 first- and second-generation…

Problems associated with the environment loom large over the future well-being of young generations. A previous issue of PISA in Focus (PISA in Focus 87) shows that in 2015 many 15-year-old students believed that the future -- their future -- was going to be worse, environmentally, than the present. In particular, only a minority of students…

The aim of the OECD Career Readiness project is to identify patterns of teenage attitudes and activities that are associated with better transitions into employment by analysing multiple national longitudinal datasets. This paper looks for further evidence of the link between teenage activities, experiences and career-related thinking and adult…

We report the general public's perceptions and those of 15-year-old school students, about aspects of mathematics learning. For the adult sample, survey data were gathered from pedestrians and Facebook users in Australia, Canada and the UK-countries in which English is the dominant language spoken. Participants responded to items about the…

Elementary and secondary students spend more hours outside of class than in formal school and thus have more time for interaction with everyday science. However, evidence from a large international survey, Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD 2012), found a negative relationship between number of hours attending after-school…

Truant student behavior can be due to various reasons. Some of these reasons are located in schools. So far, little is known about how student perception of school rules is related to truancy. This study aims to identify types of school attendance policies and how these policies are associated with individual truancy. Self-reports from the German…