This study uses survey data from 12,548 parents in seven major cities in mainland China, including 5,850 middle-class parents. Through differential analysis, path analysis, and quantile regression, it examines the relationships between meritocratic educational beliefs, achievement expectation gaps, and educational anxiety. The findings reveal that…

This article explores how first-in-family-graduate Roma and non-Roma Hungarians from the working-class experience education-driven social mobility and reconcile the dislocation of their primary-habitus due to changing class through transiting a "third space." Drawing on Bhabha's and bell hooks' development of this concept, we aim to…

This study explores the complex emotional landscape of Chinese middle-class parents in educational investment, focusing on the paradoxical interplay of confidence and anxiety. Through in-depth interviews with 16 parents in Nanjing, we employed Bourdieu's concepts of illusio and 'capital' to examine how personal emotions, family resources, and…

Mainstream America needs a reorientation. Despite the focus portraying all Black Americans as living in inner-city poverty by mass media or social scientist, the African American middle-class is growing. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand African American middle-class graduating students on Historically White College…

Parents' happiness orientation has garnered early attention in school choice studies but has not been cautiously examined. Drawing on Aristotle's framework of Eudaimonia and Hedonia, along with Ahmed's concept of the happiness promise, this study transcends a perspec­tive of preference and examines how parents understand and pursue happiness in…

The learning crisis in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is significantly marked by a high degree of heterogeneity in student learning outcomes. Such variations, extending across student abilities, backgrounds, and learning speeds, are believed to be partly a result of teachers failing to devote sufficient attention to students who are…

The impact of State policy to combat educational disadvantage with two iterations of DEIS supports has had a positive influence the patterns of achievement among all social groups with some notable improvements across a range of indicators for students in DEIS schools. Notwithstanding these improvements, research and evaluations continue to…

Today parents are faced with increasing expectations to attend to their young children's learning and cognitive development. South Korea and Singapore are well-known for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share an inflated private tuition industry, fuelled by the…

Mental health problems among young people have increased in recent decades, particularly among middle-class youth, a development often related to increasing achievement pressure. This paper explores how young people from the financial and cultural middle classes in Norway experience school stress and their parents' values and practices concerning…

In Italy, the National Evaluation System (SNV), encompassing both internal and external accountability components, is designed not only to hold school actors accountable but also to stimulate innovation and change in pedagogical practices. Nevertheless, existing literature presents inconclusive and contradictory findings regarding the effects and…

This article explores how conceptions of responsible parenting are re-negotiated in present-day Singapore. It discusses how policy changes in the pre-school area have affected parental practices and notions of morally worthy parenting. Pre-school reform promoting children's holistic development and less intensive parenting is part of a wider…

Programs increasingly use community-based girl groups (CBGGs) to address risks and empower adolescent girls, but evidence on their impact is not always accessible to decision makers. A closer look at 30 CBGG programs in low- and middle-income countries found that CBGGs had the greatest reported success in improving health and gender attitudes and…

The authors investigated cultural resourcefulness among seven Black middle-class families who proactively collaborated to ensure their children's academic excellence in a highly racialized suburban community in southern California. Their children achieved high grades and successfully entered and completed higher education at elite U.S.…