School grades are among the most common measurements used to analyze equality of outcome in education. Large or increasing 'gaps' in school grades between boys and girls and between students with different migration background are considered strong indicators of inequality. Based on students' school grades, several studies have shown that equality…

This study investigated the prevalence of receiving sexts among adolescents and its relationship with depressive symptoms and self-esteem. A survey was administered to 728 high school students in Sweden in 2019 and 2020 (50.4% girls and 46.4% boys) using a cross-sectional design. Findings showed that significantly more boys (28.4%) than girls…

This paper provides an analysis of how Swedish 15-year-olds perform on the high-stakes national assessments in geography. It explicitly addresses which item characteristics produce differential item functioning (DIF) in favor of boys and girls respectively. The findings show that DIF occurs in favor of girls in items with constructed response and…

To increase engagement with science and technology, young people around the world are encouraged to attend activities at science centers. But how effective are these activities? Since women have weaker ability beliefs and interest in technology than men, it is especially important to learn how science center visits affect them. In this study, we…

The study aimed to investigate students' psychological, cognitive, and social well-being in 6th Grade and the relations to academic achievement in compulsory school, as measured by grades in 9th Grade. Due to reports from Swedish authorities and research, students' self-reported well-being has decreased during the last decade. Data from the…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to critically examine previous studies' claims about the magnitude of gender differences and gender inequality in physical education (PE) in Sweden. Method: The data were based on students' (N = 39,980) perceptions of PE and were gathered from four large research projects in Sweden. Three effect size measures…

Research indicates that beliefs on the locus of the primary source of learning can have negative effects on learning behaviors in school (Mercer & Ryan, 2011). To an increasing extent, young people in Sweden acquire English outside school through different cultural practices (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2012). At the same time, students lack…

This study examined how high school students' attitudes toward advanced physics were predicted by their sense of school belonging, and how gender moderated this relationship. The Trends in International Math and Science (TIMSS) 2015 Advanced data, consisting of responses from 12th grade students enrolled in advanced physics courses among nine…

The study is based on two waves of longitudinal data at ages 13 and 16 aimed to examine factors that explain psychosomatic and depressive symptoms at the age of 16. The sample is nationally representative involving 9000 individuals from the Swedish longitudinal Evaluation Through Follow up database born in 1998. A growth modeling approach was…

Research on social aspects of academic motivation is scarce. Based on two nationally representative cohorts within the Swedish longitudinal ETF-project, the study examined (a) relationships between academic mastery/performance, social and future achievement goal orientations in the Swedish grade 9 compulsory school (2008/2014); (b) their…

This article elaborates on previous research showing that educational achievement is negatively related to poor mental health during adolescence and positively related to the family's socioeconomic resources. We examine (i) the potential moderating effects of family resources on the negative relationship between educational achievement and poor…

Marie Ståhl and Anita Hussénius have defined what discourses dominate national tests in chemistry for Grade 9 in Sweden by using feminist, critical didactic perspectives. This response seeks to expand the results in Ståhl and Hussénius's article "Chemistry inside an epistemological community box!--Discursive exclusions and inclusions in the…

National goals and performance standards were introduced in Sweden during the 1990s as part of a curriculum reform. The intention was to detect shortcomings among students and provide support to those students who did not reach the passing grade in one (or several) subject/s. Despite this reform, approximately one-fourth of the students do not…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

We assessed whether the level of time-pressure reported by a school's teachers is predictive of student bullying perpetration. We combined data from two surveys conducted in 129 schools in 2016: the Stockholm School Survey performed among students in grades 9 and 11 (n = 10,668), and the Stockholm Teacher Survey carried out among senior level…