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 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…

Even in inclusive classroom, children with special education needs (SEN) have been shown to have lower levels of emotional inclusion and academic self-concept. Although, their social inclusion may be comparable to their peers. At the same time, boys and girls may also experience differences in perceptions of inclusion and academic self-concept.…

Despite the fact that bullying has been consistently linked to moral disengagement among schoolchildren, research that distinguishes among the four loci of moral disengagement (cognitive restructuring, minimizing one's agentive role, distorting consequences, and victim attribution) to better understand bullying is scarce. The aim of this…

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…

The aim of this study was to investigate factors that can predict collective efficacy in student work groups year 5 and 8 at compulsory school and to see if there are gender and year differences for efficacy beliefs and aspects of interdependence. A total of 283 completed questionnaires were analysed. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to…

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 paper targets patterns of expressed emotional directions towards mathematics. By using TIMSS data and recoding two of the instruments, we compared responses from the same student cohort in Grade 4 (11 years old) and Grade 8 (15 years old) in Sweden. Two hypotheses were tested: negative emotions including negative motivations increase with…

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…

The aim of this study was to examine how different bystander roles in peer victimisation situations relate to moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy, and student-teacher relationship quality. Self-reported survey data were collected from 333 middle and junior high school students (10-15 years of age) from four schools in Sweden. Random…

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 two-year longitudinal study investigated Swedish L2 middle school students' reading development and its relation to reported strategy use. Reading comprehension was measured on three occasions and strategy use was examined using the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) scale. The results show that student reading…

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…