Item response theory (IRT) models are the main psychometric approach for the development, evaluation, and refinement of multi-item instruments and scaling of latent traits, whereas multilevel models are the primary statistical method when considering the dependence between person responses when primary units (e.g., students) are nested within…

This article provides an overview of Italian ECEC services, their development and educational culture. In Italy, out of home day care for children under 3 became a quantitatively significant phenomenon in the last 30 years. Its development was characterized by the close collaboration between research agencies and ECEC services. A rich variety of…

This paper presents cross-section estimates of gross hourly wage premia on tertiary education. They are based on a unified framework for 21 OECD countries from the 1990s to the early 2000s and use international household surveys to maximise international comparability. The results of the "augmented" Mincerian wage equations point to an…

This article reviews some basic issues related to school violence. As observed by the practicing teachers and other educators who have been quoted in this article, adults who serve as role models to children and adults who respect, listen, and share will increase the students' awareness of the need to use assertive, non-aggressive behaviors in and…