Background: Socioeconomic characteristics are persistently and systematically related to academic outcomes, despite long-standing efforts to reduce educational inequality. Ireland has a strong policy focus on alleviating educational disadvantage and has seen significant improvements in mathematics and science performance in recent years. This…

Promoting equal access to schools for researchers wishing to conduct educational research was one of the key tasks embedded in the educational transformation mandate of the new government of South Africa when it came to power in 1994. Drawing on data from five different research projects, this paper evaluates progress made by the democratic…

Research has focused predominantly on how teachers affect students' achievement on standardized tests despite evidence that a broad range of attitudes and behaviors are equally important to their long-term success. We find that upper-elementary teachers have large effects on self-reported measures of students' self-efficacy in math, and happiness…

In this study, we analyse the predictive power of home and school environment-related factors for determining pupils' aggression. The multiple regression analyses are performed for fourth- and eighth-grade pupils based on the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007 (N = 8394) and TIMSS 2011 (N = 9415) databases for Slovenia. At the…

Background: Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued increasingly divergent education policies. This is true in England in particular, where diversity, choice and…

International comparisons have highlighted that the U.S. mathematics curriculum, both in terms of curriculum influences (e.g., textbooks, standards) and actual instruction, is broad and shallow. Standards-based reform is explicitly designed to improve coherence and reduce redundancy across grades. This article evaluates the redundancy of…

This report is based on inspections of mathematics in primary and secondary schools carried out between August 2002 and April 2005. In addition to schools inspected, Her Majesty's (HM) Inspectors also visited primary and secondary schools to observe and describe aspects of best practice. This report also draws on pupils' attainment in Scottish…

This report is based on inspections of science in primary and secondary schools carried out between September 2000 and March 2004. In addition to schools inspected as part of the generational cycle, HMI also visited other primary and secondary schools to observe and describe aspects of best practice. The report also draws on other major sources of…