This study comprises two meta-analyses conducted to investigate relations between socioeconomic status (SES) and academic achievement, with a focus on macro-level, micro-level, and methodological moderating variables in primary and secondary education. The first meta-analysis is based on 326 empirical studies with 949,699 students from 47…

Autonomy is often discussed as a necessary condition for professionalism in any field, including the teaching profession. In the educational context, autonomy is seen to be critical for teachers to be able to synthesize their knowledge and skills and translate them into effective classroom practices in the best interest of their students. In…

The "optimism hypothesis" claims that immigrant students do better in the Norwegian education system than their socioeconomic status would suggest, due to the strong educational aspirations that immigrant parents might have for their children. Grounded in an educational equity paradigm, this study aims to test this hypothesis by…

Students living in poverty tend to perform worse in school than their peers from better-off families. This paper examines whether computer availability helps narrow down educational inequalities in Slovakia, using TIMSS and PIRLS data. The results show that computer availability in reading lessons improves reading scores and that the effect is…

This study investigates the student- and school-level predictors of reading performance across five top-performing countries in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021. Utilising a multilevel analysis, the research examines the influence of cognitive development, socio-cultural contexts and educational environments on…

Background: South Africa's participation across a number of international large-scale assessment programmes provides continued evidence of poor student achievement across grades and phases. Despite discouraging achievement results, evidence of slow progress begins to emerge, yet systemic inequalities persist. Aim: This article aims to unpack the…

Research to date on the effects of between-school tracking on inequalities in achievement and on performance has been inconclusive. A possible explanation is that different studies used different data, focused on different domains, and employed different measures of inequality. To address this issue, we used all accumulated data collected in the…

In "Progress in International Reading Literacy Study" (PIRLS) educational inequalities are measured, amongst others, through the relationship between students' reading achievements and the home resource for learning (HRL) scale. By applying the partial credit model and using the WLE estimates for the person parameters it is accepted that…

Students' freedom of choice is critical to promoting equity and literacy in the classroom. When students choose what they read, they are more likely to find books that represent their lives, interests, and personal desires and feel that they are autonomous and can self-regulate learning. Previous research suggests that offering choice during…

Australia and New Zealand have participated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment since 2000. Reading literacy was the main focus of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000, and at that time both countries' students generally performed well above the…

This study presents a conceptual and evidentiary study pertaining to the micro and macro level factors influencing the achievement gap among migrant children from a cross-national standpoint. First, this study provides the most systematic investigation of the immigrant educational paradox theory, which asserts that on average, immigrants'…

This report provides an overview of education structures and policies that influence equity in school education. It connects these system-level features to student performance in international student assessment surveys (PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS). Looking at 42 European education systems, the report identifies which policies and structures are…

One of the major imperatives behind the comprehensivisation of secondary education was the belief that postponing the age at which students are tracked in different educational routes would mitigate the effect of social background on educational outcomes. Comparative investigations of large-scale international student achievement tests in…

Few developing countries participate in external educational evaluations. Information gaps on education quality make it imperative to expand such evaluations. Furthermore, international comparability across different evaluations should be improved. In addition, data from evaluations must be combined with data on access or coverage. Finally,…

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) measures trends in children's reading literacy achievement. PIRLS was conducted for the third time in 2011. It is conducted under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and compares the reading attainment and attitudes to reading…