This study concerns the importance of assessing teachers' content knowledge (CK) and it is one of the very few international studies that directly measures science teachers' CK. We developed a comprehensive content knowledge test (CKT), relating to the content strand: "states of matter." The study compared teachers from the Jewish and…

To advance our scientific understanding about school climate and bullying victimization from the perspectives of both parents and cross-country comparisons, the present study examined the cross-country similarities and differences of the associations between overall school climate and 3 forms of bullying victimization between United States (U.S.;…

For many countries, inequitable access to rigorous content and instruction at the early grades leads to the low academic performance for students with fewer resources at home. One way to assess these inequities, and identify possible mediators, is to consider the role of instructional leadership as a means for schools to set educational goals for…

This paper discusses the effects of large-scale studies, including international comparative studies and national studies using nationally representative samples, on policy making and practices pertinent to mathematics education in Taiwan, through the lens of Taiwanese societal and cultural characteristics. Taiwan has been through several…

Over the last few years, social and emotional skills have been rising on the education policy agenda and in the public debate. Policy makers and education practitioners are seeking ways to complement the focus on academic learning, with attention to social and emotional skill development. Social and emotional skills are a subset of an individual's…

Finnish youth are found to be, despite their broad knowledge, uninterested in politics and in societal participation. As a remedy, international studies suggest enabling democratic experiences in schools. This article discusses an action research project aimed at developing deliberation-based democratic practice in an elementary classroom. Results…

Increasing the number of hours students spend in school each year, on the assumption that this will improve student achievement, has become a widespread trend. However, the analysis reported here suggests that this trend can be misguided: the time students spend in the classroom is not always positively related to their academic achievement.…

This volume contains selected papers submitted to the 15th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in June 2017 in Borovets, Bulgaria, and papers submitted to the 5th International Partner Conference of the International Research Centre (IRC) "Scientific Cooperation," Rostov-on-Don,…

This article reports on the South African results of a study to identify and explain relationships between some major factors associated with successful reading at Grade 5. With 11 official languages, educational policy in South Africa advocates an additive bilingualism model, and students in Grades 1 to 3 are taught in their mother tongue.…

International large-scale assessments of achievement often have a large degree of differential item functioning (DIF) between countries, which can threaten score equivalence and reduce the validity of inferences based on comparisons of group performances. It is important to understand potential sources of DIF to improve the validity of future…

The Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M) of 2008 focused on how teachers are prepared to teach mathematics in primary and lower-secondary schools in 17 countries. The main results were published in 2012, and the associated public-use database provides a valuable source for secondary analysis of the collected data. The…

The authors aim to identify characteristics of democratic schools. The Delphi technique used in this study is based on attaining a consensus among a group of experts over 3 rounds with 22 experts from 9 countries participating in the first round. By the end of the third round, 339 items referring to democratic school characteristics were…

The authors tested the component model of reading (CMR) among 186,725 fourth grade students from 38 countries (45 regions) on five continents by analyzing the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study data using measures of ecological (country, family, school, teacher), psychological, and cognitive components. More than 91% of the…

Hong Kong children's comprehension of Chinese and English text is of concern to parents and teachers since school leavers need to be proficient readers both of Chinese and English. Although Chinese has been officially designated the medium of instruction in most secondary schools, many parents want their children to be taught in English-medium…

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006 findings highlighted concerns about reading literacy teaching quality in South African primary schools (Howie et al., 2007). In response, the national Department of Education (DoE, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d) has emphasised instructional practice improvement. However, little…