Background: Differences in competence gains between academic and non-academic track schools are often attributed to selection effects based on students' primary school performance and socioeconomic status (SES). However, how the competencies of comparable students (in terms of school performance and social background) at different tracks develop…

This study estimates the effect of between-class ability grouping on Chilean secondary students' academic achievement. We rely on a structural feature of the school system: A considerable number of students who complete primary school must change schools to start their secondary education. Cardinality matching was performed to account for…

Equally able students have lower academic self-concept in high achieving schools or classes, a phenomenon known as the big fish little pond effect (BFLPE). The class (more so than the school) has been shown to be the pivotal frame-of-reference for academic self-concept formation--a local dominance effect. However, many school systems worldwide…

This article focuses on the unintended consequences of within-class ability grouping on primary students of mathematics. I review relevant research, including promising approaches to teaching in mixed ability settings. I then outline four ways in which these groupings are typically structured, discussing some of the issues that arise with each of…

This study considers how class composition, in terms of between-student variability and the average level of achievement, is related to the academic development of students, and how these relationships can be explained by features of the class learning environment. At the start of secondary education, Flemish schools can decide autonomously how to…

Using PISA 2012 data, we conducted multilevel modeling analyses to explore how student-teacher relationships (STRs) affected mathematics motivation across EU countries. We compared this relationship across high and low achievers and explored how sex, economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS), ability grouping, class size, and teacher intentions…

Effects of full-time ability grouping on students' academic self-concept (ASC) and mathematics achievement were investigated in the first 3 years of secondary school (four waves of measurement; students' average age at first wave: 10.5 years). Students were primarily from middle and upper class families living in southern Germany. The study sample…

The knowledge base on various forms of structuring students' learning by ability grouping is more robust than that on teachers' instructional practices being implemented within these groupings. The present study examines if student-reported mathematics teachers' instructional practices vary among schools with different degrees of implementing…

Both in New Zealand and internationally, there has been a focus on the use of differentiation in mathematics instruction to raise achievement levels and provide equitable outcomes. New Zealand has a long history of the use of ability grouping to provide differentiation. Recently, this practice has been challenged in a large scale professional…

In the educational literature on peer effects, attention has been brought to the fact that the mechanisms creating peer effects are still to a large extent hidden in obscurity. The hypothesis in the study reported in this article was that the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) can be used to reveal such mechanisms. Using data from the Swedish TIMSS 2015 (N…

School-based learning experiences are often designed with the "typical" student in mind. However, this may not be an optimal approach, given the variability of prior learning that exists in most classrooms. We investigated the variance in achievement within U.S. fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics classrooms using Trends in…

Understanding how children's broader context influences their development is critical if we are to develop policies that help them flourish. Combining sociological, economic, and psychological literature, we argue that ability stratification--the degree to which children of similar levels of ability are schooled together--influences a child's…

I study the effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement, exploiting institutional differences between German federal states. In all states, about 40% of students transition to separate academic-track schools after comprehensive primary school. Depending on the state, the remaining student body is either directly tracked…

This article is about Pete's story. It is a story about introducing all-attainment teaching in a secondary school mathematics department and about espousing and enacting a pedagogy and set of practices to enable learning mathematics without limits.

This paper analyses English Millennium Cohort Study data (N = 4463). It examines two respective predictors of children's maths self-concept at age 11: earlier in-class maths 'ability' group and earlier teacher judgements of children's maths 'ability/attainment' (both at age seven). It also investigates differential associations by maths cognitive…