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This paper studies mathematics learning gaps within Indian children at two points in time. Dividing them into two groups, better performing and the rest, we investigate the causes of the difference in the average learning gap between them at those two points. We explore this question using the threefold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition at these survey points (collected over a gap of four years). We find that when the children were younger the private schooling effect was the core contributor towards this learning gap. When these children got older, the effect vanished and the gap in average years of schooling, which has magnified during this time between these groups of children, contributes most to this learning gap.

Using data from Ireland's national longitudinal study of children, this paper employs a capabilities approach to disability to understand how individual characteristics as well as home and school environmental factors at age 9 relate to academic and socio-emotional outcomes of students with special educational needs (SEN) at age 17. Results suggest that young people with SEN register both lower average scores and make less academic progress between the age of 9 and their national lower secondary examination, with the exception of young people with a physical SEN. Both home and school environmental factors at 9 years have long-term associations with the academic outcomes of young people with SEN, after controlling for individual characteristics and prior academic achievement. Home and school environmental factors had less consistent associations with the socio-emotional outcomes of young people with SEN. By using rigorous nationally representative longitudinal data, this paper offers a more holistic understanding of the development of young people with SEN. The paper also provides important evidence that a more inclusive approach for supporting students with additional needs, their parents, and their schools is needed.

A long-established literature has found that anxiety about testing is negatively related to academic achievement. Yet there remains some debate as to whether this is simply due to less academically able pupils being more likely to develop education-related anxiety issues. This paper presents new evidence on this matter, focusing upon how test anxiety -- as measured by five questions included in the PISA 2015 survey -- is related to the grades 15/16-year-olds achieve in England's high-stakes GCSE examinations. I find little evidence that teenagers with low or high levels of test anxiety achieve lower GCSE grades than pupils with average levels of test anxiety. Thus, in contrast to much of the existing literature, no clear relationship between test anxiety and examination performance is found.

This article analyses, mingles and blends divergent and complementary strands from the thinking of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Sir Alec Clegg (1909-1986), two contemporaneous but different influential public figures and thinkers in the post-World War Two period. The paper uses these strands to construct a critique of the current colonisation of education by neo-liberal economic logics and performative architecture. Their ideas emerge as bulwarks against populist discourse, reductivist, authoritarian framings of education policy and the restrictive and prescriptive direction of education practice. Conceptions of pluralism, imagination, the location of children and young people's perspectives in the adult world, citizenry and engagement with the world are illuminated for their refreshing power to replenish and sustain the conditions for an education that supports human flourishing.

Pakistan's Punjab province has witnessed numerous education reforms in recent years. Many of these reforms have been aimed at improving the well-documented low levels of learning by focusing on improving teaching quality. The rhetoric suggests that government schools, particularly those in rural areas with a more disadvantaged pupil base, are especially ineffective at imparting learning. This paper seeks to investigate whether children in rural Punjab are learning literacy and numeracy over the course of a year, and if so, are some pupils progressing more than others. Using recently collected data, it finds that children in our sample are making progress. Variation in progress is found to be greater within schools rather than across them. The competence and qualifications of a teacher also makes a significant difference to a child's academic progress. The paper further finds differential progress for rich and poor students within schools, suggesting an important role for education policy to put in place targeted support towards those from disadvantaged backgrounds to ensure improvements in their learning keep pace with their peers.

In England, 'Virtual Schools' oversee and support the educational progress of children in care. This paper reports on the analysis of 16 interviews with Virtual School headteachers that were part of two mixed methods research projects on the educational progress of children in care. These interviews explored their role; the types of support they offer young people in care; what they see as the key factors about a young person's individual characteristics and care experiences that influence their educational outcomes; how schools support young people in care; and the influence of the foster carer/residential staff on the educational outcomes of these children. The interviews were analysed using NVivo and emerging themes were identified informed by the literature on the education of children in care. The paper draws out the main findings which explore the status and role of Virtual Schools in England, their functions, strategies, and what they see as their contribution to improving the educational outcomes of children in care.

The paper argues that values education has moved from being associated most heavily with the religious agenda of faith schools to being central to updated research insights into effective pedagogy. As such, it represents a vital approach to education in any school setting. The paper draws on an array of values education research and practice in making the case but centres especially on findings from a number of recent publicly funded projects in Australia with which the authors have been associated. Of special importance is evidence from the Values Education Good Practice Schools Project and the Project to Test and Measure the Impact of Values Education on Student Effects and School Ambience that provide both anecdotal and empirical evidence that high quality values education contributes to holistic educational development, including academic advancement, of students across all school sectors.

It is a truism that giving people multiple reasons to engage in some activity will increase the chances of that activity--that two reasons are better than one. It is another truism, in the developed, Western world, that more freedom brings more well-being, and that more choice brings more freedom. In education, these truisms have led to the use of financial incentives (along with the intrinsic incentives already presumed to be present) to motivate students and teachers alike, and to expanded curricular choice for students, and expanded school choice for students and their parents. The thesis of this paper is that both truisms, though plausible, are false. First, the paper reviews evidence that incentives extrinsic to the tasks at hand--whether administered to teachers or to students--can undermine intrinsic motivation to teach and to learn, resulting in worse performance than would have resulted without extrinsic incentives. Because of this "motivational competition", I argue that standard extrinsic incentives should be used in educational settings only with great care. Second, the paper reviews evidence that there can be too much choice, resulting in paralysis, inferior performance and dissatisfaction. Though choice, autonomy and personal control are important contributors to well-being, there can be too much of a good thing. Both extrinsic incentives and excessive choice can threaten well-being associated with the educational process, the first by taking meaning and engagement out of educational activities, and the second by undermining satisfaction with those activities. (Contains 3 figures.)

This paper reports on a mixed methods study carried out within the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme at the University of Oxford on the ways that the course sought to frame and address the link between poverty and poorer educational outcomes. The study was concerned with the views held by ITE students on the effects of poverty on pupils' learning, well-being, and educational achievement. The paper initially explores why these questions are important, how they are framed internationally, and how they relate to current education policy, particularly in England. Data were collected from student teacher pre- and post-PGCE course questionnaires and a focus group discussion. The findings showed a tendency for student teachers to associate low achievement more strongly with family and cultural factors than with socio-economic or school factors, although there was some evidence that the thinking of some students changed during their programme. Implications for policy and practice in ITE are discussed with a view to ensuring that the social justice commitments espoused by many such courses are actually enabled more effectively to influence the learning experiences of beginning teachers.

It has been suggested that features of contemporary educational policy create and encourage teaching and learning practices that dampen human motivation. This paper sought to analyse and extend this discussion through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT). Key questions are discussed such as (1) what is human motivation from a self-determination theory perspective, and (2) how and why is it dampened by features of contemporary educational policy? The discussion is then extended to explore the extent to which dampened human motivation from an SDT perspective might be considered unjust if they systematically dampen motivation.

With approximately three times the resources per pupil in private compared with state schools, Britain's private sector presents an interesting case of what could be expected from schools that are extremely well resourced. This paper studies the links between private schooling and educational performance in upper secondary school, as measured through their performance in 'A level', the main school-leaving assessment which determines access to universities. Using an English longitudinal study, we find evidence that, compared with otherwise observably similar state school students in upper secondary education and controlling for prior attainment, those at private school study more 'facilitating' subjects, which are known to be favoured by high-status universities; they are placed 8 percentage points higher in the A level rankings and 11 percentage points higher in the rankings for 'facilitating' A levels. We find evidence of a private school advantage for participating in undergraduate study, net of socioeconomic status, subjects selected and number of A levels but there is no private school advantage for attending an elite university, controlling for the same characteristics. Taken together with other studies, our findings mean that private schooling in England is associated with cumulative moderate advantages at every stage of education.

This paper considers the impact of the Beacon schools initiative on the social and academic characteristics of secondary schools in England. The Beacon schools programme ran from 1998 to 2004 and epitomised the (then) Labour government's focus on school improvement through diversity, collaboration and partnership. This paper looks at variation in the academic and social characteristics of the 322 secondary Beacon schools over a nine-year period. The findings show that Beacon schools were among the most advantaged state schools in England and while they continue to outperform the general school population, the data suggest that the performance gap has decreased and there is little evidence that Beacon status conferred an advantage on schools, in terms of standard measures of academic success. The Beacon school initiative exemplifies some of the key issues with policy based education reform. First, its emphasis on collaboration provokes tensions between schools that are increasingly in competition with each other. Secondly, clearly defined and measurable medium and long term outcomes for the initiative were not prescribed, thus making it difficult to determine the efficacy of the intervention. Finally, that the initiative did not appear to have any appreciable effect on the social and academic characteristics of the Beacon schools raises issues about the usefulness of externally prescribed interventions and the potential that they have to make a real difference to educational equity.

Given the disadvantaged position of working-class children in the education system, it is important to understand how parents and families might support their children to succeed academically. This paper reports on 35 case studies that were conducted as part of the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3-16) research project. Using in-depth interviews with children and parents this study investigates parental involvement with school and learning during primary and secondary school years in working-class families with children who are academically succeeding above prediction and children who are progressing as predicted, given their background characteristics. The paper provides descriptions of emotional and practical support for academic learning in these families and discusses how parents explain their involvement or lack thereof. This paper identifies differences in socialisation practices between the two groups of working-class families: "accomplishment of natural growth" in families with children progressing as predicted (Lareau, 2003) and "active cultivation" in families with children succeeding above prediction.

While concerns around minority ethnic students and underachievement have attracted considerable attention in educational research, such as in England, few studies have examined those who excel, except as reference to justify the equity of the established system. This paper explores the educational success of British Chinese and Indian students, who are synonymously recognised as the model minority due to their tendency to achieve exceptional grades in national examinations. Data in this paper includes four discussion groups and 23 semi-structured interviews with British Chinese and Indian students (aged 11-14) and six teacher interviews. This study explores the social costs and benefits of the label of model minority and how these students attributed with such an identity construct and interpret educational success. Although high expectations by self and by others can positively contribute to the educational success of British Chinese and Indian students, inflated expectations can also generate a continuous sense of insecurity. Model minority students must contemplate the fear of failure and the potential damage they could inflict on the reputation of their family. Implications of the identity of model minority for students, teachers and policy are suggested.

In recent years there has been a heightened interest in educating for well-being; the belief that even when beset by economic gloom, schools can be a civilising force for good and can help make young people's lives more fulfilling and meaningful. However, the relative lack of conceptual analysis on well-being values and how they can flourish in schools coupled with ambiguities on curriculum implementation plans have limited progress to date. The paper addresses these concerns, through analysing recent theorising on values which contain a focus on personal growth, relationships with others and engagement with activities of interest. In reviewing these values in relation to the "Curriculum for Excellence" (CfE) policy context in Scotland, the paper discusses ways in which current policy and practice uncertainties could be improved by greater philosophical clarity on well-being values and by the development of pedagogical models which highlight how effective learning could take place. These improvements, if supported by key policy revisions and by commissioning practitioners to design more appropriate teaching resources, could provide the basis for greater teacher engagement with well-being agendas and the avoidance of policy stasis.

Gaps in GCSE attainment have long been the concern of policy makers, academics, and social commentators, largely due to the importance of these exams for setting children on their future academic and career pathways. In the past a wide range of factors relating to the pupils, their families, and their schools have been found to account for differences in GCSE attainment. In this paper we examine the role of pupils' beliefs in their own academic ability (academic self-concept). Using Next Steps data, we examine whether pupils with higher academic self-concept do better or worse in their GCSEs than pupils with lower academic self-concept. Results show that on average, controlling for other characteristics, having high academic self-concept increases GCSE scores by four grades. When we compare academic self-concept to measured achievement we find that both high and low attainers have higher probabilities of achieving five A*-C GCSEs and higher GCSE point scores on average if they have high academic self-concept than similarly able students who have lower academic self-concept.

Internationally, reviews of educational outcomes of children in care reveal consistent findings highlighting the need for considerable policy attention to be paid to their education to ensure they achieve optimal economic and psychosocial life outcomes. Important to enhancing the educational achievement of children in care are support, stability of environment, teaching resources and the recognition by all stakeholders -- birth parents, foster carers, social workers and statutory authorities -- that education is paramount to a child's future well-being. This paper highlights the perspectives of carers, teachers and children on the fostering experience with particular focus on educational outcomes drawing on a prospective longitudinal study of children in long-term care. Using a multimethod, repeated measures multi-informant design, children were assessed by carers and teachers using the Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist and its companion, the Teacher Report. The findings indicate demonstrated gains in terms of improved scores and adaptive functioning at subsequent assessments following two years of stable care. Discussion of the findings and implications for practice will focus on the need for a coordinated strategy to improve placement continuity and focused professional and organisational support with respect to the emotional and educational needs of children in care.

By age 16 the attainment of most children in or on the edge of out of home care has fallen well behind the average for their age. This paper uses the English National Pupil Database to examine how much of this falling behind occurs before the age of seven, and how any subsequent decline relates to time in care as against time outside it. We compare the previous progress of three groups of 16-year-olds: 5175 looked after by the state (CLA), 17,392 in need but not in care (CIN), and 22,567 children matched with the CLA or CIN on initial attainment, special educational needs, and eligibility for free school meals. We found that the attainment of the CIN and those CLA not yet in care was around one standard deviation below the cohort average at age seven. It then fell relative to their peers while their rate of unauthorised absences and exclusions grew. Removal from home to care appeared to halt or greatly reduce this decline but did not, on average, reverse it. We conclude that educational interventions for CLA should also include CIN, start before seven, target both school and family, and exploit the educational opportunity which care provides.

In this paper, I examine ethnic inequalities in educational attainment in England and Wales. I focus on the two main educational transitions in England and Wales: the transition at age 16, from compulsory to post-compulsory education, and the transition at age 18, from school to university. I take into account the distinction made by Boudon (1974) between "primary" and "secondary" effects, and ask how far overall ethnic inequalities in educational attainment can be attributed to primary or secondary effects. The paper first assesses the extent of gross ethnic inequalities in the chances of making each transition, before asking how far the picture is altered by controlling for social class background. I then determine the relative importance of primary and secondary effects in creating ethnic inequalities in educational attainment. Results show that both primary and secondary effects are operating to produce ethnic inequalities in educational attainment. In general, where ethnic groups are disadvantaged relative to the white majority, this is due to their lower average levels of performance. But conditional on their performance, ethnic minority students are much more likely to choose to make educational transitions, suggesting that if performance effects were eliminated, all ethnic minority groups would be advantaged relative to the white majority. (Contains 11 notes, 3 tables, and 4 figures.)

This paper presents interview data from a case study of "Lemontyne College"; a large government school situated in a "master planned community" (MPC) in Australia. The paper draws on Ball's (2003) theorising of performativity and fabrication to analyse this school's take up of the status-oriented corporate discourses of performance, competition and accountability. This theorising brings to light the ways in which the managerial processes at the school, driven by the administration's embracing of these discourses, shape Lemontyne into an auditable commodity and fabricate an identity around being "number 1". The paper highlights the lack of authenticity of this fabrication by drawing attention to its careful and deliberate construction. Our focus here is on the surveillance and accountability measures required to discipline teachers into this performative sociality and on the alternative reality articulated by teachers in terms of their resistance to this sociality. To these ends, the paper highlights how Lemontyne's embracing of performative discourses results in a de-socialisation of schooling relations. We propose that such de-socialisation compromises efforts in schools to respond productively to social change and in particular to the new equity challenges arising in contexts such as Lemontyne situated in a MPC.

The aim of this paper is to bring critical attention to the ways in which notions of "success" and "failure" are applied to teaching and learning in schools in England and Wales. The main philosophical text that guides the discussion is Derrida's "Signature event context", which contains a reading of J.L. Austin's theory of the performative utterance. Derrida finds much to admire in Austin's philosophising. However, he argues that Austin's treatment of context misses something important about how things are done with words. Derrida maintains that, having shown how truth claims are bound up with performative concerns, Austin takes a step backwards by fixating on external contextual factors that must be in place for the performative utterance to be happy--for it to "succeed" in doing what the speaker intends it to do. This ignores the iterability of language and the ways in which words are ultimately bound neither by the intentions of the speaker, nor by any other aspect of the environment in which the utterance takes place. The current thinking in regards to successful teaching and learning invites a comparison with Austin's treatment of context--for a lesson to be successful, a set of contextual factors must be put in place. In this paper, I argue that treating teaching and learning in these terms represents an overdetermined understanding of "success" and "failure" that sees language as something to be tamed by context. Once we recognise that words cannot always or necessarily be brought under control then this will open the door to creative ways of thinking about teaching and language. (Contains 16 notes.)

Faith identity is emerging as significant for Muslim students in the post 9/11 scenario, with implications for their education and wider social cohesion. This poses challenges to school leaders, raising issues not only linked to student achievement and performance, but also with regard to students' identity constructions and their educational engagement. The paper draws on data collected from a small number of teachers and Muslim students from two secondary schools in England, looking at how Muslim students experience their identity in the school context and with what implications for their educational engagement. It also discusses the challenges for educational leaders/teachers in managing "Muslimness" on educational sites. The data indicate that the increasing engagement with faith identity can be a response to experiences of discrimination, marginalisation and negative media. The paper highlights the need for communication and understanding across differences, underpinned by an equally pressing need for the recognition of religious and cultural diversity. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper reflects upon the nature of a target-setting and mentoring scheme in an 11-16 school in England, through a series of retrospective interviews with students who continued into further education. It considers the extent to which the initiative impacted both upon students' formal academic achievement at 16+ and upon the subsequent longer-term aspirations of these students. Interviews with students who achieved considerable "value-added" in their GCSE examinations suggested that the impact of mentoring was strongest amongst those students who came from homes where there was less expectation of them participating in further and higher education, and that this effect was not differentiated according to gender. The paper suggests that longer-term transformation of students' aspirations, and the challenging of gendered course and career stereotypes, will only be achieved if schools adopt a more holistic and proactive approach to careers education and to widening participation for their students, and that the absence of such proactivity will limit the longer-term gains initiated by successful mentoring activities. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 6 notes.)

East Asian dominance in international large-scale assessments is widely known. This is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, exam-oriented education systems in East Asia, wherein students partake in a fierce competition for limited college entrance. Although achievement scores may be comparatively higher, the argument goes, the relative success comes at a steep price, with the emphasis on high-stakes tests heightening student stress and anxiety. In this paper we refute this persistent and out-dated stereotype by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past several decades. The two original studies we report herein show that not only do Japanese students feel less school-related anxiety and stress than they once did, but these levels are now comparable to students in America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. In showing that stereotypes do not match empirical realities, we seek to open a richer discussion around East Asian student achievement. We conclude by extending the discussion to recent changes in China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We then raise the possibility that fundamentally different outlooks on the learning process explain both differences in achievement and the persistence of the West's distorted images of Japanese and East Asian education.

The subjects that young people study from age 14 onwards may have important consequences for their future academic and labour market outcomes. These decisions are shaped by the schools in which they find themselves. Schools also face constraints of their own. This paper explores the extent to which individuals' decisions are affected by the school they attend and to what extent this is affected by the composition of schools in terms of academic attainment, gender, and socioeconomic background. We use multi-level variance decomposition models applied to administrative data on the subjects that young people in mainstream state-funded schools in England study between ages 14 and 16. Our results highlight the important role that constraints on schools play in subject choice decisions. We also note the particular role of attending a non-selective school within a selective schooling district.

Using data from Ireland's national longitudinal study of children, this paper employs a capabilities approach to disability to understand how individual characteristics as well as home and school environmental factors at age 9 relate to academic and socio-emotional outcomes of students with special educational needs (SEN) at age 17. Results suggest that young people with SEN register both lower average scores and make less academic progress between the age of 9 and their national lower secondary examination, with the exception of young people with a physical SEN. Both home and school environmental factors at 9 years have long-term associations with the academic outcomes of young people with SEN, after controlling for individual characteristics and prior academic achievement. Home and school environmental factors had less consistent associations with the socio-emotional outcomes of young people with SEN. By using rigorous nationally representative longitudinal data, this paper offers a more holistic understanding of the development of young people with SEN. The paper also provides important evidence that a more inclusive approach for supporting students with additional needs, their parents, and their schools is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are large social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK. This paper quantifies the contribution of one mechanism to the production of these inequalities: social class differences in school "effectiveness," where "effectiveness" refers to a school's impact on pupils' educational achievement (relative to other schools). It builds on the small number of existing studies, whilst overcoming a number of their limitations. It estimates the effectiveness of the (state) schools attended between ages 7/8 and 10/11 by a cohort of children born in the 1990s in Avon, a former county of England, and then compares the effectiveness of the schools attended by children from different social classes. It finds that "higher" social class children attend more effective schools, on average, and that these social class differences in average school effectiveness between ages 7/8 and 10/11 account for 7% of social class differences in average educational achievement age 10/11. This is not a causal analysis, however.

In this paper, we try to unravel some of the unintended and intended academic effects associated with post-Soviet educational reforms by focusing on three cases: Estonia, Latvia and Russia. We have chosen this comparison because a unique "natural experiment" in the three countries allows us to compare the changing academic performance on an international test of a largely similar population in the three countries--Russian origin students attending Russian-medium schools--subjected to three variations of post-Soviet reforms. We find that relative to students in Russia, Russian-medium students in the Baltics made significant gains in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. In Latvia, these appear to be an unintended effect of somewhat "softened" state language policies, the conditions surrounding minority rights, and the general context of maintaining social cohesion. In Estonia, the (later) relative gains of Russian students appear to an intended effect of locally grown educational (and language) policies and increased, more effective cooperation with Russian medium schools to further improve PISA performance in a relatively high scoring, PISA-focused country.

The Foundation Phase is a Welsh Government flagship policy of early years education (for 3-7 year-old children) in Wales. Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning. "The learning country: A paving document" (NAfW, 2001) notes that, following devolution, Wales intended to take its own policy direction in order to "get the best for Wales". Building on a three-year mixed methods independent evaluation of the Foundation Phase we discuss in detail the aims and objectives of the Foundation Phase, including the context to its introduction, the theory, assumptions and evidence underlying its rationale, and its content and key inputs. We then contrast this with how the Foundation Phase was received by practitioners and parents, how it has been implemented in classrooms and non-maintained settings, and what discernible impact it has had on young children's educational outcomes. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the policy process and identifies a number of contextual issues during the inception of the Foundation Phase that has, it could be argued, constrained its development and subsequent impact. We argue that these constraints are associated with an educational policy landscape that was still in its infancy. In order for future education policy to "get the best for Wales" a number of important lessons must be learnt.

A key predictor of young people's future outcomes is their level of academic achievement whilst at school. In England this is most commonly measured by achievement in GCSEs. However, not all pupils will have taken the same set of GCSE examinations as, for example, they may make different subject choices. For this reason, GCSE performance is often aggregated into a simple measure such as "mean GCSE grade" before being used in statistical models. This paper investigates the merits of using an alternative method, based upon the relatively new technique of Generalised Boosting Models, which does not require for GCSE results in different subjects to be aggregated together. The importance of this research is that by evaluating the predictive performance of such a method we can ascertain how much useful information is lost in the process of GCSE aggregation. The results show that traditional predictions based upon simple aggregated measures of GCSE attainment are fairly similar to those based upon the more complex approach. This provides some confidence that, for the majority of outcomes, only a small amount of predictive information will be lost through the use of aggregated measures of GCSE performance.

Schools' socioeconomic status (SES) has been claimed as an important influence on student performance and there are calls for a policy response. However, there is an extensive literature which for various reasons casts doubt on the veracity of school-SES effects. This paper investigates school-SES effects with population data from a longitudinal cohort of school students which includes achievement measures in Years 3, 5 and 7. Estimates for school-SES are unstable under differing model and measurement specifications. School-SES effects are trivial controlling for student-and school-level prior ability. Inconsistent with theoretical explanations, school-SES effects were stronger with weaker SES measures. Furthermore, school-SES effects differ somewhat by achievement domain. Also contrary to expectations, there were school-SES effects on Year 7 achievement in secondary school for the primary schools students attended in Year 5. In each of five domains of achievement, fixed effect models show a small negative effect for school-SES and a small positive effect for school-level prior ability. The large school-SES effects prominent in some research and policy literatures are statistical artefacts.

A long-established literature has found that anxiety about testing is negatively related to academic achievement. Yet there remains some debate as to whether this is simply due to less academically able pupils being more likely to develop education-related anxiety issues. This paper presents new evidence on this matter, focusing upon how test anxiety – as measured by five questions included in the PISA 2015 survey – is related to the grades 15/16-year-olds achieve in England's high-stakes GCSE examinations. I find little evidence that teenagers with low or high levels of test anxiety achieve lower GCSE grades than pupils with average levels of test anxiety. Thus, in contrast to much of the existing literature, no clear relationship between test anxiety and examination performance is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates degree classification outcomes for students with SQA Higher qualifications at an elite Scottish university. Students are characterised according to a new indicator based on their secondary school's academic performance relative to the national (Scottish) average. The results show that our school context indicator provides valuable information for interpreting school qualifications with respect to a student's potential to benefit from their university studies. If school context is ignored, raw school grades alone may be an incomplete measure of academic ability and the probability of success at university.

Previous research suggested that candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups were less likely to receive an offer of a place from an "old" university. These findings were disputed in a re-analysis carried out for HEFCE which found that only Pakistani candidates were significantly less likely to receive offers (from both "old" and "new" universities). In this paper we return to the question of ethnic differences in university offer rates, examining UCAS admissions data for 2008. We use a cross-classified multi-level modelling approach to predict the probability that applications from candidates from different ethnic groups will receive an offer. Controlling for variables seeking to capture the academic quality of applications we find significant differences between offer rates for different ethnic groups. Significantly lower offer rates remained for the main ethnic groups when social characteristics were also taken into account in the model (social class background, gender and school type). However, offer rates for candidates from mixed ethnic groups were not significantly different from those for white British candidates. Our analysis did not find evidence of differences in offer rates from higher and lower status institutions for black and minority ethnic candidates relative to white British applicants.

This paper investigates the relationship between stream placement and the academic progress made by children in England in Year 2 of primary school, drawing on data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). The MCS is a sample of 19,000 children born across the UK around the turn of the century and their families. Academic progress was compared between children in England in the "top", "middle" or "bottom" streams, and among the majority of non-streamed children. Multiple regressions took into account child, family and school characteristics and showed that stream placement significantly impacted on the academic progress made by children. Children in the "top" stream achieved more and made significantly more academic progress than children attending schools that did not stream, while children in the "middle" or "bottom" streams achieved less and made significantly less academic progress. The reasons for this and the educational implications are discussed.

Educational access in developing countries has improved significantly in recent years, but less evidence is available on learning and learning progress in comparative perspective. This paper employs data from Young Lives to examine levels and trends in cognitive skill development and the links to enrolment in school across the four study countries for pupils aged five to 15. Non-continuous patterns of enrolment are linked to lower learning levels in all countries, as are key indicators of home background disadvantage. Large differences in learning and learning progress are also found between the four countries' education sytems, with "learning gains" being typically highest in Vietnam and much lower in India (Andhra Pradesh) and Ethiopia. Inequalities linked to prior learning and home backgrounds are wide in Peru, while in Ethiopia and India relatively low levels of learning progress are a more general concern. In Ethiopia, both enrolment and quality improvements remain priorities for policy, while in India high levels of primary school enrolment, at younger ages than in the other study countries, suggest that comprehensive quality improvements may be required, nonetheless with a focus on disadvantaged pupils and those with low attainment in the early years.

Levels of basic literacy and numeracy skills among Vietnamese primary school children are high by comparison with other countries of a similar income level, and the country has made impressive gains in primary enrollment in recent years as well as improving the quality of schooling. Nonetheless, there remain substantial gaps in school performance between children from more and less advantaged backgrounds. Part of the justification of free public schooling consists in the equalization of "opportunities to learn" and the mitigation of learning inequalities which result from differences in home-background advantage. In this paper we examine the learning achievement of pupils in primary Grade 5 and explore the relationships between home-background, teacher, peer and school factors and learning progress in Grade 5, using data from Young Lives. We find that disadvantaged pupils receive relatively equitable access in relation to indicators of "fundamental" school quality, a considerable policy success regarding the provision of "minimum standards". However, differences by home advantage are relatively large where more sophisticated "opportunities to learn" are considered, such as the number of hours of instruction received, including through "extra classes", as well as access to learning resources such as computers, internet and non-text books. Analysis of the predictors of attainment suggests that some of these are likely to constitute an important part of the explanation for the persistence of learning inequalities by home background in Vietnam, suggesting that following success in equalising basic inputs, policy attention should turn more directly to boosting wider "opportunities to learn" among disadvantaged pupils.

Drawing on research conducted at National University of Ireland, Galway, this paper explores how senior managers at an Irish university are seeking to measure and facilitate academic performance in the context of national and global competitiveness and a higher education landscape that appears firmly inflected by neoliberal ideas of rankings, benchmarking and productivity. I draw upon Michel Foucault's writings on governmentality and biopolitics, in particular, and I utilise findings from a range of in-depth interviews with central university managers, with a view to critically interrogating the envisioning of what is undoubtedly a new academic subjectivity in the Irish higher education sector--a subjectivity that is being progressively planned for and regulated.

This paper applies an original framework to disentangle the concept of meritocracy, and the relationship between meritocracy and fairness, in elite university admissions. In Britain, elite universities are regularly criticised for being unmeritocratic and by implication unfair, but stakeholders often lack a shared understanding of meritocracy and confound it with outcomes-based measures of fairness. Interview data from admissions tutors at the University of Oxford, viewed through the prism of Joseph Soares's ideological categories of organic conservatism, democratic elitism and social democratism, indicate that Oxford admissions are highly meritocratic. Thus the question arises: in a deeply unequal society, where academic achievement correlates with family income and social class, is meritocracy a satisfactory admissions framework? The conclusion outlines an alternative path of "outcomes-based meritocracy", as exhibited by the University of California, that makes significant inroads towards integrating social inclusion and academic excellence.

This paper investigates the impact of three different approaches to establishing School Self Evaluation (SSE) mechanisms upon student achievement. Using group randomisation, four groups of schools were created. Different types of support were provided to the first three groups of schools in order to help them establish SSE mechanisms, whereas no SSE mechanism was established in any of the schools of the fourth group. In the first group, school stakeholders were offered the opportunity to develop their own SSE mechanisms and design their own improvement strategies. The second group followed the same process in designing SSE mechanisms as the first, but before introducing this approach support was offered to the stakeholders in order to address and reduce their concerns about SSE. The third group was asked to develop SSE mechanisms and take decisions for their improvement strategies which were in line with the knowledge base of educational effectiveness research. All three experimental groups had better results than the control group, but the impact of the third approach on student achievement was higher than the impact of the other two approaches to SSE. Implications for research on SSE are drawn. (Contains 3 tables.)

In both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely seen as enhancing learning, this hope fuelling their rapid diffusion and adoption throughout developed societies. But they are not yet so embedded in the social practices of everyday life as to be taken for granted, with schools proving slower to change their lesson plans than they were to fit computers in the classroom. This article examines two possible explanations--first, that convincing evidence of improved learning outcomes remains surprisingly elusive, and second, the unresolved debate over whether ICT should be conceived of as supporting delivery of a traditional or a radically different vision of pedagogy based on soft skills and new digital literacies. The difficulty in establishing traditional benefits, and the uncertainty over pursuing alternative benefits, raises fundamental questions over whether society really desires a transformed, technologically-mediated relation between teacher and learner. (Contains 3 notes.)

This paper investigates whether the inter-generational benefits of parental adult education exist over and above the achievement of parental educational qualifications during schooling and whether returns to parental adult learning are greatest for children of parents with low levels of education. Using data from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, ALSPAC, results show that mothers' participation in adult education is not associated with improvements in their children's academic attainment in English and mathematics at age 14 once the previous parental academic qualifications are included. This lack of relationship was found for the overall sample, and for subgroups defined by the type of adult education (accredited, unaccredited or informal learning), the intensity of learning (duration and engagement) and by mothers' prior educational qualifications. Although our results suggest that maternal adult learning is not a key factor for improvement in children's test scores at age 14, further research is needed to investigate the role of parental adult learning at other stages of children's cognitive development. (Contains 7 notes, 1 figure and 5 tables.)

Tooley, Dixon and Gomathi maintain that private unrecognised unaided schools in Hyderabad, India, catering for children of the poor, provide a better level of education than do their government counterparts. We examine this contention and argue first that Tooley et al.'s conceptualisation of education and its benefits is flawed and second that the evidence selected and provided to prove the empirical side of the case is one-sided and unrepresentative. We conclude that their case remains unproven and that flaws in the argument and its evidence provide no substantial case for their contention.

Despite there being significant numbers of state maintained Catholic schools in England, they have, until recently, proved to be of interest only to a minority of researchers. Government initiatives to promote greater scrutiny and accountability through the publication of school test and examination results have generated interest in their academic performance from proponents and critics. Early attempts by government to compare school performance using "raw" examination and test scores were severely criticised. Newly introduced "Contextualised Value Added" measures, when correctly applied, have largely overcome the deficiencies of earlier datasets. This paper presents new CVA performance data provided by Ofsted that may help the debate about Catholic school effectiveness to progress. Possible reasons for the CVA findings are explored and further areas for research are suggested. (Contains 7 tables and 1 figure.)

Recent policy in England has suggested that educational outcomes will be raised if schools specialise in particular subjects. In contrast, calls for the reform of 16-19 education have suggested that these outcomes will be improved if students become less specialised in their studies. At present, there is a limited evidence base from which to judge these arguments. In particular, we do not know the extent to which students' achievements in 16-19 education are higher when they choose subjects which play to their perceived strengths. We also do not know whether students are more likely to choose to study subjects taught by more effective departments. That is, outcomes may be affected by the relative strengths of students or departments in circumstances where there is freedom to choose. In this paper we provide evidence of the existence and strength of these relationships. This evidence suggests that reducing the scope within schools for specialisation or competition will reduce average student attainment and these effects ought to be taken into account when evaluating alternative curriculum policies. (Contains 4 tables.)

A number of countries, including Ireland, have experienced a recent growth in the prevalence of "shadow education", that is, paid private tuition outside the schooling system. Previous international studies have indicated that such tuition can enhance academic performance and facilitate access to tertiary education. However, such studies have rarely taken account of important differences between those taking private tuition and other students. This paper explores the characteristics of students taking private tuition and the impact of such tuition on academic outcomes in the Republic of Ireland. Participation in private tuition is disproportionately concentrated among students from middle-class families, those with higher prior performance and those with greater engagement in the schooling process. When the selective nature of the group taking private tuition is accounted for, private tuition yields no advantages in terms of upper secondary examination performance. It is argued that, rather than representing a rational strategy for the middle classes to secure educational advantage, participation in private tuition must be seen in the context of the competitive examination system in operation. (Contains 4 figures, 4 tables and 10 notes.)

Applications for places in UK Higher Education are usually made before the results of A-level examinations are known, so references from schools and colleges normally refer to expected (or predicted) grades. Inaccuracies in these predictions may be systematically related to key characteristics of the applicant and could lead to under-representation from various groups of students. This paper examines data on predicted A-level grades for 415 recently-enrolled university students. In contrast to the findings of previous studies however, we find that prediction bias is not particularly related to the gender, class or schooling of the student, but is closely linked to the predicted grades themselves--students predicted low grades performed above expectations, and vice-versa. The implications of this for current UK government initiatives intended to widen participation in Higher Education are considered briefly in the conclusion. (Contains 4 tables, 2 figures and 15 notes.)

This paper uses a rich set of student background characteristics to estimate the value added of second-level schools in Ireland. We show that there is a considerable degree of reranking of schools when we move from analysing raw outcomes to value added; in many cases the best performing schools in raw terms are not the best in value-added terms. We show that, contrary to popular perception, fee-paying schools do not add higher value than other schools. A simulation exercise suggests that if parents chose the best value-added school from among the set of feasible schools, then this reallocation of students has the potential to increase academic achievement substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at underlying patterns of school effectiveness through analysing a GCSE examination data-set over a period of ten cohorts (1993-2002) in one very large English school district. Both value added and raw score approaches were explored by employing different statistical multilevel models to examine time trends of school and pupil performance from two perspectives: consistent (linear) and inconsistent (non-linear) school improvement. Overall, levels of measured attainment for the vast majority of the schools increased over the decade and the results indicate that one in four schools had significantly higher value added improvement trajectories (linear) than would be expected over the decade--in comparison to the average school. Those schools with a lower value added starting point in 1993 were more likely to make significant improvement. However, underlying these linear improvement trajectories it appears that only one in 16 schools managed to improve "continuously" for more than four years at some point over the decade in terms of value added. (Contains 2 figures, 6 tables and 4 notes.)