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This paper primarily seeks to explore how mothering practices in different social classes reflect on the schooling experiences of students. We particularly focus on the desire for mothering towards educational success. We draw on Lareau's (2003) theory on "concerted cultivation" and "natural growth" to understand the possibilities of mothering embodied in various schooling practices. The data for the study were generated via 26 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with mothers from the middle and lower-class. The findings demonstrate that the educational and socio-economic status of mothers significantly modifies their children's schooling practices. However, the results reveal that mothers from lower-class backgrounds develop some principles of academic survival skills that they transmit to their children. Strategies to support their children's schooling that mothers from lower-class backgrounds implemented emerge where they interact with schooling practices conducted by middle-class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses the changes made to secondary school assessment in general and public school examinations in particular in mid-1980s New Zealand in response to mounting concerns expressed by teacher unions, employers, and politicians that the nation's assessment and examination systems were both outdated and largely irrelevant to the needs of secondary school students in a rapidly changing labour market. This paper also explores the debate over educational standards and the Labour Government's decision finally to abandon long-standing norm-referenced senior secondary school examinations in favour of a modular-standards-based assessment system (the SCOTVEC administered National Certificate) then being implemented in Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the integration of Russian children and youth into education and society in Israel. It focuses on four central aspects: the character of the immigrant community in Israel, the function and structure of the family, governmental policy, school experience, and identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]