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The extent to which students feel connected to their school is a powerful predictor of many health, social and academic outcomes. These outcomes are also influenced by other factors including characteristics of the school such as its size, policies and practices, but how do these characteristics modify the relationship between a student and his or her later school connectedness? This article draws on Western Australian data describing 5159 students from 39 schools who were tracked for the first two years of their secondary schooling. Controlling for interpersonal predictors of adolescent connectedness, the extent to which school characteristics, represented by school sector, modified later school connectedness was assessed using random intercept multi-level models. Significant interactions between school and individual student characteristics of interpersonal relationships as well as mental health were found for later school connectedness, suggesting the sector to which a school belongs influences a student's sense of connectedness to school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wide variety of universities, university campuses and university courses in Australia available to those interested in pursuing a higher education degree. This paper examines the impact of increasing competition for entrance to university on the educational outcomes for students from the government school sector. Using Melbourne as a case study, the research shows that, over a four-year period of increased competition, entry to some of the more academically accessible university campuses in the city became more difficult and this disproportionately affected the opportunities for university entrance among some groups. Despite the fact that there was no noticeable change in the academic standards achieved by government school completers, the rate at which government school students gained access to these universities declined noticeably during this time. These findings show how changes in supply of university places from year to year can have a profound effect on the opportunities of secondary-school completers—particularly those in more educationally disadvantaged settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]