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This article is the introduction to a special issue of Educational Policy titled, "Educational Policy: Analysis, Action, and Advocacy Across Contexts." The special issue presents contemporary education policy analyses from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which collectively represent methodological, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Individually, they offer detailed examinations of education policy processes and outcomes with a common focus on equity. The articles represent a spectrum of approaches to analysing education policymaking and enactment and point out various ways that educators, scholars, policymakers, and activists can take action. In this article, the co-editors identify key themes that distinguish the special issue's contribution and explain the importance of education policy analysis that informs future advocacy toward more equitable policy processes and outcomes across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts prohibiting race-related diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have informed localized public pushback narrating anti-equity campaigns. Emerging research and media accounts have largely focused on adults engaged with or against these efforts, with less attention on youth and their perceptions of these campaigns. To center youth voice, we analyzed 224 student newspaper articles published in Carmel, Indiana and Loudoun County, Virginia—two sites replete with localized contestations of equity reform. Using narrative policy analysis and approaches to counter-narratives, findings demonstrate youths' roles as engaged policy actors as student journalists highlighted forms of political engagement and action in their local contexts. We include recommendations for school leaders and policymakers to promote youth voice and engagement in education governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic caused widespread closures of early care and education (ECE) facilities that negatively impacted children's socioemotional, behavioral, and academic development. Policies permitting child care centers to remain open by obtaining waivers from closure directives involved varying levels of administrative burden. This study examined administrative burden within waiver policies and its association with ECE stability, as measured by children's enrollment in waiver-obtaining child care centers. I found Black children were significantly less likely than White children to be enrolled in a waiver-obtaining center, and also far less likely to have a center that obtained a waiver very early on in the pandemic. Analyses showed rates of enrollment in waiver-obtaining centers were far lower among children whose centers experienced more administrative burden, and suggested racial disparities in ECE stability were driven by Black children's concentrated residence in communities where the waiver application process was more burdensome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood obesity has risen and is one of the most important global problems of our time, and school physical education programs are the key to ameliorating it. In American schools, physical fitness scores have declined; yet, global, national, state, and local concerns for the overall health, physical fitness, and wellbeing of children are at an all-time high. The lack of safe and affordable options for physical activity coupled with the significant decrease in physical activity rates among most American children underscores the need for programs, data, and research on physical fitness in schools, where children spend a significant amount of their time. The purpose of this brief research report is to call the federal government and states to mandate physical fitness programs and to increase data collection capacity on physical fitness in schools. Subsequently, this study asks researchers to study physical fitness in schools in the U.S. to increase its importance to policy makers and educational stakeholders and advance our understanding of educational inequities in school physical fitness. As an example, using descriptive analyses, we have provided policymakers, educational stakeholders, and researchers with a first look at California's physical fitness data which shows how our findings complement prior literature as well as extend them. Implications for the research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School systems have increasingly turned to continuous improvement (CI) processes because traditional school improvement plans (SIPs) have resulted in neither reaching set goals nor maintaining performance in challenging times. Improvement science is one way of enacting CI that combines CI with networked improvement to encourage educational equity and build organizational resilience. This study examines the efforts of a school district in the United States to use improvement science to transition their static SIPs to a dynamic process in their underperforming schools. Using a case study design with observations and interviews, we find several sensemaking mechanisms acted as mediators between organizational learning and authentic improvement science implementation. The complexity of improvement science often inhibited sensemaking given time and resource constraints before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to participants often reporting improvement science as too inefficient for their needs. Schools that more successfully integrated improvement science into SIPs saw the value of a systematic approach to SIPs, had interest in distributed leadership, and saw improvement science as advancing equity. This study provides insight into the utility of improvement science as a tool to build organizational resilience as part of school improvement while documenting the many difficulties school improvement teams have in shifting away from static school improvement practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides empirical insights into the perceptions and agency of navigators who provide school selection assistance and this NGO’s unique insider–outsider status. As semi-private actors, navigators offer an important bridge between two kinds of social capital: the informal types of trust and legitimacy that families rely on, and the skills, knowledge, and networks necessary to access higher-quality schools in choice policy contexts. Data for this study are derived from an exploratory case study, including 13 in-depth interviews, documentary and social media analysis, and informal conversations. The findings illustrate the benefits and shortcomings of NGO information support in choice policy contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the tenets of cultural mismatch theory using survey data from 518 high school students. Structural equation modeling examined how cultural norms influence relationships among student demographic characteristics, school location, and social, psychological, and academic outcomes. Students who identified as Black and those attending suburban schools reported greater endorsement of independent cultural norms that significantly predicted greater comfort in school, better psychological well-being, and higher aspirations for future educational attainment. Alternatively, students of color reported greater endorsement of interdependent cultural norms that were significantly associated with greater comfort in school and psychological well-being but no academic outcomes. Results point toward cultural norms as one unseen indicator that may influence classroom learning and achievement and contribute to equity issues in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals emphasizes ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education to achieve sustainability. It is well known that gifted mathematics education is crucial, but teachers for gifted mathematics education are extremely scarce. The promotion of sustainability in gifted mathematics education on a large scale is an important issue to ensure equity and quality in education. Mathematical competitions have always been an important method for gifted education and have received widespread attention from students and parents. Many high school students prepare for these competitions through extracurricular gifted mathematics tutoring. With the advancement of science and technology and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many tutoring courses have gradually turned to online courses. Online gifted mathematics education has become a model for developing gifted education. In this study, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the learning patterns, grades, and family backgrounds of students participating in mathematics competitions in 10 key high schools in Liaoning Province from 2018 to 2024. The research results are as follows: (1) Before the COVID-19 pandemic, extracurricular gifted mathematics education primarily consisted of offline courses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning resources developed rapidly and became prevalent, while offline education decreased. (2) Students from high-income families preferred offline courses when participating in extracurricular gifted education tutoring for mathematics. In contrast, students from middle- and low-income families were more inclined to choose online courses. Household registration and the place of residence had a weak correlation with the time spent participating in online gifted mathematics education. Among the influencing factors, material resources such as computers, smartphones, and broadband internet had a significant mediating effect. (3) With the advent of online education, the correlation between mathematics competition achievements and family income significantly decreased. However, students from rural families face challenges in accessing online education due to a lack of material resources consequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in lower mathematics competition achievements. The results show that online gifted education in mathematics breaks through the limitations of time, space, and resources; solves the problem of scarce teaching staff; and helps promote a comprehensive strategy for sustainable development in gifted education. At the same time, issues such as the digital divide, insufficient hardware, and limited internet access still need to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, improvement researchers have sought to foreground equity in continuous improvement (CI) in efforts to better advance the position of Black, Brown, and other marginalized students in educational settings using CI. While we view these efforts as noble and necessary, we argue in this paper that CI has largely centered equity and pushed justice to the periphery. In particular, we argue that the field of CI in education has focused squarely on equity--what we define as reducing racial and other gaps in dominant outcomes. In so doing, CI has deprioritized justice, which we define as improving outcomes that center on the comfort, agency, and dignity of all students, but minoritized students (i.e., Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, disabled, multilingual youth, and working-class) in particular. In so doing, CI efforts risk upholding dominant schooling outcomes and accompanying practices that sort students into unequal categories, limiting the capability of minoritized students to reach their full potential, erasing and demeaning students' cultural wealth, knowledge, and identities, and restricting their access to rich learning opportunities. We argue for a continuous improvement for justice that: (a) confronts dominant outcomes rather than uncritically prioritizing them; and (b) aims to use its tools to create systems that prioritize outcomes that grant comfort, agency, and dignity to minoritized students and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School choice policy in China aims to achieve educational equity by limiting school choice. Synchronous Admission Reform (SAR hereafter) is a recent school choice reform in China, which continues to limit parents' autonomy and strengthen the equal distribution of school resources. This study explores Chinese middle-class parents' (n = 21) justice claims in SAR. The findings suggest parents' three distributive justice claims, including situational principles of distribution, institutional partiality in distribution, and entrepreneurship representative of distribution. Each claim contains contradictory interpretations of education equity. While parents admire SAR's egalitarian promise, they recognize the present unbalanced school development and engage in a meritocratic way of hoarding opportunities. Despite their complaints over SAR's institutional partiality, they acknowledge SAR's political representation. Instead of participating in policy networks, parents adopt an entrepreneurial way of non-compliance. Parents' contradictory discourse is shaped by an interplay of policy discourse, school gaps, and parents' agency in a competitive and high-stakes education environment. Our analysis offers a micro-psychosocial lens for policymakers and practitioners to understand educational equity in everyday discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractStudents with disabilities are at an increased risk of experiencing poorer quality peer relationships than those without disabilities. Previous school-based efforts to promote positive peer interactions among students with and without disabilities have included individual skill development and broader initiatives such as inclusive school practices. In the current study, we investigate the effects of cooperative learning (CL) on peer relationships, peer academic supports, and classroom engagement of middle school students with and without disabilities over two years. Using 4 waves of data from a cluster randomized trial of middle schools, we hypothesized that CL would create positive gains in study outcomes among all students, but we anticipated that effects would be more pronounced among students with disabilities. Results confirmed these hypotheses and highlighted the potential role of CL in creating greater social integration among students with and without disabilities. The implications of these findings for practitioners and policymakers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn response to the global expansion in English-medium instruction (EMI) within business education, this study investigates its impact on self-efficacy among Vietnamese business students over 2 years. Drawing on Bourdieu’s capital theory, data from 105 students were analyzed to explore the influence of socio-demographic factors. Surprisingly, EMI participation was associated with a negative change in self-efficacy, with no significant impact observed from social, economic, or cultural backgrounds. The findings suggest a mismatch between students’ expectations and academic performance, emphasizing the need for tailored interventions to support self-efficacy development in EMI programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study examines storytelling's role in supporting organizational resilience for equitable STEM instruction by schools and districts. Within K-12 organizations, some practices may be perceived as mundane, but storytelling supports transformation toward achieving equitable STEM learning opportunities in a school. Therefore, storytelling is a means for achieving organizational resilience. Methods: Through a comparative case study design, this paper explores challenges identified by educational leaders through focus groups who worked with teams to activate interdisciplinary learning to support thriving STEM programming to enhance equitable science instruction. Results: We characterize STEM systems' social and organizational phenomena from three educational contexts. We start by sharing these systems' backgrounds and educational goals, with specific attentiveness to their STEM programming. We then share the stories told by their leaders to promote organizational resilience (these characteristics, as previously described, are italicized throughout this section) within each of the given contexts. Discussion: The STEM stories in this study shared the state of STEM within a school and district, the instructional mission of STEM, and a community STEM story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have drawn on youth voice as a way of learning about educational inequity from the perspective of those closest to it. Yet, methodological engagements with youth voice tend to elide considerations of how coloniality and raciality operate in the very interpretive strategies leveraged to represent youth voice in academic knowledge produced about inequity. Following anticolonial black feminist critique and method-making, the inquirer turns to a radical reading practice for engaging youth feedback at a summer achievement program dedicated to promoting racial and educational justice and reversing summer learning loss. Key to this radical reading practice are methodological and analytical moves that: (a) pivot from earlier interpretations of youth feedback; (b) trace raciality in educational text to demonstrate how the text relies on modern signifying strategies that hide Man, his descriptive statements for existence, and the attendant power structures that facilitate global capital; and (c) consider how youth feedback illustrates coloniality and raciality at work within the out-of-school program. In all, the paper demonstrates how a black inquiry approach complicates educational equity's federally mandated, state-monitored, and locally enacted pursuit at an out-of-school program to collectively consider alternatives to our current ethical-political education demands, and how we might engage the task of posing those alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this manuscript I provide a historical analysis of antiBlackness in the Mexican American struggle for educational equity in Texas that is grounded in the dysconscious racism framework. I focus on the “other White” legal strategy and how Mexican American leaders in Houston in the late 1950s viewed collaborating with the African American Civil Rights movement. To highlight the opposing perspectives, I present a portrait of two rival Houstonian Mexican American leaders through correspondences, speeches, business documents, newspaper articles, oral histories, and secondary sources. The thrust of this manuscript analyzes how differing reactions to 1957 Texas House Bill 231, a bill that stymied school integration efforts, reflect both antiBlackness in the Mexican American civil rights movement and challenges to this way of thinking. I conclude with a call to challenge “racial innocence” in the Latine community and to prepare critically conscious educators who understand historical and current antiBlackness in the Latine community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of language in school has an educational dimension of considerable social interest in Spain since a strong process of immersion in regional languages might be affecting students' performance depending on their linguistic and socio-cultural background. In this context, the paper's aim is to analyse the relations between economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS); the percentage of students who speak a different language at school than at home (language) and school performance in PISA (performance); and in particular to measure the predictive power of the second variable with respect to the third, from a territorial perspective. A methodology was developed based on bivariate linear regression analysis and structural equation modelling, and was applied to data regarding these three variables from the PISA 2015 and PISA 2022 databases. These secondary analyses have confirmed: (a) the importance of the predictive power of ESCS on performance consistently in both 2015 and 2022; (b) the intensification of the association between the two variables in that period; and (c) the emergence of a moderate but significant association of the language variable as a predictor of Performance at the territorial level. The impact of regional ESCS differences on performance increased significantly between 2015 and 2022, which is compatible with an increase in other territorial divides described in the literature. Moreover, the strong linguistic immersion models display significant differences between territories in terms of performance. For example, for this reason alone, Catalonia's delay compared to Madrid is approximately one school year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether intended by education policy (e.g., via school entrance examinations) or unintended (e.g., via social stratification), selection effects in education (who goes where, gets what, and how much) shape educational opportunities – influencing the life chances of individuals and groups, and the structure of societies. However, within the quantitative approach to educational research, current statistical methods can struggle to simultaneously evaluate both the presence and impacts of these effects. In turn, this methodological limitation impedes efforts to facilitate equality of educational opportunity. This paper responds with a critical overview of types of selection effects in education, their consequences for educational opportunity, and the statistical methods used for their identification. Two empirical illustrations show how a new statistical method ("airbag moderation") can enable better detection and evaluation of selection effects in education and help direct future research into selection effects in education with a focus on opportunities for equality of educational opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School discipline is a significant educational policy and equity issue in K-12 education due to well-documented racial inequality in exclusionary discipline and the deleterious effects of exclusionary discipline on academic and adult outcomes. Drawing on interviews with district and school administrators and teachers in an "urban-emergent" district, this exploratory qualitative case study identifies and explicates the key factors that shape disciplinary practices within schools. Two major factors emerge as critical to school discipline practices in K-12 schools: (a) teacher preparation and (b) modeling of effective school discipline practices (how school leaders support teachers and how mentors support school leaders in the disciplinary process). Four key themes regarding teacher preparation emerge (a) relationship building, (b) classroom management, (c) cultural responsiveness and proficiency, and (d) experiential learning. The race and gender of educators permeate these factors. Implications for education policy and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian education system features considerable socioeconomic inequality and is a frequent source of controversy in Australian public life. Yet meaningful reform to this system has proven elusive. In this article, we examine the public's fairness perceptions of educational inequality based on parental financial capacity, using an online survey of adults (N = 1,999) from New South Wales, Australia. We asked about the fairness of inequality in school resources and education quality, and used a scenario in which students from high-income and low-income families had achievement gaps due to differences in educational experiences. Respondents had diverse perceptions about the fairness of educational inequality, but most perceived the scenario as unfair or very unfair. The partial proportional odds models showed that self-interest and neoliberal orientations predicted people's fairness perceptions of educational inequality. The findings of this study have implications for achieving meaningful reform of the Australian education system that is in line with public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates often predict that school choice policies will expand access to high-quality schools, particularly for marginalized communities. To interrogate this assumption, we employed a sequential mixed-methods analysis examining the state of charter reform in the District of Columbia. We observed that stakeholders consistently defined equity as uniform processes, evident in data distribution and enrollment practices. We also uncovered persistent disparities in where students live versus learn. We conclude that race-neutral conceptions of equity may hinder attempts to improve school access by ignoring structural inequalities tied to race, place, and income and by overlooking privileged households' efforts to remain separate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of language in school has an educational dimension of considerable social interest in Spain since a strong process of immersion in regional languages might be affecting students’ performance depending on their linguistic and socio-cultural background. In this context, the paper’s aim is to analyse the relations between economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS); the percentage of students who speak a different language at school than at home (language) and school performance in PISA (performance); and in particular to measure the predictive power of the second variable with respect to the third, from a territorial perspective. A methodology was developed based on bivariate linear regression analysis and structural equation modelling, and was applied to data regarding these three variables from the PISA 2015 and PISA 2022 databases. These secondary analyses have confirmed: (a) the importance of the predictive power of ESCS on performance consistently in both 2015 and 2022; (b) the intensification of the association between the two variables in that period; and (c) the emergence of a moderate but significant association of the language variable as a predictor of Performance at the territorial level. The impact of regional ESCS differences on performance increased significantly between 2015 and 2022, which is compatible with an increase in other territorial divides described in the literature. Moreover, the strong linguistic immersion models display significant differences between territories in terms of performance. For example, for this reason alone, Catalonia’s delay compared to Madrid is approximately one school year.

This research investigates access to senior school science and mathematics subjects offered in the final year of secondary schooling. Using data from the most populous Australian state of New South Wales, we examine whether stratification occurs in access to science and mathematics curricula. We find that the opportunity to study these subjects differs by key school characteristics, including location, socioeconomic composition and school sector. We find that while some science subjects and entry level mathematics are offered in most schools, substantial inequalities exist in access to the most advanced level of mathematics and chemistry. School location, socioeconomic composition, enrolment size and the availability of teachers predict the probability of whether a school offers the least and most advanced science and mathematics subjects. The findings highlight that stratification in curricula offerings occurs systemically and may intensify educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe global pandemic has brought about significant changes in education, which have led to concerns regarding fairness and accessibility in a technology-driven learning environment. This article focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education and examines the potential for bias in AI-powered tools. By using the example of a first-year engineering student from India, it demonstrates how standardized tests and limited resources can generate skewed data that AI algorithms with bias could perpetuate. Strategies such as using diverse datasets, implementing explainable AI models, and including human oversight mechanisms can help mitigate this bias. While acknowledging challenges such as cost and technical limitations, the article highlights the opportunities that AI presents for personalized learning that benefits all students. Lastly, the article stresses the importance of collaboration between educators, policymakers, and AI developers in order to create ethical and equitable AI tools. It concludes by advocating for a future in which AI empowers learners and fosters a fair and just learning environment, prompting readers to consider the potential and responsibility associated with AI in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational scholars have argued for fair pedagogical practices in response to the learning needs of diverse students. While pedagogical fairness has been widely advocated, few studies have systematically assessed its impact on student learning, and even fewer have examined pedagogical fairness from a school organisational perspective. To narrow this gap in research, the current study develops an expansive conceptualisation of pedagogical fairness as an integral part of organisational culture, which varies by school. Our data, gathered from 7,746 immigrant-background students attending 563 schools in six East Asian societies, were analysed based on a hierarchical linear model explaining their academic performance as a function of pedagogical fairness in terms of both teacher practice and school culture. The results suggest that fair pedagogy can effectively help immigrant children succeed in school. It is particularly notable that pedagogical unfairness embedded in school culture is negatively associated with the academic performance of immigrant children, even after controlling for unfair pedagogical practices exercised by individual teachers. These findings suggest that implementing fair pedagogy is not simply the responsibility of individual teachers; it is also the responsibility of school leaders, as they are in the position to substantially influence the school as an organisational whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimism hypothesis claims that immigrant students do better in the Norwegian education system than their socioeconomic status would suggest, due to the strong educational aspirations that immigrant parents might have for their children. Grounded in an educational equity paradigm, this study aims to test this hypothesis by investigating direct and indirect influences on students' reading achievement, assessing both how often the students speak the language of instruction, Norwegian, at home; and the effect for students of parents' educational levels that affect parents' academic expectations and parents' help with homework. Using PIRLS 2016 data from Norway (n = 4,232, mean age 10.8), path analysis provided evidence that both students' home language and parents' educational level directly influence reading achievement. The mediating roles of parents' academic expectations and parents' help with homework on these relationships fluctuated. Thus, the data provided evidence that only partially supports the optimism hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have sought perspectives from students, parents, teachers, and school administrators to investigate the educational status of migrant children. This study sheds new light on the same topic by adopting the perspectives of local government officials. Specifically, it investigates the practices advocated by local governments to improve the educational equity of migrant children and the barriers they may encounter. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with government officials working in a provincial education department in East China. The findings indicated that the practices advocated by the local government showed the following five characteristics: (1) the key practices implemented by the local government were almost exclusively related to migrant children's access to education, (2) the local government paid greater attention to the primary and lower secondary stages of migrant children's education, (3) there was no task force dedicated to migrant children's education, (4) although several government agencies worked on migrant children's education, the provincial education department played a leading role, and (5) the local government did not work closely with private schools on migrant children's education because of a lack of trust. Evidence from this study also suggests three key barriers to promoting educational equity: lack of educational resources, uneven distribution of good teachers, and lack of reform of the household registration system. These findings have important implications for re-evaluating policies and practices promoting educational equity for Chinese migrant children at the state and regional levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equality and equity have become dominant discourses within educational policy documents during the last decade. Colombia, for example, has introduced a language policy initiative that purports to provide educational equity opportunities for all through English language environments and opportunities within schools. Drawing on Ball's (1993. "What is Policy?" Discourse 13 (2): 10–17, 2012a. Global Education Inc. London: Routledge, 2013. The Education Debate (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: The Policy Place.) approach to policy analysis, this article critically interrogates the Colombian National Bilingual Program (PNB, in Spanish) by analysing the ways in which the concepts of (in)equality and (in)equity are addressed. We argue in this article that the PNB misrepresents the concept of equity, presenting a policy that aims to address it but fails to do so. Hence, this study reveals how rhetoric is used to position educators and institutions as accountable for the equal access to learning opportunities and environments that the policy promises. This article builds on the premise that contemporary educational reforms challenge the autonomy of educators, institutions, and local authorities by strengthening their accountability while governmental institutions centralise their authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive literature has compared the effect of selective schools with that of non-selective schools on pupil outcomes in England. However, evaluation of selective systems has been sparse and contradictory. From the perspective of educational equity, this study assesses the potential impact of academically selective school systems on pupils' overall academic outcomes. To do this, we compare pupils' academic performance in a selective system with that in a non-selective system using large-scale national data from England. The results show no evidence of a superior academic effect of selective systems on pupils' academic outcomes. While the general results for the effects of the two systems reveal neither system to be superior, an internal pattern implies negative results from the selective system, from which high performers suffer. The findings collectively imply that maintaining selective systems for compulsory education is unlikely to generate any substantial academic gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School engagement is a luxury not often afforded to children involved in the child welfare system. Current definitions of school engagement largely center around three micro-level foci: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. These definitions rely heavily on the student and their participation in school in prescribed ways that can exclude system-involved youth, leaving little room to consider how life experiences and developmental trajectories interface with how students show up in educational spaces. This perspective of school engagement also lacks socio-ecological considerations that may impact children in the child welfare system, such as frequent school moves, trauma reactions, systemic racism, and insufficient access to structural resources. Each of these influences may affect how a child engages with school and how a school engages with children and families. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the conceptual misalignments of the current approaches to measuring school engagement for youth involved in the child-welfare system and its subsequent implications for practice and research. We present recommendations that may lead to more inclusive and equitable measures of this important "determinant of life success." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minnesota is known for its large concentrations of Hmong, Somali and Karen refugee-background students (RBSs). Drawing on an equity/heritage framework that centres educational equity and the sustaining of the cultural and linguistic practices of minoritized communities, this study examined how district/school websites with the highest enrolment of each student group described equity/heritage focused educational opportunities for RBSs and discursively represented and positioned these students. Our findings show that these school websites largely lacked indications of equity/heritage-based educational opportunities for RBSs, especially for Somali and Karen RBSs. While the websites had a strong visual representation of their RBSs, equity/heritage-focused textual discourses were limited. Instead, discourses of neoliberalism, meritocracy and accountability driven by the global human capital framework were prevalent. We argue that RBSs should be supported with equity/heritage-focused educational opportunities and discourses at schools instead of solely on the basis of global human capital focused discourses. A limitation of our study is that the implementation and impact of these website policies on RBSs' educational experiences were not explored. However, we also note that examining discourses embedded within these critical online spaces is crucial because they communicate certain ideologies and motives to the public that can influence their perspectives about RBSs and their educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of online learning platforms is providing new opportunities for English language learning (ELL) in India. However, there is a significant challenge posed by the digital divide - the gap in accessing technology. This study investigates what causes the digital divide in internet ELL classrooms such as infrastructure limitations, device ownership and usage, and digital literacy skills; and how they affect student engagement, development of communication skills, and overall learning experiences. It suggests ways to bridge this gap which include government policies on infrastructure development; affordable tech solutions like mobile apps; teaching programs that enhance digital literacy among learners; support for teachers involved in web-based pedagogy. Through these recommendations, education stakeholders can create an inclusive cyberspace for all students where their communication abilities will be nurtured throughout different parts of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I share ways in which my professional journey, from admissions and enrollment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, intersect with my evolution as a scholar-practitioner through CANDEL, the doctorate in educational leadership program at the University of California Davis. I further share how I have leveraged my experience in the EdD program as a scholar-practitioner to challenge systems of higher education through storytelling and counter narratives as a means to reroute narratives that institutions create around the experiences of marginalized communities, including the African diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sustainable Development Goal 4 has commenced a global mandate to provide equitable access to quality education for everyone. In the Philippines, SDG 4 inaugurates the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Policy. This brief argues that while the NCLB has ensured equal access to quality literacy education, it poses socioeconomic-based challenges, declining rate of parental involvement in their children's schooling, overemphasis on standardized tests, and the lack of community involvement towards literacy programs. The Holistic Literacy Enhancement Program (HLEP) is proposed in this paper to help address these challenges to NCLB. HLEP presents policy implications that could assist the NCLB in more efficient and effective implementation: equitable resource allocation, parental and community engagement, and culturally and linguistically relevant assessment tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Expert-based Collective Advising Mechanism (ECAM) was embedded in the open online tutoring project to provide free tutoring for rural students and to help them improve their academic performance, and thus, to solve education inequity. Taking urban and rural students in Tongzhou District of Beijing as the objects, this study gathered data on the tutoring frequency, the durations students received tutoring, the number of teachers who tutored the same student, and the students' academic performance. The tutoring behavior and academic performance of rural and urban students were compared. The results showed that the ECAM could improve students' academic performance. Rural and urban students who received tutoring got the same degree of performance appreciation. Finally, gender, school type, and tutoring duration predicted academic performance positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into education has fundamentally transformed teaching and learning processes, offering new avenues for enhancing educational experiences and outcomes. This paper explores the multifaceted impact of ICT on education, focusing on its ability to provide unprecedented access to information, foster innovative teaching methodologies, increase student engagement, and promote educational equity. By leveraging digital tools and resources, educators can create dynamic and interactive learning environments that cater to diverse learning styles and needs. ICT also empowers students to engage in self-directed learning and collaborate with peers across geographical boundaries. Moreover, the implementation of assistive technologies and adaptive learning platforms ensures that students with disabilities receive tailored support, promoting inclusivity. The potential of ICT to bridge educational gaps in underserved regions by providing high-quality content and flexible learning options underscores its role in advancing educational equity. Despite challenges such as the digital divide, the continued investment in ICT infrastructure and the adoption of innovative educational practices can create a more inclusive and equitable educational ecosystem. Ultimately, ICT holds the promise of reshaping the educational landscape, preparing students for success in the digital age and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing incentives to attract the best teachers to low-performing schools has become a fundamental objective in educational equity. We analyze the case of Costa Rica, where the most experienced teachers usually choose to work in the countryʼs Central Region. We carried out a discrete choice experiment with a sample of 400 teachers in 52 schools, aiming to elicit their preferences to work at schools located in disadvantaged regions. The findings suggest that monetary incentives are the most effective to increase the probability of teachers accepting contracts in disadvantaged locations. In particular, economic bonuses show marginal effects between 8 % and 22 %. On the other hand, non-monetary incentives (working with highly qualified peers, direct access to supervisors of educational programs, and provision of material resources) are found to be important complements in the design of incentive packages. Combining monetary and non-monetary incentives, we obtain an acceptance rate to move to disadvantaged regions of more than 30 % of the teachers. These incentive designs are especially relevant in the educational systems of developing countries, which face high internal inequalities and strong financial constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article overviews the realities of so-called "low achieving" students in Singapore, efforts to support them better, and the place of educational technology in this support. We undertook a comparative case study of lower tracked Normal Technical (NT) secondary school students and their teachers in two schools in Singapore. We found a diversity of student backgrounds and struggles, with many students facing barriers to academic success and social mobility despite purported government efforts to support them. Findings also revealed a variety of approaches taken by their teachers, influenced by teacher ideologies of student backgrounds and abilities, pedagogy, and learning. Using the lens of selective digital technology integration, we highlight the promises and potentials of these efforts to improve NT student outcomes, along with the corresponding tensions and dilemmas. We conclude by arguing that a focus on innovation should mean pulling away from standard ideas of novel technological innovation and a move to collaborative, expansive, research-based pedagogy and systemic equity innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the integration of online learning into primary and secondary education. However, gaps persist in academic research, particularly in understanding its impact on educational equity within the third-type digital divide. This study conducted an equity-focused review to assess online learning's impact on primary and secondary education within this context. It developed a theoretical framework integrating elements from schooling and home environments to explore equity implications in online learning. Building on this, the study proposed and validated a conceptual model using structural equation modeling (SEM), analyzing data from 1236 students in Shenzhen, China. The study found that both school investment and family involvement indirectly influence students' online learning outcomes through complete mediating effects on students' online learning engagement. Family investment slightly outweighs school education in its influence on outcomes. Consequently, online education within the environmental divide potentially hinders educational equity, necessitating caution with large-scale online education initiatives. This study fills research gaps on the digital divide in the third environment, leveraging China's pandemic experience with online education. It also integrates school education and family input to examine the impact of large-scale online learning and its associated strategies on educational equity, providing insights into the promotion of educational equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood obesity has risen and is one of the most important global problems of our time, and school physical education programs are the key to ameliorating it. In American schools, physical fitness scores have declined; yet, global, national, state, and local concerns for the overall health, physical fitness, and wellbeing of children are at an all-time high. The lack of safe and affordable options for physical activity coupled with the significant decrease in physical activity rates among most American children underscores the need for programs, data, and research on physical fitness in schools, where children spend a significant amount of their time. The purpose of this brief research report is to call the federal government and states to mandate physical fitness programs and to increase data collection capacity on physical fitness in schools. Subsequently, this study asks researchers to study physical fitness in schools in the U.S. to increase its importance to policy makers and educational stakeholders and advance our understanding of educational inequities in school physical fitness. As an example, using descriptive analyses, we have provided policymakers, educational stakeholders, and researchers with a first look at California’s physical fitness data which shows how our findings complement prior literature as well as extend them. Implications for the research and practice are discussed.

This study focuses on the analysis of a Canva-based instructional textbook specifically designed for fifth-grade students preparing for the National Science Olympiad (OSN) in Mathematics. This study uses a qualitative approach with a literature review to develop a Canva-based Mathematics OSN textbook for fifth-grade elementary school students. Primary data is obtained from direct analysis of the textbook, while secondary data comes from articles, books, and papers that discuss digital book development, the use of Canva, and competitive math learning strategies. Data was collected through literature searches with relevant keywords and analyzed thematically to identify patterns and insights. The results are used to compile textbooks that suit the needs of teachers and students. The study's findings suggest that such a resource not only improves student readiness for the OSN competition but also promotes educational equity by mitigating the impact of the digital divide and other systemic barriers. This research contributes to the broader discourse on digital education, offering insights into the effective integration of technology in the development of competitive academic resources. Future research is recommended to evaluate the long-term impact of these resources on student performance and to explore further enhancements in digital educational tools.

In recent years, improvement researchers have sought to foreground equity in continuous improvement (CI) in efforts to better advance the position of Black, Brown, and other marginalized students in educational settings using CI. While we view these efforts as noble and necessary, we argue in this paper that CI has largely centered equity and pushed justice to the periphery. In particular, we argue that the field of CI in education has focused squarely on equity—what we define as reducing racial and other gaps in dominant outcomes. In so doing, CI has deprioritized justice, which we define as improving outcomes that center on the comfort, agency, and dignity of all students, but minoritized students (i.e., Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, disabled, multilingual youth, and working-class) in particular. In so doing, CI efforts risk upholding dominant schooling outcomes and accompanying practices that sort students into unequal categories, limiting the capability of minoritized students to reach their full potential, erasing and demeaning students' cultural wealth, knowledge, and identities, and restricting their access to rich learning opportunities. We argue for a continuous improvement for justice that: (a) confronts dominant outcomes rather than uncritically prioritizing them; and (b) aims to use its tools to create systems that prioritize outcomes that grant comfort, agency, and dignity to minoritized students and communities.

IntroductionThis study examines storytelling’s role in supporting organizational resilience for equitable STEM instruction by schools and districts. Within K-12 organizations, some practices may be perceived as mundane, but storytelling supports transformation toward achieving equitable STEM learning opportunities in a school. Therefore, storytelling is a means for achieving organizational resilience.MethodsThrough a comparative case study design, this paper explores challenges identified by educational leaders through focus groups who worked with teams to activate interdisciplinary learning to support thriving STEM programming to enhance equitable science instruction.ResultsWe characterize STEM systems’ social and organizational phenomena from three educational contexts. We start by sharing these systems’ backgrounds and educational goals, with specific attentiveness to their STEM programming. We then share the stories told by their leaders to promote organizational resilience (these characteristics, as previously described, are italicized throughout this section) within each of the given contexts.DiscussionThe STEM stories in this study shared the state of STEM within a school and district, the instructional mission of STEM, and a community STEM story.

This study investigates how socioeconomic status (SES) impacts student voice (SV) and its intermediary role in the relationship between SES, academic outcomes (AO), and well-being (WB) in Vietnamese educational settings. The research employed a cross-sectional design and a simple random sampling technique. Questionnaires were administered to 1171 students from nine Thai Nguyen universities, Vietnam. The study used Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze data. Results showed significant correlations between factors: SES and AO; SES and WB. Moreover, SV appeared to mediate the relationships between SES and AO, and SES and WB. However, the moderating effects of gender and grade level on the relationships between SV and AO, and SV and WB were insignificant. We argue that advocating for SV in educational settings can positively influence the relationship between SES and AO. Specifically, our findings suggest that enhancing student voice may help mitigate the effects of lower SES on AO and WB. The research suggests implications for educational policy and practices in Vietnamese educational and similar contexts.

This manuscript explores the argument for lower student-to-school counselor ratios in U.S. public education. Drawing upon a comprehensive historical review and existing research, we establish the integral role of school counselors and the notable benefits of reduced student-to-counselor ratios. Our analysis of national data exposes marked disparities across states and districts, with the most underfunded often serving higher percentages of low-income students and students of color. This situation raises significant ethical concerns, prompting a call for conscientious policy reform and targeted investment. Informed by emerging best practices, we propose recommendations for enhancing counselor staffing and ultimately student outcomes. This ethical argument underscores the need for proactive actions and provides a basis for future research to further delineate the impact of school counselor ratios on educational equity and student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper emphasises the need to consider the social, political, and economic contexts within which educational systems operate and use Artificial Intelligence (AI). Focused on Swedish compulsory education, this study explores whether the use of AI envisioned by national authorities and educational technology companies contributes to unfairness. Through qualitative content analysis of Swedish policy documents and educational company reports, the study employs the concept of Relevant Social Groups to assess how diverse stakeholders perceive the risks and benefits of using AI in education regarding fairness. Three distinct groups are identified, each prioritising different forms of “efficiency” as a key value—economic, pedagogical, and accessibility-related. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the intricate interplay between fairness and the use of AI in the Swedish educational system. It also questions the concept of fairness revolving around formal equality of opportunities that separates fairness from the broader context of social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher education is at a critical crossroads as colleges and schools of education contend with decreased student enrollment, legislative strategizing to limit what is taught, and general pushback regarding what teachers should learn about teaching and their students. As such, the field of teacher education must examine how to collectively rebuff the current movement by policy makers and elected officials who have formalized their desire to maintain the status quo in education. They continue to lobby against social justice in education, critical race theory, multicultural perspectives in teaching, and culturally responsive and relevant pedagogical approaches to classroom instruction, among others. This paper examines the current moment in educational history and highlights opportunities that may transform teacher education policy to become more justice centered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Completing high school enables access to educational and employment opportunities associated with better physical and mental health and improved quality of life. Identifying modifiable factors that promote optimal educational trajectories for youth experiencing disadvantage is an important research focus. Social inclusion has been theorised to play a role in promoting better educational outcomes for this priority population, however limited research has examined this relationship. Method: This study used three waves of data from the state‐representative Australian arm of the International Youth Development Study (IYDS) (youngest cohort, N = 733; 54% female, 95% Australian born) to examine the extent to which vulnerability in primary school (Grade 5; Mage = 10.97, SD = 0.38) and social inclusion in mid‐adolescence (Year 10; Mage = 15.50, SD = 0.53), were associated with school completion in young adulthood (post‐secondary; Mage = 19.02, SD = 0.43). Results: Regression models identified an interaction between social inclusion and vulnerability (OR = 1.37, 95% CI [1.06, 1.77], p =.016), indicating that the association between vulnerability and school completion varied as a student's level of social inclusion increased. Higher social inclusion was beneficial for youth with lower levels of vulnerability but did not appear to influence school completion for the most vulnerable students. Conclusions: For many young people, promoting social inclusion may support engagement in education and play a protective role. However, further research is needed to better understand the role of social inclusion for highly vulnerable youth, particularly the mechanisms via which social inclusion may have differential effects on school completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]