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The existence of a contextual effect of the social class composition of a school's intake on individual student performance--the school mix effect--has long been debated in qualitative school effectiveness literature. This paper reports on a qualitative study of four New Zealand urban secondary schools of varying social class composition (and ethnicity) designed to shed light on a school mix effect by examining possible causal mechanisms. One low-socioeconomic status school was compared with three middle-class schools. Evidence was found to support a whole-school explanation for a school mix effect stemming from the cumulative effects of reference groups, instructional practices, and organizational and management practices. Implications for research and policy are suggested. Addressing the effects of school mix effect should be part of the policy agenda for reducing educational inequity. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures, and 60 references.) (Author/SLD)

The extent to which school mix--the social class composition of schools--influences school processes and student achievement has long been a matter of dispute. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of four New Zealand urban secondary schools, this article suggests that school mix probably does impact on school organizational and management processes so as to drag down the academic effectiveness of schools in low socioeconomic settings and boost effectiveness in middle class settings. The four schools represent a range of socioeconomic status populations, with varying proportions of White, Maori, and Pacific Islander students. Evidence of the influence of school mix on daily routines, curriculum management, and guidance and discipline matters is discussed. The article provides a framework for explaining why school mix might influence school organization and management, and it suggests implications for educational markets, school self-management, and school evaluation. (Contains three tables.) (Author/SLD)

Existing research demonstrates the impact of context on school organisation and management, curriculum and pedagogy and on student peer relations. New developments in English education policy will devolve more responsibility for dealing with these issues to headteachers. Headteachers' readings of their contexts and the responses that they make are thus of increasing interest. This paper draws on interviews with eight headteachers of less advantaged English primary schools to explore how they understand and articulate the contexts in which their schools operate and how this knowledge is translated into strategies for organising curriculum, pedagogy and other school processes. These headteachers observed context through the lens of the behaviour of parents and children in relation to school, contrasting it with an assumed middle-class normality. More critical perspectives on families' social and economic position or on the contribution of school practice to educational exclusion were largely absent. School responses were many and varied but, given the constraints of budgets, market and performative pressures, were unlikely to substantially transform the educational experiences and outcomes of disadvantaged students. We point to the continuing need for more contextualised funding mechanisms and policies to improve schools in disadvantaged areas and also, in the light of devolution to schools, to the need to develop mechanisms of support to headteachers to help them to develop critical understandings of context and to reflect on school process and practices in the light of these understandings. (Contains 4 notes.)

Research is increasingly highlighting the influence of school contexts on school processes and student achievement. This article reviews a range of social justice rationales for taking school contexts into better account, and highlights the challenges contextualisation currently poses for practice and for policy. It notes important constraints on contextualised practice and limited developments in contextualising policy. There is now increasing concern to recognise and understand context in school effectiveness and school improvement research but such research needs to consider school context much more, in order to provide a stronger underpinning for contextualised policy and practice. School composition research is potentially most insightful because it addresses the issue most directly. Nevertheless future large-scale studies in this area need to overcome a number of limitations within the existing literature.

Examines recent responses of several school effectiveness researchers to concerns of their critics. Examines complexity of debate over school effectiveness research (SER), value of pragmatism, impact of social class, significance of methodological problems, value of current attempts to theorize SER, relationship of SER to educational politics and policymaking, and claimed achievements of SER. (BT)

This paper is concerned with the question of whether or not school improvement researchers are being realistic about social class- related constraints on the reform of low socioeconomic schools. It reviews findings from recent studies in the sociology of education and education policy that are highlighting the impact of social class on school and market processes. It also considers the school improvement literature's approach to the social class context of schooling, making the point that while school improvement writers have rarely given enough attention to social class or market contexts, some writers have been taking more account of these than others. Some recent school improvement writing signals growing concern with contexts but more research in this area is required. (Contains 110 references.) (Author/SLD)

New Zealand's Education Review Office and England's Office for Standards in Education attempt to construct school failure as the clear responsibility of schools in order to gain ideological power as agents of accountability. These "politics of blame" are contested in both settings by an alternative "contextual" claim involving broader socioeconomic and political constraints on schools. Contains 76 references. (Author/SV)