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Purpose: To empirically examine associations between parental opposition towards comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and religiosity. Methods: A nationally representative survey of Australian parents (N = 2,418) examined opposition towards 40 CSE topics, by parental religiosity and secular/religious school sector. Results: Whilst opposition to most CSE topics correlated positively with religiosity, even amongst very religious parents, disapproval was minimal (2.8–31.2%; or 9.0–20.2% netted against non-religious parents). Parents with children enrolled in a Catholic school were less likely than secular-school parents to oppose CSE. Those with children at other-faith-schools were more likely to oppose CSE, but again disapproval was minimal (1.2–21.9%; or 1.3–9.4% netted against secular-school parents). Discussion: Only small minorities of very religious parents and parents with children in religious schools opposed the teaching of various CSE topics. Decision-makers should therefore be cautious about assuming that CSE delivery is not widely supported by particular families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PurposeTo empirically examine associations between parental opposition towards comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and religiosity.MethodsA nationally representative survey of Australian parents (N = 2,418) examined opposition towards 40 CSE topics, by parental religiosity and secular/religious school sector.ResultsWhilst opposition to most CSE topics correlated positively with religiosity, even amongst very religious parents, disapproval was minimal (2.8–31.2%; or 9.0–20.2% netted against non-religious parents). Parents with children enrolled in a Catholic school were less likely than secular-school parents to oppose CSE. Those with children at other-faith-schools were more likely to oppose CSE, but again disapproval was minimal (1.2–21.9%; or 1.3–9.4% netted against secular-school parents).DiscussionOnly small minorities of very religious parents and parents with children in religious schools opposed the teaching of various CSE topics. Decision-makers should therefore be cautious about assuming that CSE delivery is not widely supported by particular families.

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In this study, we examine the features of school choice by comparing parental involvement between denominational and public schools. In Hungary, denominational schools reemerged after the fall of communism in 1989, and their share increased further after 2010. The survey data, we employ, refer to primary school children's parents and were focused on parental involvement at home and at school. Our hypothesis is based on the work of Epstein and Coleman and suggests a prominent role for denominational schools in parental involvement. However, our results show that Hungarian denominational schools differ in terms of parental involvement and school choice from what theory or practice in other western countries suggests. School choice of Hungarian parents is primarily driven by the intention to ensure a more culturally and economically homogeneous and safer environment for their children. Parental involvement tends to be stronger at home and at school due to higher parental religiosity, regardless of the school sector. The novelty of our findings is, that opposite to the literature, mostly not the school type but parents' religiosity increase both the home based and the school based parental involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, Shanghai implemented an admission policy that canceled the admission priority of private schools to promote education equity. Since this policy is a unique measure for adjusting private and public school competition and discouraging private school choice priority, little is known about the policy effects. In this research, to examine the impact of the new admission policy on the capitalization of public education quality, we apply boundary fixed effect and Difference in Differences (DID) analysis to housing transaction records before and after the policy. The admission policy on average led to an additional 2% housing price premium for every standard deviation increase in public school quality. However, this average increase in premium was mainly driven by elite (top 5%) school districts, where an additional 8.6% housing price premium was generated by the policy. Housing prices in nonelite school districts, on the other hand, demonstrated no significant changes. These results indicate that the policy enlarges the housing price gap among school districts with different education quality. Thus, rather than promoting education equity, this policy may overall worsen the housing affordability in good public‐school districts and make access to quality education more exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines public–Catholic gap in STEM opportunity to learn in the US using Mahalanobis-distance matching and adjacent categories models. Consistent with prior studies, there are significant public–Catholic differences in math and science course sequence level and total credits earned. However, we find that these gaps are largely accounted for by selection processes among students of differing family background. Moreover, we find that the Catholic school advantage in STEM opportunity to learn differs by subject; Catholic school students are more likely to enroll in advanced math courses relative to middle-level courses, while their advantage in science is concentrated in the middle of the course-taking hierarchy.

Bullying has received increased attention from academics, scholars, and the media over the past decade and a half. The effects of bullying can be devastating and long lasting for victims and bullies alike. Recent prevention efforts and research has focused on the school environment as a whole. As such, two areas of interest that could affect bullying are the roles of school climate and school sector. School sector is important to examine as private schools make up 25% of all schools in the United States and approximately 80% of private school students attended faith-based institutions (Broughman & Swaim, 2013). This study utilized the School Crime Supplement to understand how school climate and school sector affect students' experiences of bullying victimization. Using chi square analysis, propensity score analysis, and multiple regression models (of the total sample, public school sample, and private school sample), as well as Z-score coefficients, findings suggest that a positive school climate predicted less reporting of bullying incidents and that private school students in particular reported a more positive school climate and less bullying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article gives an overview of the structure, aims, and functioning of German foundations that engage in primary and secondary education. It is discussed how the evolution of the German education regime is accompanied by a development of the characteristics of education foundations. The article argues that the modern foundation—professional, often businesslike large organizations—is best equipped to play a crucial innovating and networking role in partnership with the former exclusively publicly governed German education administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People’s diminished awareness of plants, affected by anthropogenic environmental deterioration, has challenged science education to overcome the obstacles impeding a better understanding of their meaning and value. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the socioeconomic status of high-school students, as indicated by their attendance at private or state schools, on their knowledge of native plants. In total, 321 students aged 15–18 were asked to write down 10 plants native to Córdoba, Argentina, in a freelist questionnaire. Students listed a mean of 6.8 species of a total of 165 different categories of plant names. The majority of the species named were exotic to Córdoba (63%) or Argentina (50.6%, of which 33.8% were adventitious), indicating an ‘adventitious-to-native’ effect by which all spontaneously reproducing plants were presumed to be native species. However, the 20 most frequently named plants were mainly native, with ‘Algarrobo’ (Prosopisspp.) and ‘Espinillo’ (Vachellia caven) being the most mentioned. Students’ socioeconomic status had a significant effect on the number of species named, with the students of state schools (where the less well-off sectors of the society attend) mentioning more species and, among these, more native ones than the students from private schools. Furthermore, we defined size, colour and scent as being conspicuous traits of plant flowers that are relevant for human perception, and found that the most frequently named adventitious species, unlike the native ones, were those exhibiting big brightly-coloured flowers which ranged from being inodorous to having medium intensity scents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Critics of Catholic and independent (nongovernment) schools in Australia contend that the higher levels of performance of students in nongovernment schools can be dismissed as simply a function of student- and especially school-level socioeconomic status (school-SES). A recent article extends this critique to school-sector differences in students’ evaluations of their teachers and schools, arguing that the observable school-sector differences are because of differences in school-SES, not because of school-sector differences in their teachers and schools. In response, this article reviews these arguments and focuses on school-sector differences in students’ evaluations of their teachers and schools using the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation’s (OECD) measures in the PISA 2009 study. On eight of the 10 attitudinal measures, students attending Catholic and independent schools have more positive evaluations and these school-sector differences survive controls for students’ SES, their overall level of achievement and school-SES, which has no substantive influence. Although the effect sizes are generally small (0.06–0.26) their combined influence means that nongovernment school students enjoy superior learning environments which is likely to contribute to their generally higher levels of academic performance in senior secondary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of family socio-economic disadvantage and differences in school resources on student achievement in the city of Cartagena, Colombia. Using data from the ICFES and C-600 national databases, we conduct a multilevel analysis to determine the unique contribution of school-level factors above and beyond family background. The results from the hierarchical linear models show that while family socio-economic background significantly affects student achievement, school composition and school resources explain as much as half of the effects of family background. More specifically, the achievement gap in public schools is explained in large part by differential resource allocation and concentration of poor students in public schools, which in turn lowers student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine whether standards based accountability reforms of the past two decades have closed the achievement gap among public and private high school students. They analyzed data from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) to examine sector differences in high school achievement in the era of standards based reforms. The authors found that students in Catholic and private secular schools enjoy greater math gains from 10th to 12th grade than comparable public school students. However, they found that these advantages are largely concentrated among more advanced math skills. Moreover, private school students took more academic math courses than public school students, even after controlling for family background and prior achievement. These differences in course taking accounted for most of the public-private difference in achievement gains. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

School-sector differences in student performance are often viewed as largely reflecting the intake characteristics of students and having little to do with differences in the provision of teaching and learning between school sectors. The contrary view is that school-sector differences show that non-government schools 'add value' to student performance through their delivery of the curriculum. This paper analyses tertiary performance (ENTER scores) among students who participated in the 2003 PISA study. It examines the extent to which school-sector differences are accounted for by students' socio-economic background, prior achievement, and various aspects of student learning. It concludes that sector gaps in students' tertiary entrance performance can be only partially attributed to socio-economic background and there are moderate value-added effects for school sector when taking into account students' prior achievement. Although aspects of student learning had important effects on ENTER scores, they generally did not further account for school-sector differences. Further analyses suggest that nongovernment schools promote a more academic environment that lifts student performance. This finding has policy implications for all sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we explore how high schools, through their structures and organization, may influence students' decisions to stay in school or drop out. Traditional explanations for dropout behavior have focused on students' social background and academic behaviors. What high schools might do to push out or bold students has received less empirical scrutiny. Using a sample of 3.840 students in 190 urban and suburban high schools from the High School Effectiveness Supplement of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, we apply multilevel methods to explore schools' influence on dropping out, taking into account students' academic and social back- ground. Our findings center on schools' curriculum, size, and social relations. In schools that offer mainly academic courses and few nonacademic courses, students are less likely to drop out. Similarly, students in schools enrolling fewer than 1,500 students more often stay in school Most important, students are less likely to drop out of high schools where relationships between teachers and students are positive. The impact of positive relations, however, is contingent on the organizational and structural characteristics of high schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the developments in information literacy in Europe and provides an overview of the concepts used and discussed by European authors. Some examples of information literacy initiatives in schools and the higher education sector, as well as of institutions and organizations, projects and conferences concerned with information literacy, are given. Some research initiatives are also introduced. The overview is based on literature reviews and personal observations and involvement and presents a selective review.

This paper examines public–Catholic gap in STEM opportunity to learn in the US using Mahalanobis-distance matching and adjacent categories models. Consistent with prior studies, there are significant public–Catholic differences in math and science course sequence level and total credits earned. However, we find that these gaps are largely accounted for by selection processes among students of differing family background. Moreover, we find that the Catholic school advantage in STEM opportunity to learn differs by subject; Catholic school students are more likely to enroll in advanced math courses relative to middle-level courses, while their advantage in science is concentrated in the middle of the course-taking hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]