Students' socioeconomic status (SES), school climate, and students' attitudes stand out as important factors that determine academic achievement. The current study investigated the relationship among SES, attitude toward science, school climate, and academic achievement comparatively in terms of countries. Trends in International Mathematics and…

While achievement gaps have been well-established, much remains to be understood about the manner and extent to which school leadership either increases or decreases student access to opportunity to learn. The current study uses nationally representative samples of U.S. and Flemish students in Grade 4 from the 2011 Trends in International…

Results of the TIMSS 2019 reveal that Kosovar students have lower achievement levels in both mathematics and science. In understanding this gap in achievement, it is of value to take a closer look at factors that may influence student learning. Results of this analysis reveal that factors such as home and school resources influence achievement…

Has the gap in average standardized test scores between students from high- and low-income families widened, narrowed, or remained stable over the last 3 decades? The question is important both because the achievement gap is measure of how (un)equally educational opportunities are distributed in the US, and because the disparity in educational…

Reports of international large-scale assessments tend to evaluate and compare education system performance based on absolute scores. And policymakers refer to high-performing and economically prosperous education systems to enhance their own systemic features. But socioeconomic differences between systems compromise the plausibility of those…

Socioeconomic status (SES) is often used as control variable when relations between academic outcomes and students' migrational background are investigated. When measuring SES, indicators used must have the same meaning across groups. This study aims to examine the measurement invariance of SES, using data from TIMSS, 2003. The study shows that a…

Disparities in educational outcomes exist between students in rural areas as compared to students in urban settings. While there is some evidence that these rural disparities are present in eastern Europe, little is known about young peoples' lives in the rural areas of this region. This paper presents an analysis of science achievement by…

Children have formal science instruction from kindergarten in Australia and from Year 3 in China. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact that different approaches to primary science curricula in China and Australia have on children's conceptual understanding of science. Participants were Year 3 children from three schools of high,…

A cross-national analysis was conducted to identify contextual influences that shape policies regarding the school-to-work transition and education-work linkages. The study's theoretical framework included principles based on technical-rational perspectives and neo-institutional perspectives. The study tested the following hypotheses: (1) schools…