Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the efficiency performance of public sector-funded schools in Spain. Design/methodology/approach: Using school-level data from Program for International Student Assessment 2012, cross-sectional models were estimated using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Technical efficiencies of public…

Background/Context: While many studies show that greater economic inequality widens the achievement gap between rich and poor students, recent studies indicate that countries with greater economic inequality have lower overall student achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study explores whether family inequalities…

Purpose: Increased school autonomy and accountability have been a common denominator of national reforms in otherwise heterogeneous governance systems in Europe and the USA. The paper argues that because schools serving disadvantaged communities (SSDCs) often have lower average performance, they are more often sanctioned or under closer scrutiny,…

Successful school leadership is highly contextually dependent. However, few studies focused on the comparisons of school leadership across different countries. Even among the existing studies, comparisons tend to be conducted with the assumption that the underlying factorial structure of the construct is the same. In this study, school principal's…

This article synthesises findings from two systematic reviews that examined evidence of the link between large-scale assessments (LSAs) and education policy in economically developing countries and in countries of the Asia-Pacific. Analyses summarise evidence of assessment characteristics and policy goals of LSAs that influence education policy,…

This investigation examines the role of students' home and school variables in producing the achievement gap between second-generation Turkish students and their native peers in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Using the data from PISA 2006, this study supports past findings that both home and school resources affect the educational outcomes of…

This study investigates the relative roles of home and school variables in accounting for achievement gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Australia and New Zealand. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2009, our findings show that achievement gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous…

Background: Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued increasingly divergent education policies. This is true in England in particular, where diversity, choice and…

The outstanding performance of Shanghai students in the 4th Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2009) gained widespread attention at home and abroad. In this paper, the authors attribute this outstanding performance to three traditional factors and six modern factors. The traditional factors are high parental expectations, belief…

Education is a distinct "sphere of justice" where resources and rewards (educational "goods") are being constantly distributed, and the fairness of their allocation is being evaluated, eliciting a sense of justice or injustice among the evaluators. A sense of (in)justice is a subjective perception of an individual that the…

Background: Findings from several international studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between literacy skills and socioeconomic status (SES). Research has also shown that schools differ considerably in their student outcomes, even after taking account of students' ability and family background. The context or learning…

This article provides insight into the nature and scope of home-school cooperation in Finland. Situating the study is a brief overview of the Finnish education system and a discussion of the Programme for International Student Assessment reports that place Finnish student outcomes at the top of rankings among industrialized nations for the past…

The "PISA 2006 Science Literacy Assessment" results report Finland as the first ranked country out of the 30 developed nations that participated in the testing (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007). The United States was ranked 21st. Closer examination of school and student variables may help explain these…

In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international comparative learning assessment measuring young people's knowledge and skills, Finland has been ranked at the top in the two rounds conducted and reported so far. In this article, the authors examine the discourses within which Finland's PISA results have been…