In 2003, Chicago schools required students entering ninth grade with below-average math scores to take two periods of algebra. This led to higher test scores for students with both above- and below-average skills, yet failure rates increased for above-average students. We examine the mechanisms behind these surprising results. Sorting by incoming…

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) was evaluated with 4,461 seventh to ninth graders in Singapore where a national policy of ability streaming is implemented. Consistent with the BFLPE, when prior achievement was controlled, students in the high-ability stream had lower English and mathematics self-concepts (ESCs and MSCs) and those in the…

There has been a steady growth of the K-12 student population taking courses online. This study examined reasons for students to choose a public online charter school program and their perceptions of online discussion. A survey was sent to 1,500 students newly enrolled in a statewide public online charter school program. From those who responded,…

Although a rich tradition of mainly U.S. and U.K. research focuses on the nature and effects of tracking students within schools, little research has investigated the importance of tracking students in the same or in separate schools. The authors used data from a unique, representative survey in Flanders (Belgium) to examine how students' study…

When students and teachers discuss subject matter, at least two processes generally occur: Students and teachers become socially identified as recognizable types of people, and students learn subject matter. This article contributes to recent work on how social identification and learning systematically interrelate by describing one complex way in…

This study tested a model of teacher interventions (TIs) conducted during cooperative learning to examine how they affected students' subsequent time on-task (TOT) and problem solving. TIs involved groups of ninth-grade students working on an algebra problem; videotaped lessons were transcribed and analyzed. Results showed that teachers initiated…

Despite heated debate over detracking, little research exists on how the reform plays out in the classroom. This article, based on a year-long interpretive study of a detracked ninth-grade program at a diverse urban high school, focuses on the encounter between the "official" practices of the detracked classrooms under study and the "unofficial"…

This article investigates the benefits of girls-only classroom instruction in math and science during Grades 9 and 10, in the context of a public coeducational high school. It is based on a longitudinal investigation with 786 participants: 85 girls in all-girl classes, and 319 girls and 382 boys in a regular coeducational program. Preexisting…