Several African countries instituted education reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, there is only little evidence on the effectiveness of these programs. Additionally, most previous studies of the determinants of literacy and numeracy have considered the proficiency in only one language and, possibly, numeracy. This paper examines both of these…

Relatively low rates of school completion among students from low socio-economic backgrounds is a key driver of intergenerational inequality. Linking data from the Programme for International Student Assessment with data from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth, we use a decomposition framework to explain the gap in school completion rates…

This paper investigates the determinants of grades achieved in maths by first-year students in economics. We use individual administrative data from 1993 to 2005 to fit an educational production function. Our main findings suggest that good secondary school achievements and the type of school attended are significantly associated with maths…

The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave students statutory rights to at least 3 years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to completion of the first year of upper secondary…

Several studies show that teachers make use of grading practices to affect students' effort and achievement. Generally linearity is assumed in the grading equation, while it is everyone's experience that grading practices are frequently non-linear. Representing grading practices as linear can be misleading both from a descriptive and a…

The main aim of this paper is to identify those school-level and locality-level factors that significantly affect each of the three stages in a young adult's educational trajectory in North West England: GCSE results, track taken at age 16 and "A"-level scores. By applying three-level models to data collected as part of the EFFNATIS project, we…

Both advocates of competition as a means to better school performance and economics-based research on this issue assume a direct relationship between a more competitive market structure (in terms of the number and concentration of schools in a local market) and better school performance. This is an application to schools of the…

The authors list economic concepts and issues covered in the children's books published by Theodor Geisel and discuss his treatment of concepts that appear most often and that are treated in greater depth. Some concepts are sophisticated and taught as formal concepts only in college-level economics courses. Others are basic and used in economics…

The authors extend the literature on the efficacy of high school economics instruction in two directions. First, they assess how much economic knowledge that California students acquired in their compulsory high school course is retained on their entering college. Second, using as a control group some college students from the state of Washington,…

In this article, the authors explain the purpose and context for the 2009 International Symposium on Economic Education that was the source for articles on four nations with relatively developed systems for economic education: Australia, England, Japan, and Korea. The authors highlight several key comparisons from the four articles that appear in…

The authors review three aspects of economic education in England. They examine trends in undergraduate economics in England, principally in terms of recruitment and outcomes and connections with economics in schools. They also review formal instruction in schools through so-called "advanced level" courses for 16-19-year-old students and the role…

Before 1980, strong demand existed in Australia for the economics degree. Since then, competition from programs in business and management has increased. Student preferences have shifted from university and secondary economics. Economics enrollments have declined in both sectors. The authors analyze these trends and assess economic education…

The authors describe the present state of economic education in Japan. There is a larger number of undergraduate students who major in economics, but their purpose of studying economics and their economic literacy differ. Precollege economic education is regulated by the course of study and limited by the poor ability of teachers to teach the…

Examines the relationship between school performance and school size using data from 152 Northern Ireland secondary schools during 2 academic years. Finds that larger schools outperformed smaller ones when grouped according to sex, school type, and the absence or presence of a sixth form. Draws implications for government policy. (Contains 25…

To account for significant increase in female participation in secondary and higher education in Australia, models of educational attainment are estimated for different age groups. Finds that while family-related characteristics play a major role in educational attainment, female attainment is strongly influenced by age-group membership,…