Background: Some authors consider the ultimate purpose of Assessment for Learning to be the promotion of pupils' autonomy. But the concept of autonomy is problematic and teachers' attempts to promote autonomy in the classroom can seem both vague and impractical. Purpose: In this paper, following Ecclestone (2002), I suggest that a full…

Background: The implementation of inclusive education creates challenges for classroom teachers who have to meet the learning needs of students with and without special educational needs (SEN). Research has revealed that teachers' readiness and willingness to accommodate the learning needs of students with SEN was determined by their…

Background: Existing evidence suggests a relationship between family social contexts, family relationships and interactions, children's social and cognitive development and educational outcomes. Interventions that assist families in relation to parenting and supporting children's development can have positive effects on both…

Background: A "learner identity" can be broadly defined as how an individual feels about himself/herself as a learner and the extent to which he/she describes himself/herself as a "learner." The literature suggests that those from non-traditional backgrounds may struggle to adapt to a university environment with all its related…

Background: Education is a key variable for reaching individually and socially desired outcomes. Specifically, school grades are important admission criteria for higher education and job positions. Nowadays, in countries committed to equal opportunities, girls obtain better school grades than boys, but the reasons why girls outperform boys are not…

Background: In educational policies, two discourses on gender have existed since the 1980s. I call them the "gender equality discourse" and the "boy discourse". The gender equality discourse in education is based on international and national declarations and plans, and is focused predominantly on the position of girls and…

Background: Gender differences in educational outcomes encompass many different areas. For example, in some educational settings, boys lag behind girls on indicators of educational success, such as leaving certificates and type of school attended. In studies testing performance, boys typically show lower competence in reading compared with girls,…

Background: Young females have been found to out-perform males in terms of grades and university degrees in many studies. At the same time, young women seem to exhibit lower levels of well-being compared with men. Interestingly, little work has evaluated the interplay between educational success and well-being. However, antecedents and…

Background information: During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, West Germany witnessed a reversal of gender differences in educational attainment, as females began to outperform males. Purpose: The main objective was to analyse which processes were behind the reversal of gender differences in educational attainment after 1945. The theoretical…

Background: The paper plots some shifts in educational policy between 1988 and 2009 in England that launched the rhetoric of a "gender gap" as a key political and social concern. The rhetoric was fuelled by a rise in the importance of quantification in technologies of accountability and global comparisons of achievement. A focus on boys…

Background: Recent decades have been marked by an extensive movement to analyze bias in people's thinking, especially in gender-related issues. Studies have addressed the question of gender bias in classrooms on different levels--the use of gender in books, learning opportunities determined by students' gender, or teachers' gender…

Background: This paper will empirically investigate female education in Luxembourg from a historical perspective. A special focus will be laid on the question of how women in Luxembourgian society were constructed as female "citizens", even though they were, rather, considered as a homogeneous category limited to a private sphere…

Background: the belief that women and science, including mathematics and medicine, are incompatible has had a long and complex history and still often works to exclude women from and/or marginalise them in science. Purpose: this article will seek to explore gender and educational achievement through investigating how such gendered presumptions…

Background: The school environment has shown itself to be an important factor in explaining adolescent behaviour. The relationships and experiences that pupils have at school have been found to influence their development, psychological well-being, self-esteem and social adjustment. Purpose: The aim of the study is to explore whether there is a…

Background: There is a limited amount of research about group size in preschool, and how it impacts on teachers' working conditions and their ability to support children's learning and knowledge development in line with curriculum intentions. Purpose: From a perspective on quality, this article examines the organisational conditions for…