Students from disadvantaged or minority backgrounds are often underrepresented in public educational programmes for the gifted and talented (G&T), a phenomenon that has concerned educators for the last two decades. Ethiopian-Israeli minority students (EIMS) are a good example of this phenomenon, as more than 95% of the vast resources allocated…

Debates continue about how high-stakes testing regimes influence schools at all levels: their impact on teaching practices, distribution of resources and curriculum provision, and whether they achieve the intended increases in student achievement in targeted areas. In 2008, the Australian government Introduced a national testing scheme, the"…

This paper critically examines the ways in which inclusion and equity are constituted through education development policies in India. Programmes implemented under global and national Education for All (EFA) policies have largely involved the quantification of "equity" whereby schooling processes are measured against broad targets for…

The predominant focus in this paper is on issues of school context and, in particular, on the dimensions of context at a large English comprehensive school that enable it to thrive within the current demands of the contemporary audit culture. Featuring interview data gathered from a number of senior educators, the paper draws on Braun et al's…

A fundamental question lies at the heart of the issues surrounding the connections between educational projects and larger socially critical movements and projects. What would a socially just education system look like? In answering this, one place immediately comes to mind, a locale where this question was answered through real transformations:…

There is a paradox at the heart of the education debate on building the best generation of teachers. Ministers criticise teachers for not raising standards. Yet their answer is to change the governance structures of school. Why not address the real challenge--how to raise the status and quality of teaching in this country? It matters far more what…

Despite decades of research and debate, the issue of unequal outcomes continues to be a concern in educational systems worldwide. In England, published data relating to pupils' attainment across ethnic groups and by class indicators has been used to demonstrate continued inequalities in schools. This article attempts to deconstruct the…

Through the example of what is now known in a large part of the Anglo-saxon world as the boys' underachievement debate, this paper explores the construction of gender issues, which underpins educational policies in England and France. It argues that the formation of particular questions as "policy issues" bears limited relation to what happens on…

This paper reports on two studies that evaluated the statistical validity of the Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire as a universal screening and early identification observation instrument within the North American context. The Classroom Learning and De-development Questionnaire was first proposed and tested in Hong Kong in the…

This study tracks American states' policy choices under the No Child Left Behind Act and explores their consequences for student achievement. Using the path analysis of relationships among state-level policy input, context, and outcome variables, the study portrays a Halloween-like "trick-or-treating" game between the federal and state governments…

A policy of school choice has, in various shapes, been implemented in educational systems across the world during the last decades. Drawing on various empirical and theoretical sources, the aim of this article is to distinguish the key defining elements of the Swedish school choice policy and to present and discuss some of its outcomes in terms of…

Key legislative objectives for the US Federal educational policy over the past several decades relied heavily on quasi-market strategies (such as school rating, school closure, the contracting out of schools) as central levers in "reforming" public schools. Using financial data on 11 national for-profit firms contracting with schools and…

Policy sociologists typically research at large scale. This paper presents an example of a policy analysis which illuminates how policy is embedded in single incidents, lives and places. The case in point concerns the policy fetish for "closing the gap and raising the bar". This rhetoric is taken to mean improving the learning of all students,…

In this article we attempt to analyse how OECD knowledge production is integrated with the process in which Finnish education policy takes shape. This is done by analysing the "uses" of the OECD PISA Study by Finnish central government officials. The main question posed is: How do these officials interpret the PISA results so as to justify the…

This paper presents a psychosocial analysis of interview data of three Canadian, middle-class, Jewish mothers engaged in processes and practices of "school choice". We consider how middle-class, white identity intersects with Jewish ethnicity. We also examine how commitments to Canadian ideals of multiculturalism sit in contradiction with…