Schools in China and elsewhere are starting to teach English as a second language or foreign language (FL) to students at increasingly earlier ages. Although young learners (YLs), due to their developmental stage, are likely to be particularly susceptible to the influence of parents, parents' roles in YLs' motivation to learn English as…

This article uses the author's original study of over hundred Year six children's perspectives of literacy and the wider curriculum, in English schools, to explore the potential challenges of exploring "pupil voice". Using collective case studies, with descriptive and time-sampled observations, and semi-structured interviews,…

As English has increasingly become associated with social and economic power in the context of globalisation, there has been a growing concern regarding achievement gaps in English that appear to be correlated to learners' socio-economic status (SES). The present study aims to examine how parents' SES and their behaviours and beliefs…

The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from…

This article outlines an empirical investigation into equivalent forms reliability using a case study of a national curriculum reading test. Within the situation being studied, there has been a genuine attempt to create several equivalent forms and so it is of interest to compare the actual behaviour of the relationship between these forms to the…