Schools and neighborhoods are thought to be two of the most important contextual influences on student academic outcomes. Drawing on a unique data set that permits simultaneous estimation of neighborhood and school contributions to student test score gains, we analyze the distributions of these contributions to consider the relative importance of…

How do proficiency-based accountability systems affect inequality in academic achievement? This article reconciles mixed findings in the literature by demonstrating that three factors jointly determine accountability's impact. First, by analyzing student-level data from a large urban school district, we find that when educators face…

Schools with very few and relatively low-performing marginalized students may be most likely to trigger social identity threats (including stereotype threats) that contribute to racial disparities. We test this hypothesis by assessing variation in the benefits of a self-affirmation intervention designed to counteract social identity threat in a…

Educational outcomes vary dramatically across schools in the United States. Many underperforming schools, especially in Chicago, also deal with high levels of violent crime on school grounds. Exposure to this type of frequent violence may be an important factor shaping already disadvantaged students' educational experiences. However,…

Previous research demonstrates that students taught by teachers of the same race and ethnicity receive more positive behavioral evaluations than students taught by teachers of a different race/ethnicity. Many researchers view these findings as evidence that teachers, mainly white teachers, are racially biased due to preferences stemming from…

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, this study assessed the relevance of shadow education to the high academic performance of East Asian American students by examining how East Asian American students differed from other racial/ethnic students in the prevalence, purpose, and effects of using the two forms--commercial test preparation…

The paper seeks to understand the trajectories of students who defer entry to university. The study was conducted in Lithuania, a former Soviet Union republic. The phenomenon of a "gap year" is usually associated with young people, who decide not to enter higher education schools immediately after receiving secondary education, instead…

This paper asks whether the institutional hierarchies defined by "golden triangle", other Russell Group, other pre-1992 and post-1992 universities in England, and by ancient, old and new universities in Scotland, have become weaker since the 1990s. Using indicators constructed from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data for…

Relying on the results of the achievement tests in mathematics, science, native language (Hebrew/Arabic) and English, administered to 1430 5th-grade co-educational classes in Israel, this study examines the between-class variability of the within-class mean score gender differences and its class and school correlates. The four main results of the…

Although many recognize that social and behavioral skills play an important role in educational stratification, no studies have attempted to estimate teachers' effects on these outcomes. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), the authors estimate teacher effects on social and behavioral skills as well…

This paper focuses on the role of curricular content on social mobility, an issue largely neglected by social mobility studies. Using data from the National Child Development Study we investigate the extent to which secondary school curricula account for social class differences in the chances of entering into the service class and avoiding a…

Meritocracy is a powerful ideology that was used by the Chinese Communist Party during China's transition to a market economy. With the "Gaokao" in particular, higher education selection became an ideal vehicle for the Party to associate itself with the ideology of meritocracy. This article investigates the extent to which higher…

In the course of educational expansion, student populations have become more diverse. This paper represents an international literature review on the topic of first-generation students (FGS), i.e. students whose parents have not obtained a higher education qualification. On the basis of more than 70 research articles and reports on FGS from…

Few studies have examined the impact of mentoring (developing a special relationship with a nonparental adult) on educational achievement and attainment in the general population. In addition, prior research has yet to clarify the extent to which mentoring relationships reduce inequality by enabling disadvantaged youths to compensate for the lack…

The prevalence of women in the teaching profession has been claimed by various scholars to be responsible for the low school performance among boys. Based on this claim there have been widespread calls for increasing the share of male teachers as a means of improving boys' school performance. There is, however, very little empirical evidence…