Extant research has observed that educational expectations are malleable and adjust in response to educational inputs such as the position in a stratified level of education. Examining two distinct forms of curricular differentiation introduced in the comprehensive Spanish educational system (low-ability grouping programmes), I study whether two…

There is important empirical evidence that shows that quality of leadership at a school level is one of the factors with the greatest impact on students' performance. The purpose of this article is to provide territorialized diagnosis of quality of school leadership in Spain and its regions based on PISA 2015 Spanish sample. Several quantitative…

The aim of this paper is to analyse the students' performance in the mathematical competency aspect of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 tests and to compare 5 Spanish regions in this respect -- Navarra, Castile-León and Catalonia, with results above the national average; and Extremadura and Andalusia, with results…

This study investigated the relationship between policies related to the recruitment, selection, preparation, and certification of new teachers and (a) the quality of future teachers as measured by their mathematics content and pedagogy content knowledge and (b) student achievement in mathematics at the national level. The study used data…

Results of the PISA 2018 tests show that the average score in mathematics of the Spanish students is below the European Union and the OECD averages. These differences may be caused by factors related to the student or by those related to the school the student belongs to. The aim of this work is to identify the variables causing the differences in…

Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and…

The academic advantage associated with having a university-educated parent may be intrinsic to that condition or depend on the proportion of university-educated parents in a society. If the latter, the expansion at university level will bring about a decrease in the average performance of children from university-educated families. I capitalize on…

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that…

This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both…

Ibero-America is a land of untapped potential. The region is young, facing a unique demographic opportunity. This demographic bonus opens a window of opportunity for inclusive growth in the region, with equitable and high-quality education being a potential driver of domestic growth to support future progress. The social and economic progress of…

The aim of the present paper is to examine the observed differences in Students' test performance across public and private-voucher schools in Spain. For this purpose, we explicitly consider that education is a multi-input multi-output production process subject to inefficient behaviors, which can be identified at student level using a parametric…

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent the use of L2 in math tests influences bilingual education learners' process of word problem solving in a mandatory secondary education school with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The reading comprehension level of the students was analysed using a standards-based…

This article examines the extent to which parental socioeconomic status (SES) affects the likelihood of a child becoming a top-performing student, offering an international perspective by reporting this relationship in 31 developed countries. The impact of 3 important educational system characteristics (differentiation in terms of early tracking,…

There is strong controversy over the application and effects of the Linguistic Immersion Policy in Catalonia, a policy that established that the Catalan language should constitute the only vehicular language during the different levels of compulsory schooling. While some of the effects of this policy have been determined, the evidence on other…

Introduction: The prevalence rates of bullying vary significantly across countries and continents. Specifically, UNESCO estimates that the prevalence rates vary from 22.8% (CentralAmerica) to 48.2% (Sub-Saharan Africa). Recently these differences among countries andregions have been attributed to culture- and country-level variables. Thus, the…