The present study ascertains the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and students' science self-efficacy using data involving 509,182 15-year-old students and 17,678 school principals in 69 countries/regions who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. Hierarchical linear modelling results show…

Young people's wellbeing is often lowest where they assume a relatively low position within their school's socioeconomic hierarchy, for example, among poorer children attending more affluent schools. Transition to secondary school is a period during which young people typically enter an environment which is more socioeconomically diverse than…

Many countries have introduced flexibility in their admissions equivalents for tertiary education, allowing students to apply with vocational rather than academic qualifications at upper secondary level. However, entrants with vocational qualifications are generally less likely to succeed at university. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are…

This paper identifies the shared features of provision in exemplar school playgroups defined using the social capital concepts of bonding and bridging relationships. Relationships promote capabilities amongst people, with play a known capability for advancing children's developmental and educational outcomes. By attending to the bonding and…

Internationally, there is a gap in high-school completion rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. In Australia, gap estimates are commonly based on lag indicators, precluding examination of underlying mechanisms. Using two longitudinal representative samples of Australian youth, we explored differences in high-school completion between…

Decades of research have been conducted on the factors [i.e. family socioeconomic status (SES), urban-rural divide (household registration) and high-school type] associated with higher education selection. However, few studies have disentangled the relationship between each factor and the mechanisms of inequality among these factors in higher…

More empirical evidence is needed to answer the question of in what way a family's socioeconomic status (SES) affects student academic achievement, so this study explores the mediating role of cultural capital (CC) in the relationship between SES and student achievement, using the latest approach to testing mediating effects. The data sets from 14…

An important goal for educators is to foster student engagement in order to support a sense of valuing and aspiring to higher levels of education. To value education, students need to perceive that they are welcome, express their ideas and engage meaningfully in each education space they enter. Therefore, 'pupil voice' has the potential to become…

Behaviour problems in early childhood have a lasting impact on cognitive development and education attainment in later adolescence and into adulthood. Here we address the relationship conduct and hyperactivity problems at school entrance, and vocabulary acquisition in adolescence. We compare performance in identical assessments across two…

In this article I describe teacher-student feedback as an active process shaped by both the teacher and the student and argue that feedback is influenced by students' unique experiences and socialisation. Drawing on sociological theories on interaction and communication, I argue that the type and quality of the teacher-student feedback perceived…

Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio-economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle-income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following…

Reforms to secondary schooling in the 20th century are most commonly discussed in relation to structures--the extension of secondary education to all students in the first half of the century, and the ending of selection into different kinds of school after the 1960s. Yet reformers also sought to give students a more satisfactory experience of…

Research on inequality in higher education (HE) is often dominated by class-based assumptions about traditional and non-traditional students. This binary distinction emphasising students' socio-economic status tends to oversimplify the complexity of educational inequality, neglecting crucial factors which affect the perception of social position.…

Studying abroad is one way in which university students can develop personal capital and distinguish themselves in an increasingly congested graduate labour market. Data show that studying abroad indeed provides employment benefits, with evidence pointing to even greater positive effects for students from low socio-economic status backgrounds.…

A growing literature has documented the importance of school socio-economic status (SES) composition to children's academic performance, but the channels through which school SES affects individual achievement remain poorly understood. We investigate differences in 15-year-old children's reading performance across schools with different levels of…