Previous research on the implications of early-tracking education systems has not specifically focused on how studying in academic and non-academic tracks shapes the features and characteristics of shadow education (private tutoring) that students are involved in. The study compares the scale and features of private tutoring and the underlying…

There is a common belief that the more the time students spend in the classroom the more they learn; a conception which has been supported by considerable empirical research. However, most of these studies are correlational, which does not provide solid support for their conclusions. In this research work we intend to go a step further in the…

Saudi Arabia has expanded access to secondary schooling over the past generation, while also pushing to lift quality. This includes decentralising authority out to principals, equipping them to set higher performance expectations and deploy incentives to attract and retain strong teachers. We find wide variability in the extent to which principals…

This mixed methods study draws upon Young Lives India longitudinal data to analyse whether children who attended private preschools demonstrate higher cognitive skills and enhanced subjective wellbeing at the age of 12 compared to those who attended government preschools in India. Using linear logistic regression models, the analysis reveals that…

The Chinese government has implemented centralised science curriculum standards to change science teaching from a didactic to inquiry-based approach to support all students in acquiring science literacy. Framed through theoretical perspectives of inquiry-based instruction and cultural pedagogy, this study examined the influence and impact of these…

While professional development has been emphasised in many countries, few comparative studies have examined the degree of teachers' participation in professional development and its effect on teachers. Using the TIMSS 2007 data, this study analyses to what extent teachers participated in professional development in 50 TIMSS countries and examines…

This Forum discusses the significant growth of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) since the mid-1990s. Addey and Sellar's contribution ("A Framework for Analysing the Multiple Rationales for Participating in International Large-Scale Assessments") outlines a framework of rationales for participating in ILSAs and examines the…

We utilised four waves of TIMSS data in addition to the information we have collected on countries' educational systems to examine whether different degrees of standardisation, differentiation, proportion of students in private schools and governmental spending on education influence students' math achievement, its variation and socioeconomic…

To understand the relationship between social background and sex in schooling, we use Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction and a feminist perspective of gender as practice. We pose two questions: (1) What is the relationship between economic and cultural capital and achievement for 4th-grade females versus males studying in Germany? (2) Is the…

In this paper, we develop a multi-level comparative approach to analyse Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) and Programme of International Student Achievement (PISA) mathematics results for a country, Russia, where the two tests provide contradictory information about students' relative performance. Russian students do…

This paper analyses how the impact of international student achievement studies and the recent economic crisis in Europe are influencing the development of educational policy transfer and borrowing, from East to West. This is contrasted with education reform movements in East Asia, which have long legacies of borrowing from so-called…

Although communist ideology claimed to destroy former class stratification based on labour market capitalist relationships, "de facto" during socialism one social class hierarchy was substituted for another that was equally unequal. The economic transition during the 1990s increased stratification by wealth, which affected educational…

In PISA 2009, Finland and Singapore were both ranked high among the participating nations and have caught much attention internationally. However, a secondary analysis of the means for Reading achievement show that the differences are rather small and are attributable to spurious precision. Hence, the two nations should be considered as being on…

This article is an abbreviated version of the BAICE Presidential Address held at the 11th UKFIET International Conference in Oxford on September 16, 2011. It discusses debates on the use of a foreign and ex-colonial language as a language of instruction (LOI) in African schools and argues that the quality of education cannot be seen as an issue…

Research on educational quality has been scarce in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, whereas the debates over educational quality date from 1966 in the USA with the Coleman Report. Fortunately TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) starts to fill this gap by providing data on students' achievement and for many…