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This book provides a refreshing and user-friendly guide to quantitative data analysis in education for students and researchers. It assumes absolutely no prior knowledge of quantitative methods or statistics. Beginning with the very basics, it provides the reader with the knowledge and skills necessary to be able to undertake routine quantitative data analysis to a level expected of published research. Rather than focusing on teaching statistics through mathematical formulae, the book places an emphasis on using SPSS to gain a real feel for the data and an intuitive grasp of the main concepts and techniques involved. Drawing extensively upon up-to-date and relevant examples, the reader will be encouraged to think critically about quantitative research and its potential as well as its limitations in relation to education.Packed with helpful features, this book: provides illustrated step-by-step guides showing how to use SPSS, with plenty of exercises to encourage the reader to practice and consolidate their new skills makes extensive use of real-life educational datasets derived from national surveys in the US and UK to illustrate key points and to bring the material to life has a companion website that contains all of the educational datasets used in the book to download as well as comprehensive answers to exercises and a range of other useful resources that are regularly updated. The book will therefore appeal not only to undergraduate and postgraduate students but also to more established and seasoned educational researchers and lecturers and professors who have tended to avoid or shy away from quantitative methods.

Boys'underachievement in education has now become a global concern, taxing the minds of governments across the Western world. Boys and Schooling in the Early Years represents the first major study of its kind to focus specifically on young boys and achievement. It makes a powerful argument for the need to begin tackling the problem of boys'lower educational performance in the early years.This book includes one of the most detailed and up-to-date analyses of national evidence regarding gender differences in educational achievement - from the early years through to the end of compulsory schooling. Together with original and in-depth case studies that vividly capture the differing experiences and perspectives of 5-6 year old boys, the book sets out the nature of the problems facing them in education and highlights a number of practical ways in which these issues can begin to be addressed.This is essential reading for all those working in the early years, who are concerned about boys'lower levels of achievement, and want to know what they can do about it.

This book offers a fascinating yet disturbing account of the significance of racism in the lives of five and six year old children, drawing upon data from an in-depth study of an inner-city, multi-ethnic primary school and its surrounding community. It represents one of the only detailed studies to give primacy to the voices of the young children themselves - giving them the space to articulate their own experiences and concerns. Together with detailed observation of the children in the school and local community, it provides an important account of how and why they draw upon discourses on race in the development of their gender identities.The book graphically highlights the understanding that these children have of issues of race, gender and sexuality and the active role they play in using and reworking this knowledge to make sense of their experiences.