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In extant research, the concept of student engagement refers to individual behavioural patterns and traits. Recent research indicates that engagement not only should be related to the individual but also should be anchored in the social context. This ethnographic field study of students and teachers in a Danish vocational education and training school responds to the need for more knowledge on this theme by exploring the social dynamics of engagement perceptions. Results show that teachers and students held diverging perceptions of student engagement that rested on educational goals as well as goals related to the perceived future work settings. The misrecognition of the students' perception of engagement had direct negative consequences for student performance and school attachment. The implications of the findings are discussed in detail. (Contains 1 table.)

Private schools have long played a crucial role in male elite formation but their importance to women's trajectories is less clear. In this paper, we explore the relationship between girls' private schools and elite recruitment in Britain over the past 120 years -- drawing on the historical database of "Who's Who," a unique catalogue of the elite. We find that alumni of elite girls schools have been around 20 times more likely than other women to reach elite positions. They are also more likely to follow particular channels of elite recruitment, via the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, private members clubs and elite spouses. Yet such schools have also consistently been less propulsive than their male-only counterparts. We argue this is rooted in the ambivalent aims of girls elite education, where there has been a longstanding tension between promoting academic achievement and upholding traditional processes of gendered social reproduction.

While students of immigrant origin often face difficulties during their school career, their educational aspirations and expectations have been found to be relatively high. Less is known, however, about the aspirations and expectations of students of migrant descent in more recent countries of immigration. Furthermore, occupational expectations have received less attention in the literature. Drawing on data from a nationally representative longitudinal study of Irish children, this paper provides the first investigation of the Irish case by comparing the educational and occupational expectations of Irish teens across five ethnic groups. Additionally, it explores how these expectations might translate into entry into third-level education by linking them to subject level choice in secondary school. The results suggest that expectations and subject level choice may be surprisingly similar across the groups, with no evidence of any substantial differences being found.

This article responds to criticisms, put forward by Harrison and Waller in this issue, of an earlier paper by Noble and Davies. In particular, we argue that our interpretation of earlier quantitative research is correct, that Harrison and Waller have misconstrued the purpose of our previous paper and the analysis it contains, and that they (mis-)attribute to us a series of propositions and standpoints that are not in our paper. In the light of increasing policy interest in the extent to which providing information can lead to "more well-informed choices" about participation in higher education, we remain of the view that researching the role of cultural capital in the students' "immanent choices" is a matter of considerable importance.

This paper employs sociological literature on risk and the commodification of education to explain current schooling practices in a context of increased concerns about students' behaviour and results on standardised tests of achievement. Drawing upon teacher and student learning practices in three school sites in south-east Queensland, Australia, the article reveals how specific tests, packages and programmes have been employed as technologies of governance to minimise the risk of adverse student behaviour, maximise student outcomes on standardised tests, and provide teachers with discrete learning experiences construed as improving such outcomes. The sum total of these foci is the construction of education as an increasingly "risky business" which employs a myriad of products and tests to manage perceived and actual risks. The paper also reveals how these products and processes constitute student misbehaviour and inadequate teacher and student learning as "risk objects" requiring constant intervention, but which also inhibit inclusion in schooling settings, and challenge teachers' professionalism.

Drawing upon fieldwork conducted with a group of dislocated Tibetan undergraduate students of the "neidi ban" program in a Han-predominated university, this paper examines the ways in which these students make sense of their worlds. To achieve this, they have actively and engagingly organized a series of symbolically meaningful activities that draw on the symbolic resources from their cultural traditions, their specific educational trajectory, and their anticipation for the future. The paper, nonetheless, also questions in the conclusion how the program can sustain a promising future that is inseparable from the sense of self-worth among the Tibetan students. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper draws on data from a research project investigating gendered identities and interactions of high-achieving students in Year Eight in England (12-13 years old), particularly in relation to students' "popularity" amongst their peers. As part of this study 71 students were interviewed from nine different schools in urban, rural and small town locations. From an analysis of participants' conceptions of the characteristics of "popular" and "unpopular" students, this paper looks in depth at notions of in/authenticity and how it is perceived and judged in relation to the self and others. In particular, the paper focuses on the genderedness of such discourses of in/authenticity as constructed by these students, and relates such concerns to theorizations of "impossible" femininity. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

With reference to capital theories and rational choice theory, this paper aims to understand how abilities and schooling ambitions are intertwined with social class, gender and ethnicity. By drawing on 16 in-depth interviews carried out with highly educated second-generation Turks in the Netherlands, the paper discusses the resources, opportunities and educational attitudes of young people, together with the role of the school system and that of teachers in perpetuating ethnic inequalities in schooling, with special emphasis on gender differences in schooling ambitions. (Contains 4 notes and 1 figure.)

This paper explores the different ways that primary school teachers in Uganda navigate the boundary between school science and everyday knowledge in the context of a centrally mandated curriculum innovation. The paper is based on a study of the pedagogic practices of 16 teachers in eight Ugandan primary schools that were selected on the basis of having a track record of either high or low academic achievement in the public primary school-leaving examination. The official primary school curriculum in Uganda prescribes that science be taught in an integrated form, including integration between science subject knowledge and everyday knowledge. The strategies that teachers in the study adopted in relating science to everyday knowledge was a key feature that differentiated between pedagogic practices in the high-performing and low-performing schools. In high-performing schools, teachers recruited everyday knowledge as a resource for learning science as a specialised discourse; whereas in the low-performing schools, acquiring everyday knowledge was viewed as an end in itself. The paper, then, considers the implications of differences in teachers' pedagogic strategies for the kinds of knowledge to which learners are given access. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high-stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working-class school and a middle-class school, indicate that the effect of the "testing culture" is much greater in the working-class school. Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the "ideal pupil", it is shown that these pupils' learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle-class school. While this study includes only two schools, it indicates a potentially significant issue for neo-liberal education policy where education is marketised and characterised by high-stakes testing, and schools are polarised in terms of social class. (Contains 3 notes.)

In "British Journal of Sociology of Education" Volume 29 number 3, 2008, Connolly presented what he termed a "critical review" of some of our previous work on the relative attainment of male and female students in UK schools. He proposed three general areas for criticism--our use of attainment gaps, our consideration of outcomes other than at specific thresholds, and our querying of the idea of student "underachievement". These problems, he claimed, have "given rise to a number of misleading conclusions that have questionable implications for practice". However, those of his "criticisms" with any merit are actually the same as our own conclusions, transmuted by Connolly from our papers that he cites, while his remaining "criticisms" are based on faulty elementary logic. In case readers have not read our work and were somehow misled by Connolly, we give here a brief reply to each criticism in turn. This matters, because a greater understanding of patterns of attainment and of the nature of underachievement is a precursor to the design of successful initiatives to overcome inequalities in educational opportunity and reward. This is both a practical and an ethical issue. (Contains 1 figure.)

The title of this article comes from the editorial written for this journal by Olive Banks, Len Barton, Roger Dale, David Hargreaves, Roland Meighan, Ivan Reid and Graham Vulliamy (Banks et al. 1980, 4) that appeared in its first issue, and set out its remit. The seven scholars who wrote that editorial pledged to "publish high quality work of any theoretical orientation." Three major themes are addressed in this paper: Olive Banks's contribution to sociology of education up to 1973; the fate of her work after 1973; and her work as a case study of the troubled relationship between sociology of education and sociology itself. Two important works by Olive Banks form the core of the paper. Banks and Finlayson (1973) "Success and Failure in the Secondary School," and her textbook "The Sociology of Education" (Banks 1968, 1971, 1976). Banks (1955) Parity and Prestige in English Secondary Education is the subject of another paper in this volume (Edwards, 2008, this issue): a recognition that it is her most important work. Before focusing on the three themes used to structure the paper, there is a brief contextual section.

This paper focuses on the Australian federal Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys' Education, "Boys: Getting it Right", which is shown to be an exemplary instance of recuperative masculinity politics. The paper demonstrates how, through a variety of rhetorical strategies, its anti-feminist politics are masked and how the report works with essentialised differences between boys and girls. The argument is demonstrated through a focus on a number of the report's recommendations, including the call for a recasting of current gender policy, the need for creating so-called "boy-friendly" curricula, assessment and pedagogical practices, and for employment of more male teachers. The report draws on populist literature and submissions from the boys' lobby, as well as practice-oriented submissions to the neglect of theoretically oriented and (pro-)feminist work. As such, the significance of the construction of masculinities to boys' attachment to and performances in school is totally neglected, limiting the value of the report's recommendations for improving schooling for both boys and girls.

This paper examines the ways in which British Chinese pupils are positioned and represented within the popular/dominant discourse of teachers working in London schools. Drawing on individual interviews from a study conducted with 30 teachers, 80 British Chinese pupils and 30 Chinese parents, we explore some of the racialised, gendered and classed assumptions upon which dominant discourses around British Chinese boys and girls are based. Consideration is given, for example, to teachers' dichotomous constructions of British Chinese masculinity, in which British Chinese boys were regarded as "naturally" "good" and "not laddish", compared with a minority of 'bad' British Chinese boys, whose laddishness was attributed to membership of a multiethnic peer group. We also explore teachers' constructions of British Chinese femininity, which centred around remarkably homogenised representations of British Chinese girls as "passive" and quiet, "repressed", hard-working pupils. The paper discusses a range of alternative readings that challenge popular monolithic and homogenising accounts of British Chinese masculinity and femininity in order to open up more critical ways of representing and engaging with British Chinese educational "achievement".

This paper aims to determine the effect of parental education, as an important measure of social origin, on the expectations of 15 year olds to complete higher education in the Netherlands. More importantly, the paper tests specific explanations for this effect. For the empirical analysis, Dutch data from the PISA 2018 survey were used. The results revealed that there is a considerable impact of parental education on the likelihood of expecting to complete higher education in the Netherlands. To a large extent, this social origin effect refers to secondary effects of stratification: students with the same school performance have different expectations regarding higher education that are strongly correlated with their social origin. Parental resources explain only a small part of the direct social origin effect net of school performance. The secondary effects remain largely unexplained after taking parents' economic, cultural and educational resources into account, suggesting that relative risk aversion drives social differentials in educational expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Britain, educational qualifications gained at school continue to play an important and central role in young people's educational and employment pathways. Recently there has been growing interest in documenting the lives of "ordinary" young people. In this paper we analyse the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales in order to better document the experiences of those with "middle" levels of school General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment. The overall pattern of school GCSE attainment is one of increasing levels of performance. GCSE attainment is still highly stratified. Girls performed better than boys, and there were some marked differences in attainment for pupils from the main minority ethnic groups. Most notably, parental socio-economic positions are the most important factor. The analyses fail to persuade us that there are clear boundaries that demark a "middle" category of school GCSE attainment. We conclude that sociologists should study "ordinary" young people; however, school GCSE attainment is best understood as a continuum, and measures such as the number of GCSEs or point scores are preferable.

This article draws on the sociology of Basil Bernstein to show how his detailed theories of "recontextualisation" and the "pedagogic device" provide useful analytic levers to examine the politics of educational change. We focus on recent policy developments that have significantly impacted Australian school education: the Program for International Student Assessment; the National Assessment Programme for Numeracy and Literacy; and the government's public dissemination of school achievement data through the MySchool website. The analysis illustrates the ways in which the logics of economic rationalism not only have become ubiquitous in Australian education policy, but have come to recontextualise--or reshape--discourses of social and educational equity through new norms of competition, standardisation and commensurability. In doing so, the paper highlights the value of a Bernsteinian approach to understanding the vernacular character of neoliberalism in contemporary educational policy.

This paper examines the role that social characteristics play in determining the academic success of students who begin university with roughly similar entry grades. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one British university between 1998 and 2009. Results show that the characteristics of entrants have varied only slightly over this period and intake is still largely in favour of "traditional" entrants: namely those from professional occupational backgrounds, the privately educated and those of traditional age. The relationship between background characteristics and eventual academic success also reflects patterns seen at earlier education stages. However, when prior attainment was taken into account, the link between degree outcome and many social characteristics does diminish -- notably for students who were privately educated and who came from professional occupational groups. This suggests that once students have overcome barriers to admission, it is entry grades rather than social characteristics that may most strongly influence eventual academic success.

Based on the life and educational histories of sixteen high-achieving, working-class girls applying to high-tariff universities, this paper rekindles debates about the role of agency within the decision-making process of young people who might not otherwise be expected to apply to such institutions. It draws on Margaret Archer's theorising to tease out the interplay between structure and agency in the form of reflexivity and show how this shapes the girls' educational trajectories, rather than pre-determining them. The paper highlights how social class powerfully influences working-class applicants' university plans, in the form of constraints and enablements, but also argues that the girls in this paper are not simply passive young women to whom things happen. As active agents, they are instead becoming increasingly skilled in reflexively navigating their own pathways through education and advance their applications to high-tariff universities in strategic and deliberative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a wider study into the educational attitudes and experiences of white, working-class male pupils in the north of England, this paper explored the ways that male pupils in years 10 and 11 navigated and experienced the six-level (A-F) academic banding system present in their British mainstream secondary school (Ayrefield Community school – ACS). Following an initial four-week period of both covert and overt observations (including guided conversations), three distinct groups of male pupils emerged. Influenced in part by Paul Willis' seminal study (1977) of males in a working-class school environment, these three 'lads' groups were representative of pupils in the top, middle, and bottom academic bands and were subsequently named Performers, Participants and Problematics respectively by the researcher. Following this initial phase of observations, a total of 74 male pupils from these top (n = 29), middle (n = 26) and lower (n = 19) academic bands were specifically selected to take part in a total of 14 group interviews with the aim being to explore the lads' experiences of, and attitudes towards, being taught in academic bands, as well as their views on education and qualifications more generally. Passages from these group interviews are combined with guided conversation responses to make up the findings presented in this paper which are then explored and explained using some key concepts from Norbert Elias's field of figurational sociology alongside key academic literature linked to the use of academic banding in schools. The paper suggests that despite the fact that all male pupils at ACS were exposed to very similar working-class upbringings and social pressures as part of their wider social figuartions, members of each of the three lads' groups became part of, and were subsequently influenced by, the specific, school-based figuartions that emerged as a result of their allocation to their respective academic group. Influenced by the increasingly diverse and complex social relations within these school-based figuartions, the lads from the three different groups seemed set to achieve relative 'success' at school, albeit on route to different destinations, for different reasons, and towards quite starkly different end goals – all whilst still being very much aware of, and influenced by, the wider social figuration of which they were inextricably a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is generally considered beneficial for students' school adjustment. This paper argues that social relationships among pupils generate social capital at both the individual and the class levels, and that each has its unique effect on pupils' performance and well-being. The sample in this study consists of 1036 children in 60 first-grade classes in 46 Dutch elementary schools. Multilevel regression results show that a substantial proportion of the variance in school adjustment can be attributed to the class level and that both individual-level and classroom-level social capital have substantial effects on school adjustment. At the individual level, the size of one's network is more important than its structure. At the collective level, social capital also has a "dark side" because it can have negative effects on adjustment, lowering the academic performance in a class.

This paper examines the long-term association of family socioeconomic status (SES), educational, and labor force outcomes in a regional US longitudinal sample (N = 2264). The results offer insights into the mechanisms underlying the role of family SES in transitions from secondary schooling to early work experiences. It was found that the academic achievement gap associated with SES widens during secondary schooling due in part to course-level tracking. Family SES relates to college enrollment mainly via its association with academic gains in school, but also through family income and father's occupational status. Family SES is weakly but significantly related to adult offspring's earnings but more strongly related to occupational status. Educational qualifications and cognitive skills make independent contributions to the explanation of labor force outcomes.

The notion of "competitive excellence" is an enduring cornerstone of UK educational policy. Most recently, expanding and adapting New Labour's Academy project with the introduction of free schools, the Coalition's approach advances and embeds competitive market-based forms of community engagement in education. Responding to this policy paradigm, this paper draws upon history in order to open up the notion of excellence. Through examining alternative practices of achievement and success in histories of community education, I aim to disturb the unquestioned attachment of educational excellence to the ideals of competitive meritocracy. Comparing across two community educational movements--Socialist Sunday Schools (established 1892) and Black Saturday Schools (established 1968)--I explore how achievement and excellence have been mobilised to very different educational aims. In distinct times and circumstances, both of these community initiatives practiced versions of educational achievement that challenged dominant knowledge hierarchies and underlying assumptions of incapability.

In 2021, one of this paper's authors conducted research to obtain a master's degree, while the other two worked as supervisors. The thesis aimed to explore the visions of pre-service biology teachers and teacher educators regarding sex education and gender diversities, recognising the relationship between those subjects and their possible tensions. In the thesis production cycle, there was an attempt to decolonise sex education in pre-service teacher education, a process of decolonising the context of academic supervision happened too. This paper illustrates the research process' particularities, especially how queering [enfletando] the supervision process incorporated decolonial cracks through fleta reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing relationship between origins, education and destinations in mobility processes. The meritocracy thesis suggests the relationships between origins and education and between origins and destination will weaken while the relationship between education and destinations will strengthen. Comparing data from the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we test these associations for men and women. We find that the relationship between origins and education and origins and destinations has weakened for both sexes. While these findings are supportive of the meritocracy thesis, they are not, however, evidence of a secular trend towards merit-based selection. Contrary to the thesis, we also find the association between education and destinations has weakened for men and women. The relationship between education and destinations is more complicated than is often assumed and the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in occupational success needs to be better understood.

In this paper we study to what extent parental field of study affects a person's educational level and field of study. We employ information on 8800 respondents from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992-2009). Our results first of all show that, over the last five decades, economic fields of study have become more fashionable among men. In sharp contrast, mainly tracks in agriculture have lost most of their appeal. Among women, medical, economic and socio-cultural fields have gained attractiveness. Second, we established that parental field of study is of significant importance for reaching a high level of education for children, and that the relevance of parental field of study is increasing over the years. Moreover, symmetry in fields could be established when it comes to the intergenerational transmission of field of study. Our results support the idea that educational expansion does not necessarily lead to increasing meritocracy in western societies.

This paper reports on qualitative data that focus on the educational strategies of middle-class parents of Black Caribbean heritage. Drawing on Bourdieu's key concepts of habitus, capital and field, our focus is an investigation of the differences that are apparent between respondent parents in their levels of involvement with regard to schools. We conclude that, within a broadly similar paradigm of active involvement with and monitoring of schools, nuanced differences in parental strategising reflect whether academic achievement is given absolute priority within the home. This, in turn, reflects differential family habitus, and differential possession and activation of capitals. (Contains 8 notes.)

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 "elite" school prospectuses in Australia, this paper contributes to understandings of the ways schools' communications draw on broader cultural politics in order to shape meanings and interactions among organizational actors. We identify six strategies consistently used by schools to this end: identification, juxtapositioning, bolstering or self-promotion, partial reporting, self-expansion, and reframing or reversal. We argue that, in the context of marketization and privatization discourses in twenty-first-century western education, these strategies attempt to subvert potentially threatening discourses, in the process actively reproducing broader economic and social privilege and inequalities. (Contains 2 tables.)

This article examines how students from the "loser" sections of the middle class dealt with the game of secondary schooling in a "good" state school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It engages with Bourdieu's theory of social practice and, in particular, with its concepts of game, habitus and cultural capital. It argues that middle-class students embody a school habitus, which I call "zafar." "Zafar" (a Spanish slang word) refers to students' dispositions, practices and strategies towards social and educational demands of teachers and their school. "Zafar" propels middle-class students to be just "good enough" students, and promote an instrumental approach to schooling and learning. Although this paper offers an account within which the reproduction of relative educational advantage of a group of middle-class students takes place, it also poses questions about their future educational and occupational opportunities. (Contains 13 notes.)

This paper explores the prospective transition of immigrant and native students in France from lower to upper secondary school. Because they are more likely to be tracked to less prestigious (vocational) tracks, immigrant and immigrant-origin students are significantly disadvantaged at this key academic stage in comparison with the children of native families. Primary and secondary sources of educational disadvantage are explored to explain this phenomenon. Primary effects appear to account for the entire initial disadvantage, while secondary effects could have a positive impact for immigrant-origin students. Nonetheless, immigrant families appear to be more conservative than native families and may need stronger evidence that their children will succeed in upper secondary school. (Contains 6 notes, 6 tables, and 5 figures.)

This paper analyses qualitative interviews conducted with Norwegian middle-class parents. It explores how a particular type of intimacy--an "enriching intimacy"--is produced as part of everyday parent-child interactions and considers the notion of the social self that spurs middle-class parents to seek this very type of intimacy with their child. By so doing it adds to the growing field of research on middle-class parents' child-rearing strategies and the role these strategies play in the "resourcing" of middle-class children. The relevance of the dimension of intimacy for studies on the parental effect on children's school achievement is discussed. (Contains 3 notes.)

Labor market conditions, a pervasive public discourse about the benefits of higher education, and parental hopes push many young working-class people into university. The institutional culture and demands of university, however, often remain elusive and fraught with uncertainty. In this paper, I draw on qualitative interviews with first-generation, working-class students at a Canadian university to analyze the ways in which these students discuss their reasons to attend and their expectations for university, and the implications of their attitudes for their future success at university. Analysis of the interview data shows how the relatively high and risky investment of working-class youth in education leads to strong utilitarian and vocational orientations toward university. Although a narrow focus on the career potential of university is generally perceived as problematic, I argue that it may also help working-class students in their transition to university. Nonetheless, a critical educational process is necessary that not only helps working-class students achieve their educational and occupational goals, but also understand their unique status in a social institution that they entered as outsiders.

The underachievement of boys has been a focus of intense concern in Australia for over 15 years. Historical analyses suggest that male students' poor performance has traditionally been attributed to factors external to boys themselves (methods, teachers, texts), deflecting attention from the relationship between masculinity construction and successful engagement with school. This paper turns the focus back, addressing the ways in which gender itself was constructed within hearings held for the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys' Education. Discursive analysis demonstrates that witnesses to the Inquiry drew upon a series of gender binaries in representing male and female students, and accounting for their relative attainment. These binaries worked to associate masculinity with "authentic" learning, such that the success of male students was naturalised even in the absence of achievement. Conversely, the association of femininity and "inauthentic learning" worked to undermine female students' demonstrated success. The role of these binaries in the reproduction of a paradoxical relationship between gender and achievement is discussed.

The student population across world is increasingly reflective of diverse cultures, religions and ethnicities. This rich diversity may become a challenge for educational leaders, teachers, and policy-makers in the absence of an understanding of diverse sources of knowledge people draw on for directing their beliefs and daily practices. This paper explores the multi-ethnic context in Britain with a focus on Muslim students in English secondary schools, and argues for drawing on diverse ethnic knowledge sources to inform and enrich approaches towards managing diversity. It discusses the concept of "Adab" derived from Muslim ethics and philosophy, and debates possible contributions of such conceptual adaptations towards improving educational engagement and performance. (Contains 2 notes.)

In the Australian state of Victoria, students from elite independent and Catholic schools dominate entry into elite universities. Nonetheless, there are a small number of schools within the government sector whose students succeed in these terms. Such schools are considered highly academic and entry is very difficult. This paper is based on initial findings from an ethnographic study of one such school. Interview material is used to explore how students understand their school culture, their place within it and its role in facilitating their aspirations. Various student subcultures are introduced, to shed light on how these may facilitate success. It is argued that successful students understand but remain sceptical about the uncomplicated definitions of success and the narrowing forms of schooling that both create and respond to such definitions. Within the context of marketisation, a Government school that creates an academic niche for itself, has little flexibility and, because of this, students learn valuable lessons about strategic choices, including those related to which subcultures facilitate or hinder their aspirations.

Changes in participation and achievement patterns mark a turning point for girls in schooling and place female empowerment squarely in the public domain. Using data from a longitudinal study of girls, this paper looks at female empowerment by exploring the relationship between the production of female subjectivity and the processes operating in social spaces. Findings relating to aspirations for girls' future careers are placed within a context of decile school ratings, and from those findings insights are offered about how the rhetoric of "girl power" is lived and spoken into existence in relation to categories of social class. By examining how schooling, family and classed processes weave through hopes and dreams, the intent is to contribute towards a line of discussion about the shaping of female subjectivities. (Contains 1 note.)

Can an explanation of the origins of social disparities in educational achievement be assisted by a critical examination of Bernstein's sociology? This central question is approached by a consideration of the status of Bernstein's socio-linguistic thesis. The focus is on the nature of the explanations provided. The paper asks: What is the explanatory force of Bernstein's structuralism? What is the relationship between Bernstein's sociological explanations and Vygotskian psychological explanations? What are the effects for pedagogy of cognitive socialization mediated by language-use consistent with Bernstein's theory? The answers to these questions may pose a challenge for sociologists of education engaged with Bernstein's sociology.

There is a widely recognised national trend for girls to outperform boys at all levels of compulsory schooling. With few exceptions, however, most recent research has reported that, in relation to academic performance at university, men are proportionately over-represented at the First Class level. A number of general hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, including those that assume gender-linked differences in cognitive and/or personality traits. A smaller proportion of research has given explanatory primacy to the broad subject area studied. More specifically, it has been alleged that the over-representation of men within the First bracket is largely a function of a "compositional effect" whereby men achieve proportionately more Firsts as there are more of them within the First-rich Sciences. Based upon analysis of 1,707,408 students graduating between 1995 and 2002, this paper seeks to provide the most comprehensive exploration, to date, of this effect. It confirms that a substantial proportion of the "gender gap" can be explained with reference to the male propensity to take degrees in First-rich disciplines.

Although Boudons distinction between primary and secondary effects, and its associated rational action models of inequality of educational opportunity, have been more influential in the field of social stratification and mobility than in the sociology of education, there is good reason to reconsider the theoretical and practical implications of this approach. The investigation brings conceptual analysis and empirical research to bear on Boudons arguments in a manner that may be somewhat unorthodox. The theoretical arguments are developed in the context of a detailed empirical investigation of three transitions--age 10 to O-level, O-level to A-level, and A-level to degree--using the extensive 1970 British Cohort Study. It is concluded that primary and secondary effects should be recognised as methodological rather than theoretical concepts, that the techniques used to identify them are independent of rational action theory and that, contrary to an influential position, the evidence suggests that primary effects are more important than secondary effects in the generation of social disparities in access to education. (Contains 3 tables.)

Among the more relevant questions in educational research is how the governments and policy-makers in transition countries address the high educational inequality inherited from the past and what policies they develop in order to reduce the strong effects of the background family and the type of school on students' achievements, their aspirations and their chances of succeeding in the most important educational transitions. This paper addresses one of the most topical issues in this area, namely the social selectivity of Czech basic and secondary education. Special attention is paid to the role of 'multi-year' gymnasia. The results of analyses carried out on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 study corroborate the initial hypothesis according to which multi-year gymnasia, introduced into the Czech educational system after 1989, represent one of the main sources of the variation in students' achievements at the end of compulsory education. However, this variation can be almost entirely accounted for by the specific socio-economic background of the students. The same holds true for their future aspirations. The results of the analysis support the conclusions of the OECD Review of National Policies for Education from 1996.

This paper describes a qualitative study about pedagogic practices in the family. The pedagogic code underlying family practices is characterized and related to specific social groups. Students' achievement is discussed in relation to family and school pedagogic practices. The analysis of family pedagogic practice was based on a model derived from Bernstein's theory. The model considers two main dimensions, the coding orientation and its specific realizations in both the instructional and regulative contexts. It provided indicators of the family discursive context and the form in which knowledges and values are transmitted. The model developed allowed a deep and delicate analysis of the family socializing context. The study showed that families differ in their coding orientation and pedagogic practices, and suggested that there are factors other than social groups to determine family's pedagogic practice. It also suggested that specific familial practices may explain children's differential achievement at school.

Cites studies that show that environmental effects on ability test scores and school attainment are welcomed, while ability is regarded as a social construct. Asserts that an account of cognitive socialization based on the work of Bernstein and Vygotsky would represent an advance in explaining social differences in educational attainment. (Author/PAL)

Inequality in students' degree outcomes has been a concern for the higher education sector and the UK government for more than a decade. Since its inception in 2018, the Office for Students in England has prioritised the need for evidence of causality through requiring institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of their initiatives as set out in Access and Participation Plans. This policy development responds to several reports which identify a dearth of evidence-based interventions and scant knowledge of 'what works'. This paper traces the interplay between policy and research, focusing on the assumptions they make about causality. It concludes that unwarranted positions are taken in both spheres of practice, making progress unlikely. A conception of causality situated in extant formal theory on evidential pluralism and that draws on current practices would help us address inequality more effectively. Alternative framings of the problem of inequality in students' degree outcomes is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools have a duty of care to children that extends beyond educational performance to include wellbeing and welfare. Yet, research has highlighted the tensions that arise when 'care' and 'learning' are treated as binaries, especially when schools operate within unequal socio--economic conditions. Extended COVID-19 school closures brought these issues into sharp relief, highlighting the central role of schools as a front line service in the lives of poorer children. This paper provides qualitative insights into the classed experiences of extended school closure and the role and response of schools through the eyes of parents, teachers and principals in Ireland. We frame these responses in the context of the provision of a careful education, exploring the role of normative and affective relations in teaching and learning. Questions are posed in relation to schools as care regimes and the 'mission creep' between educational and welfare provision in schools serving poorer children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private schools have long played a crucial role in male elite formation but their importance to women's trajectories is less clear. In this paper, we explore the relationship between girls' private schools and elite recruitment in Britain over the past 120 years – drawing on the historical database of Who's Who, a unique catalogue of the elite. We find that alumni of elite girls schools have been around 20 times more likely than other women to reach elite positions. They are also more likely to follow particular channels of elite recruitment, via the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, private members clubs and elite spouses. Yet such schools have also consistently been less propulsive than their male-only counterparts. We argue this is rooted in the ambivalent aims of girls elite education, where there has been a longstanding tension between promoting academic achievement and upholding traditional processes of gendered social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the emotional responses towards research assessment reflect both social position and strategy in the struggle for scientific authority. This is examined through interviews with humanities researchers conducted as a part of a study on the implications for research practice of the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BFI). Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice and Scheer and Matthäus' conceptualisation of the affective habitus and emotional practices, our research suggests that emotions can be conceptualized as strategic practices closely tied to the hierarchical position of the researchers. Established researchers deployed emotional practices as a form of resistance against compliance-based research assessment to retain their scientific authority and autonomy, while early-career researchers generally wanted to resist but their precarious positions did not afford them the possibility to do so. The study thus highlights the potential of studying emotions in relation to resistance and reproduction of dominance in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of naturalistic educational psychology and sociological Marxist explanations of unequal educational performance shows that the debate is shaped by a fundamental theme in Western culture: the nature-culture opposition. Educational performance is influenced by the social and political interests of educators and researchers and by more basic cultural concerns. (Author/RM)

Conventional wisdom about the differential performance of White, Asian, and Afro-Caribbean pupils in the United Kingdom are challenged. Examined are the way in which the notion of underachievement has been conceptualized in research studies and literature reviews and how the evidence for Black underachievement has been generated and presented. (RM)

This paper examines the role that social characteristics play in determining the academic success of students who begin university with roughly similar entry grades. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one British university between 1998 and 2009. Results show that the characteristics of entrants have varied only slightly over this period and intake is still largely in favour of ‘traditional’ entrants: namely those from professional occupational backgrounds, the privately educated and those of traditional age. The relationship between background characteristics and eventual academic success also reflects patterns seen at earlier education stages. However, when prior attainment was taken into account, the link between degree outcome and many social characteristics does diminish – notably for students who were privately educated and who came from professional occupational groups. This suggests that once students have overcome barriers to admission, it is entry grades rather than social characteristics that may most strongly influence eventual academic success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the effects on social inequality in Germany of ongoing changes to the employment system and, thus, vocational education. Results based on an examination of the literature indicate that students from increasingly middle-class backgrounds with higher levels of general, rather than vocational, educational attainment are winning the competition for ever-fewer apprenticeships. Progress for women in education is accompanied by relative declines in men's performance on high school exit examinations and does not translate into success in the employment system. Employers are abandoning the corporate-state organization of vocational education. The paper concludes that school degrees are increasingly important for later career opportunities. As a result, the educational system is increasingly stratified, contributing to social inequality in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]