Search

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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

In France, a quarter of pupils change schools during their elementary education. In this article, we analyse families' motives in changing schools. Using a rich longitudinal database, we distinguish different motives for mobility: strategic mobility (search for a better school), reactive mobility (due to school difficulties) and residential mobility (due to a move). These different mobilities concern different academic and social student profiles. We then examine the extent to which school mobility influences later school performance. Using matching methods, we show that mobile pupils have significantly higher academic achievement than non-mobile pupils at the end of elementary school. These results are nevertheless heterogeneous with a neutral influence of strategic mobility, a negative influence of reactive mobility and a positive influence of residential mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies regarding school composition have been highly influential in the design of policies. However, methodological and conceptual controversies have hindered the emergence of a consensus on the existence, size, and direction of peer effects. Drawing on four cohorts of Chilean students (n = 620,044), this work analyses the extent to which the socioeconomic and academic classmates' characteristics are associated with student attainment. The findings suggest a positive medium- to low-magnitude effect of increases in the peers' academic performance. At the same time, there are almost no effects associated with changes in the classmates' socioeconomic status. These findings are stable across school types and are not driven by the sorting of students within them. The results are interpreted in the context of a new nationwide reform aiming to foster school integration and taking advantage of peer effects interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from insights into the inequalities that stem from the effect students' cultural capital has on their academic achievement, and relatively scarce evidence on whether classroom-level pedagogical interventions could help reduce those inequalities, in this study we aim to explore whether teacher support moderates the relationship between cultural capital and students' reading performance. In addition, we analysed whether the moderation effect is the same across different education systems, or depends on equity between systems. We used data from PISA 2018 to test a simple moderation model with cultural capital as the independent variable, teacher support – the moderator, and reading performance as the dependent variable. The findings suggest that the correlation between cultural capital and students' reading performance is moderated by teacher support. However, the nature of the moderation effect differs in education systems with the lowest and education systems with the highest correlation between cultural capital and reading performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]