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Inequality is a challenge for societies around the globe. In addition to its socio‐economic and political dimensions, inequality also has a territorial dimension. Focusing on educational inequality across regions, this article explores factors that shape regional differences in student enrolment and educational attainment in 14 OECD countries. The findings of the article suggest that a strong level of regional authority over education increases regional inequality in education. Further factors are regional differences in education expenditures and variation in the population size of regions. Low regional inequality in education seems to be explained by a low degree of regional authority or low differences in education spending. By examining regional inequality in education, the article enhances our understanding of the way multilevel governance influences the quality of life within regions. In particular, it highlights the impact of decentralization on territorial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools serving diverse and low‐income communities tend to have disproportionately high numbers of low‐quality or inexperienced teachers, thereby creating an inequality of access to high‐quality teaching. Across two pre‐registered experiments and one exploratory survey (Ntotal = 956), we investigated the factors associated with trainee teachers’ bias in school choices, and the role of teacher education in mitigating this issue. In Studies 1 and 3, trainee teachers demonstrated a preference for working in a school with average (vs. diverse/low‐income) demographics, even though all other aspects of the school were equal. These disparities were most pronounced when trainees more strongly believed that (a) educational inequality can be attributed to external factors; (b) intelligence is fixed, and (c) schooling is truly meritocratic. Study 2 revealed that levels of equity‐related input during initial teacher education vary hugely, but that, where implemented, it may better prepare trainees for the challenges associated with teaching in diverse and low‐income communities. Finally, Study 3 revealed tentative evidence to suggest that a brief intervention that challenges teachers to think beyond the internal causes of inequality could reduce some of these troubling disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic in early 2020 caused serious concern about the potential negative effects on children and young people. In Denmark, policymakers and interest organizations worried that insecurity about the future and the multiple lockdowns of society would harm the well‐being of children and young people and their school‐to‐school transitions. The COVID‐19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns of society can be regarded as a naturally occurring experiment. We utilise this abrupt exogenous shock to investigate whether the COVID‐19 pandemic affected the share of Danish 9th‐grade pupils who start an education after the 9th grade. Cohorts graduating from the 9th grade before 2020 were unaffected by the pandemic in their school‐to‐school transitions and constitute a suitable control group to explore the causal effects of the pandemic. To this end, we use registered data with information about the total population of 9th‐grade cohorts from 2018 to 2022. To adjust for the minor observable differences between cohorts, we employ augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW), taking into account a multitude of covariates relevant for school‐to‐school transitions. We find that the COVID‐19 pandemic reduced the transition rate to education overall, but the largest reduction is in relation to starting upper secondary education. Our results indicate that the pandemic led young people to opt for types of education that entail a more social or recreational aspect before moving on to secondary education. Furthermore, effect sizes vary according to socio‐economic status, and our results suggest increased educational inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational outcomes from traditionally underrepresented groups are generally worse than for their more advantaged peers. This problem is typically known as the awarding gap (we use the term awarding gap over 'attainment gap' as attainment places the responsibility on students to attain at equal levels) and continues to pose a challenge for educational systems across the world. While Learning Analytics (LA) dashboards help identify patterns contributing to the awarding gap, they often lack stakeholder involvement, offering very little support to institutional Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) leads or educators to pinpoint and address these gaps. This paper introduces an innovative EDI LA dashboard, co‐created with diverse stakeholders. Rigorously evaluated, the dashboard provides fine‐grained insights and course‐level analysis, empowering institutions to effectively address awarding gaps and contribute to a diverse and inclusive higher education landscape. Practitioners notesWhat is already known about this topic Traditionally underrepresented groups face educational disparities, commonly known as the awarding gap.Underachievement is a complex multi‐dimensional problem and cannot be solely attributable to individual student deficiencies.LA dashboards targeting this specific problem are often not public, there is little research about them, and are frequently designed with little involvement of educational stakeholders.What this paper adds Pioneers the introduction of a dashboard specifically designed to address the awarding gap problem.Emphasises the significant data needs of educational stakeholders in tackling awarding gaps.Expands the design dimensions of Learning Analytics (LA) by introducing a specific design approach rooted in established user experience (UX) design methods.Implications for practice and/or policy Insights from this study will guide practitioners, designers, and developers in creating AI‐based educational systems to effectively target the awarding gap problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly adopted in educational contexts to provide personalized support to students and teachers. The unprecedented capacity of LLM‐based applications to understand and generate natural language can potentially improve instructional effectiveness and learning outcomes, but the integration of LLMs in education technology has renewed concerns over algorithmic bias, which may exacerbate educational inequalities. Building on prior work that mapped the traditional machine learning life cycle, we provide a framework of the LLM life cycle from the initial development of LLMs to customizing pre‐trained models for various applications in educational settings. We explain each step in the LLM life cycle and identify potential sources of bias that may arise in the context of education. We discuss why current measures of bias from traditional machine learning fail to transfer to LLM‐generated text (eg, tutoring conversations) because text encodings are high‐dimensional, there can be multiple correct responses, and tailoring responses may be pedagogically desirable rather than unfair. The proposed framework clarifies the complex nature of bias in LLM applications and provides practical guidance for their evaluation to promote educational equity. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic The life cycle of traditional machine learning (ML) applications which focus on predicting labels is well understood.Biases are known to enter in traditional ML applications at various points in the life cycle, and methods to measure and mitigate these biases have been developed and tested.Large language models (LLMs) and other forms of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) are increasingly adopted in education technologies (EdTech), but current evaluation approaches are not specific to the domain of education.What this paper adds A holistic perspective of the LLM life cycle with domain‐specific examples in education to highlight opportunities and challenges for incorporating natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language generation (NLG) into EdTech.Potential sources of bias are identified in each step of the LLM life cycle and discussed in the context of education.A framework for understanding where to expect potential harms of LLMs for students, teachers, and other users of GenAI technology in education, which can guide approaches to bias measurement and mitigation.Implications for practice and/or policy Education practitioners and policymakers should be aware that biases can originate from a multitude of steps in the LLM life cycle, and the life cycle perspective offers them a heuristic for asking technology developers to explain each step to assess the risk of bias.Measuring the biases of systems that use LLMs in education is more complex than with traditional ML, in large part because the evaluation of natural language generation is highly context‐dependent (eg, what counts as good feedback on an assignment varies).EdTech developers can play an important role in collecting and curating datasets for the evaluation and benchmarking of LLM applications moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the research on ethnic educational inequality, by deepening the current understanding of education initiatives organised by the ethnic‐cultural minoritised communities most affected by these inequalities. A univariate analysis was performed on data from an original survey conducted in Flanders, in which 816 teachers and 3037 pupils from 60 primary schools were asked about, among other things, their experience with and their perceptions of these educational initiatives. The results of this analysis show that these community‐based education initiatives are widely attended by ethnic minority youth, but also that teachers in mainstream schools are rarely informed or even aware of the existence of these initiatives, or the important role they play in their pupils' lives. The broader social and scientific implications are discussed in this paper, as little to no similar larger‐scale research exists that maps the relationship between these community‐based education initiatives and mainstream educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imperative to address the complex problem of degree awarding gaps within UK higher education institutions is multifaceted and messy. Various studies have continually highlighted this persistent undergraduate awarding gap (racial equity gap or/ethnicity gap) between White and racially minoritised students. This disparity in educational outcomes, where racially minoritised students compared to their White counterparts are less likely to graduate with good honours degrees, has gained considerable attention from policymakers and scholars. This underscores the need for comprehensive strategies that transcend conventional approaches and boundaries to achieve systemic change. Efforts to close the awarding gap have predominantly focused on decolonising the curriculum, which is vital. Still, it is also crucial to recognise personal tutoring (PT) as a pivotal and often underestimated role in addressing the awarding gap. The PT role, with its potential to provide a joined‐up experience for students, promoting student engagement and enabling them to navigate the ever‐changing academic landscape, can be a catalyst for racial equity and an antidote to the degree awarding gap. By reviewing the literature, empirical studies, policy frameworks and practical implementations, this paper sheds light on the diverse ways PT can serve as a potent tool for promoting equity and inclusion and enhancing equitable outcomes for all. Through a synthesis of existing literature and critical analysis, this scoping review highlights ways PT in higher education is conceptualised nationally and internationally and how it can drive transformational change in higher education when aligned with principles of equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aims to investigate teachers' views as critical factors in the success of inclusive education on the Parallel Support (PS) institution in Greece and the educational policies implemented. PS is an educational support provided by a special education teacher, alongside the mainstream teacher, in the classroom, exclusively for a child with a SEND. The research questions focus on teachers' attitudes and conceptualisations of implementing parallel support in N. Aegean and the policies adopted. A semi‐structured interview was used as a methodological tool. The semi‐structured interview supports an in‐depth study of the topic and captures the participants' views through their derived discourse. Twelve primary school teachers from the region of N. Aegean with at least 2 years of teaching experience in PS were selected. Three of them were women. Most teachers working in PS in the Greek education system are men. Findings revealed that the teachers in our research stated that they were positive about PS operation, but this should depend on the nature of special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Some participants said that PS would help all pupils. In addition, teachers were concerned about working together to support students with SEND and education policy issues. Problems such as inadequate logistical infrastructure, shortages of qualified staff, insufficient training of teachers in inclusive education and curricula designed for the mainstream student population highlight insurmountable challenges for the effective implementation of PS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equalizing preprimary education is vital for promoting social welfare and aligns with the UN's 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 4.2 which advocates equal and adequate access to quality preprimary education for all children. We developed an accessibility‐based analysis framework to assess the SDG 4.2 progress at local scale, providing improved policy recommendations for local governments by considering spatiality, equality, and adequacy across different spatial scales. The Huff–G2SFCA model was used at the grid scale to capture progress and spatial heterogeneity in preprimary education facilities and parental preferences. We used the Gini coefficient to measure the resource distribution equality at the subdistrict and district scales. The adequacy of resources across districts was evaluated using the supply–demand ratio. Our findings in Nanjing highlight challenges due to inadequate and unequal allocation of preprimary education resources, hindering SDG 4.2 advancement. Approximately 8% of children face difficulties accessing quality preprimary education, and a Gini coefficient of 0.52 indicating educational inequality. Despite positive progress in Nanjing's central urban area, suburban, and rural regions, especially the Gaochun and Lishui Districts, face significant challenges of preprimary education resource adequacy and equality in their pursuit of SDG 4.2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite consensus that parent involvement is integral to children's educational success, Black parents' involvement remains largely characterized from a deficits‐based perspective. Using critical race and critical consciousness theories, this study explored parents' analysis of educational inequities and their school engagement. Using interview data from a sample of Black parents (n = 20), emergent understandings of parents' thoughts, motivations, and actions to engage with their child's school were explored. Findings revealed that Black parents held both critical and traditional views, expressed themes of internal and external efficacy in their motivation, and engaged critically and traditionally in their child's education. Results are consonant with literature on Black parents' engagement and to the nascent understanding of how parents' beliefs about structural racial oppression within schools impacts how they engage in that space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research question at the core of this paper concerns how teachers in elite Israeli high schools explain their educational work in this context, given its central role in establishing and perpetuating privilege in the current polarised era. To answer this question, we conducted 28 interviews with teachers from three elite high schools in Israel. The findings reveal three ways teachers justified their educational work in elite schools: cultivating the 'serving elite', helping shape elite students' leftist political orientation and future voting behaviour (emphasising the idea that political leftism serves as a mitigating force against the excesses of plutocracy) and fulfilling elite children's right to a level of education commensurate with their ability. The discussion problematises these justifications by highlighting their features, which, in turn, contribute to a complex understanding of how privilege functions and how advantages and inequality are produced and perpetuated in exclusive and exclusionary elite spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School funding formulas have been applied across a number of countries for at least the last 50 years. A national funding formula (NFF) was introduced in England in 2018 and aims to provide a platform for fair funding across the country. This study explores the variations in the NFF's high needs block (HNB) funding and examines links with the use of specialist provision by English local authorities (LAs) for children with special educational needs and disability. The findings demonstrate significant and continuing differences in HNB funding between demographically similar LAs, notwithstanding a £3.5 billion (75%) HNB increase in real terms in the decade since 2013, which could have supported a shift towards a more equitable position. Published HNB funding for 2023–24 now varies by up to £49m in comparator LAs. Differences are largely the result of the persistent use of a historical factor in the formula and a ceiling on levels of income growth for lower funded LAs. The research also shows a significant link between HNB funding and the use of specialist provision. The discussion investigates how far the UK government's policy commitment to a more equitable system of HNB funding is matched by the reality, and the degree to which funding is based on need rather than demand or history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research conducted in numerous countries provides substantial evidence supporting the pivotal role of cultural capital in comprehending educational inequality. However, the operation of cultural capital varies across certain regions in East Asia due to distinct educational systems. This study integrates micro‐level mechanisms of cultural capital, teacher bias, and the Chinese educational system to identify its determinants. Findings from the China Education Panel Survey indicate that families with high socioeconomic status tend to cultivate cultural capital but downplay its importance during critical exams. Teachers tend to favour students with cultural capital, which can indirectly enhance academic performance. However, the standardized examination system ultimately suppresses this effect and leads to an overall negative impact. This study suggests that the educational system plays a pivotal role in determining cultural capital and highlights the necessity for further discussions on its relationship with institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the importance of reflexivity in language education, emphasizing the need for language professionals to critically reflect on their experiences, perspectives, and ideologies. It discusses the impact of anti-Blackness in language education, highlighting issues such as student exclusion, curriculum representation, and teacher diversity.

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The article celebrates the adoption of the Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL) in all 50 U.S. states as of January 2024, highlighting its role in recognizing multilingual students' achievements. Topics discussed include the impact of neoliberal discourses on SoBL implementation, the role of school context and policy arbiters in equitable implementation, and the postsecondary benefits and effects on language study for SoBL recipients.

This paper presents an agenda for the future of gender research in small‐scale fisheries (SSF). Building on expert insight from scholars who gathered during the 4th World Small‐Scale Fisheries Congress Africa (4WSFC) with a synthesis of existing literature, we identify six topics that warrant future investigation in SSF, along with methodological considerations for addressing them. Research priorities include identifying pathways towards (1) equitable participation in governance and decision‐making, (2) valuing all actors' contributions to aquatic food systems, (3) increasing access to financial services, (4) inclusive infrastructural development, (5) livelihood diversification and (6) reducing occupational health hazards. Several important methodological considerations include (i) using multiple methodologies, (ii) applying participatory methods, (iii) collecting gender‐disaggregated data, (iv) integrating gender into a food systems approach in fisheries, (v) engaging an intersectional approach and (vi) operationalising equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latinx population is the largest minority group in the United States and education is consistently identified as a critical topic among both US and foreign‐born Latino voters. In this article, the authors representing two land‐grant universities from a western (Oregon) and southern (North Carolina) region of the nation demonstrate how culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) principles are used to identify impacts and continuous program improvement to the development and implementation of a program driven to provide access and equitable experiences, knowledge, and resources to support the educational success of Latinx youth. Since 2007, the Juntos Program has intentionally focused on family engagement to drive students' academic success. This article will showcase the evolution of program evaluation practices driven by the communities' voices and how collaborative CRE can strengthen the work while ensuring communities' unique cultures based on demographic areas are acknowledged. This article will present a historical Juntos evaluation framework as an example of how Latinx families have participated in the evolution of the program's evaluation practices. In addition, it will provide insights and tools for others who wish to improve the cultural responsiveness of their programs. We acknowledge that identity is personal, and preference for various labels and terminology for the Hispanic/Latino/a/e/x vary based on the individual, community, and context. We respect the use of Hispanic, Latino/a/e/x, and a person's country of origin, which many Juntos families prefer. This article will use "Latinx" as a gender‐inclusive umbrella term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on examining gender and maker literacies through a disruptive lens, exploring how makerspaces can be reimagined to challenge traditional norms and biases. It highlights four studies that address different aspects of maker literacies, including social media influences, equity in educational practices, gender and affect in digital making, and language-free pedagogical approaches.

Summary: Sharing high‐quality educational resources has become an effective way to promote educational equity. The traditional educational resource sharing platforms using centralized storage architecture have security issues. Recently, many studies use blockchain to achieve secure sharing of educational resources. However, the existing blockchain‐based educational resource sharing schemes only use blockchain as a storage tool, and have issues such as low sharing efficiency, without considering copyright security, and lack of a trusted sharing environment, which prevents the large‐scale sharing of educational resources. In response, we propose ERSChain, a novel blockchain‐based educational resources sharing solution. First, we put forward a hybrid storage method that keeps the hash value of resource in the blockchain and stores the encrypted resource in the off‐chain, which can alleviate the storage and computing pressure brought by massive educational resources while ensuring the integrity of resources. Second, we construct an efficient revocable ciphertext‐policy attribute‐based encryption algorithm to implement flexible access control and an outsourced decryption algorithm to achieve greater efficiency. Obtaining access to educational resources is possible when user's attributes meet the access policy and the user's identity does not exist in the revocation list. Third, we put forward a credit mechanism to adjust the user's credibility and a credit‐based consensus mechanism to maintain the trusted sharing environment. Finally, security analysis and plentiful of experiments demonstrate that our proposed ERSChain achieves security assurance, has better applicability than similar works, and enables large‐scale sharing of educational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large‐scale international achievement studies such as PISA have been widely used to study how educational inequality compares across countries. Yet the various different biases that may affect these estimates are often not considered or are poorly understood. In this paper we draw upon the total survey error framework to provide a case study of the potential biases affecting estimates of the socio‐economic achievement gaps using PISA data from Germany. The results illustrate how procedural and measurement errors have a substantial impact upon estimates of socio‐economic achievement gradients in Germany, including how it compares with other countries. This leads us to conclude that estimates of socio‐economic achievement gaps using the PISA data for Germany do not seem to be particularly robust. More generally, we argue that better articulation and reporting of such challenges with comparing socio‐economic achievement gaps using large‐scale international assessment data such as PISA are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School exclusion reduction in Scotland—and especially in the city of Glasgow—has received substantial media and policy attention in recent years. In London in particular, multiple governmental agencies have explicitly expressed a desire to replicate the exclusion reduction which recently occurred in Glasgow, often citing the connection between school exclusion and violence as a key motivating factor. In this paper, after presenting the statistical trends in school exclusions in Scotland, England, Glasgow and London, we mobilise original interview data to (1) explain how school exclusion reduction occurred so rapidly in Glasgow between 2007 and 2019, and (2) explore whether a similar reduction in exclusions could occur in contemporary London. We apply a theoretical framework to these issues which derives from Peters' work on policy coordination, allowing us to compare the conditions in Glasgow and London for well‐coordinated pan‐city exclusion reduction. Building on previous research which has contrasted national school exclusion policies in Scotland and England, we conclude that policy conditions surrounding school exclusion in the two cities differ substantially. There are substantial barriers to significant exclusion reduction in London, relating to both city‐ and national‐level factors. There barriers include competition between different agencies working in relevant policy spaces; the fragmentation of the city's education system; the need for better incentivisation of inclusion by Ofsted and the Department for Education; and particular challenges to reframing the issue of school exclusion in London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on emotions and second language learning has recently expanded to heritage language education contexts. Influenced by a long tradition in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition, research on heritage language emotions has mainly focused on the statistical effects of emotions on language development rather than examining emotions that relate to social and interpersonal relations. This article responds to these research needs through a critical ethnographic exploration of how emotions of belonging are negotiated through the production and consumption of food at an Arabic heritage language school in the United States. Drawing on data from observations, interviews, and field notes collected during a 2‐year period, I argue that the production and consumption of Arabic food during cooking events and classes at the school afford students opportunities to negotiate emotions of belonging toward Arab culture as an embodied and nonessentialist practice, toward diverse religions and nationalities in the heritage school community, and toward the local majority community in the United States. This analysis foregrounds the affordances of occasions in which language learning and emotions are situated within the sociomaterial practices of heritage culture and highlights the need to establish interinstitutional connections with community schools to support the socioemotional well‐being and educational equity of immigrant and racialized youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose, aim and goals of higher education itself have been discussed and researched in the context of massified and marketised higher education in Germany, with a focus mainly on higher education national policies or the view of faculty staff. By shifting the perspective instead to the students, this article asks what higher education means to them nowadays. This study is based on 95 interviews with German graduate students from three disciplines (i.e. business administration/management, medicine and musicology) and it offers a typology of what students understand as the purpose of higher education. Six types were reconstructed from the empirical material, along three main lines of higher education's purpose (i.e. occupational, personal and societal). This paper also shows how the chosen discipline becomes more salient for the student's perception of higher education purpose than their social background. This questions previous research that found strong ties between instrumentalism and social background in higher education. This paper also demonstrates that social differences do matter in their egalitarian or elitist variation of understanding within non‐instrumentalist types. Overall, this study illustrates how heterogenous contemporary higher education purpose has become, which mirrors a further general differentiation in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the current status and practices of master's programmes at Sino‐foreign cooperative universities (SFCUs) in China. A document analysis of university publications is conducted on 133 master's programmes at nine SFCUs. The findings show the diversified development of disciplines and heterogeneity across nine universities. By examining how these programmes entangle with neoliberal ideas, marketisation and western orientation are found to be mobilised and reinforced in the internationalisation process. From the postcolonial perspective, this study identifies the practices of mimicry and resistance in operating master's programmes under transnational partnerships. The findings have implications in terms of educational equalities, the implementation of master's programmes in transnational higher education and the balance between home and host institutions in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic impacted everyone in the United Kingdom when restrictions were put in place to prevent the spread of the disease. However, it is thought that children and young people (CYP) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) would be more affected than others due to existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. A scoping review methodology was used to ascertain what is known from academic literature about CYP with SEND in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that existing inequalities for CYP with SEND and their families were exacerbated, with impacts on their mental health. Home‐learning and home life was also challenging for many, resulting in difficulties with education and physical health. The majority say the experience was negative, but there was a minority who experienced positive impacts because of the restrictions. This minority voice is sometimes a sizeable minority so their views should not be overlooked. Even those who found it mostly negative reported some positives which are of interest. Participants were mostly parent/carers of autistic CYP, and the research did not reach great numbers of CYP with other diagnoses nor did it hear from many CYP directly due to the restrictions in place at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 mean SES composition in six European countries where children are sorted into different academic and vocational tracks after the age of 15. This study contributes to the literature on the role of school SES composition for students' academic achievement by examining the extent to which individual student SES and academic aspirations, classroom climate and school resources account for school SES differences. Multilevel regression analyses of reading literacy scores from PISA 2018 indicate sizeable effects of school SES composition on reading achievement in each of the six countries, even after accounting for student SES. By limiting the analysis to students who had not yet been tracked based on their academic record or aspirations, we can better focus on the link between school SES composition and educational achievement. Our main finding is that school SES composition differences are more than a function of students' own SES, as they also reflect classroom discipline, teaching practices, peer educational aspirations, and to a lesser extent, school resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the educational inequalities in upper secondary education in Italy, with a focus on the vertical dimension of school enrolment and the horizontal dimension of track and curriculum choice. To measure the importance of family background, we use the estimation of sibling correlations, which has seldom been used in the analysis of track choice in upper secondary education. Using data from the Italian Labor Force Survey 2005–2020 (ILFS), which includes detailed information on household characteristics such as the gender composition of siblings and parental education and occupational status, we find that around half of the variation in the probability of attending upper secondary school in Italy is related to the family of origin. We also show that comparing sibling correlations on binary outcomes should be complemented by additional statistics, such as variances at the individual and family levels and proportions of enrolled sibling pairs. For upper secondary school enrolment, advantaged families have a relatively lower sibling correlation due to minor variations at both individual and family levels. However, in terms of track choice, the sibling correlation is relatively higher for enrolment in the academic track compared to the technical and vocational tracks. Additionally, with respect to the attendance of science/technical curricula within each track, the results indicate a lower sibling correlation for the academic track than for the other two tracks, which suggests that individual characteristics have a greater impact than family background when these outcomes are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using nine waves of data from Understanding Society (UKHLS), we study the expansion of higher education in the UK and its consequences for levels of and inequalities in income, physical and mental health. University expansion was characterized by a large increase in the proportion of graduates, with higher rates of graduation among individuals from more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Having controlled for birth cohort and lifecycle effects, there is evidence of significant inequality of opportunity (IOp) in the actual outcomes. However, comparing actual outcomes with counterfactual projections, that freeze the likelihood of university graduation and the joint distribution of graduation and circumstances to the pre‐1963 levels, we do not detect an impact of the expansion of higher education on IOp in income and only small reductions in IOp in physical and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the labor market trajectories of Australian university graduates from various disadvantaged social backgrounds over a ten-year period using population-wide linked administrative data. It addresses gaps in existing research by providing a comprehensive and methodologically robust analysis of post-graduation outcomes, including income, employment, and unemployment benefit receipt, while emphasizing the implications for labor market policies aimed at improving social equity.

Developmental science has increasingly scrutinized how environmental hazards influence child outcomes, but few studies examine how contaminants affect disparities in early skill formation. Linking research on environmental inequality and early childhood development, this study assessed whether differences in exposure to neurotoxic lead explain sociodemographic gaps in school readiness. Using panel data tracking a representative sample of 1266 Chicago children (50% female, 16% White, 30% Black, 49% Hispanic, μage = 5.2 months at baseline, collected 1994–2002), analyses quantified the contribution of lead contamination to class and racial disparities in vocabulary skills and attention problems at ages 4 and 5. Results suggested that lead contamination explains 15%–25% and 33%–66% of the disparities in each outcome, respectively, although imprecise estimates preclude drawing firm inferences about attention problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is persistent evidence showing that care leavers tend to have lower educational outcomes compared to their peers. There is, however, less knowledge of whether this educational disadvantage transfers to the second generation. This study adopts a developmental contextual life-course approach to examine: (a) the extent of educational inequality of children of care leavers from school entry to public examinations at age 16; (b) the relative role of different psychosocial family resources as predictors of educational attainment; and (c) the role of early school readiness assessments as predictors of later educational attainment. Drawing on data collected from families living in England at the first sweep of the nationally representative UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) (n = 11,514), the findings suggest intergenerational transmission of educational disadvantage among children of care leavers (n = 287), which is manifest in a direct assessment of school readiness (age 3), at the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (age 5) and in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment (age 16). However, once inequalities in family socio-economic background or area deprivation and housing are controlled for, children of care leavers perform comparably in their educational progression to those whose mothers had no experience of being in care (n = 11,227). Moreover, the findings highlight the significance of early school readiness assessments in predicting later educational attainment for the whole sample. Findings are discussed regarding their implications for policy, in particular the need to address educational inequality for children in care, area allocation and housing that is offered to care leavers, and the general importance of early interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated people's perceptions about the causes (i.e. attributions) of underachievement among students experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage and their support for public assistance to those students. Results of an online survey conducted with Australian adults (N = 1999) revealed that people preferred societal attributions to individual attributions for underachievement among those students. The respondents' attributions, particularly societal attributions, significantly predicted their support for public assistance to students and schools in need. There were statistically significant differences between people with conservative and progressive political views in their attributions and support for public assistance. However, after taking people's attributions into account, their political views add little to the prediction of their support for public assistance. These findings have implications for the promotion of equity‐oriented educational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship between income inequality and informal employment in Latin America between 1990 and 2018, provides an empirical evidence suggesting a positive association between formalization in the labor market and labor income equality. Topics include the ambiguity of the relationship, the potential causal directions between informality and inequality, and the positive association found in Latin America's context-specific conditions.

The article focuses on examining the relationship between trade unions and rising income inequality in advanced European countries from 2005 to 2018. Topics include the non-linear nature of this relationship, incorporates other labor market institutions to assess their distributional effects, and a significant and persistent inverted U-shaped relationship with income inequality.

"The Making of a Left-Behind Class: Educational Stratification, Meritocracy, and Widening Participation" by Fred Powell, Margaret Scanlon, Patrick Leahy, Hilary Jenkinson, and Olive Byrne explores themes of educational inequality, meritocracy, and widening participation, focusing on the Irish education system. The book discusses the failure of equality of opportunity to address class and ethnic divisions, proposing alternative policy solutions like equality of condition. It integrates theory, data, and marginalized voices to analyze educational inequality, emphasizing the role of the welfare state in achieving educational equality and addressing issues of class, ethnicity, and racism in education." [Extracted from the article]

This article is a special issue of the Review of Education that focuses on gender equality in education. It aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 5, which emphasizes the importance of achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls. The articles in this issue explore the obstacles to gender equality in education and offer critical analysis and innovative solutions. The selected articles discuss gender disparities in digital competence among Latin American professors, perceptions of gender stereotyping in Malaysian ESL classrooms, the impact of neoliberal restructuring on discrimination and harassment in academia, the hidden curriculum's influence on students' understanding of gender and sexuality in English schools, and gender disparities in the identification of special educational needs in England. The goal of this issue is to inspire readers to reflect on their own roles in promoting gender equality and recognize the power of education as a transformative tool. [Extracted from the article]

The study examines the effect of public education expenditures on gender inequality in education in sub-Saharan Africa. It covers 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2010-2019. The generalised method of moments was used. The estimator developed by Blundell and Bond was chosen. The following results are found: (i) public expenditure on education has a positive effect on gender equality in education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels; (ii) remittances have a negative effect on gender equality in education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels; (iii) population growth has a negative effect on gender equality in education at the primary and tertiary levels, but at the secondary level, the effect is positive. The main political implication is that sub-Saharan African countries must continue to invest in inclusive school to ensure gender equality, which remains a goal to be achieved in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of transitory random disturbances to cognitive performance and a minimum‐passing‐score policy on access to graduate education among students who took a series of high‐stakes exams. Exploiting thermal inversions and individual fixed effects, we document significant adverse cognitive effects of transitory exposure to air pollution during the exam. The harmful cognitive effects permanently reduce students' chances of getting into graduate school, especially for marginal students who scored just below the cutoff score. Marginal students would be less affected by random disturbances and have more equal access to graduate education had such an exam policy not been adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID‐19 has exposed and widened the disparity in education. The paper reviews the efforts made by educational institutions and organizations to offer services to the disadvantaged in an effort to eliminate the educational gap. Based on the literature, the primary issues which led to increasing in the gap of educational inequality were identified as the need for books, internet connection, study gadgets/devices, extra tutoring, food and study space, and psychological counseling. This paper proposes an online system using the microservices architecture to provide a holistic system that addresses the key concerns that contributed to the educational discrepancy. The application proposes a variety of business services that are logically separated from each other, and that can be deployed and scaled independently. Each of the provided services is autonomous and can communicate with other services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes practical suggestions for measurement researchers and psychometricians to respond to calls for social responsibility in assessment. The underlying assumption is that personalizing large‐scale assessment improves the chances that assessment and the use of test scores will contribute to equity in education. This article describes a spectrum of standardization and personalization in large‐scale assessment. Informed by a review of existing theories, models, and frameworks in the context of current and developing technologies and with a social justice lens, we propose steps to take, as part of assessment research and development, to contribute to the science of personalizing large‐scale assessment in technically defensible ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter aims to extend conversations around educational equity by emphasizing the role of community college contexts as a mediator between policy reform and student experience. Narratives of Tennessee (TN) Reconnect Grant recipients indicate that community college contexts related to advising and student support services and enrollment, transfer, and financial aid structures stand out as critical aspects for how TN Reconnect students engage once on campus. We pose recommendations for community colleges and community college leaders to better serve their adult students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools across the United States abruptly transitioned to remote, virtual learning in the spring of 2020. For the 2020-2021 school year, however, public school districts' instructional mode decisions (in-person, hybrid, and remote) varied across districts and throughout the school year. This study focuses on factors that informed school districts' instructional mode decisions and how student access to in-person instruction, in turn, distributed across districts and students (and their families). Levering the leading nationwide data set gathered by the COVID-19 School Data Hub ("CSDH"), supplemented by district per-pupil spending information as well as various state-level data, this study analyzes the percentage of in-person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year offered by 11,063 regular public school districts from 42 states. Core findings underscore that school districts with Republican governors and in rural areas provided comparably more in-person schooling. Conversely, school districts with higher enrollments and higher percentages of underrepresented minority students provided less. Furthermore, COVID-19-related death rates and the likelihood of in-person schooling were positively related. These findings, while mixed, nonetheless raise troubling equal educational opportunity doctrine questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on our subjective experiences as two female early‐career academics during the global COVID‐19 pandemic. While we acknowledge that the pandemic had negative implications for many female scholars due to compulsory telework or increased family responsibilities, we also want to shed light on the empowering experiences shaped by collegial support that became an important part of our pandemic story. We build on the theory of liminality to explain how the events triggered by the pandemic allowed us to break out of our uncomfortable occupational limbo (i.e., feeling "locked‐in" to the identity of a foreign‐born PhD graduate) and, through creating a kind of equality, resulted in some unique opportunities and challenges. During these difficult times, shaped by an increasing fear of us or our family catching COVID‐19, we embarked on a betwixt‐and‐between state that allowed us to grow as academics as a part of a collective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive research on attainment grouping, the impact of attainment grouping on pupil attainment remains poorly understood and contested. This paper presents evidence from a study conducted with 2944 12–13 year olds, from 76 schools in England, who were allocated to between‐class attainment groups ('setting') in English and mathematics over the first 2 years of secondary schooling. After controlling for prior attainment, pupils in the top set performed significantly better than pupils in the middle and bottom sets in both English and mathematics. The findings indicate a widening gap in attainment, especially in the case of English. Findings, especially in the case of mathematics, provide more evidence of a relative benefit for pupils placed in top sets than a relative detriment for those in bottom sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the COVID‐19 pandemic, the world struggled to address growing educational inequalities and fulfil the commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The pandemic has exacerbated these inequalities and changed how education functions, moving to online and hybrid methods. The challenges in global education highlighted and worsened by the pandemic make it necessary to re‐evaluate education systems and the policies in place to support access, quality and equal opportunity. This article focuses on analysing education policies at a national level. It tests a pilot policy analysis tool, the International Education Index (IEI), developed as a starting point to begin this reconsideration and create an accessible and comprehensive way to evaluate national education systems to inform decision‐making and policies in the new context. This research uses Ireland and Northern Ireland to test the IEI pilot tool. The IEI consists of 54 questions across nine indicators, including institutional frameworks, education strategies, digital skills and infrastructure, twenty‐first century skills, access to basic social services, adherence to international standards, legal frameworks, data gathering and availability and international partnerships. Countries can score 108 points to be categorised as having developed, emerging or nascent national education systems. Ireland scored 94 and Northern Ireland 81, indicating that they have developed national education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two important sources of inequality in mortality are regional variation and individuals' socioeconomic status. While many studies have investigated the effect that each of these two factors might have had on mortality levels separately, they have rarely been studied simultaneously. Using linked data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics, we study regional levels of life expectancy and lifespan inequality by sex and educational attainment in contemporary Spain (2014–2018). In all regions, life expectancy was higher (and lifespan variation lower) for individuals with higher educational attainment and among women. We find a negative relationship between life expectancy and lifespan inequality across subnational regions among all sex‐education groups. However, the relationship is much weaker among the highly educated. These findings suggest that spatial conditions still matter as health determinants, but even more among individuals with disadvantaged socioeconomic positions, not only in terms of lower life expectancy but also of higher lifespan variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across research, policy, and practice, the experiences, knowledge, and collective experiences of Families of Color have been routinely erased, disregarded, and ignored, despite their potential for engaging and motivating students, creating inclusive classrooms, and addressing educational inequities. In this metasynthesis, we explicitly focus on what can be learned from Scholars of Color who have strong affinities to research communities and study the language and literacy practices of families. We attend to research findings that are relevant to children and families. We focus on four particularly salient sets of findings related to: 1. Family strengths and resources; 2. In‐betweenness, 3. Past, present, future and intergenerational connections; and 4. Advocacy and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this column, I urge educators to reject transactional partnerships in their family literacy work. Drawing from my research centering Black parents' school engagement experiences, I examine two types of transactional partnerships: those that tether high‐quality education to educators' perceptions of parenting, and those that tether high‐quality education to parents' levels of advocacy. Ultimately, I consider four characteristics of educators enacting more liberatory family literacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of COVID‐19 have been profoundly felt across higher education as across broader society. In particular, the pandemic has revealed that many of our most stubbornly entrenched inequalities do not simply follow gendered fault lines, but rather care fault lines. In this article, we adopt a maternal epistemology and collaborative witnessing to outline the disruption that academic mothers have experienced during the pandemic. However, we argue that this disruption is not simply obstructive to academic mothers and other caregivers. Rather, COVID‐19 has provided a potentially transformative moment for the visibility and normalisation of care in the academy. It has forced the complex negotiation of paid work and care work that academic mothers must constantly manage into the spotlight. The pandemic has provoked an opportunity for a different performance of mothering in the academy; one that does not require us to invisibilise our care to be valued. This (re)performance and revaluation has the potential to reform the cultural landscapes of the academy, towards spaces in which care is reimagined as not simply an encumberment but also an enrichment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]