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In recent years, some educational researchers have questioned the theory of a robust relationship between test scores in international large-scale assessments such as PISA and lagged economic growth. However, both the proponents and opponents of such a human capital approach have mainly focused on earlier growth patterns during the twentieth century. Hence, the current article analysed the relationship between PISA 2000 and economic growth in 2010–2019 for 31 countries, and composite cognitive skills for 80 countries and their relationships with economic growth in 2010–2019. The results indicate that PISA scores or other cognitive skill measures could to some extent predict economic growth between 2010 and 2019, even when controlling for a significant number of variables. In a consecutive analysis, the relations were substantially associated with Middle Eastern countries because many countries from this region experienced political instability and decreasing oil revenues throughout this period. Hence, it is possible that regional and contextual relationships affect these patterns.

The Swedish modernist painter Nils von Dardel (1888–1943) was an integral part of the avant-garde of his time. Dardel's artistic and individual expressions developed from a dandy persona, who expressed dark personal conflicts, into a more integrated humanist perspective signified by love, jealousy, ambivalent sexuality, life and death, and the absurdity of existence. It was generally a turn from negation to optimistic values, as well as to universalism. His art – ironic and bizarre – has been continuously provoking from his premature death in New York City into the postmodern 20-s century. In order to add to the international scholarly discussion, the current article sheds light on this fascinating artist's life, work, and persona. Moreover, it juxtaposes some aspects of Dardel with those of the Swedish writer and painter August Strindberg (1849–1912), as well as the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (1925–1970).

Kazakhstan is a post-Soviet nation whose education system and curricular constitution recently have gone through a number of substantial reforms. These changes have occurred in light of political-economic initiatives to strengthen the country’s economic competitiveness. The current article examines the latest version of the national curriculum with an emphasis on the subjects Kazakh, English, Russian, smaller minority languages, as well as history. The findings highlight a tripartite trajectory of Kazakhstanization, post-Soviet multiculturalism, and Westernization in the educational realm.

A broad and encompassing new theory for the social and behavioral sciencesConnects hot topics such as globalization, migration, secularization, and climate change to parallelization theoryInvestigates a theory of cultural, economic and political complexity.

This compilation dissertation explores school results (or alterably, educational or academic achievement) at the Swedish lower-secondary level (Grades 7–9), particularly Grade 9 and to lesser extent Grade 8, using both aggregated data at the school and municipality level from Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and similar databases (Sweden Statistics, Kolada), and individual data from Education through follow-up (UGU, utvärdering genom uppföljning), and the Programme for international student assessment, PISA (2018). Data were obtained from the years 2013, 2018, and 2019. The outcome variables consisted either of the sum score grades at least E (where E is the lowest pass grade and A is the highest) in all subjects or grade point average (either in all 17 subjects or a sum of English, Mathematics and Swedish), national test results (English, Mathematics, Swedish, Swedish as a second language), or PISA scores in mathematics and reading. The theoretical framework hinged on a socio-ecological model which covers the micro- (individuals, families), meso- (schools), macro levels (social factors such as political systems and social changes) of school results in different contexts. This rather comprehensive approach to school results was in turn related to six main variables that aimed to explain the variation in academic achievement, mostly by using linear regression models: socioeconomic status (SES, such as average parental education or resources within municipalities, schools or families), migration background (i.e., differences between native-born students and first- and second-generation migrant students), cognitive ability (i.e., the scores obtained from cognitive ability tests), non-cognitive abilities (e.g., the degree to which students regard themselves as being able to handle their school situation), teacher competence or teaching quality (i.e., mostly formal teacher competence such as the degree to which municipalities have teachers with a formal

Introduction: Earlier research has suggested that that the international large-scale assessment, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), may be looked upon as a form of school test that is mostly explained by participating students’ socioeconomic status, non-cognitive factors, and various school factors, whereas another strand of research focuses on the similarities between PISA and cognitive ability assessments such as IQ tests. The latter position does also highlight the strong relationships between PISA scores and IQ test scores, typically aggregated to the country level. The current article adds to this scholarly debate by examining the latest PISA survey from 2018. Methods: Correlation, regression, moderator, and mediation analyses were run for aggregated country-level data (N = 77) from PISA 2018. Results: The results indicate that PISA scores indeed are strongly associated with both cognitive ability test scores and socioeconomic status indicators such as average annual national income. Discussion: A more nuanced position suggests that PISA should be labelled a test that measures cognitive school skills rather than a proxy of national IQ, as the link between country-level abilities and school age abilities is neither causal, nor theoretically and empirically palpable, yet partly robust.

Relating to world culture theory, this article aimed to discern similarities and differences between the South Korean national curriculum (1981, 2015) and the Swedish national curriculum (1980, 2018) and a set of complementary documents, both more broadly and with special emphasis on middle school level mathematics education. The findings suggest that the latest curricula accentuate knowledge and skills. However, Sweden’s national curriculum underlines knowledge and values, while the South Korean counterpart stresses character education and a ‘well-rounded personality’. Mathematics education has not changed much since 1980 in both countries. However, cosmopolitan tendencies are more present in the latest Korean curriculum. Overall, an unequivocal converging effect has not been discerned.

K-pop groups and artists have been localised to appeal to the lucrative Japanese market since the early 2000s. However, the two successful girl groups TWICE and Iz One exhibit a new direction in K-pop, members of both Korean and Japanese origin within the same groups. By drawing upon the literature on localisation strategies and contentious Japan–Korea relations, ethnographic fieldwork and media sources, this article examines two locations in Tokyo in which K-pop consumption takes place. Contrary to the polarisation tendencies that signify current Japan–Korea relations in the political realm, the gendered K-pop spaces and Japan/Korea collaborations such as Iz One signify benign hybridity and localisation.

The current article examines geographical location–academic achievementrelationships in the Stockholm region, Sweden. The results suggest that there is asubstantial association between the distance to the Stockholm city center and theintake ratings among 373 programs that were selected for analysis in the presentstudy. This relationship became slightly more distinct when the top ten and bottom tenprograms were compared. However, a socioeconomic control variable explained mostof the variance in a consecutive regression model. Moreover, while non-nativebackground was negatively related to intake ratings, this effect decreased virtually tozero when this variable was tested in the regression model which also included a SESindicator. Some educational policy implications are discussed

This study set out to analyze Swedish 15-year-olds’ PISA performance in 2015 and to lesser extent 2018 by using a combination of individual data (2015) and aggregated cross-country data for 2015 and 2018, inclusive of 31 OECD countries. At the within-country and individual level, native Swedish students who took the PISA test in 2015 outperformed first- and second-generation migrants. Moreover, the latent socioeconomic variable “number of books at home” was associated with higher PISA math achievement. Ambition was positively associated with PISA math scores, wheres worry was negatively associated with PISA math. At the cross-country level, GDP per capita was associated with higher PISA scores but ethnic homogeneity was not. IQ scores, PIAAC scores for teachers, and teacher salaries were also moderately correlated with PISA math achievement. This indicates that a country with high cognitive ability levels, as well as cognitively competent and well-paid teachers are likely to perform better in large-scale international assessments such as PISA.

The current study analyzed the relationships between explanatory variables such as socioeconomic status (SES), migration background (MB), and formal teacher competence, and aggregated grades in the Swedish lower-secondary school context by using aggregated municipality data from 2013, 2018, and 2019. SES indicators had larger effect sizes when data from different years were merged and when the outcome variable was changed to an alternative measure of educational achievement. In one model, the MB variable even became statistically insignificant. These results indicate that SES is an important variable which explains a substantial amount of variance in regard to school achievement indicators such as grade point average. Nonetheless, aggregated data may still suffer from omitted variable bias and biased effect size estimates.

The high educational achievement among East Asian nations in ILSAs like TIMSS and PISA is widely known. However, a comprehensive review of the research literature is lacking. The current study reviewed the literature in English between 1967–2020 with the aim to identify underlying explanatory factors and their relative importance with regard to educational achievement among East Asian schoolchildren (Grade 5–10) in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. N = 99 studies, and seven main themes with 53 corresponding sub-themes for these years were discerned. N = 56 studies emphasized cultural and educational quantity variables as pertinent for achievement among East Asian nations and populations. Cultural and educational quantity sub-themes such as more annual study hours, higher effort, and family expectations dominate as the explanatory variables, often emerging as a cross-national theme among East Asian countries. Another theme of significance are non-cognitive abilities such as math self-concept and math resilience. Other themes include higher-than average cognitive ability levels, although that has partly been contested, as well as curricular themes.