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In explaining why girls outperform boys in school, some studies focus on individual gender-identity. Others stress the interactional dimension of students exerting pressure to act in a more masculine/feminine way. Still other research examines the development of student cultures in specific school contexts. Considering the gender structure, this study aims to understand gender differences in educational engagement by looking at the three dimensions of gender -- individual, interactional and institutional -- simultaneously. Stepwise multilevel analyses of data of 5162 students in 57 Flemish secondary schools, show that girls are more engaged in class activities than boys. The gender gap gets significantly larger with higher levels of traditional gender-role-attitudes (considered here a reflection of the institutional dimension) -- making boys less engaged. Second, boys display significantly more disruptive behaviour. This gender gap gets larger with higher levels of gender pressure (interactional dimension) and, above all, traditional gender-role-attitudes -- both making boys misbehaving more.

Recent research has increasingly been studying the long-lasting effects of secondary education structures and processes on higher education (HE) outcomes. While the influence of socioeconomic composition on higher education enrolment is established, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We posit that the composition effect partially runs through the educational expectations of the students' peers at school. By considering shared post-secondary expectations among students within a school -- or, peer expectation culture -- we transcend the dominant individual approach to expectations. Additionally, we go beyond the supposed positive (i.e. normative) effects of peers on HE enrolment, by considering the negative effects of having ambitious peers on HE enrolment resulting from comparative group processes. Logistic multilevel analyses of longitudinal data (2013-2019) from 1250 students across 30 Flemish high schools showed that socio-economic status (SES) composition effects on HE outcomes were mediated by expectation culture. Students attending schools with high expectation cultures were more likely to attend HE in general, and to attend university over other HE institutes compared to students in schools with low expectation cultures. The results suggest normative effects of peers on both outcomes, while comparative processes were only found for the choice of institution. This study underscores the long-term consequences of both individual and school-level expectations in secondary education and calls for including comparative reference group effects in studies on educational decision-making.

Having a low sense of belonging in secondary education is associated with feelings of social alienation, lower school performance, and dropping out early. Based on person-environment fit theory, we expect retained students to experience a misfit with their academic environment. This experience could intensify when there are fewer other retained students around. The contextual impact of grade retention on sense of belonging is assessed by cross-national multilevel analyses on PISA 2015 data (25 countries; 7,979 schools; 194,195 students). Overall, results suggest retained students have a significantly lower sense of belonging. The negative association between grade retention and sense of belonging increases in schools and countries with a low number of retained students. This indicates that in schools and countries with a low retention composition, retained students suffer from a lower sense of belonging, because of both their status as a retained student and the absence of other retained students. Implications are discussed.

School discipline research has demonstrated that the labeling of student behaviors as requiring disciplinary action is a selective process in which school staff take into account other factors than the characteristics of the behaviors. We argue that school staff react in a disciplinary way to students with negative attitudes toward the educational system. Concretely, we examined if feelings of futility caused students to suffer disciplinary consequences more often. Multilevel analysis was carried out on data of 2,358 students in 28 Ghentian (Belgium) schools that participated in the International Study of City Youth (ISCY). Results indicate that school staff do not react to students' sense of futility directly by means of disciplinary actions; however, they impose disciplinary actions following disruptive behaviors on students displaying higher feelings of futility more often.

While female students are more successful and show more behavioural engagement at school than male students, they also report lower levels of subjective well-being. This study examines how motivational regulation interacts with school engagement in predicting subjective well-being of male and female students. In questionnaire data from a representative sample of Flemish students in the academic track (N = 3452, age 13-14) female students reported lower subjective well-being, more engagement, and more autonomous than controlled motivation compared to male students. Multilevel-analyses, carried out separately for female and male students, revealed that for both genders, subjective well-being was positively associated with engagement and negatively associated with a more controlled than autonomous motivation. For female students only, motivational regulation significantly interacted with engagement in predicting their well-being. The negative association between having more controlled than autonomous motivation and subjective well-being was less strong for female students showing higher school engagement.

Considerable research concerning determinants of teacher efficacy focuses on teachers' individual characteristics. School characteristics, such as the socioeconomic and gender composition of the school, are largely overlooked. The scant research including schools' student composition suggests that teachers feel less efficacious when teaching boys with a low socioeconomic status (SES). A multilevel analysis, using data from 1247 teachers in 59 Flemish secondary schools, shows that teachers' feelings of efficacy do not appear to differ very much between schools, although many studies assumed that the greater part of variance in teacher efficacy could be found between schools. The socioeconomic composition of the school does not affect teacher efficacy. Gender composition, however, does influence teacher efficacy, as teachers display more efficacy in classroom management and experience more general efficacy when teaching mostly boys. The unexpected finding that teachers seem to feel more efficacious in classroom management when teaching mostly boys is discussed.

At-risk students are overrepresented in disadvantaged segregated primary schools. Often, these students begin with an educational delay and have less parental support, which makes them more dependent on the quality of their education. Since quality of education depends in great measure upon mechanisms at the class level, it is crucial to gain insight into the interrelations between class input, teacher process variables and student outcomes. A multilevel path analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between socioeconomic and ethnic class composition, teacher trust in students, teaching learning strategies, and reading comprehension in socially and ethnically disadvantaged segregated primary classes. A reading comprehension test, teacher questionnaire and video observations of language lessons were administered (September-October 2013) to a sample of 7- and 8-year-old students (n = 271) and their 22 teachers. The socioeconomic and ethnic class situation had a significant impact on teaching learning strategies, which in turn was positively related to students' reading comprehension. Our findings underline the key role of teaching learning strategies, which mediates the relationship between the socioeconomic and ethnic class composition and reading comprehension in disadvantaged, segregated primary classes. Policy implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

A mixed-methods study was conducted to investigate the relationship between four aspects of quality of teaching (safe and stimulating learning climate, efficient classroom management, adaptation of teaching, teaching learning strategies) and reading comprehension in segregated, low SES classes in Flanders. Second-grade students (n = 312) were tested for reading comprehension, and their teachers' language lessons (n = 22) were observed. A two-level analysis and qualitative video analysis were conducted. The results show that managing the class efficiently and teaching learning strategies are positively related to reading comprehension, while adaptation of teaching is negatively related to students' reading comprehension. The qualitative results deepen the quantitative findings. They offer insights into the difference in teaching quality of the highest and lowest performing teachers for efficient classroom management, adaptation of teaching and teaching learning strategies. The results and directions for future research are discussed.

Ethnic discrimination is a serious problem in education. Previous quantitative research is predominately focused on the consequences of ethnic discrimination. Very little is known, however, about the characteristics of the school context that influence the initial experience of ethnic discrimination. This knowledge is essential to support schools in how to organize in a way that diminishes the likelihood of adolescents being discriminated against. This study examines the relationship between multicultural education and perceived ethnic discrimination, and the moderating role of the ethnic composition of the student population. Multicultural education is a broad concept. The focus lies on the three main actors: multicultural policy from the perspective of the principal, multicultural teaching from the perception of the teacher and students' perception of multicultural teaching. The results of a multilevel analysis on a large-scale dataset (N = 2715 students, 38 schools) collected in secondary education in Belgium show that students of ethnic Belgian descent are more likely to report ethnic discrimination by peers if the school applies a more multicultural policy or if the school has a high concentration of students with an other-than-Belgian background. Students with an other-than-Belgian background are more likely to report ethnic discrimination by teachers if the school applies a more multicultural policy. If students perceive that their teachers pay attention to multicultural education, they are less likely to report ethnic discrimination by teachers, but more by peers. The ethnic composition is not directly related to perceived ethnic discrimination, nor does it play a moderating role.

Previous studies on the impact of grade retention on academic self-concept suffer from inconclusive findings. There is no consensus if retention yields long-term benefits that could offset its opportunity costs and, if so, under what conditions. Therefore, this article examines whether grade retention decreases academic self-concept and whether this relationship is mediated by sense of belonging. Moreover, we aim to contextualise retention research by accounting for schools' retention composition. Based on reference group theory, the effect of grade retention composition on academic self-concept is expected to be twofold. Normative reference grouping leads to the assumption that students in high retention composition schools will exhibit lower levels of academic self-concept, because retainees' values are more likely to spread across all students within the same school. Comparative reference grouping might lead to a moderation effect of retention composition on the relationship between grade retention and academic self-concept. Multilevel analyses on International Study of City Youth data, consisting of 2,354 students in 30 secondary schools in Ghent (Flanders), revealed a negative association between grade retention and academic self-concept, which was mediated by sense of belonging. Students in high retention composition schools had a significantly lower academic self-concept. The impact of being retained on academic self-concept is not affected by the number of retainees within a given context. Implications are discussed.

In 2016, Uruguay started gathering longitudinal student data to improve educational trajectories by putting in place an 'early alert' system. Underlying the system is the understanding that prior schooling predicts likelihood of grade repetition and grade repetition predicts later school dropout, while close follow-up can help prevent both repetition and dropout. We used a database of administrative registries from a national public primary school graduating cohort on their last year in primary and first year in secondary education (2015-2016, n = 36,754). We conducted two-level cross-classified logistic regression analyses to assess the suitability of using features of Uruguayan students' primary school trajectories, individual, family and primary school characteristics to predict their success or failure in their first year of secondary school. All considered prior schooling factors (previous repetition experiences, achievement, behaviour and absenteeism), the student's family socio-economic status (SES) and primary school's SES composition, as well as the location of the school in an urban or rural setting, help explain differences in chances of first-year success or failure (grade repetition) in secondary school. While these results support the 'early alert' system's approach, predictive performance analyses are needed when using explanatory models for planning interventions with scarce resources and making decisions affecting individual students' trajectories. The importance of testing resulting models' sensitivity, as well as their false positive rates, is highlighted.

Given the importance of relatedness for study motivation, motivation might be associated with faculty trust in students and, as such, with schools' student composition. Representative Flemish data of 5162 students and 1247 teachers in 57 Flemish secondary schools, gathered at the end of the 2013/2014 school year (April--May 2014), reveal that the association between faculty trust in students and students' autonomous motivation goes through students' trust in teachers. In schools with a higher socioeconomic student composition, students are less autonomously motivated, but this does not show because faculty trust is high, which generates more autonomous motivation--via students' trust in teachers.

This study assesses the effect of secondary schools' sex-composition on boys' and girls' felt pressure for gender-conformity. Whereas gender-conformity pressure affects adolescents' well-being, little large-scale research examines school features' influence. Multilevel-analyses are conducted on representative Flemish data of first grade students, 2688 boys and 2430 girls, in 57 secondary schools, gathered at the beginning of school-year 2012/13 and the end of 2013/14. When estimating the effects on gender-conformity pressure at time 2, the gender-conformity pressure at time 1 is accounted for. For girls, no effects of the school's sex-composition are found. Boys in schools with more girls display lower levels of felt pressure at the start of secondary education. The felt pressure at time 2 increases with the proportion of girls, indicating that boys forming a numerical minority at school, report more growth in gender-conformity pressure. This effect is stronger for boys holding more traditional gender-role attitudes.

The assumption that (early) attendance of universal pre-school enhances the future academic performance of pupils with lower socio-economic and/or immigrant backgrounds underlies many education policies in Europe. The purpose of this study is to assess this assumption for Flanders -- a case characterised by near-general enrolment and a 'schoolified' approach to pre-school education. We investigated general and equity benefits of pre-school duration regarding academic outcomes in fourth grade, analysing quantitative data from a survey of 1761 pupils. First, multilevel regression analysis showed that pre-school duration was significantly yet weakly related to standardised test scores in science but not in reading. Second, pre-school duration moderately mitigated the relation between parental socio-economic status (SES) and reading outcomes. Third, the relation between pre-school duration and science/reading achievement did not vary significantly across immigrant and linguistic backgrounds. Altogether, these findings indicate a relationship between pre-school participation and short-term academic achievement that is mixed in terms of cognitive task and pupil backgrounds. The result that attending pre-school seems to counter the disparity in reading outcomes between low-SES and high-SES pupils is consistent with existing evidence.

Prior research has demonstrated the adverse effects of ability grouping (here tracking) on a broad range of outcomes for secondary school students, including their self‐esteem. A recent line of study focuses on the importance of track identities in understanding how ability grouping impacts students. This study builds on these findings by investigating the role of public track regard and chauvinistic track identification on the relationship between track membership and general self‐esteem. Multilevel modeling of school survey data collected from 4,540 third‐year high school students from 64 schools in Belgium shows that students' public track regard correlates positively with their general self‐esteem. In addition, while students' chauvinistic track identification does not protect against societal judgment, it does associate with general self‐esteem. The type of chauvinism, either social or cognitive, that correlates with self‐esteem is track‐dependent. The conclusions discuss the implications of these findings for research and social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers play a crucial role in the diagnostic process of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in students: They are often the first to identify ADHD-related behaviors in children and to signal them to parents. Research has demonstrated that the recognition and labeling of certain behaviors as evidential for ADHD by teachers vary with respect to student characteristics. This study examines if and how the association between teacher perception of students' ADHD-related behaviors and teacher suspicion of ADHD in students is moderated by teacher perception of students' cognitive capacities. Multilevel analysis was carried out on data collected in 2017 and 2018 from 939 students and 108 teachers in 15 Flemish (Belgium) and 16 Québec (Canada) schools in the context of a collaborative research project on ADHD-prevalence and identification. Results show that, when teachers perceive ADHD-related behaviors in students, they more readily suspect ADHD when students are cognitively stronger. This study suggests that teachers are more inclined to free cognitively stronger students from the blame of ADHD-related behaviors by administering them an ADHD-label. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no question that teachers nowadays are challenged to adapt their teaching practices to the needs that arise from increasing diversity in the current classroom. Since effective teaching asks for alignment between teaching and assessment practices, the increasing diversity challenges teachers' assessment practices and schools' assessment policies as well. This study will explore these practices and policies in schools with a diverse student population. To this end, data was collected in 2017 through case studies in six primary schools, three of which are characterized by a heterogeneous pupil composition and three of which have a homogeneous composition. The data collection includes interviews with six school principals and 24 teachers in primary education, six of whom are employed in pre-primary education. Although the results show a variety in reported assessment practices, there is no evidence for differences linked to schools' pupil composition. This study emphasizes the crucial role of an assessment policy at the school level, as it serves as a condition for high-quality assessment practices that support effective teaching, while also responding to the challenges of diversity.

This study examines whether the gender difference in sense of academic futility is related to the proportion of girls attending a school. We argue that the more progressive gender role culture in schools with a higher proportion of girls might influence especially boys' sense of futility. Multilevel analyses of data gathered in 2014 from 5,162 second-grade students in 57 secondary schools in Flanders confirm a small but significant gender difference in sense of futility. The more girls at school, the less feelings of futility boys manifest. This impact can be explained by boys' traditional gender role attitudes. For girls, the impact of gender composition, higher feelings of futility in schools with more girls, is buffered by girls' progressive gender role attitudes. In schools with more girls, boys display lower levels of futility than girls. Finally, this impact of gender composition can be ascribed to the students' educational track.

Transferring to another school or leaving the educational system altogether has considerable consequences not only for the student who makes the decision to leave, but also for the students who stay behind. This paper aims to investigate the effects of secondary schools' mobility and dropout rates on the levels of school engagement in the persistent student population, drawing on peer effect research in engagement and dropout literature. Multilevel analysis was carried out on data collected in 2015 from 1577 non-mobile students in 25 Ghentian (Belgium) schools, who participated in the International Study of City Youth-project (ISCY). The findings suggest that schools get caught up in a vicious circle, in which higher in-mobility rates bring about lower levels of behavioral engagement in non-mobile students, making those students in turn more vulnerable for negative educational decisions like dropping out or changing schools.

Strain theories expect socio-economically disadvantaged students to be overrepresented among perpetrators of school-deviant behavior. Empirical research, however, is inconclusive about the SES-deviance relationship. Recently, strain theorists argued that economic deprivation, rather than a socio-economic status (SES) index is related to delinquency. This study is unique in investigating these claims in an educational context. Specifically, we investigate the association between SES and economic deprivation, and school misconduct. We also aim to shed light on why and under which conditions SES and deprivation are associated with misconduct. Starting from strain theory and social cognitive theory, we hypothesize academic self-efficacy to mediate and/or to moderate discovered associations. Following previous findings that socioeconomic status effects on deviance differ across national contexts, we apply a cross-national design, investigating the hypotheses in four European cities, namely Barcelona (Spain), Bergen (Norway), Ghent (Belgium), and Wroclaw (Poland). Analyses on data of 9174 students across 111 schools (2013-2014) confirmed that deprivation is more important for rule-breaking than SES, but self-efficacy did not mediate, nor moderate deprivation effects. Importantly, self-efficacy did moderate SES effects. Students from lower SES-families are prone to be deviant at school, but this association may be buffered by increasing students' academic self-efficacy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This study examines whether secondary schools' gender composition and levels of laddish attitudes influence the degree of ethnic prejudice among Flemish pupils. We hypothesize that in addition to pupil-level predictors of prejudice, the school's gender composition and its laddish culture play roles in pupils' attitudes toward ethnic minorities. We use multilevel analysis with data obtained in 2014-2015 from 2250 Flemish pupils in 48 secondary schools in Flanders. Both girls' and boys' ethnic prejudice is related to their laddish attitudes. Boys' levels of ethnic prejudice are associated with the gender composition and the laddish culture of their school, while girls' ethnic prejudice is more likely to be influenced by the laddish culture of the school when the proportion of male pupils in the school increases. The findings suggest that in order to reduce ethnic prejudice it might be fruitful to focus on macro-level factors, such as tackling laddish cultures at school.

Teachability perceptions reflect teachers' perceptions of students' cognitive-motivational behaviors, personal social behaviors, and school-appropriate behaviors. Teachers in schools with more students with a low socioeconomic status (SES) or in schools with more boys have been shown to perceive students as less teachable. It remains to be seen whether teacher characteristics, specifically efficacy or trust, buffer against lower teachability perceptions in challenging school contexts. A multilevel analysis was carried out on data of 1247 teachers in 59 Flemish schools (2012–2013). Lower teachability perceptions were found in low-SES schools and schools with more boys. Efficacious teachers perceived their students as teachable, but teacher efficacy did not buffer against lower teachability perceptions in low-SES schools or in schools with more boys. Teacher trust, on the other hand, does buffer lower teachability perceptions in schools with more boys. This finding demonstrates that trusting teacher-student relationships might be a key factor to overcome between-school differences in teacher perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the world, numerous students are being bullied at school. Bullying is often caused by a power imbalance between students. Therefore, identifying potential sources of such a power imbalance can prevent school bullying from happening. Based on the labelling theory, we expect that grade retention can lead to such a power imbalance and, therefore, increase the likelihood of being bullied at school. Hence, this study examines the association between grade retention and self-reported victimisation. We also expect that retainees will be less likely to become a victim of school bullying in schools and countries with a high number of other retainees. If true, this would signal a moderating effect of both school- and country retention composition on the association between grade retention and victimisation. The contextualised impact of grade retention upon victimisation is assessed by cross-national multilevel analyses on PISA2018 data (25 countries; 8,039 schools; 159,412 students). Overall, our findings indicate that being retained in primary and/or secondary education is associated with higher levels of victimisation, while retainees suffer from more victimisation in countries with a low number of other retainees. In contrast to our expectations, however, we did not find such a moderation effect of school retention composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher recommendations are an important factor in the process of track placement, but research has shown that they are biased by pupils' social background. Pupils from higher socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to get the advice to enrol in an academic track than pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds, irrespective of prior achievement. Previous studies looked primarily at individual pupil or parent characteristics and their influence on teacher recommendations. However, in this article, the authors argue that the class context forms the frame of reference within which a teacher forms his/her recommendation for pupils. Therefore, this article investigates class composition effects on teacher recommendations at the transition between primary and secondary education in Flanders. More specifically, we look at the socio-economic, ethnic and ability composition of a class. Multilevel logistic models were tested on data collected in 36 primary schools in the cities of Ghent and Antwerp in May 2015. The results show that only the ability composition of the classroom exerts a frame-of-reference effect on teacher recommendations for academically versus practically oriented tracks. A pupil with a low individual ability in a low-ability class was more likely to get the advice to enrol in an academically oriented track than an equally able pupil in a high-ability class. This study demonstrated the limited importance of class composition in teacher recommendations, but calls for more research on teacher bias in the process of track assignment.

Despite boys' educational underachievement, gender differences in study motivation have received little research attention. Guided by self-determination theory and the identity-based motivation model, this study investigates differences in study motivation between boys and girls, as well as within each gender. To adequately consider these within-gender differences, we investigate gender and gender typicality interactions in a sample of 6,380 Flemish seventh graders collected in 2012-2013. Results from multilevel analyses show that, in line with the educational gender gap, girls display higher levels of autonomous motivation. Furthermore, gender-typical girls score highest on autonomous motivation. Gender-typical boys score considerably lower, though they outperform self-perceived atypical boys and girls. In controlled motivation, no differences are observed between boys and girls of equal ability. Nevertheless, higher scores on gender typicality contribute to a higher sense of controlled motivation. The results are discussed in light of well-being, the need for autonomy, and gendered expectations of teachers.

In this study, we investigate the association between a school's ethnic composition, the track in which teachers teach, and their level of involvement with multicultural teaching (MCT) in the Flemish context, taking into account the ethnic prejudice of teachers. Multilevel analyses of data from 590 Flemish teachers in 40 Belgian secondary schools suggest that teachers in schools with more ethnic minority pupils, teachers in vocational education, and ethnically unprejudiced teachers implement more MCT. These findings highlight the need for more research into the relationship between school features, the sociopsychological characteristics of teachers, and their involvement with MCT.

The discourse on parental involvement as a means to increase the educational attainment of underprivileged children has gained ground in the scholarly and policy field of preschool education. Nevertheless, this discourse is characterised by a 'democratic deficit' in which parents themselves are rarely involved in determining goals and modalities of parental involvement in sociological and educational studies (Tronto, J. C. 2013. "Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice." New York: New York University Press). Ten video-elicited focus groups with migrant parents were organised in the Flemish community of Belgium in order to explore their meaning-making of preschool education and the parent-school relationship. The qualitative data suggest a perceived lack of attention for the care dimension in education. While parents are eager to know more about preschool, they cannot always express this eagerness. Based on these results, we recommend that preschool policies, practices, and research should consider communicative spaces for parents, professionals, and researchers in which multiple, yet opposing, meanings can be discussed.

This study examines whether the influence of track position on study involvement is gendered and whether gender differences in study involvement according to track position are associated with school misconduct and rather poor future perspectives. Three-level analyses (HLM 6) of data gathered in 2004-2005 from 11,872 third- and fifth-grade students in 146 tracks in a representative sample of 85 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) confirmed the impact of tracking on boys' as well as girls' study involvement. Boys are, generally, less involved in studying than girls, and boys are more affected by track position than girls are, enlarging the gender gap in the lower tracks. In these tracks, boys are more prone to misconduct and rather poor future perspectives. Finally, girls in arts tracks are, on average, more involved in studying than girls in academic tracks, but because of their higher tendency for disruptive behavior in school, this does not show.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship of classroom composition factors with reading and listening comprehension achievement and progress in socially and ethnically segregated primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Specifically, using a three-level multivariate repeated measures analysis, it examined the association of reading and listening achievement and progress with ethnic diversity, the proportion of non-native students and the average socioeconomic status of the class, taking into account student characteristics. At the beginning and end of the school year, reading tests, listening tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample of 7- and 8-year-old students (n = 683) in 42 second-grade classes. Students' listening comprehension achievement at the beginning of the school year was negatively related to having a home language other than the language of instruction and to classes with a high proportion of non-native students. However, progress in listening comprehension was not significantly associated with any student or classroom composition factors. Students whose mothers had a lower level of education performed lower on reading comprehension at the beginning of the school year, while at the end of the school year students whose mothers had a higher level of education were at a greater disadvantage. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.