Characteristics Of Educational System Research Articles

Gendered study choice: a literature review. A review of theory and research into the unequal representation of male and female students in mathematics, science, and technology

This article presents an overview of the recent literature on gendered patterns of academic choice in mathematics, science, and technology. It distinguishes in this literature micro-level, macro-level, and institutional explanations. Micro-level explanations focus primarily on psychological constructs, that is, variables at the level of the individual students. Macro-level explanations focus primarily on socioeconomic conditions and cultural understandings of gender roles. Institutional explanations focus on design characteristics of (national) education systems. After a presentation of these perspectives and of recent research progress that has been made, the authors critically discuss the lacunae that still exist in explaining cross-national variety, and provide suggestions for designing future research in this field.

School tracking and educational inequality: a comparison of 12 education systems in Switzerland

Using data from the super-sample of the ‘PISA Suisse’ 2003 assessment, this article examines the relationship between the characteristics of education systems (made up of homogeneous or heterogeneous tracks) and their consequences in terms of effectiveness and equity. Our results indicate that it is not so much the official structure of tracks as the ways in which tracking is really organised – and, in particular, the degree of segregation that tracking methods involve – which make it possible to explain inequalities among students. They also show that some education systems are more inegalitarian than others and that the factors leading to inequalities can vary significantly from one Swiss canton to another. Finally, through multilevel analyses, we demonstrate that when the individual and aggregate characteristics of students are taken into account, the type of track a student attends is of only limited significance for explaining inequalities, which suggests that the effects of tracking are in fact linked to the nature of the population educated in the tracks.

The contribution of schooling to secondary-school students' citizenship outcomes across countries

This article uses an educational effectiveness approach to model the impact of student, school, and educational system characteristics on several cognitive and non-cognitive student outcomes related to citizenship education. Using multivariate multilevel analysis, data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 were analyzed, encompassing 102,396 lower secondary-school students (14-year-olds) in 4,078 schools in 31 countries. The results indicate that schools have a small influence on students' civic knowledge and hardly an impact on civic attitudes and intended civic behavior. Civic competences are mainly explained by individual student characteristics and out-of-school factors. Factors at the school level that were found to make a difference in students' civic competences are related to stimulating a democratic classroom climate in which free dialogue and critical debate on controversial political and social issues are encouraged, nurturing positive interpersonal relationships and creating opportunities for students to learn and practice democracy.

Analyzing structural stratification in the Swedish higher education system: Data contextualization with policy‐history analysis

20th century massification of higher education and research in academia is said to have produced structurally stratified higher education systems in many countries. Most manifestly, the research mission of universities appears to be divisive. Authors have claimed that the Swedish system, while formally unified, has developed into a binary state, and statistics seem to support this conclusion. This article makes use of a comprehensive statistical data source on Swedish higher education institutions to illustrate stratification, and uses literature on Swedish research policy history to contextualize the statistics. Highlighting the opportunities as well as constraints of the data, the article argues that there is great merit in combining statistics with a qualitative analysis when studying the structural characteristics of national higher education systems. Not least the article shows that it is an over‐simplification to describe the Swedish system as binary; the stratification is more complex. On basis of the analysis, the article also argues that while global trends certainly influence national developments, higher education systems have country‐specific features that may enrich the understanding of how systems evolve and therefore should be analyzed as part of a broader study of the increasingly globalized academic system.

On the issue of education

Differentiation of the "goals of education" concept in relation to its functioning as the sociocultural absolute and as other functional groups is being considered in this article. It has been shown that the "teleological" Discourse cannot confront either the argumentation eliminating its meaning or the effective forms of its own epistemic statement. The ontological system of descriptors, which allows creating culturally grounded characteristics of educational systems, has been outlined.

Solving endogeneity problems in multilevel estimation: an example using education production functions

This paper explores endogeneity problems in multilevel estimation of education production functions. The focus is on level 2 endogeneity which arises from correlations between student characteristics and omitted school variables. Theses correlations are mainly the result of student stratification between schools. From an econometric point of view, the correlations between student and school characteristics imply that the omission of some variables may generate endogeneity bias. Therefore, an estimation approach based on the Mundlak [20] technique is developed in order to tackle bias and to generate consistent estimates. Note that our analysis can be extended to any multilevel-structured data (students nested within schools, employees within firms, firms within regions, etc). The entire analysis is undertaken in a comparative context between three countries: Germany, Finland and the UK. Each one of them represents a particular system. For instance, Finland is known for its extreme comprehensiveness, Germany for early selection and the UK for its liberalism. These countries are used to illustrate the theory and to prove that the level of bias arising from omitted variables varies according to the characteristics of education systems.

Why are Migrant Students Better off in Certain Types of Educational Systems or Schools Than in Others?

The main research question of this article is concerned with the combined estimation of the effects of educational systems, school composition, track level, and country of origin on the educational achievement of 15-year-old migrant students. The authors focus specifically on the effects of socioeconomic and ethnic background on achievement scores and the extent to which these effects are affected by characteristics of the school, track, or educational system in which these students are enrolled. In doing so, they examine the ‘sorting’ mechanisms of schools and tracks in highly stratified, moderately stratified, and comprehensive education systems. They use data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wave. Compared with previous research in this area, the article's main contribution is in explicitly including the tracks-within-school level as a separate unit of analysis, which leads to less biased results concerning the effects of educational system characteristics. The results highlight the importance of including factors of track level and school composition in the debate surrounding educational inequality of opportunity for students in different education contexts. The findings clearly indicate that analyses of the effects of educational system characteristics are flawed if the analysis only uses a country level and a student level and ignores the tracks-within-school-level characteristics. From a policy perspective, the most important finding is that educational systems are neither uniformly ‘good’ nor uniformly ‘bad’, but they can result in different consequences for different migrant groups. Some migrant groups are better off in comprehensive systems, while others are better off in moderately stratified systems.

Regional Learning Dynamics and Systems of Education and Training: A European Comparison

This paper investigates regional differences in the relation between styles of employee learning within public and private sector establishments and the characteristics of regional education and training systems. The paper starts by developing a measure of creativity at work for a sample of 81 regions across 18 European nations. Using multi-level regression, the paper shows how differences in the level of development of a region’s tertiary education system, and differences in the provision of formal and informal types of lifelong learning, impact on the development of creative forms of learning at work. The results show not only that well-developed regional systems of lifelong learning have a positive impact on the likelihood that employees on average will be involved in creative forms of work organisation, but also that systems of lifelong learning increase the relative chances that employees with only a secondary-level education will have access to creative work environments. This implies that lifelong learning policies can serve an important remedial purpose by helping to reduce inequalities in access to high-quality work environments for employees with different levels of initial education.

Prevalence, stability, and functionality of achievement goal profiles in mathematics from third to seventh grade

This study examined the longitudinal trajectories of achievement goal profiles in mathematics from third to seventh grade in a sample of 302 German students. Latent profile analyses were conducted separately for each school year and revealed three subgroups of students with distinct goal profiles labeled high multiple goals, moderate multiple goals, and primarily mastery-oriented. Only about one third of the students held the same goal profile across all school years. The amount of students pursuing moderate multiple goals increased over time, which supplements previous findings and theorizing about an ongoing differentiation of achievement goals during early adolescence. There were remarkably few differences in educational outcomes (interest, effort, achievement) between students from distinct goal profile groups. However, high multiple goal students showed the lowest test scores in sixth and seventh grade. Moreover, if students showed low performance during one school year, they were more likely to adopt a high multiple goals profile in the following year. Results are discussed in relation to individual cognitive developments, changes in school environments, and special characteristics of educational systems.

Promoting Ethnic Tolerance and Patriotism: The Role of Education System Characteristics

The literature on political socialization has overlooked the influence of system characteristics of schooling on civic values and youth political identities. This article addresses that gap by investigating the degree to which system differentiation relates to the values of ethnic tolerance and patriotism. We distinguish between pedagogical differentiation and territorial differentiation. While the first concept relates to the contrast between early tracking and comprehensive education, the second term captures the contrast between federal versus unitary states. We find that comprehensive schooling and nonfederal systems are associated with smaller disparities of ethnic tolerance and patriotism across ethnic and social groups. Patriotism is positively linked to ethnic tolerance in nonfederal systems. We suggest that nonexclusionary forms of patriotism can be promoted by public education through some form of national regulation of the curriculum.

Reflections of Antiquity in the Greek Education of the 20th Century

Abstract The aim of this article is to examine the educational theories and practices of ancient Greece, to investigate a few of the explicit links that the modern Greek state has made to these and to discuss some of the more implicit parallels that can be discerned in the present Greek educational system. To some extent, it will be an investigation of the contemporary traces that remain from the ancient civilisation. Furthermore, it will be examined how the Modern Greek state achieves political ends through its attempts to embody in the citizen the reconstructed values of a glorious past, while characteristics of ancient Greek educational systems, still existing in the Modern Greek educational system, will be discussed.

Infusing creativity into Eastern classrooms: Evaluations from student perspectives

Infusing creativity elements into regular classroom was an important movement in recent Asian educational reforms. A large-scale research study was conducted in Hong Kong to explore the possibilities, outcomes and difficulties of this kind of curriculum change from students’ perspectives. Based mainly on Western creativity literature, this study developed a set of methods for infusing creativity learning elements into regular science lessons. After its implementation, students perceived improvements in their attitudes, conceptions, abilities and behaviors in creative science development. Students characterized this creative learning as a kind of active and playful learning which encouraged them to think boarder and wider, to appreciate creative ideas, and to develop their curiosity, confidence and initiation in learning. Though this classroom reform originally aimed at creativity development, students considered better understanding of science knowledge and positive attitudes towards science learning as their major gains. Students’ high-order creative developments, such as novel and innovative thinking, challenging authority and risk-taking attitudes, metacognitive development and transfer of learning, were found to be weak. In further analysis, these outcomes were found to be related to some typical characteristics of Eastern culture and educational system. This study argued that creativity education, which adopted this kind of infusion approach, was likely to be restrained by the subject curriculum, local educational systems and social cultures. It provided additional support to the domain-specific, contextual-based and cultural-embedded characteristic of creative learning. Some suggestions were made for creativity reforms in Asian societies.

Human Capital Depreciation and Education Level: An Empirical Investigation

We investigate the link between human capital depreciation and education level through a nonlinear wage equation, using data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS) over the period 1998-2008. Instead of using a purely quantitative approach to separate workers by years of education, qualitative aspects of educational system are taken into account. Taking advantage of the Swiss educational system characteristics, workers are separated on the basis of their education type. Workers with vocational education (apprenticeships, professional and technical schools, and universities of applied sciences) are assumed to possess a relatively specific human capital, compared to those with academic education (high schools and universities). Human capital depreciation is found to be significantly related to education type. Academic (concept-based) education protects workers more effectively against depreciation than vocational (skill-specific) education.

Structuring access to higher education: The role of differentiation and privatization

Building on cross-national stratification research that examines how institutional arrangements affect stratification processes, I explore how two characteristics of higher education systems, differentiation and privatization, shape access to postsecondary opportunities. Using hierarchical linear models and relying on variation in educational systems across states in the U.S., I demonstrate that differentiation and privatization structure access to higher education, albeit at times in previously unanticipated ways. Differentiation, which denotes the presence of community colleges, has a democratizing effect: it increases overall enrollment in postsecondary institutions as well as decreases the gap in enrollment between students from different social strata. Moreover, contrary to the diversion hypothesis, differentiation does not disproportionately divert students from less privileged family backgrounds from 4-year institutions. Differentiation does, nevertheless, divert another group of students: those with lower test scores. The results also indicate that privatization has little effect on overall access to higher education, although it influences migration of students, facilitating out-of-state enrollment.

Determination of College Expectations in OECD Countries: The Role of Individual and Structural Factors

Renowned international experts in higher education fi nancing have argued that, owing to large government defi cits, tertiary education will not be able to open up and meet growing demand unless cost-sharing principles and effi cient student fi nancial aid programmes are introduced. Opponents of cost-sharing in higher education object that introducing tuition fees will raise inequality in access to higher education. Drawing on OECD data, and focusing on college expectations, the authors argue that the effects of ability, gender, and socio-economic background on college expectations are primarily shaped by the characteristics of secondary education systems, such as the degree of stratifi cation and vocational specifi city of secondary schools, while the principal characteristics of the tertiary education system, such as enrolment rates and the model of fi nancing, play a much less important role. The results clearly show that, after controlling for the effects of secondary school system characteristics, cost-sharing, as such or by degree, does not affect the formation of college expectations by ability, gender, and socio-economic background as much as the selectivity of the secondary school system does.

The Policy Determinants of Investment in Tertiary Education

This paper assesses how policies and institutions affect private returns to invest in tertiary human capital, the ability of individuals to finance this investment and the institutional characteristics of tertiary education systems. Focusing on core tertiary education services, the paper presents new measures of private returns to tertiary education, the institutional setting for supplying tertiary education and the availability of individual financing in OECD countries. Using a panel of 19 countries, the number of new tertiary graduates (a proxy for investment in tertiary education) is regressed on these new proposed measures, as well as other standard determinants of investment in tertiary education. The resulting estimates are used to assess empirically the relative importance of several education, taxation and social policies affecting investment in tertiary education. Several avenues for reform and the trade-offs they present for public policy are discussed.

Can competencies assessed by PISA be considered the fundamental school knowledge 15-year-olds should possess?

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), launched by governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1997, aims at assessing some of the key competencies that contribute to the success of 15-year-old individuals, on a regular basis and within an internationally accepted framework. PISA seeks to provide a basis for policy dialogue and for collaboration in defining and implementing educational goals, in innovative ways that reflect judgements about the skills that are relevant to adult life. PISA defines competence as the ability to successfully meet complex demands in varied contexts through the mobilisation of psychosocial resources, including knowledge and skills, motivation, attitudes, emotions, and other social and behavioural components. Measuring and comparing competencies across languages and cultures is a difficult challenge and is being pursued by PISA progressively. PISA focused its first three assessments on literacy skills, defined as the capacity of young adults to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, to think imaginatively, to hypothesise and discover, and to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively. The reasoning behind shifting the emphasis from assessing whether students can reproduce what they have learned towards whether they can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply their competencies in novel situations, derives from the nature of knowledge and skills required in modern life. For example, the tasks that can be solved through simple memorisation or with pre-set algorithms are those that are also easiest to digitise, automatise and offshore, and will thus be less relevant in a modern knowledge society. Since there is no overarching cross-national and cross-cultural agreement on what fundamental competencies 15-year-olds should possess, an international assessment such as PISA can only capture a selection of competencies. Moreover, since various methodological constraints limit the nature of competencies that are currently amenable to large scale assessment, PISA cannot capture the entirety of competencies that will make young people successful. However, the findings presented in this article suggest that the competencies that PISA does assess are highly predictive for the future success of students. In addition, PISA provides policy makers and practitioners with useful tools to improve quality, equity and efficiency in education, by revealing some common characteristics of students, schools and education systems that do well. In a modern world, comparative assessments are an essential tool for educational improvement and research shows that the existence of standardised assessments and examinations is one of the most powerful predictors for the success of an education system. That is not hard to understand, because without such assessments, all students, schools and education systems look the same, it is impossible for teachers and school administrators to detect institutional and systemic strengths and weaknesses, and to support and intervene where expectations are not met. Without reliable and comparable information on learning outcomes, teachers and governments alike rely on input-based incentives and policies that are all too often mirrored in large quality variation between schools as well as a strong dependency between learning success and the socio-economic context of students and schools. Last but not least, it is important to keep in mind that the absence of the reading, mathematical and scientific competencies measured by PISA does not automatically imply the presence of all those important competencies that have not been measured.

Latino' Education in Mormon Utah, 1910–1960

Looking at the history of education of Latinos in Utah, I suggest that the lack of educational opportunities has been the most effective mechanism to keep Latinos from achieving equal representation and from gaining cultural and historical identity. In comparison to other Latinos in the rest of the nation, the predominant factor that shapes the education of Latinos in Utah is religion, that is, Mormonism. As a set of beliefs, and as set of practices, Mormonism is embedded with racial underpinnings, theological premises, and social class undertones which undermine the Latinos’ educational efforts and place them in a system of socio-religious apartness. The idiosyncratic characteristics of Utah's educational system allows for the reinterpretation of national educational policies, such as the Americanization Programs, within cultural-religious parameters that produces different levels of educational discrimination within the Latino population. Nonetheless, Latinos challenged the educational practices of the state by creating their own schools, by proposing alternative methods of education, and by unraveling the intrinsic connections between religion, race, and socio-economic class. As a consequence, Latinos in Utah have proposed educational alternatives that are more holistic and inclusive.

Organisation and Context, Efficiency and Equity of Educational Systems: What PISA Tells Us

After describing both average scores, dispersion, and social inequalities in achievement in the various countries included in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, this article relates those ‘products' to country economic and cultural characteristics. It then explores relations between student scores and a number of institutional characteristics of countries' educational systems. Results show that relations exist between average scores and certain institutional or pedagogical practices such as grade repeating or tracking. A high degree of social inequality in achievement proves to be associated with overall score dispersion and degree to which educational system differentiates among students.

From development comparatism to globalization comparativism: towards more normative international education statistics

The comparability and quality of UNESCO's international education statistics have been questioned since the end of the 1980s, when other international agencies started producing their own indicators on education. This evolution coincides with the new strategic role given to education in national and international economic programmes, and marks the transition from the era of development to that of globalization. According to OECD or the World Bank, more emphasis should be placed on the comparability of education outputs than on the measurement of the development of mass education. Moreover, indicators should be used not only to compare the characteristics of national education systems but also to compare underlying political decisions. The latter would be evaluated based on performance criteria established by external assessments. This new kind of comparability, which was justified by the quest for data quality, is, in a sense, less robust from a statistical point of view, but more ambitious in terms of objectives and consequences. This comparability has also been accompanied by the reshaping of international decision‐making.