Recent discussions in science, politics and society offer starting points for rethinking the approach to the wicked problem of educational inequality. In our paper, we want to do this by reviewing research, policy and practice in primary education in the Netherlands. Our reflections are first focused on the state of the art in research and the…

Equal opportunities in the context of education can be interpreted as ensuring equitable access to certain kinds of education (e.g. an academic track) or as equal opportunities to lead a fulfilling life regardless of the educational route followed (e.g. vocational or academic). These interpretations are in tension: the former implies a hierarchy…

As structural inequalities within universities persist, universities increasingly develop diversity policies. Much diversity research focuses on the gap between universities' commitments and actual practices. This paper takes a different approach by scrutinizing how diversity documents enact politics of time that results in their selective…

We study to what extent schools increase or decrease environmental and genetic influences on educational performance. Building on behavioral genetics literature on gene-environment interactions and sociological literature on the compensating and amplifying effects of schools on inequality, we investigate whether the role of genes and the shared…

Over the past two decades, as in many countries, the use of private tutoring ('shadow education') has increased substantially in the Netherlands. Educators and policy makers are raising questions regarding the role that shadow education may play in relation to the traditional configuration of the home and school being assigned the responsibility…

Why do inequalities in schooling persist, even in relatively egalitarian school systems? This article examines within school sorting as an explanation. We use classroom data on friendship networks in 480 European secondary schools and contrast comprehensive (England, Sweden) and tracked systems (Germany, Netherlands). Our question is to what…

This paper presents comparative information on the strength of the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and literacy skills at ages 6-8, drawing on data from France, Germany, Japan, Rotterdam (Netherlands), the United Kingdom, and the United States. We investigate whether the strength of the association between SES and literacy skills in…

Using register data and linked student-level sociometric survey data from the Netherlands, this study examines whether the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schooling outcomes (track recommendation and track enrollment in the seventh and ninth grades) is conditional on students' academic and social embeddedness in the school setting. We estimated…

This paper aims to uncover assumptions about inclusion held by preservice teachers in physical education. The focus is on how they construct ideas about inclusion and how these constructions inform their attempts to reduce inequities and enhance inclusion in their teaching practices. A critical approach to the reflections of 41 Dutch preservice…

This study offers a comparative examination of desegregation policy reforms in Belgium, Chile, and the Netherlands, addressing equity reforms to universal school choice systems. Through an analysis of the reform trajectories, we explore the evolution of policies, the causal mechanisms of change, efforts to institutionalize policies, and the…

In preparing generations for the future, schools fulfill a qualification and a civic task: providing youngsters knowledge and skills for the labor market, and equipping them to navigate democracy and society. Little research has considered how schools combine these tasks, particularly in relation to schools' student composition in terms of…

There are concerns that ability tracking at a young age increases unequal opportunities for children of different socioeconomic background to develop their potential. To disentangle family influence and potential ability, we applied moderation models to twin data on secondary educational track level from the Netherlands Twin Register (N = 8847).…

European quality framework for early childhood education and care calls for creating environments that support all children's sense of belonging. This study aims to advance empirical knowledge on educators' interpretations of children's belonging in early education settings. The study is part of a project conducted in five European countries --…

The current study investigates the effects of the school lockdowns during school years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 on the achievement scores of primary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed scores for spelling, reading fluency (i.e., decoding speed), reading comprehension, and mathematics from standardized student tracking systems…

The Language Friendly School network is a response to the growing diversity and multilingualism present in schools around the world, a result of people migrating to find employment, reunite with relatives, or escape war and conflict. It is estimated that over 200 million school children do not receive education in a language they understand. In…