This article examines the impact of the sociodemographic profile (including age, gender, and educational track) of Flemish adolescents (aged 13-20) on lexical aspects of their informal online discourse. The focus on lexical and more "traditional," print-based aspects of literacy is meant to complement previous research on sociolinguistic…

In French-speaking Belgium, one of the new tasks of the teacher will be to develop the informational skills of learners. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to identify the variables that affect the performance of online information retrieval so that teachers can plan appropriate teaching activities. The statistical Classification and…

In many educational systems, age is used as a criterion to organise education. Children's age is used to group students together and indicate entry into particular programmes. The use of age for organisational purposes in education stems from the idea that age provides an indication of the development of children, which is associated with teaching…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

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…

Numeracy and literacy skills have become increasingly important in modern labour markets. The large gender differences that several studies have identified have therefore sparked considerable attention among researchers and policy makers. Little is known about the moment in which such gaps emerge, how they evolve and if their evolution differs…

Problems associated with the environment loom large over the future well-being of young generations. A previous issue of PISA in Focus (PISA in Focus 87) shows that in 2015 many 15-year-old students believed that the future -- their future -- was going to be worse, environmentally, than the present. In particular, only a minority of students…

This study compared the effects of being in different tracks during the first 3 years of secondary education on student academic performance. A sample of a longitudinal cohort study in Flanders (3,205 students in 46 schools) was used to describe the learning gains for mathematics and reading comprehension. Four tracks were distinguished, with a…

One of the major imperatives behind the comprehensivisation of secondary education was the belief that postponing the age at which students are tracked in different educational routes would mitigate the effect of social background on educational outcomes. Comparative investigations of large-scale international student achievement tests in…

The increase in shared residential arrangements is driven by the belief that it is in the best interest of the child. The maintenance of contact between child and parents can mitigate negative consequences of separation. However, selection mechanisms may account for a positive relationship between shared residential arrangements and child…

The purpose of this study was to test bidirectional relationships between (cyber)bullying and (a) bonding to school and (b) bonding to teachers. These relationships were examined while controlling for traditional and cyberbullying victimization, as well as gender and age. The sample consisted of 2,128 Belgian early adolescents, who participated in…

Numerical understanding and arithmetic skills are easier to acquire for whole numbers than fractions. The "integrated theory of numerical development" posits that, in addition to these differences, whole numbers and fractions also have important commonalities. In both, students need to learn how to interpret number symbols in terms of…

Students from the technical and vocational track in Flanders have more homonegative attitudes than other students. We investigate what explains this track difference and if the homonegativity is reflected in more bullying experiences by lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students in these tracks. The results show that sex-role ideology and religion…

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both…

In contemporary research on autonomy development, autonomy has been defined as independence (vs. dependence) or as self-endorsed (vs. controlled) functioning. Analogously, perceived parental autonomy support involves either perceived parental promotion of independence (PI) or perceived parental promotion of volitional functioning (PVF). The…