Amid concerns about creating internationally recognized world-class universities in China, this study aims to explore the factors that influence the selection of two prestigious universities in China, namely Tsinghua and Beida, by high school students. In light of concerns surrounding the establishment of globally renowned universities in China,…

Famous people can positively influence young people by serving as examples of how to be a good person, but very little is known about which famous people youth look up to and why they do so. We coded and analyzed open-response data from 596 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.09 years; 58.5% girls, 57.5% White) in the northeastern United States to…

Despite social changes and the opening up of all professions to men and women, society continues to adhere to many stereotypes, and many professions are still considered to be feminine or masculine. In addition to gendered representations of occupations, there are also social representations linked to the social prestige associated with a…

Based on 20 semi-structured interviews with high school students in elite schools in Israel, this article examines two key research questions: How do students in elite high schools define and experience their identity? Do these identities contribute to the production and maintenance of privilege, and if so, how? To examine these questions, we…

Under test-based accountability, side-effects--including practices to inflate test results, often seen as cheating--are usually associated to so-called high-stakes policies. However, the influence of different types of stakes in the generation of this type of practices has been overlooked in education research. Based on a survey experiment, our…

Elite schools, long tasked with creating a future national elite, often now find themselves competing in a global education market. This article explores how one such school, in Switzerland, articulates with the global imaginary of its local geography -- in particular, with images of luxury tourism and safety -- to appeal to a globally wealthy…

Annual rankings provide easily consumable quantitative information that prospective students and their families use to make decisions about applications and admissions offers. One popular ranking is Princeton Review's Party Schools, which receives national attention and condemnation by institutional leaders. We analyzed IPEDS and Clery Act data…

This article examines how specialist music secondary schools in England present themselves on their websites and social media platforms. We consider visual communication codes and how such patterns reflect cultural distinctions and social boundaries. Multimodal critical discourse analysis is used to demonstrate how the choice of semiotic resources…

Occupational gender segregation is still a persistent problem in the labor market. This study investigates gender differences in gender typicality and prestige of occupational aspirations in early adolescence, as well as the role of agency and communion in these differences. In total, 2779 adolescents (age 11-15) reported their occupational…

Previous research suggests that girls have higher occupational aspirations than boys before entering the labor market. We investigate whether this gender gap in occupational aspirations generalizes to secondary school students in Germany and illuminate the possible mechanisms behind these purported gender differences. For this purpose, we used a…

Previous studies have paid little attention to teachers` self or collegial considerations when making decisions about their students, precisely their tendency to avoid being blamed for students` failure. When a teacher is blamed for a student's difficulties, her/his public image ('face') is threatened, and s/he and her/his colleagues can be…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of school reputation of five lower secondary schools located in the sixth largest city in Greece, as it emerges from the views and experiences of parents, and how it shapes school choice. To this end, 63 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents of children…

The purpose of this quantitative comparative study was to investigate adherence to honor culture, which values personal reputation and defense of such, as well as traits of callousness among students in three different placements of high school English (advanced placement/college prep, general, and special education resource). Two existing…

Teachers in Lady Agatha's Boarding School (Lady Agatha's) find teaching Sex and Relationships Education (RSE) uncomfortable. This paper investigates one aspect of the discomfort that they feel, namely the impact RSE has on their professional status as teachers. I use focus group data to reflect on the professional and personal location of teachers…

South Korea implemented many-pronged educational reforms, notably to transition from heavy reliance on a high-stakes standardised test to more diversified assessment for university admissions. Nonetheless, this effort created another arena of competition towards meritocratic credentials--such as academic publications. The South Korean government,…