In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized by pre-defined cutoff values of students' achievement level and their social background. A threat to the validity of such arbitrary operationalizations is that students around the cutoff values may be misclassified. The main objective of the current study is to apply a…

Academic resilience is difficult to define in an international setting, since economic levels and achievement standards vary across countries and over time. In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized using pre-defined cut-offs of achievement and social background. The main objective of the current study is to apply…

Latin American students consistently score low on international tests of cognitive skills. In the PISA 2012 results, students in seven Latin American countries had an average score of 395 in mathematics, or about 100 points lower than the average score of 497 in four Scandinavian countries. We estimate the effect of socioeconomic characteristics…

We indicate the size of family background effects in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia--countries that differ in both the rhetoric and extensiveness of the system-level school choice policies. Family background effect is defined as the dependence of student achievement on family background characteristics, such as parental education, income, and social…

Discusses reading habits in Finland from a cultural perspective, as a growing trend and its future as a cultural activity. Favorite books and favorite types of literature are examined. (CT)