Recent de-tracking reforms in some German federal states converted or merged the two lower track secondary school types into a comprehensive one, where students can achieve all school-leaving qualifications. The goals of the reforms were to facilitate desegregation of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds and to reduce educational…

In education, among the most anticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are that student performance will stagnate or decline and that existing inequities will increase. Although some studies suggest a decline in student performance and widening learning gaps, the picture is less clear than expected. In this study, we add to the existing…

A central objective of schooling processes at the international level is reading skills development. Unfortunately, many students in the European Union underperform at this, and these low performances can be more pronounced in countries with lower Human Development Index (HDI) values. This study analysed the contextual effect of school…

Since 2015, increased numbers of newly immigrated schoolchildren in Europe have resulted in divergent, often ad hoc measures to provide for their education. Because the basis of classroom learning is information found in written texts, the development of grade-level reading skills is of central importance. However, little is known about immigrant…

This study investigates the effects of prosodic sensitivity on reading. Highly capable adult musicians (i.e., persons with potentially excellent prosodic skills) and non-musicians were compared in terms of prosodic sensitivity and reading. Furthermore, the study examines possible reciprocal effects of prosodic sensitivity and reading. Sixty native…

Gender differences in reading and math have been reported for many years. Girls outperform boys in reading (representing a school domain stereotyped as female); boys often perform slightly better in math (a stereotypical male domain). Research has so far investigated the contribution of domain-specific academic self-concepts and interests as well…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a simple motivational treatment (consisting of immediate feedback, goal setting, and positive reinforcement) on the reading performance of an 11-year-old boy with learning difficulties. We applied an ABAB reversal design to test the impact of our approach. The dependent measure was the…

Based on the relationships motivation theory, it can be assumed that social interactions in elementary school are essential for students' development and especially for their school success. Thus, this study examined how vital social resources, more precisely social interactions with peers and teachers, are for two central aspects of school…

The present study investigates the effect of pre-service teachers' cognitive abilities and personality traits on graduation and teacher self-efficacy using data from the German National Education Panel Study (N = 5 520). Applying latent profile analysis, we found four different profiles of pre-service teachers based on high school grade point…

Academic language and its associations with school success have been established in many prior studies. However, the scholarship lacks research on the mechanisms that constitute these relations. This study investigates the mediating role of motivational-­affective variables, specifically reading self-concept and reading enjoyment, in relations…

In 2020 and 2021, schooling, like many other aspects of life, has been heavily affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. During periods of school closure, education systems and schools have often been quick to organise remote support for home-based learning. But several observers have questioned the effectiveness of these schooling surrogates,…

Low literacy among adolescents and adults worldwide remains a serious problem, even in economically developed countries. The consequences of low reading proficiency levels can be harmful in many ways for both the individuals concerned and their communities in terms of health, political, social and economic outcomes. While large-scale international…

Intersectional approaches have become increasingly important for explaining educational inequalities because they help to improve our understanding of how individual experiences are shaped by simultaneous membership in multiple social categories that are associated with interconnected systems of power, privilege, and oppression. For years, there…

Based on Honneth's recognition theory, this study aimed at investigating whether students with a migration background reported receiving less recognition from teachers than students without a migration background. Also, we explored whether such a difference contributed to explaining the disparity between the groups in reading achievement. To…

Young students who speak a different language at home than that spoken in school (i.e., a minority home-language) appear to exhibit a biased reading self-concept. Importantly, this biased reading self-concept may correspond with altered causal pathways between reading self-concept and achievement in minority home-language students. To test this…