A widely used instrument was implemented to ascertain the mathematical modelling competency displayed by a cohort of South African learners in grade 10 and grade 12 of the school mathematics programme in South Africa. The cohort comprised 471 grade 10 and 200 grade 12 learners from schools serving learners from low socio-economic status…

There are many important questions teachers and administrators need to ask as they grapple with how to ensure high school graduates are college and career ready. What does it mean to prepare students for a world that is rapidly changing--a world in which science and technology are altering how we live, work, play, and interact? If teachers focus…

The COVID-19 global pandemic widely affected education across the world and engendered unprecedented scenarios that required expeditious responses. In South Africa, the pandemic came on top of pre-existing inequalities in the education system. Using a qualitative research method of exploratory and descriptive nature, this study engaged a social…

Students' causal attributions about the reasons underlying their academic successes are important because of the influence of those attributions on academic motivation. We investigated whether students' success attributions tend to be similar across academic subjects versus specific to academic domain, and whether domain-generality or specificity…

University participation rates are significantly lower in low socioeconomic status (SES) areas in Australia. Specifically, rates differ between-schools and within-schools, where inequalities in opportunities to access university pathway programs exist. The aim of this study was to test whether academic encouragement supported students' school…

Types of educational information needed by learners, their level of access and librarians' supportive roles in learning are pertinent to the attainment of quality education. This study seeks to identify the types of educational information needed by high school learners and the barriers of access. The study is underpinned by the jurisprudential…

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, access to quality and equitable education still remains a challenge in the Gauteng province. As an intervention to improve access and quality of learning in all schools, especially township schools, the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) declared schools across Quintiles 1 to 3 throughout the province to…

To increase participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) studies and careers, some states have promoted inclusive STEM high schools. This study addressed the question of whether these high schools improve the odds that their graduates will pursue a STEM major in college. State higher education records were obtained for…

This ethnographic case study problematizes the current high stakes accountability efforts that have led many school leaders to inadvertently maintain a school environment in which deficit perspectives and low academic expectations in the classroom persist. Drawing from an urban sanctuary school framework, this study works to center the voices of…

We examined 482,418 students who took the ACT in the seventh grade and again in high school, taking an exploratory analytic approach to examine academic growth trends from 1996 to 2017. Predictors included sociodemographics, interests, high school (HS) characteristics, HS coursework and GPA, and extracurriculars, which explained 25% of the…

Students from low-income families consistently trail behind their peers in retention and degree attainment. Research on college student experiences suggests that low-income students experience "cultural mismatch" at college--they feel that their backgrounds are at odds with the middle-class values dominant on campus (Armstrong &…