Studies of gender disparities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) performance have generally focused on average differences. However, the extremes could also be important because disparities at the top may shape stratification in access to STEM careers, while disparities at the bottom can shape stratification in dropout.…

In most education systems, students with an immigrant background perform worse academically than do native students. However, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) differences emerge in the opposite direction and the national-expatriate gap in academic performance is equivalent to almost three years of schooling. This gap is a concern in the UAE,…

Across the United Kingdom Higher Education system, the percentage of white students attaining a first or upper second-class degree exceeds the that of Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) students. This is known as the BAME degree awarding gap. Awarding gaps are also seen at the module level. The BAME module awarding gap is defined as the difference…

The purpose of this article was to explore the differences in opportunity to learn between higher and lower achieving schools. Additionally, the teachers' perception of Opportunity to Learn (OTL) as it relates to students' achievement were investigated. Teachers were surveyed to investigate any difference in their perceptions of opportunity to…

While achievement gaps have been well-established, much remains to be understood about the manner and extent to which school leadership either increases or decreases student access to opportunity to learn. The current study uses nationally representative samples of U.S. and Flemish students in Grade 4 from the 2011 Trends in International…

This article describes an action research project that was undertaken to address a poor progression rate at the end of the first year of a single honours law degree. An attainment gap due to gender, age and ethnicity was also noted. The students were predominantly assessed by examinations; therefore a change of assessment to coursework and…

To understand the persistent social class achievement gap, researchers have investigated how educational settings affect lower versus higher socioeconomic status (SES) students' performance. We move beyond the question of actual performance to study its assessment by evaluators. We hypothesized that even in the absence of performance differences,…

Survey research tested the hypothesis that teachers support less rigorous curriculum for English language learners (ELLs) than for general-education (GE) students. Participating teachers worked in urban schools with large populations of ELLs. Teachers rated descriptions of instructional activities that differed in demand for critical thinking…

Based on the baseline data of the China Education Panel Survey, this paper explored the relationship between teacher training and academic performance in urban and rural samples respectively and the impact of teacher training on the urban-rural gap of students' academic performance. The results showed that: firstly, there was a significant…

Despite growing interest in social justice leadership and awareness of the need to include this focus in leadership preparation and development, little is understood of practices used to support such commitment. In this article, Bacchi's (2012a) Foucaldian approach is drawn from, to provide a specific means of critically analysing what problem(s)…

There is very limited evidence globally of the impact that learning in an unfamiliar language has on girls' educational outcomes. In Rwanda, children learn in English medium instruction (EMI) classrooms throughout the basic education cycle, with a recent policy change removing Kinyarwanda as the medium of instruction for the first three years.…

The COVID-19 pandemic that prompted a nationwide shutdown of schools and a shift to online instruction in spring 2020 also prompted a wave of articles calling this instructional change a "natural experiment" that could be used to study the effects of online education. Yet the pandemic disrupted so many aspects of children's academic,…

Research suggests that gendered languages are associated with gender inequality. However, as languages are embedded in cultures, evidence for causal effects are harder to provide. We contribute to this ongoing debate by exploring the relationship between gendered languages and the gender gap in mathematics achievements. We provide evidence for…

The increase in online learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely result in a greater availability of online and hybrid course offerings. In this study, students enrolled in parallel sections of a microbiology lab course with in-person labs and either face-to-face (F2F) or all-online lectures (hybrid, H). Course material and method…

The racial academic achievement gap in America's public schools persists and there is solid research explaining the elements that have led to and support it. Much of this research is deficit-based and highlights the vulnerabilities of those who fall at the bottom of that gap. Not enough research is invested in celebrating, highlighting, or…