Discussions about social justice imply discussions about higher education. After all, a whole set of literature has illustrated how ethnic minority students face all types of difficulties to become successful at college level. In line with this literature, the present research offers a case study of one Flemish University nested in a growing…

It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries' patterns in the evolution of disparities in literacy by SES…

This article examines the extent to which parental socioeconomic status (SES) affects the likelihood of a child becoming a top-performing student, offering an international perspective by reporting this relationship in 31 developed countries. The impact of 3 important educational system characteristics (differentiation in terms of early tracking,…

The effect of composition may be strong in systems where students are systematically sorted based on their socio-economic background. This paper aims to model the differential effect of class composition on pupils' achievement in Belgium (French-speaking Community), France, Spain and Portugal. Multilevel models are consequently tested on the…

How much students feel at home in school predicts academic outcomes. In view of the gender achievement gap, it is worth examining the gendered pattern of this school belonging. Studies on school belonging, however, have barely acknowledged possible obstructive effects of traditional gender role attitudes of individual students and student…

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

Countless policy makers and researchers have flocked to observe the education systems of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, which are among the top five performers in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2009 reading assessment. Many visitors have been particularly impressed by the fact that these education systems succeed in…

Holding students back when they do not meet a specific attainment level is common practice in a lot of countries. However, this practice is not without controversy and recent studies point at the negative effects of grade retention, especially in the long-term. The majority of these studies focused on grade retention in primary education. In our…

The Belgian educational field includes separate educational systems reflecting the division of the country into linguistic communities. Even if the French-speaking and the Dutch-speaking communities keep sharing important similarities in terms of funding rules and structures, they present a huge gap between their respective pupils' achievement.…

Background: Bridging educational and social psychology, we examine the impact of positive intergroup relations in schools on minority and nonminority school careers. Purpose of Study: The study aims to estimate and explain the attainment gap between Turkish Belgian minority and Belgian nonminority students at four stages of their school careers,…

Background: Since the late 1960s, research has demonstrated repeatedly that students in lower tracks achieve less as they develop an antischool culture to overcome the status deprivation resulting from being in a lower track. In quantitative large-scale research, this antischool culture is usually assessed using poor academic attitudes or study…

Two innovative programs in Belgium promote both educational equity and quality as they reach out to ethnically diverse families. The Bridge Person project in Ghent addresses Belgium's immigrant achievement gap by creating meaningful relationships between schools and socially disadvantaged families. The School in Sight project in Antwerp seeks to…

Summer learning studies have been set up to investigate the evolution of initial group differences in academic achievement, for example, between low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) children. Moreover, this approach has been used to demonstrate the absolute effect of going to school on children's learning. In the present study, we used…