In this paper, we investigate how professional cultures and situated, material and external contexts relate to dynamic low- and underperforming schools in Scandinavia, particularly how the leadership is constructed through the leader, the followers and the situation. The first school studied was a low-performing school in Norway called…

Gender differences in teacher ratings of academic performance, social skills, and externalizing behavior were examined from fourth through seventh grade in a group of 1,023 students from 65 primary schools. Cohen's "d" and "t" tests and were used to report the magnitude of gender differences, and structural equation modeling…

To address social and behavioral problems in schools, more than 26,000 schools around the world have implemented School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS). Previous studies have focused on the effects of SWPBS on short-term teacher-rated behavior such as office discipline referrals or academic outcomes, but no study has yet investigated…

This study explores how the reception teacher understands her responsibility to support newly arrived migrant pupils' mental well-being in her everyday practices. The three interconnected circle model represents mental well-being as a prerequisite for integration and for academic and social development. The teacher's self-perceived responsibility…

Drawing on the tradition of childhood studies, this study explores how children's problems are being conceptualised by primary school teachers in Finland and Norway and what kind of institutional childhood is reflected in those conceptualisations. I use thematic content analysis to analyse data derived from two primary schools in Tampere, Finland,…

The central concern of this article is to compare the constructions of differences in inclusive school settings between countries with different school systems. The focus is to find out how constructions of differences generate participation and (dis)advantages and, thereafter, how the constructions are related to the structure of the school…

This study focuses on the relationship between students' early academic skills and academic achievement. In this context, it is aimed to examine the predictors of students' early literacy and numeracy skills on their later math and science achievements across countries. A quantitative research approach using a correlational survey design was…

Internalizing problems may be associated with poor academic performance and school absenteeism among youth. This study investigated the impact of the EMOTION: "Coping Kids" Managing Anxiety and Depression Program on academic achievement and school adaptation in children. Data were collected in a national cluster-randomized controlled…

The importance of parent engagement in children's schooling is well documented, yet there is limited research on the quality of parent-teacher relationships specifically. In the present study, we aimed to help build knowledge in this area by investigating parent and teacher reports of home-school cooperation during children's first year of school…

As traditional teaching methods may fail to serve children with special needs, special education (SE) services aim to compensate for the shortcomings of conventional schooling. However, despite of numerous studies on the effectiveness of SE services, the influence of potential selection bias remains a real challenge, and only a few studies have…

It is well-documented that academic achievement is associated with students' self-perceptions of their academic abilities, that is, their academic self-concepts. However, low-achieving students may apply self-protective strategies to maintain a favorable academic self-concept when evaluating their academic abilities. Consequently, the relation…

Global migration has led to increasing numbers of children encountering schools as newcomers in their new countries. Statistics reveal that large groups of migrant children tend to perform poorly academically; thus, education for newcomers has become an urgent issue for host countries. The aim of this study is to explore how Norwegian schools…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

Background: The Scandinavian countries have a long history of implementing social interventions, but the interventions have not been examined using randomised controlled trials until relatively recently compared with countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of randomised…

How parents perceive their children's educational prospects can reveal a great deal about how their children will progress in the educational system. The paper examines the consequences of variations in inclusive education practices by investigating determinants of parents' educational expectations for their child. All parents included in the…