Despite adolescent girls' superior school achievement and high career aspirations, fewer women than men achieve career eminence. Understanding early influences on the development of gifted girls' career-related values and aspirations may help to explain this discrepancy in career outcomes. This article reports findings from a qualitative,…

Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

This paper discusses the type of professional learning that international academic mobility makes possible during a PhD program. The conceptual approach used Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, which allows analyzing PhD students as 'newcomer' members who bet on mobility under the idea of "illusio." The methodology used was qualitative. The…

This report looks beyond high performing schools, and digs deeper into the geographical patterns of socio-economic segregation in the comprehensive system as a whole, showing the wider impacts of selection. Along with a link to an interactive map, this report provides unprecedented insight into the dynamics of secondary school admissions in…

This qualitative study explores the experiences of 22 Grade 11 students, aged 17-18, studying science subjects at highly selective English medium instruction (EMI) schools. The study is guided by Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System (namely, the ideal/ought-to L2 self concepts) and Hajar's (2019) distinction between compulsory and voluntary…

The present mixed-methods study explored first-year undergraduate students of a highly selective university in Kazakhstan's perceptions of having private tutoring (PT) and how far it had helped them gain a place at this university. The quantitative data were collected through a close-ended questionnaire from 144 participants to understand their…

The paper employs a glonacal agency heuristic to explore how certain research-intensive Chinese universities exercise agency in response to global and national impacts in creating the world-class university. Two global forces (international scholarly discussions on the world-class university and global university rankings) and one national force…

This article investigates the association between cultural capital and the likelihood of attending an elite university within the Chinese socio-educational context. Drawing on data from the Beijing College Students Panel Survey, we show that: (1) objectified cultural capital is negatively correlated with the likelihood of attending an elite…

In this article, we examine conceptualisations of luck evoked by a select group of elite students studying in Oxbridge, when accounting for their academic success. The emphasis on luck in their narratives is categorised into three themes. The students linked their luckiness to deservedness, used luck as a way to express humbleness, and attributed…

This article focuses on the ways in which international students from Chile narrate their experiences in the US, and the extent to which mobility across national borders reshapes social class understandings and privilege. To complete this study, I conducted 13 in-depth interviews and a focus group with five Chilean graduate international students…

High school graduation rates in the United States are at an all-time high, yet many of these graduates are deemed not ready for postsecondary coursework when they enter college. This study examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression discontinuity design. While the short-term test…

Over the past 20 years, elite colleges in the US have seen dramatic increases in applications. We provide context for part of this trend using detailed data on Harvard University that was unsealed as part of the SFFA v. Harvard lawsuit. We show that Harvard encourages applications from many students who effectively have no chance of being…

Our paper examines the opening of branches overseas ('satellite colleges') by elite private schools mainly located in England ('founding colleges'), largely in emerging economies of the Middle East and South East Asia. We trace the development of these 'satellite colleges' over three successive waves of growth, from opportunistic venturing in…

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity, and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative…

The purpose of this quantitative dissertation in practice was to explore the academic achievement of students of low socioeconomic status attending the District of Columbia's traditional and selective public high schools, as measured by the annual Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) standardized test scores. The…