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In the half century since the 1966 Coleman Report, scholars have yet to develop a consensus regarding the relationship between schools and inequality. The Coleman Report suggested that schools play little role in generating achievement gaps, but social scientists have identified many ways in which schools provide better learning environments to advantaged children compared to disadvantaged children. As a result, a critical perspective that views schools as engines of inequality dominates contemporary sociology of education. However, an important body of empirical research challenges this critical view. To reconcile the field's main ideas with this new evidence, we propose a refraction framework, a perspective on schools and inequality guided by the assumption that schools may shape inequalities along different dimensions in different ways. From this more balanced perspective, schools might indeed reproduce or exacerbate some inequalities, but they also might compensate for others—socioeconomic disparities in cognitive skills in particular. We conclude by discussing how the mostly critical perspective on schools and inequality is costly to the field of sociology of education.

Digital health technologies (ie, the integration of digital technology and health information) aim to increase the efficiency of health care delivery; they are rapidly adapting to health care contexts to provide improved medical services for citizens. However, contrary to expectations, their rapid adoption appears to have led to health inequities, with differences in health conditions or inequality in the distribution of health care resources among different populations. This scoping review aims to identify and describe the inequities of health care services brought about by the adoption of digital health technologies. The factors influencing such inequities, as well as the corresponding countermeasures to ensure health equity among different groups of citizens, were also studied. Primary studies and literature, including articles and reviews, published in English between 1990 and 2020 were retrieved using appropriate search strategies across the following three electronic databases: Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus. Data management was performed by two authors (RY and WZ) using Thomson Endnote (Clarivate Analytics, Inc), by systematically screening and identifying eligible articles for this study. Any conflicts of opinion were resolved through discussions with the corresponding author. A qualitative descriptive synthesis was performed to determine the outcomes of this scoping review. A total of 2325 studies were collected during the search process, of which 41 (1.76%) papers were identified for further analysis. The quantity of literature increased until 2016, with a peak in 2020. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway ranked among the top 3 countries for publication output. Health inequities caused by the adoption of digital health technologies in health care services can be reflected in the following two dimensions: the inability of citizens to obtain and adopt technology and the different disease outcomes found among citizens under technical intervention measures. The factors that influenced inequities included age, race, region, economy, and education level, together with health conditions and eHealth literacy. Finally, action can be taken to alleviate inequities in the future by government agencies and medical institutions (eg, establishing national health insurance), digital health technology providers (eg, designing high-quality tools), and health care service recipients (eg, developing skills to access digital technologies). The application of digital health technologies in health care services has caused inequities to some extent. However, existing research has certain limitations. The findings provide a comprehensive starting point for future research, allowing for further investigation into how digital health technologies may influence the unequal distribution of health care services. The interaction between individual subjective factors as well as social support and influencing factors should be included in future studies. Specifically, access to and availability of digital health technologies for socially disadvantaged groups should be of paramount importance.

This article maps considerations of inclusiveness and support for students with disabilities by reviewing articles within the field of learning analytics. The study involved a PRISMA-informed systematic review of two popular digital libraries, namely Clarivate’s Web of Science, and Elsevier’s Scopus for peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings. A final corpus of 26 articles was analysed. Findings show that although the field of learning analytics emerged in 2011, none of the studies identified here covered topics of inclusiveness in education before the year of 2016. Screening also shows that learning analytics provides great potential to promote inclusiveness in terms of reducing discrimination, increasing retention among disadvantaged students, and validating particular learning designs for marginalised groups. Gaps in this potential are also identified. The article aims to provide valuable insight into what is known about learning analytics and inclusiveness and contribute knowledge to this particular nascent area for researchers and institutional stakeholders.

Cheap Street tells the history of London’s street markets and of the people who bought and sold in them. From the 1850s anything that could be bought in a shop in London could also be bought in the street markets, which were the butcher, baker, greengrocer, provision merchant, haberdasher, tailor and furnisher of the working-class city. They sat uncomfortably on the edge of the law, barely tolerated by authorities that did not quite know whether to admire them for their efficient circulation of goods, or to despise them for their unregulated and ‘low’ character. They were the first recourse of immigrants looking to earn a living, and of privileged observers seeking a voyeuristic glimpse of street life. London’s street markets have frequently been overlooked, viewed as anomalous among the sophisticated consumer institutions of the modern city, the department stores and West End shops. Cheap Street shows how the street markets, as an emanation of the informal economy that flourishes in the interstices of urban life, adapted nimbly to urban growth and contributed to consumer modernity, and how in doing so, they propagated myths about what it meant to live in London and be a Londoner. The book analyses the street markets through their legal and economic informality, material culture, sensory affects and performative character, using varied documentary and visual evidence. It reshapes the interpretation of London’s urban geographies and consumer cultures, offering new insights into London’s history.

Students in the United States whose household income is less than 130% of the poverty line qualify for free lunch, and students whose household income is between 130% and 185% of the poverty line qualify for reduced-price lunch. Education researchers and policymakers often use free and reduced-price lunch (FRPL) status to measure socioeconomic disadvantage. But how valid is this measure? Linking IRS income tax data to school administrative records for all eighth graders in one California public school district and Oregon public schools, we examine how well FRPL enrollment captures student disadvantage. We find that FRPL categories capture relatively little variation in household income. However, FRPL captures elements of educational disadvantage that IRS-reported household income data do not.

In this article, the author examines how school-and district-level racial/ethnic and socioeconomic compositions influence schools' use of different types of criminalized and medicalized school discipline. Using a large data set containing information on over 60,000 schools in over 6,000 districts, the authors uses multilevel modeling and a group-mean modeling strategy to answer several important questions about school discipline. First, how do school-and district-level racial and ethnic compositions influence criminalized school discipline and medicalization? Second, how do levels of school and district economic disadvantage influence criminalized school discipline and medicalization? Third, how does district-level economic disadvantage moderate the relationship between school racial/ethnic composition and criminalized school discipline and medicalization? The results generally support hypotheses that schools and districts with relatively larger minority and poor populations are more likely to implement criminalized disciplinary policies, including suspensions and expulsion or police referrals or arrests, and less likely to medicalize students through behavioral plans put in place through laws such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. However, results from cross-level interaction models suggest that district-level economic disadvantage moderates the influence of school racial composition on criminalized school discipline and medicalization.

The COVID-19 pandemic produced widespread disruption to schooling, impacting 90% of the world's students and moving entire school systems to remote and online learning. In the state of New South Wales, Australia, most students engaged in learning from home for at least eight weeks, with subsequent individual and intermittent school closures. However, while numerous claims have circulated in the popular media and in think tank reports, internationally, about the negative impacts on learning, there is limited empirical evidence of decreased student achievement. Drawing on data from more than 4800 Year 3 and 4 students from 113 NSW government schools, this paper compares student achievement during 2019 and 2020 in a sample of matched schools to examine the effects of the system-wide disruption. Somewhat surprisingly, our analysis found no significant differences between 2019 and 2020 in student achievement growth as measured by progressive achievement tests in mathematics or reading. A more nuanced picture emerges when the sample is examined by dis/advantage (ICSEA) and Year level. The Year 3 cohort in the least advantaged schools (ICSEA < 950) achieved 2 months less growth in mathematics, while the Year 3 students in mid-ICSEA schools (950-1050) achieved 2 months' additional growth. No significant differences were identified for Indigenous students or students located in regional locations. These results provide an important counter-narrative to widespread speculation about alarming levels of 'learning loss' for all students. While the lower achievement growth in mathematics for Year 3 students in lower ICSEA schools must be addressed as a matter of urgency to avoid further inequities, most students are, academically, where they are expected to be. Our findings are a testament to the dedicated work of teachers during the 2020 pandemic to ensure that learning for most students was not compromised, despite unusually trying circumstances. [Author abstract]

The effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the population's mental health and well-being are likely to be profound and long lasting. To investigate the trajectory of mental health and well-being during the first 6 weeks of lockdown in adults in the UK. A quota survey design and a sampling frame that permitted recruitment of a national sample was employed. Findings for waves 1 (31 March to 9 April 2020), 2 (10 April to 27 April 2020) and 3 (28 April to 11 May 2020) are reported here. A range of mental health factors was assessed: pre-existing mental health problems, suicide attempts and self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, defeat, entrapment, mental well-being and loneliness. A total of 3077 adults in the UK completed the survey at wave 1. Suicidal ideation increased over time. Symptoms of anxiety, and levels of defeat and entrapment decreased across waves whereas levels of depressive symptoms did not change significantly. Positive well-being also increased. Levels of loneliness did not change significantly over waves. Subgroup analyses showed that women, young people (18-29 years), those from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds and those with pre-existing mental health problems have worse mental health outcomes during the pandemic across most factors. The mental health and well-being of the UK adult population appears to have been affected in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing rates of suicidal thoughts across waves, especially among young adults, are concerning.

The demographics of massive open online course (MOOC) analytics show that the great majority of learners are highly qualified professionals, and not, as originally envisaged, the global community of disadvantaged learners who have no access to good higher education. MOOC pedagogy fits well with the combination of instruction and peer community learning found in most professional development. A UNESCO study therefore set out to test the efficacy of an experimental course for teachers who need but do not receive high-quality continuing professional development, as a way of exploiting what MOOCs can do indirectly to serve disadvantaged students. The course was based on case studies around the world of information and communication technology (ICT) in primary education and was carried out to contribute to the UNESCO \"Education For All\" goal. It used a co-learning approach to engage the primary teaching community in exploring ways of using ICT in primary education. Course analytics, forums and participant surveys demonstrated that it worked well. The paper concludes by arguing that this technology has the power to tackle the large-scale educational problem of developing the primary-level teachers needed to meet the goal of universal education.