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The aim of the present study was to examine how different types of tracking - between-school streaming, within-school streaming, and course-by-course tracking - shape students' mathematics self-concept. This was done in an internationally comparative framework using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). After controlling for individual and track mean achievement, results indicated that generally for students in course-by-course tracking, high-track students had higher mathematics self-concepts and low-track students had lower mathematics self-concepts. For students in between-school and within-school streaming, the reverse pattern was found. These findings suggest a solution to the ongoing debate about the effects of tracking on students' academic self-concept and suggest that the reference groups to wich students compare themselves differ according to the type of tracking. (DIPF/Orig.).

We analyze the subtle mechanisms at work in the interaction between families and schools that underlie social inequalities at the transition point from elementary school into secondary-school tracks in Berlin, Germany. We do so by combining quantitative data from a large-scale survey and assessment study (N = 3,935 students and their parents) with qualitative data from in-depth interviews with parents (N = 25) collected during the 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13 school years. The quantitative analyses show that students from high-socioeconomic status (SES) families were more likely to enter the academic track than were students from low-SES families, even if they performed equally well on a standardized achievement test, had the same grades in school, and received the same track recommendation from their teachers. The qualitative analyses illustrate the many ways in which parents intervene during the transition process, with high-SES parents having particularly effective ways of getting what they want for their children. (DIPF/Orig.)

Mass protests across Europe against marriage equality, reproductive rights, gender mainstreaming and sexual education have centralized n the past few years around so-called \"gender theory\". This theory is explained as a new threat to the \"traditional family\" and \"natural masculinity and femininity\", as it allegedly aims at cultural revolution: a post-binary gender world. Many of these debates (and concrete actions) are targeted at schools and the educational process. It is believed that \"gender theory\" is already being taught in schools, which will have detrimental consequences for pupils. Agents of the anti-gender movement claim that children are being sexualised and brainwashed by \"gender theory\". Taking this debate as the starting point, we first examine the roots of the term \"gender theory\" and point to its nature as an \"empty signifier\". We then analyse the types of anti-gender actions across Europe that interfere with the educational process in public schools. Finally, we consider the role of parents and their right to intervene (or not) in the educational process. On the basis of the existing rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, we argue that the provision that parents are entitled to educate their children in accordance with their religious and moral beliefs does not mean that teachers in schools should avoid issues that might \"morally distress\" pupils or their parents, as long as schools avoid indoctrination, and providing the topics (like any other topics) are conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. (DIPF/Orig.).

Chile implemented a targeted voucher programme in 2008 that increased funding for disadvantaged students at public and participating private schools by approximately 50%. This reform would be expected to raise average achievement in participating schools and to reduce the achievement gap related to socioeconomic status, and disadvantaged students did make fourth-grade test-score gains exceeding 0.2 standard deviations that other studies have attributed to the programme. However, we find only small increases in resources and school-switching and little evidence of competition-driven improvement, but a closing of the parental education and income gaps, raising doubts that the programme accounts for much of this convergence.

Angesichts des Umstands, dass kommunale Schulträger kaum untersucht sind, geht der Beitrag grundsätzlich der Frage nach, inwiefern das Handeln kommunaler Schulträger im Mehrebenensystem Schule im Sinne von Führung zu begreifen ist. Um hier zu substanziellen Antworten zu gelangen, bedarf es allerdings zunächst eines realistischen Verständnisses der Position kommunaler Schulträger im Mehrebenensystem Schule. Da allerdings die gegenwärtig verhandelten Auffassungen vom schulischen Mehrebenensystem hierfür kaum tragfähig sind, wird in kritischer Absetzung von diesen ein analytisch fruchtbareres Konzept von Mehrebenensystemen vorgeschlagen. Vor diesem konzeptionellen Hintergrund wird sodann gefragt, was Führung im Mehrebenensystem heißen kann. Abschließend werden ausgewählte Zukunftsfelder des (Führungs-)Handelns kommunaler Schulträger skizziert. (DIPF/Orig.) In view of the fact that municipal school authorities have hardly been studied, the article fundamentally examines the question of the extent to which the actions of municipal school authorities in the multi-level school system can be understood in terms of leadership. In order to arrive at substantial answers here, however, a realistic understanding of the position of municipal school authorities in the multi-level school system is required. However, since the currently discussed understandings of the multi-level school system are hardly sustainable, an analytically more fruitful concept of multi-level systems is proposed in a critical contrast to the previously discussed understanding. Against this conceptual background, we then ask what leadership in a multi-level system can mean. Finally, selected future areas of (leadership) action by municipal school authorities are outlined. (DIPF/Orig.)

Research in the United States has found that peers and parents play an important role in shaping students' educational aspirations. Little research has examined the extent to which these findings apply in other countries or whether the role of significant others varies according to the organization of national educational systems. This article examines the effects of peers' and parents' attitudes regarding academic performance on students' educational aspirations in 12 countries. The results indicate that peers and parents influence educational aspirations in countries with relatively undifferentiated secondary schooling, like the United States, while the influence of significant others is negligible in societies with more differentiated secondary education. In these latter systems, it appears that aspirations are largely determined by the type of school the student attends; there is little room for interpersonal effects. The effects of significant others on students' aspirations depend, in large part, on the structural features of the educational systems in which they operate. [ The authors used data from TIMSS]. (DIPF/Orig.)

Following the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education systems in Europe, the EU has been called upon to provide a concerted response to the crisis in a context where member states provided their own diverse responses. Against this background, the aim of this article is to uncover and critically examine the EU’s education policy discourse and promoted narratives since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and by doing so evaluate the EU’s response-ability for education recovery during the crisis. A conceptual framework has been devised to analyse the responsiveness of an international entity, such as the EU, based on organisational and neo-institutionalist theories. Data were collected through a combination of discourse analysis and computer-assisted content analysis, which was applied to official EU education policy documents published in 2020. The following categories emerged from the analysis process, indicating that the EU perceives education recovery as: “upskilling and reskilling”, “digital transformation” and “sustainable development”. The findings suggest a substantial continuation between the EU’s pre- and post-Covid-19 strategy in the education sector, and even an acceleration in the same direction, revealing a lack of real change in the EU’s response, which was focused predominantly on the economic and employability approach to education. (DIPF/Orig.)

The pandemic has disrupted students’ lives, learning, and well-being worldwide and exacerbated existing disparities in education. Countries have unevenly followed policy recommendations to ensure education by non-governmental agencies, and in some cases, political and economic ideology has directly influenced the decisions taken, Spain being a case in point. The instructions and regulations published in April 2020 in Spain are analysed and compared in order to regulate the end of the school year, its evaluation, and the start of the new year, given the situation of suspension of classes during and the confinement of the Spanish population decreed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 20 documents published by the Autonomous Communities of Spain are subjected to critical discourse analysis. Their approaches and the aspects they highlight or ignore are examined to identify the different models of education that each region defends in times of crisis. There are significant differences between conservative and progressive regions, the latter being more inclined to implement the recommendations of non-governmental organisations. (DIPF/Orig.)

Like many other school systems around the world, Austrian schools were crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic for an extended period of time. In 2020 and 2021, students in Austria spent between 40% and 60% of their school days in (partial) distance education. After explaining the main features of the Austrian school system, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of Austrian pandemic management in the school sector in 2020, 2021, and early 2022. In a further step, the most important empirical research findings on key effects of school closures and COVID-19-related changes on the learning and well-being of children and young people are compiled and summarized. Furthermore, the paper examines how teachers and parents in Austria have coped with this new situation. Finally, the main features of Austrian pandemic management in schools and a number of implications for future school practice and research are discussed. (DIPF/Orig.)

In Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic, compulsory schools were generally kept open but upper secondary schools closed and turned instead to distance education for a time during the spring term 2020. This article investigates the strategies chosen in Swedish schools, with special focus on the consequences of these decisions for students in upper secondary education. The study, built on interviews with a group of 15- to 19-year-old youths, contributes through a student perspective on learning from home during remote education. The article analyzes the strategy in the Swedish education sector during the pandemic and describes how a group of upper secondary students perceived the shift to digital and remote teaching during the pandemic with regard to the availability of the digital infrastructure and to studying under the new conditions of distance and remote education. Possible lessons to learn from the pandemic in Sweden could be that students are technically better prepared to work with computers, but less prepared to work independently. (DIPF/Orig.)