Equality of opportunity in educational achievement in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper is an empirical investigation of inequality of education opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We use student scores from tests administered by the international consortium Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for a number of MENA countries and over time since 1999 to estimate the effect of circumstances children are born into on their academic achievement in science and mathematics. We find that inequality of opportunities explains a significant part of the inequality in educational achievements in most MENA countries, but there is ample heterogeneity. Family background variables are the most important determinants of inequality in achievement, followed by community characteristics. The results show that, despite great efforts in past decades to invest in free public education, most MENA countries are less opportunity equal in educational achievement than European countries, and several are less so than Latin America and the United States. From the variation in inequality of education opportunities across countries and over time we draw lessons on the influence of different education systems or changes in policy on equality of opportunity.     

International Student Mobility and Tertiary Education Capacity in Africa

In Africa, 5.8 per cent of enrolled tertiary students go outside their homelands for tertiary study. No other world region has this high a share of outbound student mobility. In this study, I examined why African countries have larger student outflows than other regions and, in particular, I considered the importance of tertiary education capacity in the region for student mobility. I evaluated the determinants of student outflows from African countries for three different measures: the total number of tertiary students abroad, the percentage of the tertiary age cohort studying abroad and the percentage of total enrolled students abroad. In addition to showing that country rankings differ on these mobility measures, the findings indicate that their determinants also differ. The study premise was that student outflows should be lower from countries that have a greater supply of tertiary training capacity and that thesis received strong support in models that estimated the percentage of total enrolled students abroad. In models for that outcome, student outflows were also larger if countries had high tertiary demand and populations under 2 million. The findings for models that estimated total numbers abroad and share of the tertiary cohort abroad were similar after controlling for interactions between tertiary education supply and GDP per capita. In addition, population size and per capita GDP were stronger correlates of student mobility in those models, which suggests that it is more difficult for education supply and demand measures to account for student outflows when crude outflow measures are used. I concluded that strengthening tertiary education supply at home would be a cost‐effective way for African governments to increase their human capital and reduce brain drain losses.     

上海留学生教育的实证研究

随着中国融入国际社会程度的加深,留学生也逐渐成为中国教育系统的重要成员。上海作为中国最国际化的大都市,吸引着越来越多的留学生。大力发展来沪留学生教育,不仅可以推动上海城市人口构成的国际化,可以推动上海城市人口素质的国际化,而且可以增强我国学生国际交往和国际竞争的能力。留学生教育质量的好坏直接影响着世界对中国高等教育竞争力的评价。由于理念的不同,市场经济发达的国家往往将教育质量的检验交由市场进行,我国则更倾向于由政府通过若干个硬性指标完成教育质量的评估。因此,应关注留学生的核心诉求点,打造教育质量管理体系。     

Cross-National Differences in Academic Achievement: Why the United States Lags behind Other Rich Nations

This article tests the hypothesis that national differences in academic achievement scores of 15-year-olds in 25 developed nations in 2003, 2006, and 2009 can be explained by national differences in national health and family economic security programs, levels of parental education, and national differences in motivation to strive for high levels of academic achievement. We also test for the additional impact, if any, of national differences in educational system characteristics. We then ask what variables account for the low scores of American students on math, science, and reading achievement tests. More highly developed national family health and economic security programs and higher student levels of motivation for academic achievement in other rich countries help explain why scores in the United States are relatively low. Low academic qualifications and prestige for teachers and a lack of national educational goals also differentiate the United States from nations with higher achievement scores.     

Parenting Styles: The Impact on Student Achievement

ABSTRACT

Parenting style and its impact on student achievement in a multidimensional society continues to pose significant challenges to clinicians, researchers, educators, and parents alike. This literature review summarizes the research surrounding five domains: (1) parental control; (2) gender and parenting style; (3) parental education; (4) perceptual differences between parents and their children; and (5) ethnicity and diversity. Behavioral control and psychological control were found to be two inherent features of parental style that have a direct affect on student achievement. Adolescents' perceived level of independence when interacting with their parents also seemed to have a direct relationship on their academic achievement. Research concerning children's progress in mathematics as related to parenting style and gender stereotype was also uncovered. Evidence was found to support the notion that parental education can have an indirect impact on children's academic achievement in various cultures. Implications for future research are identified including the need for applied research in learning communities factoring in variables for family structure, expectations, ethnicity, communication, and involvement.     

Economic Development and the Effects of Family Characteristics on Mathematics Achievement

This article explores the relationship between nations' level of economic development and the influence of adolescents' social backgrounds on their academic achievement. Using data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the authors found that the positive effect of higher parents' education on middle‐school students' mathematics test scores is remarkably consistent among the 34 nations examined. In contrast, the relative advantage of living in a traditional family for mathematics achievement varies systematically between nations, being significantly greater in those with stronger economies. Although the influence of socioeconomic status on educational stratification does not appear to change, the deepening academic disadvantage of living with only one natural parent in more developed nations may result from marginalization of families in these societies.     

Low-Income Students and the Socioeconomic Composition of Public High Schools

Increasing constraints placed on race-based school diversification have shifted attention to socioeconomic desegregation. Although past research suggests that socioeconomic desegregation can produce heightened achievement, the "frog pond" perspective points to potential problems with socioeconomic desegregation in nonachievement domains. Such problems are important in their own right, and they may also chip away at the magnitude of potential achievement benefits. In this article, I report conducted propensity score analyses and robustness calculations on a sample of public high schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. As the proportion of the student body with middle- or high-income parents increased, low-income students progressed less far in math and science. Moreover, as the proportion of the student body with middle- or high-income or college-educated parents increased, low-income students experienced more psychosocial problems. Such patterns were often more pronounced among African American and Latino students. These findings suggest curricular and social psychological mechanisms of oft-noted frog pond effects in schools and extend the frog pond framework beyond achievement itself to demographic statuses (e.g., race/ethnicity and SES) perceptually linked to achievement. In terms of policy, these findings indicate that socioeconomic desegregation plans should also attend to equity in course enrollments and the social integration of students more generally.     

Academic Support Services and Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy in Student Athletes

This study examined the relationship between evaluations of academic support services and student athletes’ career decision‐making self‐efficacy. One hundred and fifty‐eight NCAA athletes (68% male) from 11 Division I teams completed measures of satisfaction with their academic support services, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, general self‐efficacy, and locus of control. Results indicated that evaluations of academic support services were positively related to levels of career decision‐making self‐efficacy. In addition, this relationship was moderated such that student athletes with lower levels of general self‐efficacy and internal locus of control benefited more from positive experiences with academic support services. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

The Effect of Immigrant Communities on Foreign‐Born Student Achievement1

This paper explores the effect of the human capital characteristics of co‐ethnic immigrant communities on foreign‐born students’ math achievement. We use data on New York City public school foreign‐born students from 39 countries merged with census data on the characteristics of the immigrant household heads in the city from each nation of origin and estimate regressions of student achievement on co‐ethnic immigrant community characteristics, controlling for student and school attributes. We find that the income and size of the co‐ethnic immigrant community has no effect on immigrant student achievement, while the percent of college graduates may have a small positive effect. In addition, children in highly English proficient immigrant communities test slightly lower than children from less proficient communities. The results suggest that there may be some protective factors associated with immigrant community members’ education levels and use of native languages.     

Do Schooling and Work Empower Women in Developing Countries? Gender and Domestic Decisions in Sri Lanka

Our work challenges and points out the limitations of the theoretical presumptions underlying the relationship between empowerment, education, and employment that have been emphasized in both the exiting literature and the current rhetoric to empower women in developing countries. We use survey, life history, and focus group data to empirically examine the relationship between schooling, paid work, and power in domestic decision making for young, married women in Sri Lanka. We argue that the relationship between education, work, and women's control of household decisions is conditioned by the larger social context, and as such, it is likely to reflect the extent to which the division of labor and access to information and economic resources are the bases of domestic power in the society under consideration. Our results make a strong case for the need to move away from broad-based conceptualizations of women's empowerment to a consideration of the specific arenas and dimensions along which women can have power. In focusing on the domestic arena alone, we find that there are important differences in both the nature and determinants of the financial as opposed to the social and organizational dimension of power in Sri Lankan households. Women who control one of these aspects of family decisions do not necessarily control the other, and while education and employment play an important role in determining women's input in financial decisions, they are largely immaterial in determining household decisions related to social and organizational matters. Our results also demonstrate the importance of going beyong simplistic and limited measures of schooling and work to consider more fundamental structural factors involving family, social, and economic organization.     

Teacher ethnicity,student ethnicity,and student outcomes

A review of the empirical literature was conducted to establish the relation between teacher and student ethnicity, and cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. It was hypothesized that ethnic teacher–student congruence results in more favorable outcomes for especially minority students. A total of 24 quantitative studies focusing on primary and secondary education in the United States were reviewed. The results show that there is as yet little unambiguous empirical evidence that a stronger degree of ethnic match be it in the form of a one-to-one coupling of a teacher to students with the same ethnic background, or a larger share of ethnic minority teachers at an ethnically mixed school, leads to predominantly positive results. Insofar positive effects were found, they apply to a greater extent to subjective teacher evaluations than to objective achievement outcome measures.     

Reassessing strategies for financing education in South Africa

The paper outlines some alternative education financing strategies for South Africa that need considering given the growth in enrolments at all educational levels, particularly in the face of the continued recession. It is argued that in the long term, while the eradication of apartheid and the creation of a single education ministry undoubtedly will generate resources that currently are being wasted on a multiplicity of education systems and a bloated bureaucracy, the magnitude of the task facing educationists in terms of student numbers suggests that initiatives other than public sector financing may well be required, A review of policy options being formulated for developing countries is provided. However, the development of such strategies for South Africa must involve a careful consideration of equity implications. One way of addressing the issue of educational inequality is to introduce a redistributive strategy, in which the costs of education are redirected toward the wealthier segments of society. In addition, policy options need to be explored concerning cost recovery, grants and loans and the establishment of an education bank for overall policy coordination.     

The Role of Self-Efficacy in Reading Achievement of Young Children in Urban Schools

Academic self-efficacy has been found to be important in predicting educational success among older children and adolescents, but scant work has addressed this for very young children. This study explored (a) whether academic self-efficacy appears to be associated with reading achievement among children in urban elementary schools in primary grades, (b) whether one can differentiate between concepts of self-efficacy and self-concept within this age group, and, if so, which has more predictive power for reading achievement, and (c) whether student motivation and classroom behavior mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and reading. Findings from random-effect multi-level modeling show that children in primary grades can differentiate between self-efficacy and self-concept, and it was task-specific self-efficacy tha1t significantly influenced reading achievement. Of the two possible mediators, student motivation significantly mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and reading achievement. Implications for the role of school social workers in enhancing achievement among young, vulnerable children are discussed.     

Income inequality,cultural capital,and high school students' academic achievement in OECD countries: A moderated mediation analysis

This study examines how social context, in this case, income inequality, shapes the role of cultural capital in educational success. First, we revisit the associations between (objectified) cultural capital and academic achievement, and cultural capital's role in mediating the relationship between family SES and academic achievement. More importantly, we explore how national-level income inequality moderates these two relationships. By analyzing a multilevel dataset of 32 OECD countries, a combination of PISA 2018 data and several national indexes, we find that: (1) cultural capital not only has a positive association with students' academic achievement but also acts as a significant mediator of the relationship between family SES and academic achievement in OECD countries; (2) both cultural capital's association with academic achievement and it's mediating role are stronger in more equal countries than in unequal ones. The findings shed new light on understanding how cultural capital shapes intergenerational education inequality across countries with different levels of inequality.     

Testing the feasibility of a value‐added model of school quality in a low‐income country

Value‐added models (VAMS) are commonly used in high‐income countries for measuring the quality of teachers and schools, on the grounds that they are a fairer reflection of true quality than simple average test scores, as they account for differences in student intake. Not accounting for student's prior test scores can give a misleading impression of school quality. In this article, we adapt the current VAM of secondary school quality to the Ugandan context, and test its robustness. Using official test score data from Uganda, we test the robustness of the model to a range of different empirical specifications, including sensitivity to the inclusion of controls for student socioeconomic status. We find that the model is robust to a variety of different specifications and control variables. The VAM is low cost and has the potential to provide a clearer signal to parents, teachers, schools, and policy‐makers about how much learning is actually happening in different schools. This approach could be carried out at low cost in a wide range of low‐income countries that have similar testing regimes.     

Lessons from the evolution of 401(k) retirement plans for increased consumerism in health care: an application of behavioral research

Employment-based health and retirement benefit programs have followed a similar path of evolution. The relative decision-making roles of the employer and the worker have shifted from the employer to the worker, and workers are more responsible than perhaps they ever have been for their well being--both in terms of their health in general and their financial security during retirement. This shift has been supported, in part, by legislation--namely ERISA, the HMO Act of 1973, the Revenue Act of 1978, and most recently, the Pension Protection Act. This Issue Brief does not pass judgment on this development or address who should bear the responsibilities of preparing workers for retirement or of rationing health care services. The current trend in health care design is toward increased "consumerism." Consumer-driven health is based on the assumption that the combination of greater cost sharing (by workers) and better information about the cost and quality of health care will engage workers to become better health care decision makers. It is hoped that workers will seek important, necessary, high-quality, cost-effective care and services, and become less likely to engage providers and services that are unnecessary and ineffective from either a quality or cost perspective. As employers look ahead toward continually improved plan design, there may be benefits in considering the lessons learned from studying worker behaviors. Specifically, there is evidence about the effects of choice, financial incentives, and information on worker decision making. As a result of research in this area, many retirement plan sponsors have moved toward plan designs and programs that recognize the benefits of well-designed defaults, simplified choices, required active decision making, framing, and commitment to future improvements. With respect to choice, it is now known that more is not always better and may even be worse in some cases. Just as fewer shoppers actually bought a jar of jelly when it was one of 24 as opposed to one of six, evidence has shown that people tend to be less likely to join a company-sponsored retirement plan when more investment options are offered. More choice can also lead to lower satisfaction. It is also known that workers may not be able to appropriately sort through many complex alternatives and that education is not always as effective as employers would hope. Decision complexity often forces people to find a way to simplify, and one of the easiest rules of thumb is to pick the option with the lowest short-term cost, even when that alternative is more costly in the longer run. It is also known that, for good or for bad, choices are constructed on the fly; preferences are dynamic, and logic does not always apply. Financial incentives are helpful in motivating behavior, but they do not affect everyone's decisions. Despite significant financial incentives to participate in 401(k) plans, many workers choose not to. Similarly, despite many of the financial incentives embedded in health care plan design, it can be expected that these incentives will not effectively motivate and engage all workers. One seemingly rational approach to improve workers' decision making is to provide education and guidance to help them sort through complex alternatives and to demonstrate the value of financial incentives. Certainly, providing education and guidance in the form of decision support tools may be an employer's responsibility. However, some studies have shown that, even when "educated" workers have the intent to make improved decisions, they often lack follow-through and fail to take action. In short, education and guidance may not be enough to foster improved health care consumerism. Some employers have begun to design benefit programs with a view toward overcoming behavioral tendencies that negatively affect workers' well-being. Newer retirement plan designs involve careful consideration of default choices. These defaults apply unless workers actively choose a different alternative. Typically, the default attempts to "nudge" workers toward optimal behavior. In the case of 401(k) retirement plan design, more employers are moving toward a default of automatic enrollment in the plan, with automatic investment in a diversified portfolio. Still, additional empirical research and experimentation may be needed to further understand the effects of new retirement plan design features. Future work may also precisely illuminate how the lessons discussed in this Issue Brief may apply to health care plan design that results in improved health-related behaviors. Given the impressive preliminary results in improving retirement planning behaviors, such research and experimentation are likely to be worthwhile.     

转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性因素

学校教育制度应该促进农村学生的向上社会流动,然而在我国社会转型过程中的教育制度以城市教育为中心,优先发展城市教育,以"市场能力"和学业成绩作为学校选拔规则,以及重点学校制度对农村学生获得高一级教育机会的制约,导致了对农村学生的"教育排斥"。教育制度的城市化、市场化、精英化取向是转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性原因。将现阶段农村教育主要功能定位于促进农村学生城市化和社会地位升迁,确立教育制度的正义原则,实现对农村学生的"差异补偿"是解决这一问题的主要思路。     

Grade-induced beliefs about undergraduate generalist social work practice competency

Standardized criterion-referenced achievement testing of undergraduate generalist social work knowledge based on correct answers to specific questions is compared to several norm-referenced measures of student learning, including student self-reports and the instructor-imposed cumulative grade point average (GPA). Two hypotheses are tested, namely, (a) norm-referenced measures systematically overstate content knowledge, and (b) student perception or belief about the ascribed meaning of the GPA inflates self-rated attainments. The implications of additional confirming evidence for the hypotheses are explored with a view to limiting the number of social workers with undergraduate degrees who are permitted to enter the field each year overconfident about their knowledge and practice capabilities.     

The measurement of success in achieving the Millennium Development Goals

A new class of multidimensional indices is axiomatically characterized to assess countries’ overall success in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For that purpose we distinguish between the notions of progress and success functions. While the former basically measure changes between two points in time, the later essentially check whether these changes have been large enough to reach a prespecified target. These indices overcome some of the shortcomings of other conceptually related measures that have been proposed in the literature. Using data from the UN Statistical Office for the new indices, our results suggest that: i) On average, countries have only bridged about 23 % of the gap towards complete achievement of the MDGs, and ii) The best performing countries have only bridged around 40 % of that gap. The observed evolution has been relatively small and highly uneven across countries and dimensions, therefore posing an important challenge for international development agencies and national governments who aim to promote progress in the different MDGs.     

NPO,Internal Controls,and Supervision Mechanisms in a Developing Country

The premise of this paper is that effective supervision and proper internal control system (ICS) can promote accountability and transparency, and this will attract more donors. However, in a developing country like Malaysia, it is common that proper accounting standards are not available, the laws are not enforced, and charities often struggle for survival. Debates on regulating nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have been sensitive to many and are often left unresolved, and some quarters believe that NPOs should be left to handle their own affairs. This paper provides evidence from a survey of 60 charities on the status of their ICS. It briefly describes the current state of regulations in Malaysia and makes a case for better monitoring of the sector, as this might be the reason NPOs are lacking in their ICS. We propose what type of regulation and assistance can be provided by the authorities to this sector, not only in Malaysia but also in other developing countries facing similar challenges.