Trends in Maths and Science Study (TIMSS): National Report for England

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is overseen by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). It provides participating countries internationally comparable data on the performance and attitudes of 9 to 10 (year 5) and 13 to 14 year-olds (year 9) in maths and science as well as comparisons of the curriculum and the teaching of these subjects in primary and secondary schools. Fifty-seven countries and seven benchmarking entities participated in TIMSS 20151. England has participated in TIMSS since the study was first carried out in 1995 and in each subsequent four-yearly cycle, meaning that 2015 represents the study’s sixth cycle. The study therefore provides valuable trends in England’s absolute and relative performance over a twenty-year period. In England, testing was conducted with pupils in years 5 and 9 in May and June 2015, with a sample of over 8,800 pupils across 290 schools. England’s year 5 cohort started school in 2009 and sat the new Key Stage 2 tests in the summer of 2016. The year 9 cohort started school in 2005 and will take the new GCSEs in summer 2017, having started secondary school in 2012. This TIMSS National Report for England focuses on comparisons of our pupils’ performance and their experiences of maths and science teaching compared to: high-performing and rapidly improving countries; other English-speaking countries; and similar countries in terms of context and geography. The TIMSS International Report 2015 offers comparisons across all participating countries

Changing Preferences for Brexit: Identifying the Groups with Volatile Support for 'Leave'

This paper explores the dynamics of support for the UK’s departure from the EU over the course of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017. It further identifies groups with a particular profile in terms of political attitudes and behaviours and explores whether these groups show a marked change in their support for leave. The paper draws on two contrasting perspectives on voter volatility. While the first one considers the phenomenon to be a characteristic of whimsical, uninterested and disengaged people, the second one sees it in a more positive light as it associates volatility with the informed and emancipate citizen holding politicians to account. The study uses Waves 6, 7 and 8 of Understanding Society and conducts various analyses, including latent class analysis (LCA), to explore the research questions. LCA yields four groups with distinct political profiles. Only one of these groups, labelled “the highly engaged and satisfied”, shows a significant increase in support for leave. The other groups, including “the non-engaged” and “the dissatisfied”, are not becoming significantly more or less supportive of leave. The results are thus more in accordance with the second perspective

Revisiting the debate on inequality: a longitudinal study using the British cohort study 1970

This dissertation aims at reassessing of impact of family background, education and abilities on the educational and occupational outcomes of a British cohort sample (British Cohort Study 1970). This is pursued in three independent studies, each of which is presented as a stand alone chapter. Chapter 2 has shed some light on the relative importance of the dimensions of concerted cultivation in accounting for the children's differences in reading ability and locus of control across socioeconomic groups. The results show that it is the engagement in cognitively stimulating and reading activities and not the participation in organized activities more generally that enhances children's reading ability and the locus of control. Path analyses confirm that the selected dimensions of parent-child cultivation - parental expectations, direct stimulation, parental interactions with the school and children's engagement in cognitively stimulating activities - mediate the socioeconomic gradient in children's reading ability and the locus of control, even after controlling for the previous level of abilities. In addition, the effect of parent-child cultivation is stronger than that of parental socioeconomic characteristics. Using instrumental variable technique, chapter 3 detected both the upper bound and lower bound estimates in the range of variations of returns to education. The inclusion of pre-school ability and birthweight to detect the upper bound effect yielded higher estimates of the impact of education on occupation than did OLS models. The model designed to detect the lower bound estimate of the education effect used the mother's smoking habit during pregnancy as an instrument and yielded consistent and substantial estimates in some cases. These results are in line with a local average treatment effect interpretation of instrumental variables estimates of education which states that IV identifies the effects regarding only those who change their behavior as a response to the instrument-mechanism. As the competence accumulated before starting formal education increases the returns to additional education, most students will profit from attending schooling, although to a decreasing extent as we observe less and less able children. Only a minor proportion of children with extreme cognitive (dis)advantages will probably not take advantage of school attendance, at least in relation to occupational and cognitive outcomes. Chapter 4 has contributed to the research on the impact of so-called non-cognitive traits on socioeconomic outcomes. Drawing on strain theory, it confirms that the child's adaptive strategies as indicated by acceptance of school and goals of socioeconomic success capture key aspects of the non-cognitive processes in educational and occupation attainments. They also account for the bulk of the impact of parental background on the child's socioeconomic outcomes. The results are validated against other competing factors, such as leisure activities and psychological traits, which turn out not to be substantially associated with educational and occupational outcomes

Parent-child cultivation and children’s cognitive and attitudinal outcomes from a longitudinal perspective

This work adopts the concept of “concerted cultivation” (Lareau A. American Sociological Review 67(5), 747–776, 2002, 2003) to interpret how socioeconomic differentials in child rearing practices generate unequal children’s outcomes, distinguishing between children’s participation in organized leisure activities and children’s engagement in cognitively stimulating activities. Results show that it is the engagement in cognitively stimulating activities and not the participation in organized activities more generally that enhances children’s reading ability and the locus of control. Path analyses confirm that the selected dimensions of parent-child cultivation—parental expectations, direct stimulation, parental interactions with the school and children’s engagement in cognitively stimulating activities—mediate more than half of the socioeconomic gradient in children’s reading ability and the locus of control, even after controlling for the previous level of abilities. In addiction, the effect of parent-child cultivation is largely independent from and stronger than parental socioeconomic characteristics. The model is assessed on a large cohort sample (British Cohort Study 1970).<br/

Education reform in Spain: Actors and consequences of an incomplete transformation

This study examines why countries adopt or do not adopt pro-equality educational reforms from the political economy and historical perspective. Our study steps into a century-long debate on advantages and disadvantages of less selective schooling and analyzes the conditions, which enable the spillover of international and domestic educational discourse into policy discourse, adoption of policies increasing equality of educational opportunities and successful implementation of these policies. We document a stable balance of political and social forces. Parents with high socioeconomic status and teachers in elite academic schools oppose less selective schooling and frame later tracking as a threat to the quality of schooling. In contrast, primary school teachers tend to be in favor of more comprehensive schooling, which raises their status; however, their attitudes are often ambiguous. Not surprisingly, the mobilization of parents with low socioeconomic status is low and interests of their children tend to be promoted by scholars, non-governmental organizations or international organizations. Left-leaning parties tend to be in favor of later tracking. In contrast, right-leaning parties tend to favor earlier tracking. However, under certain circumstances – such as electoral demand or needs of the local industry – they are willing to shift their attitudes in favor of comprehensive schooling. We document that reforms occur in both extraordinary times, such as economic crisis or regime change, and ordinary times, where the successful adoption of the pro-equality educational policy depends on bi-partisan consensus or a re-framing of the later tracking as a pro-growth measure

The effect of computerisation on the wage share in United Kingdom workplaces

This historical paper analyses the distributional consequences of computerisation on the wage share of income in United Kingdom (UK) workplaces in the first decade of this century. The reasons why computerisation might increase a firm’s income but reduce the share assigned to wages are still not well understood. The uniquely rich Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004–2011 includes firm-level measures of the main production inputs and outputs, and thus allows an analysis of the main mechanisms through which increased computer usage influenced the wage share of income in UK workplaces over this period. This analysis shows that the proportion of employees using computers impacted the wage share in ways that were at odds with two mainstream views: that computers complement capital, and that labour can be easily replaced by capital. The results show that the proportion of employees using computers reduced the wage share by disproportionally increasing the productivity of the least skilled employees, who were not proportionally compensated for their increase in productivity. The stability of the wage share, over the period of interest, is explained by the rise in a workplace’s share of professional employees and by a rise in work effort. This positive contribution to the wage share was counteracted by an increased share of employees using computers and by a reduction in the share of employees whose pay was negotiated by unions, thereby contributing to a decline in the wage share of firm income

To leave or not to leave? Understanding the support for the United Kingdom membership in the European Union: identity, attitudes towards the political system and socioeconomic status

This article proposes a decision model of the British support for leaving the European Union (EU) that includes both identity aspirations, attitudes towards the political system and economic interest and test it on the Understanding Society 6th, 7th and 8thsurveys. Current studies tend to interpret the British Euroscepticism as a combination of attachment to British identity, lack of economic opportunities and dissatisfaction with the political class. Using this approach where factors are additive, it is not possible to account for the substantial portion of socio-economically advantaged individuals which prefer to leave the EU, and for those who, despite their low attachment to their British identity, the relatively high educational level and satisfaction with domestic democracy, prefer to leave the EU. I use a theoretical approach which considers both economic and cultural considerations are rational considerations and conceptualise their interaction in terms of trade off. I use classification tree analysis to evaluate the relative importance of the main explanatory factors and of their interaction. The results show that the negative evaluation of the political system makes certain groups, which otherwise tend to support European integration, lean towards Euroscepticism. It helps to explain the Euroscepticism of those who are less attached to their British identity and of advantaged classes. The results have also showed that anti-establishment attitudes are not associated with disadvantaged socio-economic groups. The dissatisfaction with domestic democracy is relevant mostly for the advantaged classes, and the lack of political efficacy affects equally the attitudes of advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Last, disadvantaged groups’ support for European integration is driven by identity aspirations not by economic interes

The policy pod: learning inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic

Dr Nic Pensiero and Dr Christian Bokhove join us for the first episode of a brand new season of The Policy Pod. They discuss the UK Understanding Society 2020 and 2021 data, which is the largest longitudinal study of its kind and allowed crucial insights into household dynamics during the Covid-19 pandemic. The data indicates that existing learning inequalities were exacerbated during the first school closure, and whilst these didn't worsen during the second, our guests question why they did not altogether reduce. Answering this may lie in considering the role of the home in addition to provisions from schools. Also discussed are the National Tutoring Programme, learning loss, the examinations fiasco, teacher assessed grades and...breathing patterns