Childhood, human rights and adversity : the case of children and military conflict

The Convention on the rights of the Child focuses global attention on those children living in adverse situations crystallising a global commitment to protecting children. Nevertheless, beyond these commitments to children, researchers have questioned whether the rights agenda captures the diversity of children’s lives globally. Does the Convention connect with the lifeworlds of children playing formative roles? Drawing on critical research on children’s rights I address this question through analysing the roles that children play in military conflict. I explore a human rights framework, which highlights the agency of child soldiers focusing on their material, social and political capacities

Children’s participation : definitions, narratives and disputes

This chapter maps out the research field for children’s participation, which has arguably become a research orthodoxy within childhood studies. It discusses a dominant narrative of children’s participation, which determines the way in which participation is organised and understood within the public realm. It outlines two narratives that challenge the assumptions made within the dominant narrative. It focuses on a critical narrative in terms of the institutional, elitist and adult-driven nature of current arrangements and practices of children’s participation. A further challenge comes from an emergent narrative that emphasises more recent research on the multidimensional, context-specific and relational features of children’s participation. The final section draws on a Rawlsian framework within which we can interrogate contemporary theory and practice on children’s participation

Inequality in Higher Education and the Labor Market

Understanding the link between socioeconomic status and access to higher education (HE) is an important challenge for understanding how governments can better promote social mobility. Inequality in higher education participation, coupled with a positive significant wage return to HE, has clear implications for income inequality and lower future rates of social mobility. For example, the Scandinavian countries have more equal access to higher education which, together with smaller wage differentials due to higher education in the labor market, results in a relatively equal society. On the other hand, in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, access to higher education is highly determined by individuals’ background. This, coupled with bigger wage returns to degrees..

Benchmarking London in the PISA rankings

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important international study of 15-year-olds' academic achievement. Although PISA has traditionally been used to draw comparisons across countries, there is growing interest in the production of regional (i.e. city, state, or provincial level) results. In this paper we present the first attempt to benchmark London in the PISA rankings. Pooling data across the 2009 and 2012 survey waves, we estimated a 95 per cent confidence interval for London's mathematics, reading, and science PISA scores. These are compared not only to country-level averages, but also to the scores of other major world cities and states. The paper concludes by discussing how these results should be interpreted, and possible directions for future research

What is the nature and extent of student–university mismatch?

A growing body of research has begun to examine the match between student ability and university quality. Initial research focused on overmatch—where students are lower attaining than their college peers. However, more recently, attention has turned to undermatch, where students attend institutions with lower attaining peers. Both have been shown to matter for student outcomes; while in theory overmatch could be desirable, there is evidence that overmatched students are less likely to graduate college. Undermatched students, meanwhile, have been shown to experience lower graduate earnings

Does education raise people's productivity or does it just signal their existing ability?

As has been widely documented, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to 'significant' learning loss. While many have called for catch-up measures, there are counterarguments based on the hypothesis that education itself is a waste of time and money (Caplan, 2018) which imply that such measures aren't necessary: as long as young people are ultimately awarded educational qualifcations (e.g. GCSE and A level grades) reflecting their ability then they will be able to progress in their lives regardless. At the heart of this debate is the fundamental question of whether education is a worthwhile investment from society's perspective, acting to drive economic growth by making individuals happier, healthier and more productive. Or whether it is merely an expensive way for individuals to signal their pre-existing productivity and, hence, to help education institutions and employers choose between applicants. This question has been the subject of research for many years, and in this briefing note we present the evidence from the most rigorous quantitative studies

The path increasingly travelled: Vocational entry qualifications, socioeconomic status and university outcomes

Many countries have introduced flexibility in their admissions equivalents for tertiary education, allowing students to apply with vocational rather than academic qualifications at upper secondary level. However, entrants with vocational qualifications are generally less likely to succeed at university. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are also, on average, less likely to succeed: they are more likely to drop out, or graduate with a lower class degree, even when they have the same prior attainment scores and take the same university course. Rich individual-level data in England drawn from administrative records allow us to link outcomes at university with social background and attainment and qualification routes at school, going back to lower secondary level, before academic and vocational pathways diverge. We can thus use the English example to explore whether the relative lack of success of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds is in part because they are more likely to enter university with non-traditional qualifications that offer less effective preparation for study. Our results reveal a significant penalty associated with entering university with these vocational qualifications. Controlling for qualification type reduces the SES gradient in dropping out of university by 42%, and graduation with a lower class degree by 28%, although significant SES gradients in success still remain. There is a tension between allowing students from lower SES backgrounds to use vocational routes to enter university and these persistent gaps in university outcomes. Countries using both vocational and academic routes as pathways to university should be aware of this potential conflict

Inequalities in young peoples' educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic

While the health risks of Covid-19 for young people are low, they have borne a heavy cost of the pandemic through intense disruption to their education and social lives. These effects have not been experienced equally across social and demographic groups. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 4,000 young people linked to their education records, we study inequalities in young people's experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic. We find particularly stark inequalities by socio-economic status, with young people from poorer families facing disadvantage on multiple fronts, particularly in their experiences of home learning, returning to school, and exam cancellations compared to more advantaged young people. Gender and ethnic inequalities were more mixed, though young females reported significantly lower wellbeing scores than males. This evidence suggests that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, meaning policymakers concerned with increasing equity and social mobility now face an even bigger task than before

Grade Expectations: How well can we predict future grades based on past performance?

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented disruption of England's education system, including the cancellation of all formal examination. Instead of sitting exams, the class of 2020 will be assigned "calculated grades" based on predictions by their teachers. However, teacher predictions of pupil grades are a common feature of the English education system, with such predictions forming the basis of university applications in normal years. But previous research has shown these predictions are highly inaccurate, creating concern for teachers, pupils and parents. In this paper, we ask whether it is possible to improve on teachers' predictions, using detailed measures of pupils' past performance and non-linear and machine learning approaches. Despite lacking their informal knowledge, we can make modest improvements on the accuracy of teacher predictions with our models, with around 1 in 4 pupils being correctly predicted. We show that predictions are improved where we have information on 'related' GCSEs. We also find heterogeneity in the ability to predict successfully, according to student achievement, school type and subject of study. Notably, high achieving non-selective state school pupils are more likely to be under-predicted compared to their selective state and private school counterparts. Overall, the low rates of prediction, regardless of the approach taken, raises the question as to why predicted grades form such a crucial part of our education system