The Role of School Resources and National Educational Context in Student Learning Gains: Comparing Botswana, Kenya and South Africa

We take an innovative approach to estimating student mathematics learning in the sixth grade of three African countries. The study reinforces the notion that beyond the quality of the teaching process in classrooms, national contextual factors are important in understanding the contribution that schooling makes to student performance. Our approach enhances more typical cross-sectional production function estimates in three ways: (1) to respond to critiques that production function estimates usually do not include classroom processes, we measure both teacher characteristics and teaching process variables and include them in the model; (2) to more clearly identify student learning with schooling processes, we estimate the gain in learning associated with a student’s exposure to teaching characteristics and processes during the sixth-grade academic year in each country; and (3) to begin to address the issue of possible “national institutional factors” influencing student achievement, we use a comparative approach to approximate and initiate discussion of “country fixed effects.

Employment mobility in high-technology agglomerations: the cases of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire

This paper examines labour market behaviour of the highly skilled in high-tech local economies, taking the UK examples of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire as case studies. It reports on data from a survey of members of three scientific institutes to compare rates of employee mobility in the two locations and considers the likely explanations and implications of those patterns

High School Exit Examinations: When Do Learning Effects Generalize?

This paper reviews international and domestic evidence on the effects of three types of high school exit exam systems: voluntary curriculum-based external exit exams, universal curriculum-based external exit exam systems and minimum competency tests that must be passed to receive a regular high school diploma. The nations and provinces that use Universal CBEEES (and typically teacher grades as well) to signal student achievement have significantly higher achievement levels and smaller differentials by family background than otherwise comparable jurisdictions that base high stakes decisions on voluntary college admissions tests and/or teacher grades. The introduction of Universal CBEEES in New York and North Carolina during the 1990s was associated with large increases in math achievement on NAEP tests. Research on MCTs and high school accountability tests is less conclusive because these systems are new and have only been implemented in one country. Cross-section studies using a comprehensive set of controls for family background have not found that students in MCT states score higher on audit tests like the NAEP that carry no stakes for the test taker. The analysis reported in table 1 tells us that the five states that introduced MCTs during the 1990s had significantly larger improvements on NAEP tests than states that made no change in their student accountability regime. The gains, however, are smaller than for the states introducing Universal CBEEES. New York and North Carolina. The most positive finding about MCTs is that students in MCT states earn significantly more during the first eight years after graduation than comparable students in other states suggesting that MCTs improve employer perceptions of the quality of the recent graduates of local high schools

Positron-neutrino correlation in the 0^+ \to 0^+ decay of ^{32}Ar

The positron-neutrino correlation in the $0^+ \to 0^+ \beta$ decay of $^{32}$Ar was measured at ISOLDE by analyzing the effect of lepton recoil on the shape of the narrow proton group following the superallowed decay. Our result is consistent with the Standard Model prediction. For vanishing Fierz interference we find $a=0.9989 \pm 0.0052 \pm 0.0036$, which yields improved constraints on scalar weak interactions

Assessing gender mainstreaming in the education sector: depoliticised technique or a step towards women's rights and gender equality?

In 1995 the Beijing Conference on Women identified gender mainstreaming as a key area for action. Policies to effect gender mainstreaming have since been widely adopted. This special issue of Compare looks at research on how gender mainstreaming has been used in government education departments, schools, higher education institutions, international agencies and NGOs .1 In this introduction we first provide a brief history of the emergence of gender mainstreaming and review changing definitions of the term. In the process we outline some policy initiatives that have attempted to mainstream gender and consider some difficulties with putting ideas into practice, particularly the tensions between a technical and transformative interpretations . Much of the literature about experiences with gender mainstreaming tends to look at organizational processes and not any specificities of a particular social sector. However, in our second section, we are concerned to explore whether institutional forms and particular actions associated with education give gender mainstreaming in education sites some distinctive features. In our last section we consider some of the debates about global and local negotiations in discussions of gender policy and education and the light this throws on gender mainstreaming. In so doing, we place the articles that follow in relation to contestations over ownership, political economy, the form and content of education practice and the social complexity of gender equality

chapter 1 Introduction: Evidence and Decision Making

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72236/1/j.1744-7984.2007.00095.x.pd

Right Handed Weak Currents in Sum Rules for Axialvector Constant Renormalization

The recent experimental results on deep inelastic polarized lepton scattering off proton, deuteron and $^{3}$He together with polari% zed neutron $\beta$-decay data are analyzed. It is shown that the problem of Ellis-Jaffe and Bjorken sum rules deficiency and the neutron paradox could be solved simultaneously by assuming the small right handed current (RHC) admixture in the weak interaction Lagrangian. The possible RHC impact on pion-nucleon $\sigma$-term and Gamow-Teller sum rule for $(p,n)$ nuclear reactions is pointed out.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett. LaTeX, 8 pages, 21 k

Women’s participation in organisationally-assigned expatriation: an assignment type effect?

This article examines women’s participation in long-term, short-term, rotational and commuter organisationally-assigned expatriation. It explores the effects of assignment length, pattern and accompanied/unaccompanied status on career contribution and home/family life outcomes. This triangulated research draws upon e-mail correspondence with 71 current female expatriates to learn about assignment types undertaken and future assignment intentions; and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 26 of these assignees, and 14 Human Resource professionals in two case study oil and gas firms. This research is set within the theoretical frame of rational choice which suggests that couples engage co-operatively in their division of labour to maximise lifetime earnings, with women prioritising home and family over career prospects. The research finds that long-term assignments enable women to maximise or achieve high levels of both career and family outcomes. Alternative ‘flexpatriate’ assignments provide lower quality career potential and familial relationships, leading to career and/or family compromise/sacrifice. A model is presented to explain women’s assignment preferences in meeting career and family life objectives, extending rational choice theory into the expatriate context. Increasing use of flexpatriation may inhibit expatriate gender diversity

Is equal access to higher education in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa achievable by 2030?

Higher education is back in the spotlight, with post-2015 sustainable development goals emphasising equality of access. In this paper, we highlight the long distance still to travel to achieve the goal of equal access to higher education for all, with a focus on poorer countries which tend to have lower levels of enrolment in higher education. Analysing Demographic and Health Survey data from 35 low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, we show wide wealth inequalities in particular, with few if any of the poorest gaining access to higher education in some countries. We further identify that wealth and gender inequalities interact and tend to be wider in countries where levels of higher education are higher. This implies that expansion in access to higher education may predominantly benefit the rich, unless measures are taken to tackle inequalities. We find that that the rates of increase necessary for the attainment of the equal access goal by 2030 are particularly high. They pose a particularly difficult challenge given the access inequalities present from primary and secondary education in a wide majority of countries in our analysis. We therefore suggest that any measures aimed at attaining the goal need to tackle inequalities in access within a system-wide approach, focusing on the level of education at which inequalities initially manifest, alongside higher education.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0039-