The last few decades have significantly changed international research collaborations in the social sciences. Projects now span multiple countries, employ diverse methodologies, and involve various actors, producing varied data for dissemination across scholarship, practice, and policy domains. Such complexity poses not only research challenges but also considerable legislative concerns, particularly regarding privacy protection and the evolving landscape of data gathering and usage. Navigating the increasingly flexible and intricate nature of contemporary research, alongside constantly changing legislation, has become a new hurdle for delivering robust comparative projects. Employing a case study approach, we examine the ethical approval process experienced by the project team members, including postdoctoral and doctoral students, project advisory board members, and the PI. The project under investigation encompassed several potential challenges: a range of qualitative research methods, sensitive topics, multi-site data collection, participants under 18, and the use of social media data. We traced this process across multiple international sites, demonstrating how these challenges collectively contributed to the overall complexity of ethical and data governance issues. Our findings illustrate the difficulties presented by ethical approval processes, the changes these processes imposed on the study design, and inconsistencies within the ethical clearance process across funding entities, countries, and institutions. We underscore three disjunctures inherent in ethical approval processes. By mapping the ethical route across multiple sites, we offer insights for researchers planning international projects, as well as for Research Ethics Committees, institutions, and other stakeholders within higher education seeking to support research endeavours.

Migration profoundly shapes the lives of young people and is a polarizing topic in public discourse globally. This article examines if and how secondary school students across six countries with significant migration connect the issue of migration with their understanding of active citizenship. Employing Thorson's concept of citizenship vocabularies, we document and analyze young people's perceptions as well as the resources, narratives, and frameworks they use to make sense of migration, citizenship, and civic life. Drawing on data from deliberative discussion groups, the study adds depth to our understanding of how the current generation of youth engages with a complex and multifaceted social issue and makes an important contribution to debates concerning citizenship education, youth activism, and migration.

Global citizenship education (GCE) has become a key topic in educational discourse, especially since its inclusion in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This scoping literature review analyses 43 articles published between 2012 and 2023 on school-age youth activism within GCE literature. Articles were sourced from the EBSCO, ERIC, and WoS databases, using keywords related to youth, activism, and GCE. The review finds that research on GCE programmes focused on promoting forms of activism found them to be resource-intensive and predominantly based in affluent schools in the Global North. Programmes featured in the studies often emphasise social sciences and promote student activism in topics such as climate change and human rights. Activism depicted in these studies largely excludes the epistemological questioning necessary for Global North–South cooperation, being confined to specific subjects and contexts. The review calls for more research on school-age youth activism within the GCE framework and for the development of new programmes addressing activism in various contexts and in more nuanced ways.

This review outlines the scholarship landscape and uncovers the nature and key characteristics of activism related to migrant school-aged youth. Employing PICOT and PRISMA protocols, 126 relevant articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2023 were identified. We employed a three-layered, mixed-methods analytical framework to map the scholarship and to decipher the nature of agency and the voice of activism. The review revealed that migrant youth engage in diverse forms of activism, primarily driven by their anchoring to society and a desire to secure their rights. Furthermore, we found activism concerning school-aged migrants is often initiated and led by their allies (e.g., NGOs, schools) and consequently studied from the latter’s perspectives. Our findings highlight an overrepresentation of investigations focusing on issues surrounding activism rather than migrants’ lived experiences of activism. This analysis lays the groundwork for a further conceptualization of the field of migrant school-aged youth.

This study investigates how internal quality and quality assurance are perceived and operated by Russian graduate engineering programmes directors. Based on semi-structured interviews (n = 15) and thematic analysis, four themes are revealed: the managerial role, with varying levels of directors’ proactivity; students’ intake quality, ranging from passive to proactive approaches; the managerial insight, represented by a combination of internal perceptions and different metrics and quality assurance practices, including student feedback, personal interactions and handling complaints. It was identified that quality, when matched to Harvey and Green’s (1993) conceptualisation, is viewed by directors as ‘exceptional’ across all the approaches, whereas quality as ‘fit for purpose’ is highlighted less frequently. This study contributes to discussions on quality culture and quality conceptualisations in contexts where engineering education is prioritised and heavily regulated. The findings may inform policymakers in similar contexts and guide university managers in fostering a quality culture within their institutions.

As the research focus shifts from the technical to the human side of education, the relevance of measuring sociopsychological traits is growing. Despite proven validity and demand for the Kirton AdaptionInnovation Inventory, or KAI, in international and Russian studies, the scale has not previously been adapted for the Russianspeaking audience. The article describes the results of scale adaptation aimed at estimating the cognitive style of Russian teachers and school administrators. The proposed version of the translation considers the specifics of the Russian language and the context of the educational sphere, simultaneously being equivalent in meaning to the original scale. The readability check indicated that the question wordings fit the education level of the target audience. An iterative process of development and empirical testing of the psychometric properties (N₁ = 137, N₂ = 1236, N₃ = 204) led to satisfactory scores for the three scales, items, and response categories. The analysis relies on the classical test theory and the IRTRSM model. The final questionnaire includes 26 items and allows us to evaluate the three factors: “Originality and independence”, “Thoroughness and selforganization”, and “Inertia and request for instructions”. Besides, the article demonstrates that the adapted version of the questionnaire does not show increased social desirability. The proposed tool is potentially useful for research and practical purposes to study the cognitive styles of teachers and school administrators, as well as groups close to them, including workers at other levels of education and the social sphere in general. The article provides a full version of the final methodology and practical recommendations for managing innovators and adaptors within an educational organization.

Purpose: The study examines how teachers and school administrative staff perceive external and internal barriers to the implementation of technologies into the teaching process and how teachers and school administrative staff technology readiness is related to these perceptions. These data were used for discussion and construction of an explanatory model. Design/methodology/approach: The data from 8,188 Russian respondents who took the survey just before the first massive lockdown announcement due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) was used. First, descriptive statistics were shown for two groups: teachers and administrative staff. Second, confirmatory factor analysis was applied to construct external and internal barriers scales. These scales were then used as dependent in a series of regressions with the technology readiness index (TRI) and the respondent role in schools as independent variables. Findings: Results showed that administrative staff compared to teachers were more likely to select internal barriers related to teachers, while teachers were more likely to choose external obstacles. The technology optimism scale was negative, and negative attitudes toward technologies were positively related to both barriers. Originality/value: The originality of the study lies in determining the relationship between the technology readiness and choosing barriers perception as well as comparing the sense of responsibility for the introduction of technologies in schools experienced by teachers and administrators.

Upon initial publication this article's publication date was incorrectly listed as 05 September. The actual publication date was 15 October. The publisher regrets this error.

The reasons for innovations inside and outside the education system have attracted much research interest over the past decades. However, there is still a lack of methodological tools to measure motives of actors coming from inside and outside the system to launch their innovative projects. The article describes approaches to measure the construct “motivation for innovative activity,” as well as the results of adaptation of the scale aimed at measuring motives for creation of innovative educational projects. The tool is based on the scale, constructed in English, “Reasons to create business projects” (PSED). In this research the scale was translated into Russian, adapted for the group of innovators in education and validated within a classical framework of combining exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA, respectively). Additionally, the subscales were evaluated in terms of internal coherence. The Russian and the English version of the scale were compared, and each subscale was interpreted. Adaptation was performed on the sample of innovators in education, that is, the participants of Competition of Innovations in Education (N = 286). The final scale includes 16 statements and allows to evaluate the intensity of four motivational attitudes towards innovative activity: “Social significance,” “Innovations and creativity,” “Self-realization and achievement,” “Finance and autonomy.” The identified motives reflect certain endeavors and goals of innovators and determine the content and orientation of their educational projects. The instrument can be used for both research and practice purposes to explore motivation of proactive actors in education, as well as similar groups involved in the development of public social spheres. The full version of the scale is presented in the appendix and contains the instructions for respondents and scoring criteria for four subscales.

It is well established that family socio-economic status (SES) is strongly related to academic performance. Nonetheless, there is a group of children with high levels of academic achievement who come from disadvantaged family backgrounds. These children possess what is called ‘academic resilience’. In our study, we want to see whether the two largest international comparative studies are consistent in terms of identifying resilient students and whether the factors of academic resilience are common for the two studies. We use data from a Russian longitudinal study Trajectories in Education and Careers (TrEC), in which students' achievement was measured with both the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 8th grade) and, a year later, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Our study focuses on the relationship between individual and school-related factors of resilience and whether these factors are specific to a particular educational outcome (TIMSS or PISA), or are of a more universal nature. We show that attitudes towards mathematics and test scores in general are positively related to the probability of becoming a resilient student. We also find that school related variables (such as average school SES and school type) are more significant for TIMSS than for PISA results. Our study shows that there are students who are both TIMSS and PISA resilient.

Sociologists have argued that high-stakes tests open the door to high levels of educational inequality at transition points: In a high-stakes testing regime, parents and students are able to focus all energy and resources on test preparation, thus enhancing pre-existing inequalities in academic performance. But arguments about a special role for high-stakes tests are often prosecuted without explicit comparisons to other types of tests and assessments, usually because information on other tests is not available. In this article, we analyze a unique dataset on a contemporary cohort of Russian students, forwhom we have PISA and TIMSS scores, low-stakes test scores, and high-stakes test scores.We compare the role each test plays in mediating socioeconomic background inequalities at the important transitions in the Russian educational system: The transition to upper secondary education and the transition to university. We find evidence in favor of a special role for the high-stakes test at the transition to university, but we also find evidence that gives cause to question the standard assumption that high-stakes tests should be a primary focus for those concerned about inequality of educational opportunity.

How much university students learn in their studies is highly debated and important to understanding the value of higher education. Yet, information on learning gains at this level are scarce. Our paper contributes to the debate by using unique data for Brazil to estimate absolute test score gains across various fields of study in higher education and to assess whether students who attend certain categories of programs (public/private, research/non-research, highly selective/less selective) make greater relative gains than in others. Our results suggest that students in STEM fields tend to have higher absolute achievement gains compared to students in humanities and pedagogical programs, and that in a few fields, such as civil engineering and history, the relative gains for students in highly selective programs in that field of study are significantly higher than if they had attended somewhat less selective programs. However, students attending lowest quintile selective programs in a field of study have consistently lower gains across a range of study fields than similar students attending programs just one quintile higher. The results have important implications for the equity effects of higher education.

Using newly available data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers Study, the first longitudinal study on a representative sample of high school students in Russia, we examined the importance of investments in human and cultural capital on students’ mathematics and reading standardized examinations, as well as on the likelihood of matriculation into a selective institution of higher education. Studying mathematics and the Russian language on one’s own for more than a year was positively and significantly associated with standardized scores and with an increased likelihood of matriculating into a selective university. A higher number of books at home was also associated with an increased likelihood of matriculating into a selective university. The findings are discussed within the particular institutional context of the Russian educational system.

In this paper, we study the relationship between family characteristics and the choice of educational trajectory in high school. We explore two aspects of educational choice: whether to pursue academic or vocational education after grade 9 (middle to high school transition); and choices made after grade 11 (postsecondary) including preferences in selecting universities. In accordance with Budon’s theory on education and inequality, we explore the primary and secondary effects of a family’s socioeconomic status (SES). The primary effects are revealed in the higher educational performance of families with higher SES. Secondary effects are expressed in longer periods in educational pathways for students with a higher SES. The paper is based on the data from a longitudinal project entitled ‘Trajectories in Education and Careers’. It was launched in 2011, when respondents studied in the 8th grade, and continues to the current day. The dataset provides variables on a wide range of achievement, family’s SES and other important information proxies. For achievement TIMSS mathematics and USE in Russian language were used. The results showed that the primary effects reduce in salience from the 9^th to the 11^th grades, while, in the same period, secondary effects increase. Even high-achieving students from families with a low level of cultural, educational, and social capital chose less ambitious education strategies. Conversely, students from families with high SES, but low academic achievements, tend to chose in favour of higher education. On the basis of these results, we draw some conclusions on the degree of accessibility during transition into the high school and higher education, as well as the probable causes of inequality.

Because of a number of social and demographic changes in recent years, the amount of available places at the level of higher education has significantly increased, and at the same time, the number of applicants for them has decreased. Theoretically, this could lead to an increase in the equality of access to higher education for different social classes. In the paper, using Russian data for the first time, the theory of effectively maintained inequality is tested. According to this theory, the increase in the number of places at a specific level of education may not lead to a decrease in socioeconomic inequality on this level. This is because inequality will be maintained at the level due to the qualitative difference in the received education. Using data from the longitudinal project, “Trajectories in Education and Profession,” two postsecondary educational choices are examined: (1) the choice between vocational and higher education and (2) the choice between going to a selective or non-selective university. Following R. Boudon's theory, the effect of the family's socio-economic background on the choice of an educational trajectory is estimated directly and indirectly (through academic achievement). The results show that after finishing school, the direct effect of the socio-economic background is more important for moving to a more academic trajectory than the family's efforts to improve academic performance. Even with high educational achievements, students from families with low social status make a choice in favor of vocational education rather than a university. When choosing between selective and non-selective higher education institutions, the impact of the family through academic achievement weakens even more. The characteristics of the family directly affect the choice of the trajectory becoming a key predictor.

The article investigates the quality of the answers given by school-age children in survey questionnaires. We present the results of a systematic review of studies dedicated to the socioeconomic status of the family. By answer quality, we mean the ability of children to correctly indicate the educational attainment and profession of their parents and the number of skipped questions. The article focuses on assessing school students’ responses about the level of education, profession, or form of employment of parents. We investigate the role that is played by the following traits of respondents: age, academic performance, and family composition. The review is based on 16 studies that were conducted between 1990 and 2015. The obtained results allow us to conclude that high school students are generally aware of the level of education and profession of their parents. Respondents’ answers can essentially be used as a basic source of information. At the same time, we must be careful about how we methodologically process the judgments of schoolchildren.

School climate is one of the significant factors determining educational achievement. However, the lack of instruments to measure it has complicated the study of this concept in Russia. We review the history of the study of the concept of “school climate,” and we discuss approaches to how it can be defined. We describe the most widely used questionnaires for studying school climate and analyze the set of components that have been included in them. To conduct the empirical study, we chose the student questionnaire that is used in the PISA international study, which provides a theoretical basis for measuring a number of dimensions of school climate. We conducted a psychometric analysis using methods from confirmatory factor analysis and modern test theory. It turned out that the structure of the indices that are used to measure school climate is not what the framers of the questionnaire assumed it would be. It is unclear whether the questions reflect the school climate indicators that are specifically proposed in the questionnaires. Some of the judgments in the questionnaire have been worded in such a way as to elicit most students’ agreement or disagreement with them without revealing any differences in how students perceive the subject of the question. The answer categories are unbalanced for most of the judgments. Respondents tended to fill them out in a one-sided fashion. We propose steps for how the instrument can be further improved.

A field study was performed by experts from the Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, as part of the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations conducted by HSE in cooperation with the Levada Center. Interviews and focus groups were organized with school principals, teachers, students and their parents in three schools teaching the most challenging type of students from low socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, who nevertheless achieve high learning outcomes. This is a follow-up of the 2015 study of environment characteristics, management and education strategies of schools operating in unfavorable social contexts. Such schools are defined as resilient, meaning that they successfully resist the disadvantaged context beyond their control. The schools surveyed differ in the number of students, education programs, and the level of regional deprivation, yet all of them pursue similar strategies that are well-targeted and recognized by all educational process participants. Such strategies include: introducing limited selection and levelling off the student body, imposing high expectations and transparent requirements to learning outcomes, providing individual support and encouragement to students, and developing the skills boosting graduates' chances of successful socialization. Consistent implementation of these strategies will create conditions to promote academic resilience among students. Studying the experience of such schools appears to be crucial for solving the problem of inequality in education.

Implicit in much of comparative and international education research is that education is a creature of the nation-state, shaped largely by economic, political, and social forces defined by national boundaries. However, in federal nation-states, primary and secondary schooling is the juridical responsibility of the constituent states, not the national government. We make the case in this article that in comparative education analysis, there is persuasive support in political theory to consider subnational state comparisons in federalist nations and that such comparisons can yield valuable insights for improving education in the federal nation-state as a whole. Wefocus on one federal country, Brazil, and on the possible differences in the “effectiveness” of state education administrations in delivering education. We measure state effectiveness by students’ mathematics achievement gains on a national test in 1999-2013. We also examine the possible reasons why gains differ greatly in states with similar demographic characteristics.

School climate is a significant factor of educational achievement. However, relevant research in Russia is difficult due to the absence of instruments. The paper peeks into the histor y of the notion of school climate, discussing approaches to defining the term. It also describes the most widespread questionnaires used to measure school climate and provides an analysis of their components. The empirical study is based on the student questionnaire used by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which should ideally allow measuring a number of school climate aspects. A psychometric analysis based on the methods of confirmatory factor analysis and modern test theory reveals that the structure of school climate indices is different from what questionnaire designers expected it to be. It can not be clearly determined whether the questions reflect the school climate indicators that the questionnaires were supposed to measure. Some statements are worded in such a way that most school students should either agree or disagree with them, without showing any difference in their attitude toward the subject. The scale is unbalanced for the majority of items. The article suggests making some specific steps to improve this instrument.

Dynamics of academic performance of Russian school students depending on cultural capital and the size of community is analyzed using PISA and TIMSS data. In order to reveal tendencies in TIMSS and PISA scores dynamics ten educational experts were interviewed. The last 15 years have witnessed a slight improvement in performance of Russian school students and a drop in social and territorial inequality. These changes do not affect all subject areas and result from educational attainment improvements in small populated localities and social groups of low cultural capital. Meanwhile, no growth has been observed in the scores of students with higher levels of cultural capital. The interviews shed light on possible changes in the education system associated with the dynamics of school students' educational attainment.

International assessments, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), are being used to recommend educational policies to improve student achievement. This study shows that the cross-sectional estimates behind such recommendations may be biased. We use a unique data set from one country that applied the PISA mathematics test in 2012 in ninth grade to all students who had taken the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) test in 2011 and collected information on students’ teachers in ninth grade. These data allowed us to more precisely estimate the effects of classroom variables on students’ PISA performance. Our results suggest that the positive roles of teacher “quality” and “opportunity to learn” in improving student performance are much more modest than claimed in PISA documents.

In this paper, we try to unravel some of the unintended and intended academic effects associated with post-Soviet educational reforms by focusing on three cases: Estonia, Latvia and Russia. We have chosen this comparison because a unique ‘natural experiment’ in the three countries allows us to compare the changing academic performance on an international test of a largely similar population in the three countries—Russian origin students attending Russian-medium schools—subjected to three variations of post-Soviet reforms. We find that relative to students in Russia, Russian-medium students in the Baltics made significant gains in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. In Latvia, these appear to be an unintended effect of somewhat ‘softened’ state language policies, the conditions surrounding minority rights, and the general context of maintaining social cohesion. In Estonia, the (later) relative gains of Russian students appear to an intended effect of locally grown educational (and language) policies and increased, more effective cooperation with Russian medium schools to further improve PISA performance in a relatively high scoring, PISA-focused country.

This article assesses the changes in mathematics and reading scores of socially advantaged or disadvantaged Brazilian students, in the International Student Assessment Program – Pisa – between 2000 and 2012, and the National Basic Education Assessment System – Saeb – between 1995 to 2013, in order to extract some provisional conclusions regarding the variations in the effectiveness of basic education in Brazil (1^st to 8^th/9^th grades). Our findings show that the gains in the Pisa math test are much larger than in the reading test. The gains (or their absence), in the Saeb test, for the 1999-2013 period, are also higher in mathematics than in Portuguese. Part of the gains in the Pisa math test and most of those in the reading test result from the gradual increase in the number of years fifteen year-old students spend in school. The gains in the Pisa test for more advantaged Brazilian students are lower than for those coming from families with lower educational resources; this also applies for the Saeb test.

In this paper, we develop a multi-level comparative approach to analyse Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) and Programme of International Student Achievement (PISA) mathematics results for a country, Russia, where the two tests provide contradictory information about students’ relative performance. Russian students do relatively well on the TIMSS mathematics test but relatively poorly on the PISA. We compare the performance of Russian students with different levels of family academic resources over the past decade on these tests compared to students with similar family resources in Russia’s neighbours and to Russian students studying in Latvian and Estonian Russian-medium schools. These comparisons and interviews with educators in Latvia and Estonia help us understand why students in Russia may perform lower on the PISA and to draw education policy lessons for improving international test performance generally and Russian students’ PISA mathematics performance specifically.

This is an analysis of social and professional characteristics, as well as value orientations of a modern educational innovator. The survey included participants of the 2014 Contest of Innovations in Education, with the sample of 304 respondents. Value orientations were revealed with the help of a questionnaire based on the Schwartz's value theory. The results were compared to those of the European Social Survey of the Russian population conducted in 2012. Answers of the Contest participants differed dramatically from those of an average Russian, both in subjective importance of specific value orientations and in the structure of value orientation hierarchy. Innovators appreciated more often the values of self-sufficiency, kindness and universalism, as well as willingness to take risks in their professional life. They were less guided in their actions by the desire to take and to hold power which was not associated with their personal achievements. The survey demonstrated that innovations in education could be offered and implemented not only by experts, i. e. people working in educational institutions of different levels, but also by employees of companies that are not directly related to education, as well as by school and university students. Innovators have a better educational background and participate actively in supplementary education events.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) does have a clear advantage in that, apart from a direct cognitive appraisal of students, it enables to collect information on their teachers, including their education background, work experience and teaching practices. The first difference method was used to determine how teacher characteristics were correlated with student achievements and to overcome restrictions of TIMSS correlation design. In addition, effects of teacher characteristics were evaluated by the conventional regression analysis. The discovered correlations differed across subject areas, and the results of the first difference method differed from those of the conventional correlation analysis. In mathematics, the first difference method revealed negative relation between academic progress and rule-based tasks or collaborative learning, while tasks designed to develop meta-subject skills showed a positive effect on performance. In natural sciences, on the contrary, rule-based tasks showed positive relation, while tasks designed to develop meta-subject skills produced a negative effect or no effect at all. Unlike in mathematics, teacher experience also had a significant influence on student achievements in natural sciences. Implementing the new methodological approach has allowed not only to determine relation between teacher characteristics and academic performance of students but also to identify characteristics typical of specific teacher categories, as, for example, those who work in elite schools or teach better-prepared students. This information may be used both in developing the educational policy and in designing future studies, especially experimental ones.