Inequality in Key Skills of City Youth: An International Comparison

By Russell W Rumberger

This groundbreaking research volume addresses the topic of educational inequality from a global perspective. It includes 16 chapters from an international group of scholars who examine how well city school systems from around the world are preparing young people, particularly poor and minority students, with the skills they will need for further study, work, and life overall. While skills in key domains such as science, math, language, and civics have been center stage in international comparisons, there has been growing recognition of the effects that education has on the development of broader sets of capabilities such as social and emotional skills (also known as “noncognitive” or “21st-century” skills) that can affect the success of students in school and beyond. This volume aims to address the shortage of international data on the wide range of skills that students need to learn, enabling researchers to compare the types and causes of educational inequality in skills within and between cities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: American Educational Research Association
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781960348029

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction

Inequality in the Development of Skills at School: A Global Issue

R

USELL

W. R

UMBERGER

University of California, Santa Barbara

S

TEPHEN

L

AMB

Victoria University

Nations share a concern with how well school is preparing young people with the skills needed for further study, work, and life more broadly. For this reason, to measure how well students are doing, many school systems have put in place benchmarks and indicator frameworks for measuring performance in skills such as literacy and numeracy, as well as skills in key disciplines. They also take part in international comparisons of performance to measure how well their students compare with peers around the world. While skills in key domains such as science, math, language, and civics have been center stage in international comparisons, there has been growing recognition of the effects that education has on the development of broader sets of capabilities such as social and emotional skills (also referred to as noncognitive or 21st-century skills) that can affect the success of students in school and beyond school in the labor market (National Research Council, 2012; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2015). As yet, there is a shortage of international data available for comparing the broader array of skills.

It is not just high scores that nations are concerned to see on international comparisons of student skills. In leading education systems, not only do students consistently learn and achieve to high standards, but standards also extend across the population, making sure all students benefit. Few systems, if any, can achieve this, because all systems exhibit varying levels of inequality, both in the opportunity to learn to high standards and in the attainment of such standards (Teese et al., 2007). Some students, usually from poor and from particular racial, ethnic, and language backgrounds, miss out in every system, and in some systems the gaps are large.

Inequality in education remains a major unresolved problem. The issue of inequality is commanding increased attention in many countries among scholars, policy makers, and the general public. This attention is prompted, in part, by evidence of profound economic impact. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, eliminating the disparity in educational achievement between low-income and other students in the United States, for example, would have increased the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 from $425 to $700 billion, or 3–5% of GDP (McKinsey & Company, 2009). The key to both understanding and addressing income inequality is understanding and addressing educational inequality (Duncan & Murnane, 2011).

Interest in the issue of educational inequality has a long tradition in education research. In the United States, the tradition spans Woodson’s 1919 historical analysis of Black education from prior to the Civil War to Coleman’s seminal 1966 study, Equality of Educational Opportunity, which highlighted the role that the education system plays in perpetuating economic inequality between racial groups in America (Coleman et al., 1966). Countless studies have now been conducted on inequality across the U.S. education system, from access to quality preschool, to school segregation, to college enrollment and completion (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011; Magnuson et al., 2004; Orfield, 2009). And while many early studies focused on inequality among racial and ethnic groups, more recent attention has been focused on inequality among income groups (Duncan & Murnane, 2011; Putnam, 2015; Stiglitz, 2015). International studies have found extensive inequality in access to upper secondary and tertiary education in many industrialized countries (Teese et al., 2007).

The existing research on inequality has limitations, as Carter and Reardon point out in their William T. Grant Foundation review, Inequality Matters:

First, we know far too little about inequality of opportunity, relative to what we know about inequality of outcomes. More focused attention, we argue, should be given to unpacking the ecology of economic, political, social and cultural influences that shape individuals’ and communities’ life chances and welfare. (Carter & Reardon, 2014, pp. 1–2)

They further point out the dearth of research addressing broader strategies for reducing inequality (Carter & Reardon, 2014, p. 2). The present volume aims to contribute to these needed areas of research.

Concern about inequality exists not just in the United States but in many countries. Thus, valuable insights into the nature of inequality and, more important, into ways of reducing inequality may be found by studying the issue internationally. As one scholar of the international study of inequality notes: As we seek effective responses to this national issue, a global perspective, which takes into account how other countries limit social inequality and promote mobility, may provide promising examples to light the way forward (Smeeding, 2015, pp. 1–2). Supporting this view are several comparative studies on social mobility that find many European countries have less economic inequality and greater educational opportunity than the United States (Breen, 2004; Breen et al., 2009; Dupriez & Dumay, 2006; Ermisch, Jäntti, & Smeeding, 2012; Shavit & Blossfeld, 1993). But this research, too, has limitations. In an international review of the research on inequality from 1990 to 2005, Breen and Jonsson (2005) point out that problems with the comparability of data have limited the capacity to draw strong conclusions about trends and explanations of intercountry differences. Further, few studies have examined countries outside of Europe.

Although a number of theories have been advanced to explain how and why educational opportunity by social class varies between countries, they generally address two perspectives. One perspective focuses on the characteristics and actions of individual families and students. According to this perspective, family resources—including income, socioeconomic status, parental education, cultural assets, social capital (networks), and parental motivation—develop the cognitive and noncognitive skills in students that affect both educational performance in school (e.g., test scores, grades) and educational choices about the types and amounts of schooling to pursue (Breen et al., 2009; Silles, 2011). The second perspective focuses on institutional characteristics related to the selectiveness and differentiation within educational systems. In a study of intercountry differences in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores, Duru-Bellat and Suchaut (2005, p. 190) found that the greater the level of differentiation among school systems, the greater the degree of social inequality in student achievement. In a comparative study of how socioeconomic advantage is transmitted across generations, Ermisch, Jäntti, Smeeding, and Wilson (2012) combined these two perspectives into a model of intergenerational mobility from a life-course perspective, in which student performance at each stage of development (birth year through early adulthood) is affected directly by parental characteristics (SES, income, occupation) and by public and private investments as well as institutional contexts, which are also influenced by parental characteristics.

The Importance of Social and Emotional Skills

Historically, in a number of school systems, both students and their educational institutions have been judged by performance in coursework and on standardized tests in various subject areas, particularly language, arts, and mathematics. These so-called academic or cognitive skills were considered to be the foundation of human capital that contributes to improved labor force productivity and increased earnings (Becker, 1962). However, over time, scholars have discovered that success in school and the labor market requires a broader array of skills that have been labeled as noncognitive, 21st-century, or social and emotional skills (Farrington et al., 2012; Heckman & Rubinstein, 2001; Lamb et al., 2017; National Research Council, 2012). These skills encompass a wide array of attributes, including both emotional or intrapersonal (e.g., conscientiousness, intellectual openness, self-regulation) and social or interpersonal (e.g., teamwork, collaboration, leadership). Chapter 2 provides an in-depth look at various dimensions of these skills and how they are assessed.

A substantial body of research has found that social and emotional (SE) skills contribute to student success in school. One meta-analysis of 213 school-based social and emotional learning programs involving more than 270,000 K–12 students found short-term (post-intervention) impacts on several SE skills and, most important, academic performance (Durlak et al., 2011). Another meta-analysis of SE intervention programs examined follow-up outcomes and found that participants displayed gains in SE skills, attitudes, and indicators of well-being (Taylor et al., 2017). Moreover, analysis found that short-term gains led to long-term gains in skills and achievement. Both reviews also support the notion that SE skills are malleable rather than fixed traits of students and therefore can be taught and learned in school.

Research has also found that SE skills contribute to adult success in further education, in the labor market, and in other life outcomes, although the research in these areas is more limited. One comprehensive study found that conscientiousness, an important component of noncognitive skills, is a stronger predictor than intelligence on a number of adult outcomes, including educational attainment, earnings, welfare, incarceration, and depression (Heckman & Kautz, 2013). A recent study also found that SE skills, as captured by measures of attendance and suspensions, reduced arrest rates (Rose et al., 2014).

As with cognitive skills, there are vast disparities in social and emotional skills among individuals, subgroups of individuals, and institutions (families, schools, and communities). For example, one proxy for noncognitive skills—chronic absenteeism (typically defined as missing 10 days of school over the school year)—is much higher among low-income than high-income students in six U.S. states (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012). Another proxy, school suspensions, is much higher among African Americans than other race/ethnic groups in the United States (Balfanz et al., 2012). Suspension rates also vary widely among U.S. schools (Rumberger & Losen, 2016).

The OECD presented a framework in 2015 that embraces the expanded, multiplicity notion of skills that includes social and emotional skills together with cognitive skills (OECD, 2015). The framework recognizes that some skills, such as creativity and critical thinking, have both cognitive and social and emotional components (OECD, 2015, p. 36). The framework also views skills as developing over an individual’s lifetime, such that past skill levels are important determinants of current skill levels (p. 40) or, put differently, skills beget skills (p. 74). Finally, the framework recognizes that skills develop through both formal and informal learning, which takes place in various social settings or contexts—families, schools, communities, and workplaces.

Just as there are skill gaps among groups of students, there are vast disparities in the quality and performance of the various contexts that shape skill development. Family resources, which shape the quality and quantity of family practices in support of a child’s learning, vary widely between families within and across countries. A 2012 report from the UNICEF Office of Research–Innocenti found great variation in child poverty among 35 economically advanced countries, the United States having the second-highest rates).

Quality schools also matter. A recent study in the United States found that although all students benefit from attending effective high schools (schools that improve cognitive and social and emotional development), the least advantaged students benefit more, especially in the non-test-score dimensions of quality (Jackson et al., 2020). Yet the most advantaged students are those most likely to attend effective schools.

School systems across the world increasingly are recognizing the importance of social and emotional or noncognitive skills and are starting to invest considerable effort into broadening their conceptualizations of the skills young people require for the future and working to incorporate them into their goals for schooling (Lamb et al., 2017). Despite this, a major challenge school systems face is that there is little evidence providing clear direction on the most effective approaches to the teaching and learning of the identified skills, as well as the best ways to assess them. It also remains uncertain whether school systems’ efforts to build these approaches into their programs and systems are reinforced with appropriate support provided to teachers and schools to meet the expectations placed upon them. While examples of successful practice exist in the research literature, school systems are still working to provide a coherent approach to embedding key skills across the various stages of schooling and to evaluate more systematically how the emphasis on key skills impacts on the work of teachers, schools, as well as on student learning and outcomes (Lamb et al., 2017, p. 5).

It is difficult to know what progress is being made or how successful different school systems are because there are few assessments of the levels of social and emotional skills among students and across schools. This has started to change with the interest and work of agencies such as the OECD, which has recognized the value and importance of comparing the skills students acquire beyond formal academic learning and comparing skill levels internationally (see OECD, 2021).

International Study of City Youth

Ideas for an international comparative study of educational inequality in cities had their origins in a research proposal submitted to the Australian Research Council.¹ The project stemming from the proposal was taken up in 2012 by a group of scholars from different countries who previously had been meeting regularly based on a shared interest in research on student success and failure in school and the transition pathways to college and careers. The group had met annually beginning in 2006 to present and discuss differences in how their high school systems worked and the impact on different student groups. This work initially led to a journal volume which provided outlines of educational structures in a number of countries and related estimates of flows of students through schools and programs, including differences in student progress and outcomes.² The group’s attention then shifted to the issue of high school dropouts, leading to the publication of an edited book with chapters from most of the participating countries (Lamb et al., 2011).

After completing this work, the city proposal emerged as the next logical step, as it provided the basis for an original international study of high school youth with common survey and assessment items that would facilitate cross-country comparisons. The study design was guided by an interest in comparing school systems in different nations and determining how well they prepared young people for further study and work. Named the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), the study was to examine the systems through the microcosm of a major city in each country. This approach was taken because one of the key differences was how school systems were organized on the ground, that is, in administrative and geographical terms. Residential differentiation is a major factor in the production of differences in the opportunities to learn available to students (see, for example, Boterman et al., 2019; Burger, 2019), but it may work more or less sharply, depending on the model of school provision. ISCY, by its design, provides researchers with the ability to construct a close-up view of how education structures work within a city. This is important because comparative research on education taking in whole nations can wash out the distinctive qualities within each country due to the priority given to identifying macro-level differences between nations. It is understandable that comparative research often involves analysis at an aggregated level, but this is at the same time a key limitation. Differences within a jurisdiction are pertinent particularly in countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, where, under federal systems, school education is largely the administrative and fiscal responsibility of state, territory, or provincial governments and is not managed at a national level. The unique school education design features apparent in states or provinces can be longstanding and informed by different histories established long ago (for example, in Australia; see Campbell & Proctor, 2014; Teese, 2013).

Do opportunities and outcomes vary for young people depending on the city and the approach taken to the organization of schools and programs? Does it matter who the young people are, where they live, what school they attend, or what stream of study they take? Which schools and school systems, in which cities, are the most successful in reducing social gaps yet maintaining high standards while preparing young people for further study and work?

ISCY—initiated in 2009 and continuing to the present day—was designed to explore these questions. It is concerned with how young people relate to school and society. It is an investigation of their achievement, engagement, attitudes, and their experiences during school. How young people relate to the social world and how well schools equip them with the capital and the ethos to participate well in this world are linked with a variety of individual, family, and school factors. These include prior educational achievement, family and school SES, immigration experience, race, ethnicity, gender, and locality. However, the extent to which these factors differentiate student attitudes, achievement, and progress may well be influenced by the structure of the school system in which they are located. Different types of schools and courses, different rules and procedures, different linkages between schools, and different kinds of vocational training and higher education may accentuate or moderate the effects of individual and group factors on student outcomes.

A comparative international study provides one way of capturing the extent to which the institutional framework of a school system either aggravates or attenuates the force of such factors. ISCY aims to measure the impacts of the distinctive institutional arrangements of each system—curriculum and examinations, types and locations of schools, and structures of opportunity. This approach enables insights into how institutional arrangements shape student experiences, opportunities, and outcomes and contribute to creating persistent social patterns which are often interpreted as a function of individual factors.

ISCY is important in presenting a new and fertile approach to important questions that stand in need of better research. Do school systems prepare young people equally well for further study, for careers, and for active engagement in community life? International evidence of educational inequality has grown substantially in recent decades through PISA, PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). These assessment programs have helped improve our understanding of how school systems function, the extent to which inequalities persist, and why gaps differ between countries with comparable social structures. The promise of international testing—to improve the performance of school systems by understanding them better—has been developing, partly through the efforts of schemes such as PISA. But we need to build on these efforts. Why one country delivers stronger student outcomes or is more equitable than another and whether this comes at the price of quality, remain elusive questions, as does why the rank of a country can change on such measures. Can we use the tools of international assessment to better illuminate how systems work and how inequality is generated and why the forms and intensity differ between countries? This depends on how good we are at theory building and creating good analytical tools to compare school systems in terms of social processes and student outcomes.

The ISCY project is innovative in several ways. First, it tests the strength of a conceptual framework for comparing how different institutional arrangements work, and for whom they work best, in different countries. Second, it uses the tools of international student assessment to examine the impact of these arrangements on students of similar measured ability. Third, it uses a broad concept of student outcome, taking into account academic and nonacademic skills, that enables impact to be measured in a consistent way across different national systems. ISCY is one of the few studies to measure the effects of different systems of school organization, program structures, and graduation pathways on student progress and outcomes, using similarly selected samples of students in a longitudinal study design.

Study Design

One aim of ISCY is to generate city estimates of student performance and perspectives. Initially, research teams from 14 cities in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia (Barcelona, Bergen, Bordeaux, Ghent, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Montréal, Reykjavík, Sacramento, San Diego, Santiago, Tijuana, Turku, and Wroclaw) were invited to participate in the study. Each research team used a two-stage sampling process that involved first selecting a representative sample of schools within each city and then selecting representative samples of students within schools. Such a design facilitates estimating school effects on student outcomes.

Rather than an age group, such as 15-year-olds as in PISA, ISCY was based on samples of 10th-grade students in each city. The idea was to (a) select students at the end of junior high school or the beginning of the senior secondary years, depending on the school system, who would be drawn from a single grade at a similar point in the schooling cycle, and (b) capture a full cohort of students not yet much affected by school dropout. The study was initially designed to be longitudinal to measure the long-term school and initial postschool outcomes of a cohort of young people drawn from a similar point in school. Tracking 10th-grade students would enable an examination of skills and school experiences for a whole cohort of students in each city and relationships with program choices and pathways in school and beyond. The study design was chosen to provide comparisons and insights into the structures of opportunity and alternative pathways that high school provided in each city.

Researchers in each participating city were responsible for recruiting schools. In smaller cities, all schools were recruited. Schools were given the option to have all 10th-grade students participate or to work with the researchers to select a representative sample of students. Most schools surveyed all students.

The base-year data collection was completed in eight of the cities during the 2013–2014 school year and in the remaining six cities during the 2014–2015 school year. A total of more than 40,000 students were surveyed from more than 400 schools in the 14 cities. Some cities collected additional waves of data in subsequent years. This volume is based on data only from the base-year surveys.

Key Constructs

Baseline survey data were collected from principals, 10th-grade teachers, and 10th-grade students in participating schools. The student survey solicited information about family and educational backgrounds, educational and occupational aspirations, interest and engagement in school, and a set of social-emotional skills shown to be predictive of college and career readiness, including conscientiousness, hope, and the ability to work with and get along with others (Farrington et al., 2012; National Research Council, 2012). Contact and administrative information was collected so that students could be resurveyed in future years. The teacher survey measured teacher attitudes about their school and their students and gathered information on teaching practices, professional development, and professional aspirations. The school questionnaire explored school initiatives to raise student achievement, available resources, and the practices linked to school decision making. All the surveys were conducted online.

One of the aims of the ISCY project is to compare the starting positions and the trajectories of young people of similar measured prior achievement. Controlling for prior achievement enables investigation of the impact of different institutional arrangements on student outcomes. It also helps identify students who are similar in achievement for international comparisons. This requires tests designed to transcend the particular structures of each national system. For this reason, student achievement was measured in the baseline data collection using a 40-minute online assessment. The student assessments were administered online with the assistance of the Assessment Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. The assessments were based on test items from the 2012 (math) and 2009 (reading) PISA to yield internationally comparable achievement scores in reading and math.

Each city has contributed longitudinal data in subsequent years of the project, from either follow-up surveys of students or matched administrative data, to track student progress and pathways each year.

In addition to the primary data collected through the ISCY project, researchers in some cities had access to selected administrative data and data from prior research, which could be used to add further richness and detail to an understanding of the education systems in those cities. In Barcelona, for example, test results in mathematics and the Catalan language from the Catalan Department of Education were obtained to create a measure of student achievement. Researchers in some cities included sets of additional questions in their student surveys to capture information on topics of particular interest for them. For example, researchers in Santiago, Chile, added questions on social cohesion and civic trust, while researchers in Montréal included additional questions on vocational education.

Study of Skills and Related Factors Influencing Student Achievement

Given the growing interest in the topic of social and emotional skills and their importance to the success of young people in school and beyond, among the topics of initial interest for comparative work by researchers in ISCY was developing an understanding and comparison of the levels of social and emotional skills of students in different cities, as well as the influences on student achievement of related factors such as attitudes to school and student engagement in school. This led to the work undertaken by city researchers for the present volume. The aim was to undertake analysis in each city to examine the distributions of student skill levels, for both cognitive and social and emotional skills, across city schools and across different groups of students. Student engagement in school and dispositions toward school and learning were also examined as related constructs (see Chapter 2). In addition to individual city studies, work was also undertaken to compare skills, dispositions, and engagement across cities to gain further insights into similarities and differences across and within schools.

Research Questions

The first phase of the project was to analyze base-year data from ISCY to address the following types of questions:

1. How do 10th-grade students in schools and cities in ISCY perform on global standardized reading and math assessments and on measures of social and emotional skills?

2. What are the sizes of the gaps in cognitive and social and emotional skills between students from different backgrounds?

3. What are the sizes of the gaps in skills within cities and across cities?

4. To what extent do differences in family, school, and neighborhood contexts affect city differences?

5. What programs or features of school organization in participating cities help reduce social gaps in cognitive skills and social and emotional skills?

Data Analysis

For analysis of data, researchers employed several methods in the initial work. One was descriptive statistics to illustrate the distribution of skills, dispositions, and engagement and how they varied between student subgroups and school types. Another was multilevel statistical models that were used to partition the variability in student outcomes between students and schools and to estimate the effects of student-level and school-level variables on those outcomes. These two methods were commonly used in all city studies. But some researchers employed other methods. For example, researchers in Turku used structural equation modeling to examine the influence of student-level factors on social and emotional skills.

Researchers in some cities also created unique measures using the ISCY project data. For example, researchers in Ghent used factor analysis to create two composite measures of social and emotional skills—intrapersonal and interpersonal skills—based on the four measures of social and emotional skills in the ISCY data.

Recognizing Limitations in Comparing Skills and Other Constructs

While a number of studies have shown that specific types of social and emotional skills—such as empathy, motivation, and social relationships in school—can influence student success and outcomes, there is debate about not only what the skills are but how they can be measured, particularly in the context of international comparisons. Unlike reading and math skills, which have a long history of being tested in different cultural and national contexts using direct measures, social and emotional skills tend to be measured using indirect survey questionnaire items to construct scale scores. The nature of the survey items used leaves the social and emotional measures more exposed to potential cultural bias and sensitivity than other measures (for discussion see Hecht & Shin, 2015; Jagers et al., 2019; Rogoff, 2003; Willis, 2015).

Issues associated with the measurement of skills, and particularly social and emotional skills, as well as dispositions and types of engagement, remain a limitation in making comparisons across ISCY cities. We agree that measuring social and emotional skills remains a challenge, as others have noted, particularly in international studies (see, for example, Hamilton & Stecher, 2019; Hecht & Shin, 2015), and that this needs to be kept in mind when looking at results. However, while recognizing the limitations, steps were taken in ISCY to try to manage or limit potential cultural bias and be sensitive to differences in cultural contexts across cities. To improve cross-cultural comparability, and to ensure that the items used were comparable and relevant across different cultures, languages, and social and school contexts, for social and emotional skills, and for related constructs linked to engagement and dispositions, ISCY used survey questions and items that had been used in other international comparative studies (such as by OECD) or tested in different national contexts.

Conference on Skills

A conference was organized at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on June 8–9, 2017, so that authors could present preliminary findings. Supported by a grant from the American Educational Research Association, the conference was intended to develop a deeper understanding of the extent of SES (and other group) differences in cognitive and social and emotional skills of students in the 14 ISCY cities and to identify the structures, policies, factors, and practices that mitigated or exacerbated the differences. To provide insights and reflections and contribute to discussions, several key figures who had conducted work on skills were invited, including Henry Levin, Barbara Schneider, William Schmidt, Hunter Gehlbach, and Heather Hough.

This Volume

The conference presentations have been revised into a series of chapters making up this volume. There are three sections and an introduction. The present chapter, written by volume editors Stephen Lamb and Russell Rumberger, introduces the volume and the international study on which the volume is based (ISCY).

Section 1 contains two chapters. The first (Chapter 2, Lamb et al.) sets out the skills framework used in the ISCY study, how it was devised, and how the skills were measured. It also discusses the importance of student engagement and disposition toward school, factors that work to frame and influence the formation of skills. The second (Chapter 3, Lamb) applies the framework in a comparative analysis of city differences in levels of skills, engagement, and dispositions of students participating in ISCY. Lamb compares patterns across cities, rather than within, to better understand the ways in which differences in institutional arrangements influence the distributions of skills, dispositions, and engagement and contribute to creating city differences in patterns of inequality.

Section 2 contains case studies from nine ISCY cities that agreed to provide chapters. The cities are:

Chapter 4: Barcelona, Spain

Chapter 5: Bordeaux, France

Chapter 6: Ghent, Belgium

Chapter 7: Melbourne, Australia

Chapter 8: Montréal, Canada

Chapter 9: Sacramento, United States

Chapter 10: Santiago, Chile

Chapter 11: Turku, Finland

Chapter 12: San Diego, United States

The case study authors examined the nature and distribution of skill levels across schools in their respective cities. While framed by some common questions, the chapters each focus on telling the story of their own city by studying the factors that shape the distributions of skills, dispositions, and engagement across schools and students. This approach introduces a degree of variability in the specific data and methods used by the researchers to tell their stories. Despite the variability, there are some important themes that emerge from the case study chapters and from the cross-city comparison provided in Chapter 3. In Chapter 13 (the conclusion to Section 2) Lamb and Rumberger draw together some of the emerging common themes from the individual city case studies and the cross-city comparison chapter in a summary of key findings.

Section 3 features three chapters that look beyond ISCY to consider the current state and future of research on skills. Chapter 14 examines the relationship between 21st-century skills and reasoning and literacy in an international context, drawing on data from PISA. Chapter 15 examines how social and emotional skills can be measured, drawing on the practical development and use of the skills in a consortium of school districts in California. The final chapter looks at the future of research on skills and possibilities for future work.

Notes

1. The successful proposal, submitted by Richard Teese, Stephen Lamb, and Andrea Reupold, was titled A Tale of Six Cities: Explaining Social Inequality in Secondary School Systems—An International Comparative Study (Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP1095928).

2. The journal volume was titled The Future of Learning and Teaching, and Part 1 provided an outline of educational systems in different countries. The journal was Formazione & Insegnamento (Anno VI, Numero 1/2, 2008). It was published in Italy, under the editorship of Roberto Fini.

References

Bailey, M., & Dynarski, S. M. (2011). Inequality in postsecondary education. In G. J. Duncan & R. J. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity: Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 117–132). Russell Sage Foundation.

Balfanz, R., & Byrnes, V. (2012). Chronic absenteeism: Summarizing what we know from national available data. Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools.

Balfanz, R., Byrnes, V., & Fox, J. (2012). Sent home and put off-track: The antecedents, disproportionalities, and consequences of being suspended in ninth grade. Everyone Graduates Center, School of Education, Johns Hopkins University.

Becker, G. S. (1962). Investment in human capital. Journal of Political Economy, 70(5), 9–49. https://doi.org/10.1086/258724

Boterman, W., Musterd, S., Pacchi., C. & Ranci, C. (2019). School segregation in contemporary cities: Socio-spatial dynamics, institutional context and urban outcomes. Urban Studies, 56(15), 3055–3073. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019868377

Breen, R. (Ed.). (2004). Social mobility in Europe. Oxford University Press.

Breen, R., & Jonsson, J. O. (2005). Inequality of opportunity in comparative perspective: Recent research on educational attainment and social mobility. Annual Review of Sociology, 32(1), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.31.041304.122232

Breen, R., Luijkx, R., Muller, W., & Pollak, R. (2009). Nonpersistent inequality in educational attainment: Evidence from eight European countries. American Journal of Sociology, 114(5), 1475–1521. https://doi.org/10.1086/595951

Burger, K. (2019). The socio-spatial dimension of educational inequality: A comparative European analysis. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 62, 171–186. https://doi.org/10.1016Zj.stueduc.2019.03.009

Campbell, C., & Proctor, H. (2014). A history of Australian schooling. Allen & Unwin.

Carter, P. L., & Reardon, S. F. (2014). Inequality matters. William T. Grant Foundation. https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/inequalitymatters.pdf

Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J., Mood, A. M., Weinfeld, F. D., & York, R. L. (1966). Equality of educational opportunity. U.S. Department of Health, Education & Welfare. Office of Education.

Duncan, G. J., & Murnane, R. J. (Eds.). (2011). Whither opportunity: Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances. Russell Sage Foundation.

Dupriez, V., & Dumay, X. (2006). Inequalities in school systems: Effect of school structure or of society structure? Comparative Education, 42(2), 243–260. doi:10.1080/03050060600628074

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–434. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x

Duru-Bellat, M., & Suchaut, B. (2005). Organization and context, efficiency and equity of educational systems: What PISA tells us. European Educational Research Journal, 4(3), 181–194. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2005.4.3.3

Ermisch, J., Jäntti, M., & Smeeding, T. M. (Eds.). (2012). From parents to children: The intergenerational transmission of advantage. Russell Sage Foundation.

Ermisch, J., Jäntti, M., Smeeding, T. M., & Wilson, J. A. (2012). Advantages in comparative perspective. In J. Ermisch, M. Jäntti, & T. M. Smeeding (Eds.), From parents to children: The intergenerational transmission of advantage (pp. 3–31). Russell Sage Foundation.

Farrington, C. E., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners: The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago. https://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school

Hamilton, L., & Stecher, B. (2019). Measuring social-emotional skills, carefully. The RAND Blog. https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/02/measuring-social-emotional-skills-carefully.html

Hecht, M. L., & Shin, Y. (2015). Culture and social and emotional competencies. In J. A. Durlak, C. E. Domitrovich, R. P. Weissberg, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), Handbook of social and emotional learning: Research and practice (pp. 50–64). Guilford Press.

Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, T. (2012). Hard evidence on soft skills. Labour Economics, 19(4), 451–464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2012.05.014

Heckman, J. J., & Rubinstein, Y. (2001). The importance of noncognitive skills: Lessons from the GED testing program. American Economic Review, 91(2), 145–149. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.91.2.145

Jackson, C. K., Porter, S. C., Easton, J. Q., & Kiguel, S. (2020). Who benefits from attending effective schools?Examing heterogeneity in high school impacts. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w28194

Jagers, R., Rivas-Drake, D., & Williams, B. (2019). Transformative social and emotional learning (SEL): Toward SEL in service of educational equity and excellence. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 162–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1623032

Lamb, S., Maire, Q., & Doecke, E. (2017). Key skills for the 21st century: An evidence-based review. Future Frontiers Analytic Report. New South Wales Department of Education. https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/education-for-a-changing-world/media/documents/

Lamb, S., Markussen, E., Teese, R., Polesel, J., & Sandberg, N. (Eds.). (2011). School dropout and completion: International comparative studies in theory and policy. Springer.

Magnuson, K. A., Meyers, M. K., Ruhm, C. J., & Waldfogel, J. (2004). Inequality in preschool education and readiness. American Educational Research Journal, 41(1), 115–157. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312041001115

McKinsey & Company. (2009). The economic impact of the achievement gap in America’s schools.http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/Social_Sector/our_practices/Education/Knowledge_Highlights/Economic_impact.aspx

National Research Council. (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academies Press.

Orfield, G. (2009). Reviving the goal of an integrated society: A 21st century challenge. The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Dereshos Civiles at UCLA. http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2015). Skills for social progress: The power of social and emotional skills. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264226159-en

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2021). Beyond academic learning: First results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/92a11084-en

Putnam, R. D. (2015). Our kids: The American Dream in crisis. Simon & Schuster.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press.

Rose, E. K., Schellenberg, J. T., & Shem-Tov, Y. (2014). The effects of teacher quality on adult criminal justice contact. National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w30274

Rumberger, R. W., & Losen, D. (2016). The high cost of harsh discipline and its disparate impact. The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project.

Shavit, Y., & Blossfeld, H.- P. (Eds.). (1993). Persistent inequality: Changing educational attainment in thirteen countries. Westview.

Silles, M. A. (2011). The intergenerational effects of parental schooling on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of children. Economics of Education Review, 30(2), 258–268. doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2010.09.002

Smeeding, T. M. (2015). Leveling the playing field: A comparative view of U.S. and European responses to inequality. William T. Grant Foundation. http://blog.wtgrantfoundation.org/post/116381045552/leveling-the-playing-field-a-comparative-view-of

Stiglitz, J. E. (2015). The Great Divide: Unequal societies and what to do about them. W. W. Norton.

Taylor, R. D., Oberle, E., Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2017). Promoting positive youth development through school-based social and emotional learning interventions: A meta-analysis of follow-up effects. Child Development, 88(4), 1156–1171. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12864

Teese, R. (2013). Academic success and social power. Melbourne University Press.

Teese, R., Lamb, S., & Duru-Belat, M. (Eds.). (2007). Educational inequality: Persistence and change (Vol. 1). Springer.

UNICEF Office of Research–Innocenti. (2012). Measuring child poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries (Innocenti Report Card 10). UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.

Willis, G. B. (2015). The practice of cross-cultural cognitive interviewing. Public Opinion Quarterly, 79(S1), 359–395. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfu092

Section 1

International Comparison of Skills Based on ISCY

Chapter 2

Measuring and Comparing Skills Across Cities: The International Study of City Youth Framework

S

TEPHEN

L

AMB

Victoria University

R

USELL

W. R

UMBERGER

University of California, Santa Barbara

J

EN

J

ACKSON

Victoria University

This chapter sets out a common framework for the measurement of 21st-century skills that was used by all cities involved in the International Study of City Youth (ISCY) project. ISCY is an ongoing international longitudinal study of 10th-grade students conducted in 14 cities around the world, to find out more about student journeys through school into further study, work, and life beyond school. Among many other things, including cognitive skills, student plans, attitudes to school, and student engagement, the study measures a range of social and emotional (SE) skills and the extent to which they affect student progress and later outcomes. Establishing a common framework for measuring social and emotional skills in ISCY was not an easy task. The development of the ISCY student survey drew on many international instruments for measuring student skills, attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., the PISA [OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment] student survey of 2012, the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, the Gallup Student Poll of 2012, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, the High School Survey of Student Engagement, the Consortium on Chicago School Research student survey, and the Big Five Inventory). Items from these instruments were used selectively and judiciously to enable the survey to cover a broad range of topics while remaining at a manageable length for students. Translation into different languages also necessitated adjustments to some items to maximize international consistency. Some entirely new items were created, based on the interests and contemporary contexts of the participating cities. For these reasons, it is not possible to simply map ISCY survey items to established instruments to easily determine which constructs they are measuring.

The skills discussed in this chapter have been variously referred to in international literature as 21st-century, noncognitive, soft, or social and emotional skills. The term social and emotional (SE) skills has been adopted for this chapter.

Previous Work on Social and Emotional Skills

Since the ISCY student survey was created, new research in the field has emerged, including valuable syntheses of prior international literature (e.g., Farrington et al., 2012; Gutman & Schoon, 2013; Lamb et al., 2017; Nayfack et al., 2017; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2019a, 2019b, 2019c). The literature reflects a confusing, overlapping array of concepts and terms (Farrington et al., 2012, p. 70), with numerous scholars proposing various taxonomies of social and emotional skills, each comprising a