Educational Inequality in Primary Schools in Ireland in the Early Years of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy: An Analysis of National Assessment Data.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Educational Inequality in Primary Schools in Ireland in the Early Years of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy: An Analysis of National Assessment Data.
Authors:	Karakolidis, Anastasios¹ anastasios.karakolidis@erc.ie, Duggan, Alice¹, Shiel, Gerry¹, Kiniry, Joanne¹
Source:	Irish Journal of Education. 2021, Vol. 44, p1-24. 24p.
Subject Terms:	Educational equalization, Primary schools, *Literacy programs
Abstract:	Drawing on data from the National Assessments of Mathematics and English Reading (NAMER) 2009 and 2014, the current study compares inequalities in reading and mathematics achievement that may be attributed to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, before and after the initial implementation of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2011-2020. The results indicate that the improvements in overall pupil performance, observed following the initial implementation of the Strategy, were accompanied by reduced inequalities. While all examined groups of pupils saw improvements in both reading and mathematics over time, the improvements particularly favoured groups of pupils who had lower performance than their counterparts in 2009, leading to smaller performance gaps in 2014. The findings are complemented by the results of multilevel analysis which showed a significant reduction in the variance in pupil performance attributable to between-school differences, as well as to selected demographic and socioeconomic factors, after the introduction of the Strategy. The implications of these and other findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Drawing on data from the National Assessments of Mathematics and English Reading (NAMER) 2009 and 2014, the current study compares inequalities in reading and mathematics achievement that may be attributed to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, before and after the initial implementation of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2011-2020. The results indicate that the improvements in overall pupil performance, observed following the initial implementation of the Strategy, were accompanied by reduced inequalities. While all examined groups of pupils saw improvements in both reading and mathematics over time, the improvements particularly favoured groups of pupils who had lower performance than their counterparts in 2009, leading to smaller performance gaps in 2014. The findings are complemented by the results of multilevel analysis which showed a significant reduction in the variance in pupil performance attributable to between-school differences, as well as to selected demographic and socioeconomic factors, after the introduction of the Strategy. The implications of these and other findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	00211257