How do Socioeconomic Attainment Gaps in Early Mathematical Ability Arise?

The socioeconomic attainment gap in mathematical ability is evident before children begin school and widens over time. Little is known about why this early attainment gap emerges. Two studies were conducted in 3- and 4-year-olds, to explore four possible factors that may explain why attainment gaps arise: working memory, inhibitory control, verbal ability, and frequency of home mathematical activities (N = 304, 54% female from a range of ethnic backgrounds but predominantly White British [76%]). Inhibitory control and verbal ability emerged as indirect factors in the relation between socioeconomic status and early mathematical ability, but neither working memory nor home mathematical activities did. These studies provide important insights about how the early attainment gap in mathematical ability may arise.

Measuring differential attainment: a longitudinal analysis of assessment results for 1512 medical students at four Scottish medical schools

ObjectiveTo measure Differential Attainment (DA) among Scottish medical students and to explore whether attainment gaps increase or decrease during medical school.DesignA retrospective analysis of undergraduate medical student performance on written assessment, measured at the start and end of medical school.SettingFour Scottish medical schools (universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow).Participants1512 medical students who attempted (but did not necessarily pass) final written assessment.Main outcome measuresThe study modelled the change in attainment gap during medical school for four student demographical categories (white/non-white, international/Scottish domiciled, male/female and with/without a known disability) to test whether the attainment gap grew, shrank or remained stable during medical school. Separately, the study modelled the expected versus actual frequency of different demographical groups in the top and bottom decile of the cohort.ResultsThe attainment gap grew significantly for white versus non-white students (t(449.39)=7.37, p=0.001, d=0.49 and 95% CI 0.34 to 0.58), for internationally domiciled versus Scottish-domiciled students (t(205.8) = −7, p=0.01, d=0.61 and 95% CI –0.75 to −0.42) and for male versus female students (t(1336.68)=3.54, p=0.01, d=0.19 and 95% CI 0.08 to 0.27). International, non-white and male students received higher marks than their comparison group at the start of medical school but lower marks by final assessment. No significant differences were observed for disability status. Students with a known disability, Scottish students and non-white students were over-represented in the bottom decile and under-represented in the top decile.ConclusionsThe tendency for attainment gaps to grow during undergraduate medical education suggests that educational factors at medical schools may—however inadvertently—contribute to DA. It is of critical importance that medical schools investigate attainment gaps within their cohorts and explore potential underlying causes.

A University/School District Partnership to Close the Information, Opportunity, and Attainment Gaps for Students in Urban Schools

This article outlines how to replicate strategies employed during a two-decade partnership between the University of North Florida’s (UNF) school counselor preparation program and Duval County Public Schools, a large, urban, southern school district. The partnership created a culture of collaboration built on a mutual social justice philosophy for the purpose of closing attainment gaps. Participation in the partnership has become mandatory for UNF school counseling candidates in their preparation to be systemic change agents who ferret out and eliminate opportunity gaps and information gaps to benefit K–12 students.

Freedom to Achieve: addressing the attainment gap through student and staff co-creation

Understanding and enhancing the experience of individuals and communities who have experienced marginalising structures and cultures have become an important area of research across higher education. This work forms an attempt to address injustice through a critical focus on inclusion and ideas of diversity. However, it also enables a reappraisal of ideas of student-staff partnership and co-creation, and student-as-producer. Building upon Kingston University’s value-added metric and Inclusive Curriculum Framework, De Montfort University has developed its own approach to engaging with differential attainment gaps, in part by embedding co-creation at the heart of its ‘Freedom to Achieve’ project. Co-creation enhances the University’s understanding of the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students and supports all students to become agents for change. Between January and April 2018, as a pilot for later project-wide implementation, the Freedom to Achieve team facilitated a series of co-creation events at both institution and programme level. This paper presents an evaluation of the co-creation approach alongside initial findings from the events and explains how these will inform the continuing development of the Freedom the Achieve project.

Considerations of the challenges, conflicts and competitions when expanding student-staff partnerships across an institution: Perspectives from three UK Universities.

In this paper we explore three major challenges for institutional student-staff partnership work. Firstly, we consider the example of partnership that arises from the ownership of a partnership scheme, comparing ownership by a central unit of the university, at local level by departments and shared ownership between the University and Students' Union. Secondly, we consider the importance of inclusivity in such schemes to prevent them exacerbating attainment gaps and undermining democratic processes. Thirdly, we consider the related issue of reward and recognition, considering the tensions created when working with paid ambassadors and student volunteers.