This report extends the picture of literacy skills th PISA 2000 provides to additional countries that have recently joined the programme: Albania; Argentina; Bulgaria; Chile; Hong Kong-China; Indonesia; Israel; FYR Macedonia; Peru; Romania and Thailand.

Drawing on data from the PISA 2003 survey, this report examines the performance of students with immigrant backgrounds and compares it to that of their native counterparts.

Why a book on gender issues in mathematics in the 21st century? Several factors have influenced the undertaking of this project by the editors. First, an international volume focusing on gender and mathematics has not appeared since publication of papers emerging from the 1996 International Congress on Mathematical Education (Keitel, 1998). Surely it was time for an updated look at this critical area of mathematics education. Second, we have had lively discussion and working groups on gender issues at conferences of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education [PME] for the past four years, sessions at which stimulating and ground-breaking research has been discussed by participants from many different countries. Some publication seemed essential to share this new knowledge emerging from a wider variety of countries and from different cultural perspectives. Third, some western countries such as Australia and the USA have experienced in recent years a focus on the “boy problem,” with an underlying assumption that issues of females and mathematics have been solved and are no longer worthy of interest. Thus it seemed timely to look more closely at the issue of gender and mathematics internationally. When the idea for this volume first emerged, invitations were issued to those regularly attending the working and discussion groups at PME. Potential authors were charged to focus on gender issues in mathematics and were given wide scope to hone in on the issues that were central to their own research efforts, or were in receipt or in need of close attention in their own national or regional contexts.

Bilingual education is one of the fastest growing disciplines within applied linguistics. This book includes the work of 20 specialists working in various educational contexts across Europe, Latin America and North America to create a volume which is both comprehensive in scope and multidimensional in its coverage of current bilingual initiatives. The central themes of this volume, which draws on past experiences of bilingual education, include issues in language use in classrooms at elementary, secondary and tertiary levels; participant perspectives on bilingual education experiences; and the language needs of bi- and multilingual students in monolingual schools. This collection will be of interest to teachers and administrators in bi- and multilingual education programs, as well as scholars working in the field of language education.

This report develops comparative knowledge on lower secondary education across OECD countries and tailors it to the context of an OECD country: Norway.

This 2006 OECD review of Luxembourg's economy examines the challenges Luxembourg is facing with regard to slowing economic growth, public finances, employment, education achievement and product market competition. It finds that Luxembourg has ...