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Recent educational research has demonstrated rural‐urban gaps in achievement and schooling conditions. Evidence from developing countries is still sparse. This study seeks to report rural‐urban disparities in achievement, student, teacher, and school characteristics based on a nationally representative sample of grade four students from four provinces of Pakistan. The study aims to take into account the limitations of previous research, mainly the issues of non‐representative samples and inadequate sampling techniques, by using proportionally adequate sample to address the potential differences in achievement of rural and urban students and how schooling, students and teacher‐related factors account for gap in achievement.

The primary data source for the study was the 2006 national assessment survey of year four students in government school across four provinces in four core subjects. The sample design included a two‐stage stratified random sample, where the major strata of national interest were student and school gender, geographical location and region. First stage involved selecting schools and in the second stage students were selected from schools. The procedure of estimation involved computing the average of each group's achievement scores and attached standard errors, the gap of standard errors and statistical significance of standard errors at 0.05 level.

The results show that rural and urban students had comparable levels of achievement in some of the tested learning areas. In Balochistan province, rural students outperformed their urban counterparts in three out of the four tested subjects. In Punjab and Sindh, urban students performed significantly better in social studies and language tests; scores on social studies and language did not differ significantly across location in the North West. The differences appeared to be partly explained by variation in schooling conditions, students' home background, and teachers' characteristics. Teachers' training turned out to be decisive in determining students' achievement, whereas availability of resources and multi‐grade teaching was less important.

Recent educational research from around the world has demonstrated rural‐urban gaps in achievement and schooling conditions. Evidence from developing countries is still sparse. This study is the first attempt to report rural‐urban disparities in academic achievement, student, teacher, and school characteristics based on a nationally representative sample. The study has employed an appropriate sampling strategy and proportionally adequate sample to address the potential differences in achievement of rural and urban students in four provinces. The findings could therefore be used to guide policy interventions in areas of curriculum differences, schooling conditions, teachers' training and multi‐grade teaching across provinces.

Developing countries in many parts of the world have experienced a disturbing trend in the differential pace of economic development among urban and rural communities. These inequities have been observed in education systems in Asia, Africa, and Latin America where researchers have documented differences not only in resource allocation but also in the academic performance among students in urban and rural schools. Recently researchers have shifted their focus from examining financial and physical resources to investigating the nature and impact of differences in human resources. The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in school organization processes associated with learning-centered leadership and teacher learning among urban and rural primary schools in Thailand. Teacher trust and teacher agency were proposed as possible mediators of leadership effects on teacher learning.

This study employed a cross-sectional survey design. The authors collected survey data from 1,011 teachers and 60 principals in 30 urban and 30 rural primary schools in Thailand. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping were used to analyze the proposed model of leadership and teacher professional learning. More specifically, data analysis was aimed at determining the nature of relationships among the constructs in the conceptual model and whether patterns of leadership and teacher learning differed in urban and rural primary schools.

The results affirmed a model whereby school leadership exerted significant indirect effects on teacher learning in both urban and rural primary schools. Data analyses determined that the path of leadership effects moved through trust to agency and then to teacher professional learning. Thus, while the authors found a strong direct effect of leadership on teacher trust, there were only small direct effects of leadership on teacher agency and no meaningful direct effects of leadership on teacher professional learning. Thus, the research affirmed a full mediation model of leadership effects on teacher learning. Finally, the study also affirmed that the measured variables were perceived as significantly stronger in the urban schools than in the rural schools.

The research expands on prior research on the “achievement gap” in Thailand by demonstrating the existence of a similar “human resource gap” when comparing urban and rural school leaders and teachers. This study implies that addressing the gap in student achievement will require action aimed at building the capacity of the principals and teachers who work with the rural pupils.

These results suggest differences in the quality of human resources between urban and rural primary schools in Thailand. There may be potential benefit to be gained from providing training focused on “learning-centered leadership” for principals and middle level leaders, as well as expanding access to quality professional development opportunities for rural teachers.

Private supplementary tutoring, common in many countries, has mixed (both positive and negative) dimensions that impact student learning. Private supplementary tutoring runs parallel to mainstream schooling and provides lessons before or after school hours in exchange for additional fees. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how private supplementary tutoring benefits students’ learning in secondary education. It also identifies the drawbacks of tutoring, and shows variations in and between urban and rural locations.

The paper employed a mixed methods approach using a survey and individual interview collected from two different research settings: urban and rural. Grades 8 and 10 were purposefully chosen for data collection. A sample of 802 participants, including 401 students and their 401 parents (either mothers or fathers), participated in the survey, in addition to 48 interviewees comprising students, parents and teachers.

At times, pupils’ educational perspectives are influenced by the conflicting (positive/negative) standpoints of tutoring issues. The paper finds mixed impacts of private tutoring with a focus on disparities of implications between urban and rural locations. It identifies positive aspects such as learning attainment, exam preparation, relationship growth and lesson practice, as well as negative perspectives, such as an examination-centered aim and hamper of mainstream school learning.

The study contributes to the awareness of private supplementary tutoring that benefits students’ learning while also bringing disadvantages. It shows implications of fee-charging tutoring which may relate to students’ family socio-economic situations. The paper addresses private tutoring in general (including English and all other subjects) in most cases, and, more specifically, private tutoring in English as a subject in some cases.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate computer literacy competencies among rural and urban students in India and its prime objectives are to find out: how rural and urban students use computers, what is the purpose of computers for these students and what problems have the students encountered while using computers.

Scheduled interviews were conducted to collect necessary data from rural and urban students. The interview schedules consisted of various questions designed to elicit details about the students’ use of computers. A total of 600 interview schedules were collected and data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for windows to test the formulated hypothesis.

The findings of the study indicate that the infrastructural facilities varied among rural and urban schools. Another notable finding of the study was that majority (91.33 percent) of urban students used computers compared to a significantly less percentage of rural students (32.33 percent). Most rural students have not used computers mainly because they do not know how to (49.75 percent) followed by lack of support from teachers (48.76 percent) and non-availability of computers in their schools (48.27 percent). Electrical power failure was another major problem faced by both urban students (31.75 percent) and rural students (40.20 percent).

This study attempted to learn about the computer literacy competencies among the students and the digital divide in Indian schools. On the basis of the findings, the study has recommended guidelines to bridge the digital gap. These findings and recommendations will potentially be helpful to school authorities and the government in order to take the necessary measurements to bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban students.

Differences among elementary, junior high, and senior high school principals' perceptions of their administrative task competence; involvement with central office; autonomy; job satisfaction; and length of work week were investigated in relation to social forces confronting the principalship and characteristics of traditional principal preparation programs. Questionnaires mailed to a random sample of 450 principals in rural, urban, and suburban districts yielded a 64 per cent return. All principals perceived themselves competent in administrative tasks. However, suburban principals were more involved with central office and experienced greater autonomy than urban principals. Urban principals worked similar hours and were uniformly satisfied unlike suburban principals who varied significantly in level of satisfaction and hours worked. Revisions in principal preparation programs were mandated.

The purpose of this paper is to apply analysis of public discourses on Ze Xiao to explore and interpret the power relationships shaping inequality in admission to public junior high schools in urban China.

This study first introduces the rise of Ze Xiao as an educational phenomenon in China. It then elucidates power relationships in public school admission by analyzing continuities and changes in stakeholders’ interaction in public school admission. It concludes by discussing educational reform for equal public school admission in urban China. Data were collected from written and spoken texts about public school admission, including newspaper articles from the 1980s to the 2000s, policy documents and interviews with relevant stakeholders.

Findings demonstrate that multi-layered power relationships caused diverse inequalities in admission to public secondary education in urban China. These are represented by political and institutional privileges and an imbalance in education development during the social transition from a profit-driven approach in the 1990s to a balance-centered one after 2000. Arguably, there is a necessity to further promote a systematic reform to terminate the privileges and imbalance for an equal and balanced public secondary education in urban China post-2015.

This study attempts to make a contribution toward reconstructing the meaning of inequality in admission to public junior high schools in urban areas by revealing the power relationships among stakeholders constituted through their interactions in public education during the different stages of socio-economic development in urban China.

Over the past decade, policy researchers and advocates have called for the decentralization of teacher hiring decisions from district offices to school principals. The purpose of this paper is to document the trends across two and a half decades in principals’ reported influence over teacher hiring decisions in the USA and explore how and whether principal influence varies systematically across contexts.

Regression analysis with secondary data using seven waves of nationally representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey.

Principals report increased influence over the 25 years that the data span. While principals of urban schools were much more likely to report having less influence over teacher hiring compared to their non-urban counterparts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, their reported influence increased more than that of other principals.

Empowering principals as primary decision-makers assumes that they have the best information on which to make hiring decisions. At the same time, other research suggests that local teacher labor market dynamics contribute to the inequitable sorting of teachers across schools. This study raises questions regarding the implications of the increased influence of principals in teacher hiring on equity of access to quality teachers across schools.

This is the first study to explore whether and how principal influence in teacher hiring decisions has changed over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among academic optimism, community engagement, and student achievement in urban elementary schools across one district.

Data were collected from all 35 urban elementary schools across one district in Virginia, USA. Correlation, multiple regression, and factor analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

In schools where the faculty are optimistic that their students can succeed despite the obstacle of low socioeconomic status (SES) and where the community is engaged, students are more likely to achieve at higher levels. Findings of this study also supported that community engagement, collective efficacy, trust in clients, and academic press do act as predictors to collectively influence student achievement.

The Goddard measure for collective efficacy was replaced with one developed for more challenging settings such as urban schools.

Academic optimism and community engagement were found to work in ways that improve student achievement. Understanding the social contexts in classrooms and schools allows education leaders to work with faculty in examining current practice, in an effort to improve the educational outcomes for all students, even those who must overcome the obstacles to learning posed by their low SES.

With only one previous study of this construct in an urban elementary setting, the current study sought to test those findings in an effort to continue pushing this research agenda into urban settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the range of benchmark applications associated with US magnet schools in urban areas.

The collection and critical analysis of secondary data from relevant publications are used to evaluate the results of America's magnet schools. Analysis of organizational and leadership theory has been utilized in order to benchmark future successful efforts.

The paper finds the following key issues: magnet schools have numerous mission goals that prevent them for having a clear strategy, magnet school structures should be customized for the specific communities and promote parental involvement, and magnet schools instruct students who are heavily influenced by pop culture values and challenge traditional values in the school culture.

The paper examines benchmarking applications that are exclusively relevant in US urban schools.

There are several implications for researchers and practitioners related to improving the academic success of low‐performing schools in urban areas in America.

This paper is significant because it presents a theoretical framework for interpreting the impacts of magnet schools in urban schools.

Mindfulness-based interventions – which train capacities for attention, awareness, compassion, and self-regulation of thoughts and emotions – may offer unique benefits for urban youth exposed to chronic stress and adversity. Urban schools are promising settings in which to integrate mindfulness-based interventions; however, they pose complex challenges for intervention implementation and evaluation.

The paper reflects on the experiences of our community-academic partnership conducting two school-based randomised trials on a mindfulness and yoga programme. The programme was developed by the Holistic Life Foundation and was delivered to middle school students in public schools serving disadvantaged urban communities.

This paper discusses barriers and facilitating factors related to effective intervention delivery and evaluation, presents recommendations for future work and reflects on the potential benefits of mindfulness-based practices for students, teachers and schools.

The paper offers a detailed account of challenges and opportunities associated with implementing mindfulness-based practices in urban school settings.