Anastasios Karakolidis|Alice Duggan|Gerry Shiel|Joanne Kiniry
Examining educational inequalities: insights in the context of improved mathematics performance on national and international assessments at primary level in Ireland
abstract background evaluations effectiveness educational reforms often based level improvement student performance one cycle particular assessment next however improvements overall performance necessarily translate improved equality indeed improvements favour certain subgroups students exacerbate educational performance gaps thus inequality research examines changes equality mathematics achievement subgroup performance differences irish primary school students time ireland constitutes interesting case study due introduction new national literacy numeracy strategy 2011 initial implementation linked significant improvements student mathematics performance paper aims investigate whether improvements accompanied improvements equality methods using data irish national assessments mathematics english reading namer trends international mathematics science study timss period introduction strategy study examines deviations student scores ii variability achievement student school levels iii performance gaps based demographic socioeconomic factors time bivariate analyses multilevel regression models used identify student schoollevel variables related mathematics performance results results showed decrease variability students mathematics performance introduction strategy decrease statistically significant timss additionally considerable decrease variance mathematics performance attributed betweenschool differences time findings constitute evidence increased equality performance differences students schools tended shrink regarding performance gaps variance mathematics performance explained background characteristics study provided mixed results namer subsequent introduction strategy performance gaps variance mathematics achievement explained selected demographic socioeconomic characteristics decreased considerably however case timss conclusions evidence provided study suggests ireland made reasonable progress addressing inequality however room improvement significant proportion variance student mathematics performance still explained demographic socioeconomic characteristics