Rising to the challenge: Examining academic resilience in mathematics and science among disadvantaged students (ARISE)
Education holds the key to a bright future, but for many students, the road to success is anything but easy. The pandemic and energy crisis have exposed the glaring inequalities in education, particularly for low-income students who face a greater risk of underachieving and dropping out. Even in the world’s most egalitarian countries like Norway, disadvantaged students are overrepresented among those who perform poorly in mathematics and science. However, despite having limited educational resources, some students rise to the challenge and succeed. These academically resilient students show what is possible and provide valuable insights into supporting other vulnerable students. How and what makes these students perform so well? Why are some students able to succeed against the odds when so many others with similar backgrounds struggle? Education practitioners and policymakers need to know the processes and factors behind academic resilience to support all students to thrive in our rapidly changing world. Given the recent sharp increase in inequality, fostering student resilience has become more urgent than ever before.
This project addresses educational inequality by generating new knowledge and recommendations to develop academic resilience in mathematics and science (ARISE) in young children. It uses a longitudinal design to (1) develop measures that identify resilient students, (2) examine the implementation of resilience strategies, and (3) investigate factors that affect the development of ARISE and their variations across student backgrounds.
This project links nationally representative data from assessments and surveys in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 and TIMSS Longitudinal with multimodal student data from eye-tracking, computer log files, video observations, and interviews. This project will offer resources to develop ARISE and contributes to creating an inclusive and equitable future that leaves no one behind. Poverty does not need to be destiny.