Homework is an almost universal component of schooling with long historical roots. On a positive note, homework may be regarded as providing more and different opportunities to learn. Furthermore, bringing the school work into the homes could also be seen as a tool to engage parents and promote school-home collaboration. Indeed, homework may have compensatory effects favoring students with more difficulties (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001).

On the other hand, students have different levels of support and resources in their homes. Homework could therefore also be regarded as a source for unequal provision of opportunities to learn. In this sense, homework may be a source of inequity, specifically benefitting students from homes with high socio-economic status (SES) (Authors, 2016; Rønning, 2011). Equity is a goal in education and educational policy in most countries, as is for instance witnessed by the attention given to the study of equity in the large-scale international assessments (e.g. Caro, Lenkeit, & Kyriakides, 2016; Liu, Van Damme, Gielen, & Van Den Noortgate, 2015).

Homework is a controversial field, in which a large number of studies have generated conflicting findings; positive, negative, and insignificant effects of homework on achievement have been found (e.g. Author, 2013; Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006; Fan, Xu, Cai, He, & Fan, 2017; Trautwein, 2007). Dettmers et al. (2009) proposed that to disentangle the issues plaguing the field it is necessary to include possible confounding variables such as teaching quality. One such confounding teaching quality factor could be teachers’ feedback on students’ homework. If a student from a low SES home receives feedback on his/her mathematics homework from the teacher, where the teacher explains the mistakes he/she may have done and how to correct them, this may reduce the disadvantage this student has in terms of low SES. Another confounding variable may be parents support, as previous studies have found parents support to be closely linked to SES (Hoy, Tarter, & Hoy, 2006). High-SES students may have parents who support them with their homework, thus providing an advantage so that these students may benefit more from homework.

However, confounding variables is not the only challenge related to research on homework and equity. Methodology has proven to play a vital role in investigations of both fields (e.g. Author, 2013, 2016; Trautwein, 2007). A question arises as to whether equity and homework may in some cases be so interwoven, that controlling for SES is insufficient and common multi-level regression models don’t suffice. Inferences based on positive, and especially negative or insignificant relations between homework and achievement, may in such cases be erroneous. This could result from methodological issues and threats to causality. For instance, homework may have a differential effect on achievement for high-SES and low-SES students. Other issues include reverse causality (negative correlations between time spent on homework and achievement, because low achievers tend to spend more time on homework), and self-selection.

The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which relations between homework, achievement, parents’ support and teacher feedback are associated with equity in Norway and Sweden.

To shed light on the above issues, we ask the following research questions (RQ.)   :

RQ.1.              What is the relation between time spent on homework and mathematics achievement after controlling for SES and previous grades?

RQ.2.              What is the differential effect of time spent on homework on mathematics achievement with respect to SES, parents’ support and teachers’ feedback respectively?

RQ.3.              What is the relation between SES and time spent on homework, and is this association moderated by parents’ support and teacher feedback?

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