This symposium brings together four coordinated papers that leverage novel international longitudinal assessment data from TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal (von Davier et al., 2025) to examine one-year mathematics learning progress and its individual, teacher, and school-level determinants. While cross-sectional studies have substantially advanced knowledge about achievement differences between student groups and education systems, they are limited in addressing how learning progresses and inequalities develop over time. By focusing on learning gains rather than single-point achievement, the symposium highlights how longitudinal evidence can sharpen explanations of educational effectiveness and equity.

Across the four papers, the symposium addresses a common core question: Which student, teacher, instructional, and school conditions are associated with stronger learning growth, and to what extent do these conditions amplify or mitigate educational inequality? Methodologically, the papers employ multilevel longitudinal models that account for the nested structure of schooling and enable the examination of growth processes within students and classrooms. Conceptually, the symposium integrates perspectives from research on cumulative advantage, teacher quality, instructional quality, and school climate to build a more process-oriented understanding of learning and stratification.

The first paper investigates the role of student-level characteristics in shaping learning gains, with a particular focus on the Matthew effect (cumulative advantage), and examines whether growth differs by gender, socioeconomic status, and migration background. The second paper tests whether teacher qualifications and professional preparation predict students’ learning growth, contributing to long-standing debates about the extent to which formal training translates into improved student outcomes. Extending this, the third paper examines the contribution of instructional quality, operationalized through three basic dimensions of instructional quality—classroom management, cognitive activation, and supportive climate—and evaluates their association with learning progress. The fourth paper turns to the school as an organization, analyzing how school climate—including safety, bullying, and academic emphasis—relates to student growth and whether a positive climate perpetuates socioeconomic disparities by mediating the relationship between students’ backgrounds and their achievement development.

Taken together, the symposium provides a coherent and multi-level account of how learning progress unfolds over time and where leverage points for policy and practice may lie. By combining inequality-focused and effectiveness-focused perspectives within a longitudinal framework, the contributions aim to inform debates on who benefits most from schooling, which aspects of teaching matter for growth, and how school environments can support both higher achievement gains and more equal learning opportunities.

von Davier, M., Kennedy, A. M., Reynolds, K. A., Gonzalez, E., & Khorramdel, L. (2025). TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal International Results in Mathematics and Science. Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. https://doi.org/10.6017/lse.tpisc.timss.dn2487