From 2009 to 2011, our team collected quantitative and qualitative data from England and Singapore. This article reflects on some of the counter-intuitive results, particularly those relating to democratic outcomes. One question that arose was why the mean scores for both collective (school) efficacy and political self-efficacy, as well as future voting, would be higher in Singapore than in England, and significantly so for political self-efficacy and future voting. Even more intriguing was why the lowest performing group of students in Singapore, a significant proportion of whom had been repeatedly selected into the lowest stream or the worse schools (e.g. the vocational stream in Lower School), would score higher on future voting relative to the equivalent vocational group in England. And, finally, there was the finding that, while both collective (school) efficacy and political self-efficacy were correlated with future voting in England, only the former was correlated in the case of Singapore. We look at the theoretical explanations, and the contextual factors, using the interview data to cast light on the survey findings.