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ABSTRACT. Equity in education is a key concern internationally; however, it is rare that this issue is examined separately for low-and high-achieving students and concurrently across different subject domains. This study examines student and school background characteristics associated with low and high achievement in mathematics and science on the Programme for International Student Assessment. Based on the results of a multilevel multinomial model of achievement for each domain, findings indicate that a greater number of the variables examined are associated with low rather than high achievement. At student level, home language, intention to leave school early, socioeconomic status, grade level, cultural capital, and books in the home are significantly associated with achievement in mathematics and science. At school level, only school average socioeconomic status is statistically significant in the models. Significant gender differences are found in the distribution of high and low achievers, which vary across the domains. In mathematics, females are more likely to be low achievers while males are more likely to be high achievers. In science, gender interacts with early school-leaving intent whereas males intending to leave school early are more likely to be in the lowachieving group than females intending to leave early. Conclusions emphasise the need for targeting resources aimed at promoting equity in outcomes at student level as well as at school level. Future work may extend the current analyses by incorporating domain-specific variables or examining crosscountry differences.

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Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the views of the child to be given due weight in accordance with the child's age and maturity. Legislation in Ireland recognises the rights of children to have a voice in educational matters. Based on a sample of 2838 14-year olds in Ireland and using questionnaire data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, the present study uses a multilevel model to examine the student and school characteristics associated with the civic participation at school. Results indicated that boys have lower levels of civic participation at school than girls, but among boys only, civic participation at school varies in accordance with levels of perceived influence on decision-making. Findings are discussed in the context of the rights of children to participate in decisions that affect them and with reference to Bandura's social cognitive theory.