A revised Boxall School Anxiety Test was administered to 1,120 first-year grammar school pupils in 42 schools in South Wales and the West Riding. After separating these into pupils from mixed, boys' and girls' schools, scores were seen to be consistently related to occupational class, the most anxious pupils being from the lower classes. Girls recorded a greater anxiety than boys. Pupils in single-sex schools had slightly higher scores than those in mixed schools, but both groups had only recently entered these schools.

The Common Core has brought a sharp shift in what it means to be mathematically literate. Becoming mathematically literate is now as much a matter of acquiring mathematical practices as of acquiring any defined set of content standards. This more ambitious definition of literacy presents a challenge not only for students, but also for teachers who are supposed to provide students with opportunities to persevere in challenging tasks. To achieve this, teachers need to relinquish just the right amount of control to the students; relinquishing too little constrains students’ opportunities to persevere; relinquishing too much runs the risk of students engaging in unsystematic exploration. The secret ingredient to making it just right is what we call Goldilocks Discourse.