Friendship and Attitudes Toward School Among Children of Two Muslim Communities in Marseille

Immigrants from the Comoros Islands constitute a closely-knit community in Marseille, where they interact in the Quartiers Nord with the North African community, which is larger in number, which arrived generally a generation earlier, and whose children continue to underachieve at school. It is commonly expected that the Comorians will adjust better to school because of their tight communal organization and because of their specific needs for educational achievement. These needs are thought to relate to the money needed to return to the Comoros and to finance their children's marriage ceremonies there. In our study, pupils of Comorian origin in the senior primary school years displayed more positive attitudes toward the academic aspects of schooling than did pupils of North African origin. For both Algerians and Comorians, positive aspects of friendship quality were associated with better attitudes toward school. In-group friendships were more common than friendships with members of other ethnic groups. In-group friendships were of higher quality than friendships between members of different groups. Comorian children whose best friends were from outside their ethnic group were those with more negative attitudes toward school; the reverse applied to Algerians.     

Cross‐Ethnic Friendships and Intergroup Attitudes Among Asian American Adolescents

This study examined cross‐ethnic friendship choices and intergroup attitudes in a sample of 762 sixth‐grade Asian American students (M_age = 11.5 years) attending 1 of 19 middle schools that varied in ethnic composition. Multiple measures of friendship (quantity and quality) and intergroup attitudes (affective, cognitive, behavioral) toward White, Latino, and Black grademates were assessed. The results showed that Asian American students overnominated White students and undernominated Latino and Black students as their friends when school availability of each ethnic group was accounted for. Cross‐ethnic friendships were related to better intergroup attitudes, especially the behavioral dimension of attitudes. Cross‐ethnic friendships were least likely to change attitudes toward Blacks. Implications for future research, educational practice, and attitude intervention programs were discussed.     

Intergroup Attitudes among Ethnic Minority Adolescents: A Causal Model

To examine the influence of ethnic idenilty and intergroup contact on adolescents' attitudes toward other ethnic groups, we studied eighth and eleventh graders from 2 predominantly non-white school districts. Surveys completed by 547 adolescents from 3 ethnic groups (133 African Americans, 219 Latinos, and 195 Asian Americans) assessed in-group and out-group attitudes, out-group interaction, out-group contact, and ethnic identity. A causal model suggested 2 pathways leading to positive out-group attitudes. In one pathway, ethnic identity increased with age and predicted positive in-group attitudes; these attitudes contributed to positive out-group attitudes. In a separate pathway, ethnic diversity outside of schcool led to more out-group interaction in school, which in turn predicted positive out-group attitudes. The results support developmental and multiculturalism views of intergroup relations.     

Ethnicity vs. national culture in one nationalized educational site: the case of the annual school trip

This study examines the interface between ethnicity and nationality in a nationalized educational site – the annual school trip – that took place in a Jewish high school in Israel that serves underprivileged ethnic groups. Based on ethnographic field work, I analyze how the Ashkenazi (central-eastern European origin) hegemonic national culture that is embedded in the field trip is worked out by the Mizrahi (Asian and north African origin) students, in light of their ethnic background and the ethnic Ashkenazi/Mizrahi division that characterizes the Israeli society. Although both groups share the same national sentiment, the analysis exposes the different ways the pedagogical practices used by the trip represented the national hegemonic culture and the ways it has been contested and reshaped along ethnic lines while reflecting the existing ethnic borders that the pupils were trying to widen.     

Raising the achievement of African heritage pupils: a case study of good practice in British schools

The aim of this paper is to investigate how pupils from black African backgrounds are helped to achieve high standards in schools and to identify the factors that contribute to the success of raising achievement. Two complementary methodological approaches were adopted, each contributing a particular set of data to the study. First, General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) empirical investigation was undertaken to draw lessons from the last seven years by examining in detail the attainment of black African pupils in the authority. This was followed by detailed case‐study research to illuminate how the complex interactions of context, organization, policy and practice helps generate effective practice in raising the attainment of black African pupils. Five case‐study schools were selected. A structured questionnaire was used to interview headteachers, staff, governors, parents and pupils to gather evidence of African heritage pupil achievement. The main findings of the research show that in all schools black African pupils are performing above national average, and in the case‐study schools 79% of black African pupils achieved five+ A*–C GCSEs compared to 48% nationally and 57% in the authority schools. The study has also identified a number of good practices in successful schools. Among the key features that contribute to the success of raising the achievement in the case‐study schools are: African parents value education very highly and respect the authority of schools; strong leadership; effective use of performance data for school self‐evaluation; diversity in the workforce; a highly inclusive curriculum that meets the needs of African heritage pupils; a strong link with the community; well coordinated support and guidance; good parental support and high expectation of their children; and teachers’ high expectation of African heritage pupils and a strong commitment to equal opportunities. The final section gives policy implications for school improvement.     

终身教育思想的新实践:英国的拓展学校

英国的拓展性学校是指学校在正规的教学时间之外提供系列服务和活动,以满足学生、家长和社区的需要。拓展性学校解决了儿童无人监管的问题和社区教育薄弱的问题,具备关心儿童当下生活,关注弱势群体,整合社会教育资源的特点,契合了终身教育的精髓,为各国的学校教育改革提供了借鉴。     

EXAMINATIONS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION‐STATISTICS AND INFERENCES

Many aspects of multiracial education were investigated in a national survey of teachers’ opinions. This first part of a two‐part article reports on those items which covered necessary or desirable changes in the curriculum and other aspects of school life. These include topics such as religious education and assemblies, dress and diet, mother‐tongue teaching, English as a foreign language, racial bias in books, cultural adaptation and adjustment, special language needs of West Indian pupils, and deployment of immigrant teachers and non‐teaching staff.

A total of 510 teachers (171 primary and 339 secondary) from 25 schools responded to the questionnaire. In these schools the overall proportions of pupils of minority ethnic groups ranged from 18 to 84 per cent. Pupils of Asian, Cypriot, Italian and Afro‐Caribbean origin were represented in varying proportions.     

White working class achievement: an ethnographic study of barriers to learning in schools

This study aims to examine the key barriers to learning to raise achievement of White British pupils with low‐income backgrounds. The main findings suggest that the worryingly low‐achievement levels of many White working class pupils have been masked by the middle class success in the English school system and government statistics that fail to distinguish the White British ethnic group by social background. The empirical data confirm that one of the biggest groups of underachievers is the White British working class and their outcomes at each key stage are considerably below those achieved by all other ethnic groups. One of the main reasons for pupil underachievement, identified in the case study schools and focus groups, is parental low aspirations of their children’s education and social deprivation. It is also perpetuated by factors such as low‐literacy levels, feelings of marginalisation within the community exacerbated by housing allocation, a lack of community and school engagement, low levels of parental engagement and lack of targeted support to break the cycle of poverty and disadvantage, a legacy of low aspiration that prevents pupils from fulfilling their potential across a range of areas. The study concludes that the main obstacle in raising achievement is the government’s failure to recognise that this group has particular needs that are not being met by the school system. The government needs to recognise that the underachievement of White British working class pupils is not only a problem facing educational services but profoundly a serious challenge. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed in the final section.     

‘They're telling me what I already know instead of what I don't know’: dyslexic pupils' experiences of withdrawal tuition during the later primary years

This article reports findings from a qualitative case study whose main focus was on how four 10–11‐year‐old dyslexic pupils coped with the demands of classroom reading during their final two years (Years 5–6) at a primary school in the north of England. Data were also collected on more general issues associated with the pupils' experiences of small‐group withdrawal tuition, and it is this evidence that is drawn on here. Although there were some benefits in terms of improved self‐esteem and overall confidence levels, problems with the sessions were revealed. The work on basic literacy skills lacked challenge as it was not well matched to learning needs and disaffection was created due to missing class lessons. Because of their literacy difficulties these dyslexic pupils were inevitably marginalised within the classroom community of learners, and I argue that attending withdrawal sessions added to their exclusionary experience of school.     

School Careers of Pupils of Ethnic Minority Background After the Transition to Secondary Education: Is the Ethnic Factor Always Negative?

This article describes the school careers of Dutch pupils of ethnic minority background in the first 5 years following the transition to secondary education. The database used is VOCL89 of the Dutch Central Statistics Office (CBS). In line with previous findings,in the case of equal achievements pupils of ethnic minority background are advised to select higher types of secondary education than Dutch pupils. Furthermore, pupils of ethnic minority background more often select a school higher than advised than Dutch pupils. With control for social background, pupils of ethnic minority background are also found to display a more favourable career after the 1st year of secondary education. Path model construction results in consistently positive effects of ethnic minority origin at every transition. Further analysis demonstrates that even the most vulnerable subgroups of pupils of ethnic minority background, the Turkish and Moroccan pupils born in their motherland, show both absolutely and compared with the advice a career on a higher level than Dutch pupils with a similar social background. A point of discussion concerns the extent to which social background, defined as the parental educational level, refers to the same concept for Dutch people and people belonging to ethnic minority groups.     

Tensions experienced by teachers and their views of support for pupils with autism spectrum disorders in mainstream schools

The number of pupils with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who receive their education in mainstream schools in the UK has increased considerably over the last 10 years. Despite this increase, teachers and other support staff face a number of challenges in order to ensure that these inclusive arrangements bring maximum benefits to the children themselves, their parents and the school community as a whole. In this study we explore some of the tensions that teachers in mainstream schools may experience, many of which reflect the unique problems that the inclusion of pupils with ASD can present. In addition, we explore how these tensions may shape their views of support arrangements for those pupils. We observed 17 pupils with ASD ranging from 7 to 16 years, all of whom were placed in a regular class in one of eight mainstream schools on a full‐time basis, and carried out interviews with their teachers, teaching assistants (TAs) and special educational needs coordinator. Findings suggest that tensions reported by school staff are inherently shaped by the ASD‐related manifestations, particularly those pertaining to their difficulties in social and emotional understanding. These tensions determine the quality of the transactions and interactions between the teachers and the pupils with ASD. Based on these tensions, teachers form their views of the type of support that is needed for those pupils. Evidence from the data suggests that, in order for these tensions to be kept at manageable proportions, teachers rely heavily on the TA, whose role in working closely with the pupil is perceived as being indispensable. Building on the study’s findings, we suggest a generic conceptualization for the successful inclusion of pupils with ASD, which is grounded in the systems theory perspective of the relationship between the teachers and these children.     

Does Environmental Education have ‘Street Credibility’ and the Potential to Reduce Pupil Disaffection Within and Beyond their School Curriculum?

Pupils express their disaffection with the school curriculum through their disruptive behaviour, disengagement from the learning process and through under‐achievement in their work. Given that the majority of pupils are in school, in body if not always in mind, then does learning about the environment switch pupils on to learning? This paper considers pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of the effect that environmental education has on pupils’ attitudes to learning, on their ability to demonstrate positive achievement, on their involvement and cooperation in lessons, on their behaviour and their attitude to school, their community and the world outside school.     

Bad boys,good girls? Implicit and explicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students among elementary and secondary school teachers

Teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students might differ by students’ gender and the type of school teachers are working in because of different motivations for teaching and different school practices. Hence, the aim of the current research was to investigate elementary (n = 82) and secondary school (n = 82) teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward male and female ethnic minority students. Teachers worked on either a male or a female Implicit Association Test and filled out a gender-specific questionnaire for measuring explicit attitudes. The results showed that elementary and secondary school teachers had negative implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students, independent of students’ gender. Whereas secondary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward boys, elementary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward girls. Elementary school teachers were more enthusiastic about teaching ethnic minority boys than girls. The findings provide the first insights into differences in attitudes between elementary and secondary school teachers.     

A Test of the Big Fish in a Little Pond Hypothesis: An Investigation Into the Feelings of Seven-Year-Old Pupils in School

The feelings (self-concepts and attitudes) toward maths, reading and school of 21,000 seven-year-olds in England were investigated using multi-variate multi-level models. The most important explanatory variables were the teacher and the academic level of the pupils supporting the view that it is important to track attitudes in any monitoring system. Data are presented to support the Big Fish in a Little Pond hypothesis and estimates were also made of importance of sex, age, home background and first language to the attitudes of pupils in school.     

Selectivity,admissions and intakes to ‘comprehensive’ schools in London,England

This study focuses on admissions criteria used for ‘comprehensive’ secondary schools in London, UK. It was found that schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority were more likely to report giving priority to children with medical/social needs and special educational needs than were schools that controlled their own admissions; the latter were more likely to report the use of various potentially ‘creaming’ criteria. There was also more ‘selectivity’ among London comprehensive schools with autonomy over admissions, with higher proportions using potentially selective admissions criteria than in the rest of England. Moreover, it was found that schools with responsibility for their own admissions had lower proportions of pupils with special educational needs and obtained higher scores in public examination ‘league tables’ than schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority. The findings suggest that some schools, although nominally ‘comprehensive’, appear to restrict access to certain groups of pupils.     

The role of ethnic school segregation for adolescents’ religious salience

Public concerns over the possible effects of school segregation on immigrant and ethnic majority religiosity have been on the rise over the last few years. In this paper we focus on (1) the association between ethnic school composition and religious salience, (2) intergenerational differences in religious salience and (3) the role of ethnic school composition for intergenerational differences in religious salience. We perform analyses on religious salience, one five-point Likert scale item measuring religious salience among 3,612 16-year-old pupils in Belgian secondary schools. National origin was used as a proxy for ethnicity. Ethnic minority pupils in schools with a higher share of ethnic minorities tend to be more religious. This relation holds for Muslim as well as other religious and ethnic minorities. Ethnic school composition also moderates the relationship between migrant generation and religious salience: second generation migrants tend to be more religious in ethnic minority dominated schools. For ethnic Belgians the association is moderated by their religious affiliation: Catholics tend to be more religious, while non-affiliated ethnic Belgians are less religious in schools with a higher share of ethnic minority pupils.     

Project-based learning in primary schools: effects on pupils' learning and attitudes

This study focuses upon the effectiveness of project-based learning on primary school pupils regarding their content knowledge and attitudes towards self-efficacy, task value, group work, teaching methods applied and peers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. A cross-curricular project was implemented within the curriculum area of environmental studies under the title of ‘sea animals’. The methodology applied in this study was the quasi-experimental research design. The findings of the present study support the view that pupils can gain benefits through project-based learning in obtaining content knowledge and group work skills and that they became less favourable to traditional teaching versus experiential learning. Motivation (self-efficacy and task value in terms of environmental studies) and developing positive attitudes towards peers from a different ethnic background were changed in moderate levels after the project.     

The roles of teacher and student gender in German teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students

Implicit and explicit attitudes play crucial roles in teachers’ judgments and behavior and might be part of the reason for the varying school performances of ethnic minority compared with ethnic majority students but also of female compared with male students. In this study, we investigated 80 female and 80 male German secondary school teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward female and male Turkish students, expecting more favorable attitudes toward same-gender students. However, implicit and explicit attitudes toward male and female students were independent of teachers’ gender. An IAT revealed more negative implicit attitudes toward female than male ethnic minority students, while teachers explicitly favored female ethnic minority students. Results are discussed in terms of culturally divergent social norms and gender.     

Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Adolescents’ Well‐Being: The Role of Cross‐Ethnic Friendships and Friends’ Experiences of Discrimination

There is an extensive body of work documenting the negative socioemotional and academic consequences of perceiving racial/ethnic discrimination during adolescence, but little is known about how the larger peer context conditions such effects. Using peer network data from 252 eighth graders (85% Latino, 11% African American, 5% other race/ethnicity), the present study examined the moderating role of cross‐ethnic friendships and close friends’ experiences of discrimination in the link between adolescents’ perceptions of discrimination and well‐being. Cross‐ethnic friendships and friends’ experiences of discrimination generally served a protective role, buffering the negative effects of discrimination on both socioemotional well‐being and school outcomes. Overall, results highlight the importance of considering racial/ethnic‐related aspects of adolescents’ friendships when studying interpersonal processes closely tied to race/ethnicity.     

High School‐Aged Youths' Attitudes Toward their Peers with Disabilities: the role of school and student interpersonal Factors

Negative peer attitudes are generally recognised as being a major barrier to full social inclusion at school for children and youth with disabilities. The present study examined the attitudes of 1,872 grade nine high school students in Ontario, Canada toward their peers with disabilities. A bioecological perspective and a structural equation modeling approach were adopted to investigate how various aspects of school culture and student interpersonal factors influenced attitudes. The majority of students (61%) held attitudes toward peers with disabilities that ranged from slightly above neutral to very positive. However, a substantial number (21%) held slightly below neutral to very negative attitudes. Positive student relationships at the school level and a school goal task structure that promoted learning and understanding for all students, rather than social comparison and competition among students, were two aspects of school culture that had both direct associations with positive attitudes and indirect associations through student interpersonal factors. Teacher and student relationships at the school level was an aspect of school culture that had an indirect association with positive attitudes via interpersonal support from teachers. Results support the development of ecologically based programs aimed at promoting aspects of school culture that contribute to positive attitudes of students toward their peers with disabilities.