Loneliness,friendship quality and the social networks of adolescents with high‐functioning autism in an inclusive school setting

By definition, children with autism have poor peer relationships despite age and ability. When children enter adolescence, social problems typically worsen and feelings of loneliness and isolation may emerge. Thus, the overarching goal of the current study is to examine the social–emotional relationships of adolescents with autism and their typically developing (TD) classmates. Participants included 20 adolescents, 7 adolescents with autism and 13 TD classmates. All participants were enrolled in a drama class at a regular education high school in the Los Angeles area. Results indicate that adolescents with autism experienced significantly more loneliness than their TD classmates, had significantly poorer friendship quality in companionship and helpfulness, and had significantly lower social network status than their TD classmates. In addition, 92.4% of TD adolescents had secondary or nuclear social network centrality, which means that those adolescents were significantly connected and recognised in their classroom social structure although 71.4% of the adolescents with autism were either isolated or peripheral in their classroom. These findings imply that although inclusion in regular classrooms may allow adolescents with autism to be involved in the social structure of their classroom, they experienced more loneliness, poorer friendship quality and social network status as compared with their classmates. These results suggest that, perhaps, more intensive social skills' interventions that focus on friendship development are needed in adolescents with autism.     

农村留守儿童社会支持与孤独感的关系

通过对264名留守儿童和213名非留守儿童进行问卷调查,探讨了不同情况下,社会支持对留守儿童孤独感的影响.结果表明:留守与非留守儿童在孤独感上没有显著差异;同学支持和母亲支持对非留守儿童的孤独感有显著负向影响,而同学支持、父亲支持和教师支持同时对留守儿童的孤独感具有显著负向影响;高自尊组留守儿童的孤独感显著低于低自尊组;只有同学支持对于低自尊组留守儿童的孤独感具有显著负向影响,而同学支持和教师支持同时对高自尊组留守儿童的孤独感也具有显著负向影响.     

高职院校大学生社会支持调查与教育对策

采用社会支持评定量表对高职在校生进行问卷调查,结果发现:父母及兄弟姐妹、同学、舍友对高职生的支持十分重要,老师及学校内的团体的支持很欠缺,高职生求助和倾诉行为被动且窄。不同类型高职生在社会支持及各分量表支持状况存在显著差异。应该深化认识,增强主导学生社会支持体系建构的责任感;建构个体自身,家长与舍友,班干部与同学,党团组织与社团,辅导员及任课教师、心理辅导教师的六级心理支持体系;完善党团、社团组织建设,提高学生的归属性支持;尊重差异,对特殊群体进行针对性干预;弘扬传统文化,实现学生互帮互助。     

Contacts with classmates: the social position of pupils with Down's syndrome in Dutch mainstream education

ABSTRACT

An important aspect of integrating special needs pupils in mainstream education is social integration. Parents of Down's syndrome children and their teachers in regular education regard contact with peers as of utmost importance for these children's development. Until recently, there was little research in The Netherlands on social contact between mainstream Down's syndrome children and their classmates. The study addresses the number and type of contacts in the regular classroom and the position occupied by the pupils involved within their peer group in regular education.     

社区青少年心理社会支持系统构建

作为占有较少社会资源的社区青少年,通常社会地位低、生存状况差,处于社会边缘,其心理健康状况不容乐观。通过对昆明市社区青少年的心理及社会支持状况进行调查,发现社区青少年获得支持的途径主要来自于父母、朋友、同学等非正式支持系统。因此,应加强对弱势群体的社会支持系统的构建,特别是社会心理支持系统,培养他们的社会归属感,这是解决社区青少年心理问题、促进社区青少年社会适应的重要途径。     

Social acceptance and the choosing of favourite classmates: a comparison between students with special educational needs and typically developing students in a context of full inclusion

Empirical data on the effects of inclusion regarding the social participation of typically developing students and those with special educational needs are still controversial. While some studies suggest that the more extensive the inclusion, the higher the social position of students with special educational needs, evidence from other studies indicates that the full inclusion of students with special educational needs into ordinary schools is not sufficient, per se, to increase their social participation. In this study, we set out to investigate the social position of students with special educational needs and typically developing students studying in regular classroom environments in Italian primary and secondary schools. Given that being accepted is far from the same as being chosen, besides examining rates of acceptance and rejection, we also considered the choices made by students regarding their favourite classmates. The results demonstrated that students with special educational needs are significantly less accepted and are very rarely chosen as favoured classmates by their typically developing counterparts. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Geographical mobility and children’s non-completion of upper secondary education in Finland and Germany: Do parental resources matter?

It is often assumed that families migrate to improve their economic and social prospects, and that these additional resources can benefit the whole family. However, existing research suggests that many children who have experienced (internal) migration underperform compared to their non-migrating peers in terms of different socioeconomic outcomes. In this article, we study the effects of geographical mobility on children’s non-completion of upper secondary education in Finland and Germany using Finnish register data and the German National Educational Panel Study. Our findings indicate that moving during childhood is associated with the risk of not attaining any secondary degree in both countries. In Finland, this is mostly explained by negative selection into moving (i.e. those who move are more likely to be disadvantaged). In Germany, however, an independent association between moving and educational attainment remains after taking into account various reasons why families move. Furthermore, for both Germany and Finland, any labour force status or earning gains parents make after a move do not seem to compensate for the negative influence of internal migration on children’s educational dropout. Overall, we conclude that geographically mobile children may be a vulnerable subgroup in the inter-generational transmission of inequality, therefore schools have an important role to play in integrating internal migrants—as well as international migrants—into the social networks of the schools they arrive in.     

Preliminary Evidence on the Social Standing of Students with Learning Disabilities in PALS and No–PALS Classrooms

Many researchers have documented the apparent fact that numerous students with LD have social–skill deficits and a lower social standing than their nondisabled peers. In principle, participation in peer tutoring would appear to be at least a partial solution. It requires classmates to work together on valued tasks and research indicates that it can promote academic growth among students with and without disabilities. Yet, little research has been conducted on the social benefits of peer tutoring. This study attempts to do precisely that by collecting sociometric data in 39 second– through sixth–grade classrooms, 22 of which were engaged in Peer–Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), a form of peer tutoring. In each of the 39 classrooms, sociometric data are reported on four children—a student with LD and a low–achieving, average–achieving, and high–achieving student. Findings indicated that students with LD in PALS classes were (1) more socially accepted than their counterparts in No–PALS classes, and (2) enjoyed the same social standing as most nondisabled classmates. Strengths and weaknesses of this study are discussed, as are directions for future research.     

Success in higher education: the challenge to achieve academic standing and social position

When students look at their classmates in the classroom, consciously or unconsciously, they see competitors both for academic recognition and social success. How do they fit in relation to others and how do they succeed in achieving both? Traditional views on the drive to succeed and the fear of failure are well known as motivators for achieving academic success but is it that simple a dichotomy? Do students also view success through a fear of success and a purposeful intent to fail – referred to in this text as the drive to fail? Students recognize the importance of social position in class but how is this perceived and will they sacrifice social position for academic standing or vice versa? This paper considers these issues by analyzing the results of a student survey and opinions offered by the students. The discussion considers the survey, academic standing, social position, cultural variables, perception of success and failure, and concluding comments.     

Philosophy with children,self-regulation and engaged participation for children with emotional-behavioural and social communication needs

This study examined the effectiveness of Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI) as an inclusive pedagogical approach by which to support the communicative interaction and opportunities for collaborative dialogue for children with social, emotional and behavioural needs in two mainstream classes. There is currently no empirical work that considers children with these particular needs participating in practical philosophy, particularly in CoPI. Two groups of children, aged between nine and twelve, engaged in CoPI over a period of 10 weeks. The philosophy sessions were conducted as part of the regular class work. The results show that the children were able to engage in collaborative, philosophical dialogue with their peers without being any more disruptive than their classmates. The findings of this study lead to the assertion that it is the structure of CoPI that supported the children’s engaged participation and self-regulation and that this might usefully be considered in creating classroom activities for all children.     

A pedagogical alliance for academic achievement: Socio-Emotional effects on assessment outcomes

Assessment of student learning outcomes is often discussed in relation to curriculum, standards and even administration practices. However, assessment of learning outcomes is rarely discussed in light of students’ socio-emotional contexts, which might help or hinder learning outcomes. For example, do students’ perceptions of the teacher as trustworthy influence their empathic views on classmates, learning engagement, academic achievement and wellbeing? The present paper reports the results of a theoretically-driven, short-term longitudinal study designed to explore the effects of socio-emotional variables, specifically students’ trust in teachers and empathy towards self and peers on engagement for learning, academic achievement, and wellbeing. Grounded in attachment theory and the LEAFF model, Panel Structural Equation Modeling (P-SEM) results revealed three significant pathways, which provide evidence that student trust in teachers may serve to launch a domino effect of outcomes, predicting students’ empathic views of classmates, learning engagement, academic achievement, and wellbeing.     

Disabled Peers and Student Performance: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from China

This paper analyzes the academic peer influence of disabled students in the classroom, exploiting the random student–classroom assignment within middle schools in China. We show that the share of disabled students in a class has a significant negative impact on the academic achievement of their non-disabled classmates. This adverse influence remains largely stable over time when the classroom composition stays constant. We further find that the social spillovers of disabled students are attributable to their disability status rather than to their disability-correlated characteristics. An investigation into the mechanisms shows that disabled children lead to worsened learning environment and increased social interactions of their classmates with disruptive peers at school. There is no evidence that disabled children impair the learning efforts or the educational aspirations of non-disabled students in the same classroom.     

培养文化敏感型教师:多元文化教师教育的议题与挑战——美国哥伦比亚大学师范学院A.Lin.Goodwin教授访谈

学校中儿童的日益多样化,使得教师教育必须帮助新教师理解如何与各种文化背景的学生打交道。教师不能想当然地假设每一个孩子都有相似的经历和体验,而要对学生的差异性保持清醒的意识和文化的敏感。多元文化教育更大的使命,是要确保教育实践的公平性,履行教育助推社会公正的使命。因此,为社会公正培养"文化敏感型教师",成为多元文化教育的核心议题。文化敏感型教师尽最大努力确保所有学生学业成功,帮助学生发展批判和质疑精神,培养学生改变社会的意识和能力。文化敏感型教师的概念使我们超越了对多元文化教师教育的肤浅定义,将多元文化教师教育指向这样的方向:教育是具有政治意义的活动,是每一个孩子都应该获得的权利。多元文化教师教育并非是让学生了解某个或某些少数民族那么简单,而是要培养师范生对个体差异性进行持续探究的能力。     

Social Participation of Students with Special Needs in Regular Primary Education in the Netherlands

This study addresses the social participation of young students (Grades One to Three) with special needs in regular Dutch primary schools. More specifically, the focus lies on four key themes related to social participation: friendships/relationships, contacts/interactions, students’ social self‐perception, and acceptance by classmates. The outcomes of the study revealed that the majority of students with special needs have a satisfactory degree of social participation. However, compared with students without special needs, a relatively large portion of the students with special needs experience difficulties in their social participation. In general, students with special needs have a significantly lower number of friends and are members of a cohesive subgroup less often than their typical peers. In addition, students with special needs have fewer interactions with classmates, have more interactions with the teacher, and are less accepted than students without special needs. The social self‐perception of both groups of students does not differ. A comparison between students with different categories of disability regarding the four themes of social participation revealed no significant differences.     

从改善师幼互动到促进幼儿多向互动

《幼儿园教育指导纲要（试行）》（下称《纲要》）要求教师“关注幼儿在活动中的表现与反应。敏感地察觉他们的需要，及时以适当的方式应答，形成合作探究式的师幼互动”。要达到这个目标，必须经历从着力改善师幼互动到积极促进幼儿多向互动的过程。     

儿童社会技能缺陷与教育对策

儿童社会技能表现为能在群体中正常完成合作、竞争、冲突和交友等交往活动。儿童社会技能缺陷分为社会性退缩和社会性攻击两类。合理设置交往空间、情感诊疗、行为模式训练、强化认知是弥补儿童社会技能缺陷的主要方法。     

Impact of primary and secondary social origin factors on the transition to university in the Czech Republic

The main objective of this paper is to show to what extent and why students with the same academic aptitude but different social backgrounds have different odds of entering university. For our analysis, we separated primary and secondary factors of social origin in the formation of educational inequalities. The results show that the primary and secondary factors have approximately the same influence on the transition to university. Czech schools do not affect the process of forming educational aspirations and transition to university, and merely ‘classify’ children according to their social origin. This situation emerged during the socialist era and has remained unchanged after the fall of communism (in 1989). However, the mechanism of the social origin effect has changed – while cultural capital with a ‘direct’ impact had a major role to play during the socialist era, at present there is a rather ‘indirect’ influence through economic capital.     

Social Motivation in the Classroom: implications for students’ achievement

Attributional rules that govern students’ self‐presentation tactics in school situations are presented. Recent research is reviewed that shows how children learn to strategically manipulate their teachers’ and classmates’ social responses toward themselves by varying their public accounts of achievement failures and successes. The implications of changing social dynamics on students’ achievement motivation and school behavior are discussed.     

Deconstructing Meritocracy in the College Classroom

The purpose of this article is to discuss meritocracy as it impacts our undergraduate college teaching. As college educators, we have come to realize how little students have been challenged to critically examine the notion of meritocracy. Seeking to understand why this is so and what we can do to engender a more nuanced understanding of how social class is structured and perpetuated across generations, we present an assessment of why the majority of students believe we live in a meritocratic society and how college educators can use specific activities to complicate this view. As we do this we include evidence of how social class and social mobility are structured and why an adherence to meritocracy is, we believe, an anathema to teaching for social justice.