School matters: how context influences the identification of different types of special educational needs

Despite dramatic changes in Irish special education policy during the last decade, there is little understanding of the factors influencing how special educational needs (SEN) are identified and whether identification varies across different school contexts. International research has tended to focus on how individual child characteristics influence SEN identification. Less attention has been given to other factors such as teacher characteristics or school social mix. Using data from the nine-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study, this article examines which children are most likely to be identified with different SEN types taking into account student social background characteristics, teacher characteristics and school social mix. Findings show that children attending highly disadvantaged school contexts are far more likely to be identified with behavioural problems and less likely to be identified with learning disabilities than children with similar characteristics attending other schools. It seems that ‘behavioural’ issues take precedence over learning difficulties in these schools pointing to a culture of care/containment rather than academic progress.     

Placing Immigrant and Minority Family and Community Members at the School's Centre: the role of community participation

Schools alone cannot reverse the high rates of school failure in the poorest communities in Europe; they need the contributions of the entire community. Coordination between families, the larger community, and the school has proven crucial to enhance student learning and achievement, especially for minority and disadvantaged families. However, families from such backgrounds often participate in their schools only peripherally because the schools take a ‘tourist’ approach, call parents to inform them about school projects and teachers' programmes, or consult them about decisions to be made by professionals, rather than engaging them in their children's education. In contrast, the INCLUD-ED project studied schools across Europe whose students are culturally diverse and from low SES backgrounds; here, the communities are deeply involved in the schools and the students do well academically. This article focuses on three strategies used by these successful schools to engage immigrant and minority community members in more active, decisive, and intellectual ways and thus have greater impact on the school and the students' learning. It also describes some specific practices of involvement grounded in those strategies and the improvements they generate. Though the schools studied use different practices, the three strategies have been found to contribute to a transformative result in all schools: moving minority and disadvantaged families from the periphery of school participation to the centre.

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处境不利学生如何抗逆?——家庭社会资本和学校质量的联合作用

家庭社会资本和学校质量是影响家庭社会经济地位处境不利学生能否转化为抗逆学生的核心要素,二者如何发挥联合作用值得探究。文章使用方差分析、多层线性回归模型分析了我国东部某省不同阶层家庭小学生在家庭社会资本和学校质量方面的获取差异和回报差异。研究发现,学生的家庭社会资本和就读学校质量存在显著的阶层分割;家庭社会资本的增加、就读学校质量的提高不仅正向预测学生的学业成绩、有助于缩小不同阶层家庭学生的成绩差距,而且二者还表现出资源替代关系。因此,文章提出弱势阶层家庭的教育投资重点应该在家庭社会资本的积累上,同时政府和教育行政部门也需要努力缩小区域间和学校间在师资质量、课堂教学质量和教师专业发展机会等方面的差距,使得处境不利学生有机会获得优质教育资源以补偿其家庭资本的匮乏,增加其成为抗逆生的概率。     

Thriving,not just surviving: The impact of teacher mentors on pre-service teachers in disadvantaged school contexts

This study explores the perceptions held by nine mentor teachers from four Australian secondary schools about the impact they have on pre-service teachers during professional placement. Using Fraser’s (2000, 2005, 2008) social justice framework as a theoretical lens, this paper examines what can be learnt from these teacher mentors about mentoring in disadvantaged school contexts. These mentor teachers felt their most significant impact was in shaping pre-service teachers’ awareness and responsiveness to contextual factors so that they could not only fulfil professional experience requirements, but also be better prepared for potential future teaching opportunities in disadvantaged school contexts.     

Activist dispositions for social justice in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling

This article advances current conceptions of teacher activism through an exploration of the social justice dispositions of teachers in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling. We interrogate the practices of teachers in a government school, with a high proportion of refugee students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds, in a high-fees, multi-campus independent school, and in a disadvantaged Systemic Catholic school to illustrate how Bourdieu’s notion of dispositions (which are constitutive of the habitus) and Fraser’s distinction between affirmative and transformative justice are together productive of four types of teacher activism. Specifically, we show that activist dispositions can be characterised as either affirmative or transformative in stance and as either internally or externally focused in relation to the education field. We argue that the social, cultural and material conditions of schools are linked to teachers’ activist dispositions and conclude with the challenge for redressing educational inequalities by fostering a transformative activism in teachers’ practices.     

Do pupils from low-income families get low-quality teachers? Indirect evidence from English schools

Gaps between the educational attainment of pupils from higher and lower income families are widespread and persistent. Teacher quality is amongst the most important school-based determinants of pupil attainment, making the allocation of teachers to pupils a potentially important reason for this attainment gap. We use a range of well-evidenced indicators of teacher quality from the School Workforce Census and the Teaching and Learning International Survey to investigate the extent of social inequalities in access to teacher quality in England. Looking at the allocation of teachers between schools, we find that disadvantaged pupils are more likely to have unqualified, inexperienced or out-of-subject teachers. We present evidence that this reflects both demand from early-career teachers to work in such schools and a greater supply of vacant positions in these schools, due to poor staff retention. We find some evidence of an inequitable allocation of teacher quality to classes within schools, though this is limited to our teacher experience indicator. This is in part due to teachers with more experience at a specific school being better able to influence their allocation to less disadvantaged classes. Implications for policy are discussed.     

A Market-research Approach to the Analysis of New Intake Student Support

This article explores the implications of the publication of the Green Paper on Every Child Matters, which proposes the most radical changes in services for children and their families since the Children's Act, 1988. The Green Paper focuses upon improving every level of professional support for children perceived to be vulnerable and in need. The legislation and subsequent changes will bring about a whole new agenda and philosophy that will directly or indirectly involve every school, teacher, paraprofessional and educational support service. It will also involve changes in supporting parents and carers, and lead to earlier intervention, more accountability and integration between services as well as enhancing workforce reform. In conjunction with the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, 2003, it will provide a new impetus for tackling truancy and disruptive conduct. It is also likely to lead to a rethink about the wider role of schools and aspects of pastoral care practice. Its implementation will require a reassessment of the continuing professional training needs of all teachers and senior professionals working in schools and in related activities such as education social work. The legislation will mean that schools are likely to become all-the-year-round community centres with amended opening hours in order to meet the needs of disadvantaged youngsters and their families.     

Getting our best teachers into disadvantaged schools: differences in the professional and personal factors attracting more effective and less effective teachers to a school

Of the school-level factors that have an impact on student learning, one of the most powerful appears to be the effectiveness of the individual teacher. The most effective teachers are, therefore, one of the most important tools schools and systems have at their disposal to lift the achievement of socio-economically disadvantaged students and improve equity, and policy must be designed in such a way as to draw more of them to the most disadvantaged educational settings. To do this, systems and schools need to be aware of differences in the priorities more and less effective teachers hold in deciding where to teach. This study highlighted such differences in a large sample of Australian teachers. The most effective teachers placed considerably more importance on professional factors in determining whether to transfer into a school. Implications for staffing policy are discussed.     

A Critical Survey of 1000 Activities

Attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and classroom practices of teachers in 24 urban and suburban elementary schools throughout the United States were assessed with teacher questionnaires and classroom observations during a single school year. Teachers in schools serving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds put greater emphasis on teacher authority and control and less on student autonomy and constructivist approaches than teachers in other schools did. Teachers in schools serving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds also were less trusting of students and more skeptical about their abilities. Teachers’ beliefs were generally consistent with their practices, even when school poverty level and students’ mean achievement levels were statistically controlled.     

Federal policy and the teacher labor market: exploring the effects of NCLB school accountability on teacher turnover

The media suggest that accountability pressure increases teacher stress and drives teachers away from teaching, resulting in teachers leaving disadvantaged schools that serve larger proportions of poor and minority students. However, no prior work has systematically examined the changes in the national trends of teacher turnover in response to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school accountability. Drawing on nationally representative samples of schools and teachers from the Schools and Staffing Surveys and Teacher Follow-Up Surveys from 1993–2009, this study applied difference-in-differences approaches to examine the effects of NCLB on teacher turnover. We found a weak increase in the average rate of teachers transferring involuntarily to other schools following school-initiated separations, particularly in disadvantaged schools that served larger proportions of poor and minority students. We also observed that NCLB reduced the involuntary attrition rates of teachers. Importantly, the policy effect is indistinguishable from zero on voluntary transfer between schools or voluntary leaving the teaching profession.     

Parent Engagement and School Readiness: Effects of the Getting Ready Intervention on Preschool Children's Social–Emotional Competencies

Research Findings: Parental engagement with children has been linked to a number of adaptive characteristics in preschool children, and relationships between families and professionals are an important contributor to school readiness. Furthermore, social–emotional competence is a key component of young children's school readiness. This study reports the results of a randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (Getting Ready) designed to facilitate school readiness among disadvantaged preschool children, with a particular focus on social–emotional outcomes. Two hundred and twenty children were involved over the 4-year study period. Statistically significant differences were observed between treatment and control participants in the rate of change over a 2-year period on teacher reports for certain interpersonal competencies (i.e., attachment, initiative, and anxiety/withdrawal). In contrast, no statistically significant differences between groups over a 2-year period were noted for behavioral concerns (anger/aggression, self-control, or behavioral problems) as a function of the Getting Ready intervention. Practice or Policy: The intervention appears to be particularly effective at building social–emotional competencies beyond the effects experienced as a function of participation in Head Start programming alone. Limitations and implications for future research are reviewed.     

Effects of a Developmentally Based Intervention With Teachers on Native American and White Early Adolescents’ Schooling Adjustment in Rural Settings

This study reports the effectiveness of a developmentally based, teacher professional development intervention aimed at improving early adolescent school adjustment. Teachers in rural schools in a Northern Plains state took part in professional development activities across a year. Following a randomized control trial design, Native American and White students’ (N = 165) social, behavioral, and academic adjustment was assessed in intervention compared with control schools. Regression analyses, controlling for baseline and demographic variables, indicated that students in intervention schools improved in achievement, and improved or sustained beginning-of-year schooling dispositions, and perceptions of the school social/affective context, in comparison with evident declines for students in control schools. Native American students more so than White students evidenced particular gains in achievement and perceptions of the school social/affective context.     

The Impact of Sustained, Standards-Based Professional Learning on Second and Third Grade Teachers’ Content and Pedagogical Knowledge in Integrated Mathematics

This 3 year longitudinal study reports the feasibility of an Improving Teacher Quality: No Child Left Behind project for impacting teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge in mathematics in nine Title I elementary schools in the southeastern United States. Data were collected for 3 years to determine the impact of standards and research-based teacher training on these aspects of teacher quality. Content knowledge for the scope of this research study refers to the knowledge that teachers have about subject matter. Teacher quality is directly related to teachers’ “highly qualified” status, as defined by the No Child Left Behind mandate. According to this mandate, every classroom should have a teacher qualified to teach in his subject area and be able to “raise the percentage of students who are proficient in reading and math, and in narrowing the test-score gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.” Participants were six second grade and seven third grade teachers of mathematics from nine schools within one failing school district. The implementation of standards-based methods in the nine Title I Schools increased teacher quality in elementary school mathematics. In fact, qualitative and quantitative data revealed significant gains in teachers’ mathematics content and pedagogical knowledge at both grade levels.     

The impact of school choice and public policy on segregation: Evidence from Chile

Advocates argue that vouchers can make improved educational opportunity available to disadvantaged students. Critics contend that vouchers increase the risk of stratification. Researchers have found that Chile's voucher program has lead to increased socioeconomic school segregation. What has been overlooked, however, is segregation between schools within a sector and variation within private for-profit and non-profit school sectors. I find that public schools are more likely to serve disadvantaged students than private voucher schools. I also find that disadvantaged students are more segregated among private voucher schools than among public schools. While between and within sector segregation levels vary across private voucher school types, the differences are not always consistent with theory. The data also suggest that policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the stratifying effects of educational vouchers.     

Parental choice,social class and market forces: the consequences of privatization of public services in education

This paper is part of a research project into parental choice, social class and market forces carried out by a team in Zaragoza (Spain). The main objective was to evaluate parents’ choice of school and the consequences this may produce in terms of social exclusion and inequality. Additionally, our aim was to determine whether certain populations, ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged groups and immigrants, are concentrated in the same schools. The methodology was ethnographic. We studied 13 private and public schools in Zaragoza, in which 40 students carried out research for 5 months, using interviews, observations and document analysis. The interviews were fully transcribed and analysed using a Straussian methodology. We found three micro‐markets, varying according to different socio‐cultural factors, that share the patterns of an ‘old and stable’ market. This kind of market does not work strictly under the rules of the marketplace, where there is tough competition between schools. However, its outcomes are similar. This ‘old and stable’ market is a mechanism of social class reproduction. The middle and upper classes go to private schools, while ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged groups and immigrants attend the public sector. The parents’ expectations, experiences and ideology play a key role in the marketplace, as well as in the several micro‐markets. Middle class families have more chances to choose a school, due to greater resources and cultural status. Among several conclusions I emphasize that a market system is not necessary for social inequalities to take place. It will occur when the possibility of choice arises. The middle class are favoured under current circumstances, while the working class are disadvantaged. What are the prospects of disadvantaged classes if a market system is developed, with full freedom of choice being promoted and no compensatory actions carried out? Everybody would have the same rights, but would everyone enjoy the same conditions or possibilities? It is possible to predict that the struggle between a public education monopoly and a market system will produce greater differences between social classes. In fact, these policies could provoke a decline of the public school in Spain.     

Why do so few low- and middle-income children attend a grammar school? New evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study

Proponents argue that grammar schools enhance social mobility by allowing high-attaining pupils to attend elite schools, no matter what their social background. However, disadvantaged pupils cannot benefit from grammar schools unless they gain access to them. In this article, we use rich cohort data to investigate the strength of, and reasons for, the socio-economic gradient in grammar school entrance rates. Presenting new evidence for England and Northern Ireland, we find stark differences in grammar school attendance by family income. Although differences in prior academic attainment can partly explain these gaps, parental school preferences and private tuition also play an important role. Entrance to grammar school therefore depends on birth and wealth, as well as academic attainment.     

The School Counselor in Israel: An Agent of Social Justice?

In recent years, leaders in the school counseling profession worldwide have been calling on their colleagues to re-examine their role as “agents of social justice” in schools, with a view to promoting equal educational opportunities for all students. This research examines counselors’ perceptions of the role, role behaviors, personal justice sensitivity, the school’s justice sensitivity and the interrelations among these variables. Two hundred and six Israeli school counselors responded to a questionnaire. Findings show that the majority of counselors perceived their role as promoting social justice, and indeed engaged in activities meant to increase disadvantaged students’ chances of success. The variable of role perception was found to mediate between personal sensitivity to justice (justice sensitivity) and counselors’ actual behaviors. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for the professional socialization of counselors as agents of social justice.     

Underperformance in primary schools

In some primary schools, the average performance of pupils over several years is significantly below the level that could be expected of these pupils. There are several theories for this phenomenon, known as underperformance. Theory on opportunity to learn predicts that pupils in underperforming schools are not given sufficient opportunity to attain the minimum objectives of the curriculum. Contingency theory predicts that activities of principals, teachers, and school boards mediate insufficiently between the educational process and situational factors. The compensation hypothesis predicts that schools in disadvantaged areas first have to compensate for the fact that their pupils lag behind and provide for their basic needs before they can work on structural improvement of educational processes. The additivity hypothesis predicts that schools in disadvantaged areas have a higher risk of low output, even after correcting for social and economic background. Evidence can be found in support of each of these theories and hypotheses.     

School mathematics registers in a context of low academic expectations

We investigate the different school mathematical discourses that are made available for students who all share an unfavourable social and economical position and experiences of low achievement in primary school, and who have been streamed into three different ability groups at the very beginning of secondary school. Our investigation is built on the premise that schools distribute different forms of knowledge to different social groups and thus provide different opportunities to develop consciousness. We look at teacher–student interactions as expressions of social structure at the micro-level and as constituents of social structure on the macrolevel. Employing analytic tools from social semiotics, we carried out a register analysis of the school mathematical discourse in each stream. We found systematic differences and linked them to the work of Dowling (1998) on the construction of ability and its implications for social hierarchies. As a result, the upper of the three streams was freed from a discourse of low expectations, while such a discourse was reinforced for the lower stream. Finally, we will discuss our findings in relation to the contemporary debate about the role of mathematics education in social stratification.