Free primary education policy and pupil school mobility in urban Kenya

This paper examines pupil school mobility in urban Kenya using African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) household survey data which contain information on pupil transfers between schools. The aim is to identify which school characteristics attract the greatest demand for incoming transfers. The analysis reveals that there are frequent transfers in the slums than in the non-slum settlements; that transfer are in favour of private schools; and that quality is the main motivation for the transfers. Quality schools are perceived to have good discipline and better teacher performance. Given these results, should the Kenya government recognise the ‘low cost’ schools found in the slums which serve nearly half of the pupils and devise mechanisms of funding them?     

School bullying as a creator of pupil peer pressure

Background:?Research into school bullying has a long tradition but a rather narrow scope. Many prevention programmes have been designed, but despite extensive investigation, most studies suggest that bullying is not decreasing. There is something paradoxical in this phenomenon. In order to have any real impact on some phenomena, thorough understanding is needed. What, then, is the essence of school bullying? How does it develop and how is it maintained in a community? In the present study written material and interviews concerning pupils´ experiences of bullying were used to examine how the status of the bully is created among pupils and how cultural norms and values in the community are constructed via bullying. Bullying as a phenomenon is a hidden process, where teachers are often misled. The meanings given to bullying behaviour can often be understood only by the pupils in the community. This is why bullying is possible in the presence of the teacher and also during lessons. The study suggests the need to see bullying in a broader social and cultural framework, which also provides a new way of understanding pupils´ social relationships.

Purpose:?This study attempts to understand school bullying as a phenomenon from a social and cultural viewpoint. Communication in and meanings given to bullying acts in the school community are in focus.

Sample:?The study sample comprised 85 lower secondary school pupils, aged 13–15, from various schools in central Finland. The data analysed consisted of 85 written accounts and 10 interviews.

Design and methods:?Pupils were asked to write about ‘School bullying’. The interviews were open-ended thematic interviews or episodic interviews (cf. Friebertshäuser). A hermeneutic method was used in analysing the meanings in the texts. The transcribed texts were analysed using categories and themes within which the meanings given to bullying were interpreted.

Results:?Our study suggested that bullying behaviour consists of short communicative situations which are often hidden from teachers. These separate situations account for the subjective experience of bullying. Bullying behaviour is a way of gaining power and status in a group or school class. The status is maintained by calling a pupil who is bullied different names. The ‘difference’ in the bullied pupil is interpreted as a culturally avoidable characteristic. In this way, bullying behaviour creates cultural norms and forces all pupils in the bullying community to follow them. Telling stories and calling the bullied pupil names increases the group's cohesion and the treatment of the bullied pupil creates fear in other pupils, who do not dare to fight bullying. In a community where bullying occurs, fear and guilt are obvious.

Conclusions:?Bullying is embedded in cultural norms, values and social status in the whole community. The hidden nature of the phenomenon emerges in short communicative situations that should be taken seriously. This research applies an approach from sociology and cultural studies to an area that has been dominated by psychological approaches. In doing so, it opens up a variety of interpretations of what bullying is and how it develops in schools.     

Effect of pupil factor on mathematics achievement in cambodian urban primary school

It is generally observed in the literature of school effectiveness research that there are two broadly categorized factors influencing pupil achievement. However, the results of the studies based on empirically collected data vary from country to country and from time to time. Premised on this inconsistency of results and gaps in knowledge of this field in Cambodian education, this study was conducted in order to examine the effect of pupil factor on their mathematics achievement. The data were collected from pupils by means of questionnaires and a mathematics test. After controlling such factors as pupils’ poverty during the research design, the results of the step wise regression analysis showed that pupils’ interest in mathematics was a significantly positive contributor to their performance. Pupils’ absence frequency, gender, grade repetition and preschool attendance had significantly negative effects on their mathematics outcome.     

School mobility and student achievement in an urban setting

Many studies show negative relationships between school or geographic mobility and school achievement. However, two longitudinal studies show no relationship between mobility and subsequent achievement when prior achievement is controlled. The present study replicates both findings among 764 sixth‐grade students in a mobile school district in New York City, with mobility defined by school changes, achievement assessed with standardized tests and age‐grade progress, and eligibility for free or reduced price lunches (an economic indicator) controlled. Total mobility was related to sixth‐grade achievement when earlier achievement was not controlled, but mobility after third grade was not related to sixth‐grade achievement when third‐grade achievement was controlled. Some authors suggest that a third variable, such as family background, accounts for both mobility and achievement. We provide evidence for a different explanation. Early mobility (prior to third grade) was a more potent predictor of sixth‐grade achievement than later mobility. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Use of the meeting street school screening test and the myklebust pupil rating scale with first-grade black urban children

This study hypothesized that: (a) the MSSST would identify the same proportion (15%) of high-risk children in a group (N = 580) of first-grade urban black children as estimated for the general population; (b) the Myklebust would discriminate between high-risk (N = 22) and low-risk (N = 21) children within the minority group using the MSSST as the criterion variable; and (c) Myklebust ratings for the high-risk and low-risk young minority children would approximate ratings reported elsewhere for older white suburban samples of high-risk and low-risk children. All three hypotheses were confirmed. The MSSST may be appropriate for minority group children. The small number of teachers (N = 6) participating in the Myklebust ratings makes generalization about it hazardous without further replication.     

Educating the pupil voice

In this article John Quicke shares his concern to promote the active participation of pupils in their schools and communities. Here he argues strongly that an inclusive philosophy requires an interactionist view of learning. However, he considers that we have much yet to learn about how to identify pupils' views of learning and how these views may be encouraged to become ‘broader, more reflective and more compatible with an inclusive view of learning.’     

Because every pupil counts: the success of the pupil monitoring system in The Netherlands

The National Institute for Educational Measurement in The Netherlands has developed a pupil monitoring system for primary education to assess pupils' learning progress on a longitudinal basis. If pupil development is unsatisfactory, pupil monitoring system material can be used to locate and tackle the problems. This article describes the system, the set-up of the longitudinal calibration, the psychometrics used and the educational procedure for structured action. The pupil monitoring system comes with a software program and this article also explains the possibilities of the program, the information it provides to the teacher and school, the role of the computer and the advantages of working with the program. Experience of working with the system is discussed as well as the modifications and improvements that may be necessary in the future     

School enrollment among urban non-slum,slum and rural children in Kenya: Is the urban advantage eroding?

For long now, the urban child has been considered to be more likely than his/her rural counterpart in being able to realize the dream of fully participating in school. This observation has mainly been attributed to what is commonly known as the “urban advantage”. This “urban advantage” is associated with increased access to facilities such as schools in urban areas. Recent work documenting population health in urban and rural areas has however begun to suggest that some sections of the urban population do not benefit from the “urban advantage”. For example, a child in the slums of Nairobi is more likely to suffer from diarrhea than a child in rural Kenya. In addition, a child from the richest household in the slums is more likely to suffer from diarrhea than a child from the poorest family in rural Kenya. This paper explores patterns of school enrollment comparing urban slum, urban non-slum and rural children. The paper uses data from the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) for 1993, 1998 and 2003. A contrast with school enrollment in Nairobi slums is done using the KDHS-type Nairobi Cross Sectional Slum Survey for 2000. Data from focus group discussions collected in the slums of Nairobi provide the context for discussion. The results suggest that school enrollment is higher in urban non-slum than in urban slum areas, and is higher in slums than in rural areas at younger ages. However, this is only true up to age 9 for females and 11 for males, from which school enrollment for slum children declines and the rate of decline is faster than among their rural counterparts. The corresponding ages at which the enrollment among the rural children begins to visibly decline are 13 years for males and 14 years for females. Factors contributing to these results point to the poor quality of primary schools in slums, limited access to secondary school for slum children, increased vulnerability to coercion into sexual activity and other ills that hinder school participation, disabling environment at home and increased child labor.     

School competition and performance indicators: evidence from the creation of federal education institutions in Brazil

The expansion of the Federal Institute of Education is characterized as an exogenous source of competition in Brazil. This research studies the effect of the Federal Institutes’ creation on the performance of the other public schools in the benefited municipalities. The methodological approach is the Propensity Score Matching combined with the generalized difference in differences method. The results show a significant and negative impact on the pass rate of students who remain in the state public educational system and a positive impact in the fail rate. The policy of expansion of the Federal Institutes may lead to a cream skimming process.     

ICT and pupil assessment

The role of pupil assessment in ICT is often seen by teachers as problematic. This article will explore the relationship of the two and will argue that research in assessment has not kept up with the opportunities offered by ICT. Conversely, some of the new developments in ‘assessment for learning’ have not yet found their way into ICT. The article will explore the various roles and relationships that ICT has in assessment, for example, the assessment of ICT skills, the assessment of curriculum learning when work is done with the aid of ICT, assessment within computer-assisted learning, and ICT as a tool in supporting the assessment process in general. It will also look at ways forward, including ‘assessment for learning’ (with its concern for questioning, feedback, sharing assessment criteria and self-assessment/peer assessment), and new outcomes that could be in­corporated into ICT.     

Revisioning professionalism from the periphery

Abstract

The issue of who should be included and recognised as professionals in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) service system is both contested and pressing in the current policy climate. At stake is a high-quality early childhood care and education service system that is both responsive and appropriate to the constituency it serves. A review of the history of ECEC professionalism reveals complex entanglements and debates regarding professional belonging. Services that deliver education and care to children and families living in high poverty contexts are often excluded from ECEC professionalism debates. Drawing on notions of rationality, emotionality and criticality presented in recent accounts of ECEC professionalism, we use data collected from interviews with service providers delivering services to children and families living in high poverty contexts in Australia to develop an account of criticality that is pertinent to current funding and policy contexts. We argue that these service providers’ perspectives about their own professionalism have much to offer broader debates.     

河南省城乡中学体育教育均衡发展的研究

通过文献资料法、问卷调查法、访谈法和数理统计法等方法,对河南省城乡中学体育教育的均衡发展进行探讨。研究结果显示:制度和评价体系的不完善、资金注入的不平衡、教师综合素质发展不平衡、场地器材不足等是影响河南省城乡中学体育教育均衡发展的主要原因。