Gender differences in school achievement: a within-class perspective

Relying on the results of the achievement tests in mathematics, science, native language (Hebrew/Arabic) and English, administered to 1430 5th-grade co-educational classes in Israel, this study examines the between-class variability of the within-class mean score gender differences and its class and school correlates. The four main results of the study are: (1) remarkable between-test stability of the within-class gender gap; (2) considerable variability of the within-class gender gap, in terms of both sign and magnitude, found for each of the four tests: children studying in different classes are exposed to different, sometimes quite opposite, gender differences and this variability is effectively masked by the aggregate-level analyses typically reported in the literature; (3) the lion’s share of the variability of the within-class gender gap lies within, rather than between schools; and (4) the relative frequency of within-class gender gaps favouring boys is positively related to school-level characteristics, which qualify as positive indicators of the school’s quality and negatively to class size. The within- and between-sector (Arab vs. Jewish) components of this relation are discussed.     

Progress at school: pedagogy and the care for knowledge

The importance of care for learners is recognised as fundamental of teaching: it is argued that teaching equally requires a care for knowledge. Within a realist theory, to care for knowledge, moreover, must involve taking into account its relationship to the real world. The implications of this ontological consideration are worked out with particular reference to Bourdieu's theory that social reproduction is effected in educational contexts where the arbitrary knowledge of the school is experienced, particularly by working-class students, as symbolic violence. The “universal pedagogy” advocated by Bourdieu may need, in fact, to be based on a scientific realism in which the definitive knowledge of the school is regarded not as arbitrary but as necessary. The case for a realist approach, reflecting the different classed, gendered, and cultural origins of students, is made in the context of a secondary school science lesson observed by the New Zealand longitudinal Progress at School project.     

Effects of age at school entry (ASE) on the development of non-cognitive skills: Evidence from psychometric data

We identify effects of age at school entry (ASE) on the development of child temperament. Our analysis is based on psychometric measures from a longitudinal cohort study of children in the Rhine-Neckar region in central Germany. In children with a higher ASE due to a birthday late in the year, we find more favorable outcomes with respect to several temperamental dimensions: these children are more persistent and less often hyperactive. The findings are robust if we control for the respective temperamental dimension before entering school. We also show that the ASE effect on persistence is stable over time by comparing the children at age eight and age eleven, after the children have entered Germany's segregated secondary-school tracks. At age eleven, we additionally find significant ASE effects on adaptability to change. Overall, the results point to a high degree of malleability in the considered non-cognitive skills after school entrance. By contrast, we do not find a significant effect of ASE on cognitive skills as measured by IQ.     

论职业学校组织结构与效能

当前,职业教育出现的问题很大程度上根源于职业学校的效能低下。其主要原因之一是职业学校组织结构不合理。因此,应该重视对职业学校组织结构的改革和建设,使其为提高职业学校效能服务。     

Philosophical perspectives on school effectiveness and school improvement

This article discusses critically the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). The following issues are addressed: the importance of literacy in advanced societies; increasing public concern about literacy standards in English and Welsh primary schools; the perceived need for a large-scale intervention into the teaching of literacy from the standpoint of international comparisons and school inspection evidence. The literacy process, its complexities and controversies, are considered and critiqued, along with the extent to which the NLS is able to accommodate the implications of research findings. In conclusion, the evaluation reports on the impact of the NLS are discussed.     

Where the boys aren't: non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education

Nearly 60 percent of college students today are women. Using longitudinal data on a nationally representative cohort of eighth grade students in 1988, I examine two potential explanations for the differential attendance rates of men and women—returns to schooling and non-cognitive skills. The attendance gap is roughly five percentage points for all high school graduates. Conditional on attendance, however, there are few differences in type of college, enrollment status or selectivity of institution. The majority of the attendance gap can be explained by differences in the characteristics of men and women, despite some gender differences in the determinants of college attendance. I find that higher non-cognitive skills and college premiums among women account for nearly 90 percent of the gender gap in higher education. Interestingly, non-cognitive factors continue to influence college enrollment after controlling for high school achievement.     

A critical look at methodologies used to evaluate charter school effectiveness

There is no consensus among researchers on charter school effectiveness in the USA, in part because of discrepancies in the research methods employed across various studies. Causal impact estimates from experimental studies demonstrate large positive impacts, but concerns about the generalizability of these results have prompted the development of alternative methodologies for estimating charter impacts. Considerable attention has been paid to non-experimental national charter school studies conducted by the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). To reconcile conflicting findings in the charter school literature, this within-study analysis uses statewide data from Florida between 2001 and 2009, finding large differences in the estimated charter school effects for oversubscribed and undersubscribed schools. This helps explain why experimental studies often find charter impacts that are much larger than those reported by studies relying on non-experimental methods.     

Outside school time: an examination of science achievement and non-cognitive characteristics of 15-year olds in several countries

Elementary and secondary students spend more hours outside of class than in formal school and thus have more time for interaction with everyday science. However, evidence from a large international survey, Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD 2012), found a negative relationship between number of hours attending after-school science and science assessment scores in many countries, raising questions about why. The secondary analysis of the 2006, 2009, and 2012 PISA surveys found that in most Western countries the longer students attended after-school science programs (in a typical week), the lower their PISA standardized science test score, but the higher their positive attitudes toward future science careers, interest in science, and self-confidence in science. Several potential hypotheses for this relationship are examined and rejected. Further analysis of a causal relationship between frequent attendance in after-school programs and student achievement and attitudes should clearly identify the content of the program so that the analysis could distinguish experiences closely related to regular school curricula from the informal science activities that are not. A new analysis also should include carefully designed longitudinal surveys to test the effectiveness of informal experiences on later life choices in career and study.     

Rethinking school effectiveness and improvement: a question of paradigms

The purpose of this article is to contribute to progressive school change by developing a more systematic critique of school effectiveness (SE) and school improvement (SI) as paradigms. Diverse examples of paradigms and paradigm change in non-educational fields are used to create a model of paradigms for application to SE and SI, and to explore the implications of their hegemony, their rootedness in a neoliberal policy environment, and their limitations as theories and methodologies of school evaluation and change. The article seeks to identify reasons for the inadequacy of orthodox SI in helping schools face contemporary challenges, including schools serving populations burdened by poverty, and finally identifies some alternative approaches to educational change. The article draws examples from an English context, but with international resonances.     

Project-based learning for middle school students monitoring standby power: replication of impact on stem knowledge and dispositions

Educational technology research and development - Middle school students participating in energy-monitoring activities guided by their teachers during 2009–2011 gained...     

Assessing school effectiveness: Evidence from the Irish context

Abstract

This paper considers the theories of language educaation and infant pedagogy of Professor Timothy Corcoran, Professor of Education in University College, Dublin. He played a pivotal role in the debates on education at the 1920s. These opinions were to become decisive in the formation of the New Free State's education programmes and policies. He held that infant classes ought to be the prime agents in the revival of the Irish Language. As a result the National Programme of Primary Instruction (1922) required that all the work in the infant classes should be conducted through Irish. He castigated the enlightened principles of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Montessori arguing that Irish education should not give up its sane traditions for doctrines derived from ‘poisoned sources’. His antagonism towards the thinking of the progressive educational theorists meant that the infants of Ireland had to wait until 1948 for a revised programme that would be more in line with the thinking of the day.     

The school effectiveness movement: origins,shortcomings and future possibilities

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the school effectiveness/school improvement movement has provided an antidote to the pessimism and fatalism of the 1970s. However, it is deficient in four important respects: (1) it places too much emphasis on the notion of progressive school management as the dynamic of change; (2) it fails to take full account of the characteristics of the education system as a whole; (3) it shows little regard for issues of social class; (4) it has little to say about issues of curriculum content and pedagogy.     

Teachers and tolerance: Discriminating diversity dispositions

Abstract

Prevailing values of equity and social justice are increasingly espoused in the mission and policy statements of public institutions, organizations, and agencies. In higher education, teacher preparation programs are considered to be key contributors to the cultivation of mores of inclusiveness, where diversity is embraced and appreciated in its multitude of forms. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the diversity dispositions of a group of preservice and inservice teachers participating in a multicultural education course at a university in the deep southern region of the United States. Data were collected in the following ways: (a) autobiographical accounts that participants compiled and shared; (b) responses to abbreviated biographies in an online discussion forum; (c) face‐to‐face discussions of issues related to goals of equity, tolerance, and social justice in schools; and (d) instructor observations of participants' interactions with each other. The research revealed that in the electronic forum the teacher candidates and practicing teachers were particularly candid in reflecting upon and revealing their cultural roots, perceptions, and experiences and validated many—but not all—‐peer self‐reports of marginalization. Three major diversity dispositions emerged in the data analysis: (a) cultural consciousness, (b) intercultural sensitivity, and (c) commitment to social justice. The study also illuminated the challenge inherent in critically examining and sharing diversity dispositions when considering issues of discrimination, prejudice, and segregation in a multicultural setting. Although limited in scope and generalizibility, the findings provide insights into ways of framing tolerance sensibilities and for improving educators' capacities to reassess candidates' diversity dispositions.     

Educational quasi-markets,school effectiveness and social inequalities

Over the past few decades, the figure of the market has clearly made its way into the field of education. For some authors, it represents an alternative to regulation by the public authorities, a different form of co-ordination which is better able to meet the objectives of the education systems. Through a secondary analysis of the PISA 2006 database, we test this hypothesis, as well as an alternative one which suggests that the quasi-market, rather than being linked positively to effectiveness of the education systems, would be associated with the students’ achievement dependence on their socio-economic and cultural background and on the social composition of the school they are enrolled in. Our findings suggest that the quasi-market regulation (school autonomy and competition for student recruitment) (1) is not linked to effectiveness and (2) tends to be associated with a stronger link between schools’ social composition and student achievement.     

Silence at school: Uses and experiences of silence in pedagogy at a secondary school

Silence infuses all aspects of our daily communications: what we say and what remains unspoken; those to whom we speak, and those we ignore; those we trust and respect, and those we do not. In the school environment, interactions between students and teachers lie at the heart of pedagogy. This relationship is also marked by its silences, and the concept of ‘student voice’ arose out of these silences on matters that affect students. However, the role of silence in such interactions has yet to receive comprehensive attention. This article presents the findings of a study on the uses and experiences of silence in the classroom with secondary school students aged 14–15 years and their teachers. Drawing on nine group discussions and 33 interviews with 20 teachers and 35 students, respectively, I argue that an oversight of silence in the student voice discipline has obscured the power dimensions of student voice, and the injustices that become visible when different forms of silence are illuminated. I argue that there are two core ideas which emerge from the findings: firstly, that silent practices manifest in two distinct paradigms of productivity and listening which function as expectations of teaching and learning; secondly, that the conflation of the listening paradigm with respect demonstrates the capacity of silent practices to reinforce the division between teaching and learning to become mediums of injustice. I conclude that this dichotomous relationship between pedagogy and student voice requires a pedagogy based on a critical examination of respect.     

Predicting college success: the importance of ability and non-cognitive variables

This chapter introduces a study which focuses on predicting college success as measured by students’ grade point averages (GPAs). The chapter also reviews prior research related to various types of predictors. Specifically, two categories of predictors are identified: ability measures and non-cognitive variables. Finally, an overview of the study is presented.     

Counting at nursery school and at primary school: Toward an instrument for diagnostic assessment

For about ten years, new research data have led us to enlarge the Piagetian model of the learning of the concept of number. Research investigations of counting have especially emphasized the importance of some abilities related to the construction of the concept of number. We think these researches should more greatly influence the practice of assessment. But valid tests should be available for psychologists and teachers to appraise the child development of the mastery of counting. For this purpose, we developed a set of tasks on the base of a critical analysis of Gelman and Gallistel counting principles. In a first step of our research, we used these tasks in a large sample of children from the French-speaking community of Belgium. This sample was composed of pupils from the third year of the nursery school (N=439) and from the first year of the primary school (N=103). Some of our results are quite different from those of previous investigations. We observe that many 5-year-old children are far from mastering and to coordinating the counting principles. A significant percent of pupils in the first year of the primary school are in the same situation. The implications of these difficulties for the beginning of the learning of arithmetic are emphasized.