NY PEDAGOGISK LITTERATUR

This article is based on data from two national research projects in Norway dealing with upper secondary educational reforms that began in 1994. Together, the research projects represent a longitudinal study of prospective life course data from 1995 to 2003, covering approximately 500 students from the time they were receiving special education in upper secondary school to the age of 22. The analysis is based on theories of social networks, frame factors, risk and resilience, and life course transitions. It uses a typology of social marginalization based on the dimensions of network density and network size to capture the differences in framing opportunities and restrictions on the students’ social network relationships in the spare time arena. The study addresses how such relationships in early adult life are affected by earlier school experiences, such as whether they attended special or mainstream classes, compared with personal factors and their family situation at the start of upper secondary school.     

Soziale Disparit?ten und die ?ffnung des Sekundarschulsystems

Efforts to break the link between the school type attended and the qualification awarded are seen an important step in the modernization of Germany??s tracked secondary school system. However, it remains disputed whether these efforts have reduced social disparities or in fact increased them. This study examined the transition from lower secondary education in academic- and intermediate-track schools to upper secondary education in general and vocational gymnasium schools in the state of Baden-Württemberg. When indicators of parental social background and school-leaving qualifications were controlled, the opening of upper secondary education was found to be associated with a decrease in the social selectivity of upper secondary education for intermediate-track students. At the same time, for those intermediate-track students who were entitled to enter upper secondary education, social background had predictive effects on the transition decision; however, the overall size of these effects was low.     

Perceptions of peers as socialization agents and adjustment in upper secondary school

The purpose of present study was to explore the perceptions of peers as socialization agents in school adjustment among upper secondary school students. The associations were studied in a sample of 564 Norwegian students. Results showed that perceptions of friends and classmates as socialization agents accounted for unique variances in various measures of school adjustment, when controlled for academic achievement, family financial situation, year of schooling, gender and course of study. The unique effect of peer socialization factors on variances in intentions to quit school, truancy, class absence, school alienation and improved motivation for continued education was 7.9%, 7.2%, 6.8%, 6.5% and 5.3% respectively, indicating that late adolescents' school adjustment is statistically significant, but relatively moderately associated with different aspects of peer socialization. School-obstructive regulation was the variable that accounted for most variances in school adjustment, followed by classmate support and school-supportive regulation.     

Ohne Schulabschluss in die Berufsausbildung: Ergebnisse einer Längsschnittuntersuchung

Young people who leave school without obtaining a secondary school certificate bear an increased risk of not completing vocational training and being excluded from stable employment in their working life. However, some of these young people do achieve access to vocational training and employment. Based on a longitudinal study of school-to-work transitions of a representative sample of graduates from Praxisklassen in Bavaria (a course especially designed for potential school drop outs at the lower secondary school – Hauptschule), patterns of transition that lead into vocational training and employment are compared with patterns that end up in exclusion from education, training and employment. Determinants of successful transitions, which can be targeted by pedagogical measures, are inter alia: participation in internships in enterprises during the last year of schooling, help and support received from parents and professional career guidance. However, besides these influential factors, regional labor market conditions are important for a successful school-to-work transition. This close link to the labor market ultimately limits the effects of educational interventions.     

高职大学生逃课现象的原因分析

本文从各个层面分析了高职大学生逃课问题，指出学校教育固然重要，但绝非万能，个体因素、家庭教育、社会环境以及教育体系中的任何一个环节都有可能成为引发高职大学生逃课的负面因素。     

How home gets to school: Parental control strategies predict children's school readiness

At-risk families’ control style (autonomy support and coercive control) was examined in relation to children's school readiness; children's social skills and mastery motivation were hypothesized mediating variables. In two different, low-income samples from diverse ethnic backgrounds, one preschool sample recruited from Head Start (N = 199) and a school transition sample composed of children entering elementary school (N = 344), parental control styles were related to children's academic readiness modestly but significantly in the preschool sample and weakly in the school transition sample. Children's social skills and mastery motivation skills (persistence and goal orientation) were significantly related to the academic measures of school readiness, and fully mediated the association between parents’ use of coercive behavioral control and academic readiness. Such mediation could not be tested for parental support of children's autonomy. The results indicate that a developmental cascade exists between parental control strategies and academic indices of school readiness, emphasizing the importance of family context models of school readiness. Furthermore, strong correlations between the domains of school readiness were found in both samples, reinforcing calls for a multidimensional approach to supporting school readiness in early childhood education programs.     

No particular way to go

This article aims to deepen understanding of the trajectories through school and into adulthood of people who did not attain valued qualifications from upper secondary school (‘non-completers’), and explore the fruitfulness of careership theory for such analysis. It is based on interviews with 100 young Swedes: 81 non-completers and 19 who had attended special upper secondary schools catering for young people with mild cognitive disability. Their narratives portray sparse socio-economic resources and difficult family situations, learning problems and marginalisation processes in school. They commonly learned to perceive themselves as failures and ‘different’. Framed by narrow horizons of action, these young people’s careers were mostly characterised by enforced rather than self-initiated turning points. Often leading to unemployment and economic problems, leaving secondary school was less of a turning point than a continuation of failure, even if completing adult education and getting a job were regarded as self-initiated, positive shifts. We conclude that careership theory was useful for analysing and understanding the careers of the young people concerned. However, distinguishing between ‘routines’ and ‘turning points’ became especially difficult when studying lives of these young people hemmed in by sparser resources, fewer choices and less stable career trajectories than their peers.     

Parental perspectives and challenges in inclusive education in Singapore

Relatively little work has focused on inclusive education in Singapore. This study examines the experiences and perceptions of parents whose children with disabilities are attending mainstream secondary schools in Singapore. Data was drawn from interviews with 13 parents of children with mild disabilities. Our findings reveal that parental perspective on inclusive education in Singapore is not only about classroom support but also reflects a deeper concern about whether their children with disabilities will emerge from school as contributing individuals in society. While parents strive to effectively include their children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms, there were dichotomies in their (1) understanding of disabilities, (2) expectations of school support, and (3) expectations for their child with disabilities. Given that academic and social prowess is a critical prerequisite to have a shot at entering the meritocratic Singapore society, the tension parents experience is to gauge a reasonable amount of pressure to exert on their children, the school and themselves as they assert their children's educational entitlements within an imperfect but evolving state of inclusion.     

Success and failure in secondary education: socio‐economic background effects on secondary school outcome in the Netherlands, 1927–1998

In the Netherlands, educational attainment is the result of a sequence of separate educational transitions. Because of the tracked nature of the Dutch educational system, students do not make binary stay‐or‐leave‐decisions at each transition. After having entered one track of secondary education, students can change tracks during the entire secondary course. The initial track and the secondary school outcome therefore are incongruent for a significant proportion of the Dutch students. As social background partly predicts initial track placement, track changes and successful termination of the course, we suggest distinguishing conditional and unconditional effects of family background in the transition to secondary school outcome. This paper complements findings of previous research by taking into account the tracked structure of the Dutch educational system and the entire sequence of transitions in secondary education. For the empirical analysis, repeated cross‐sections from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992, 1998, 2000 and 2003) are used. Multinomial logistic regressions reveal that inequality in the outcome of secondary education is partly explained by the fact that initial track placement is socially selective and because this initial inequality is even enhanced by track changes during secondary education. The remaining ‘conditional’ effect of parental education, however, indicates that parental education works on top of this selection to prevent drop out. Inequality in secondary school outcome thus is a cumulative result of social background effects in a sequence of educational transitions throughout secondary education. Decreasing inequality over time is entirely explained by decreasing inequality in the transition from primary to secondary education.     

Short-term fun or long-term gain: a mixed methods empirical investigation into perceptions of truancy among non-truants in Flanders

The purpose of the present study is to explore non-truanting youngsters’ perceptions of truants and truancy. In-depth qualitative interviews (N: 8) are used to explore inductively the perceptions of truancy among non-truanting pupils in secondary education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). We use survey analysis (N: 3314) to assess the prevalence of different attitudes towards truancy and their mutual relationships, the prevalence of truants at school, individual risk factors for truancy, and school context variables. The results reveal two attitudes toward truancy: (1) disapproval of truancy and (2) the appeal of truancy. Factors that increased disapproval of truancy included attachment to school, attachment to parents, belief in school rules and cultural capital. Finding truancy attractive was associated with a lack of attachment to school and the presence of truants in the peer group. In the conclusion we elaborate on the implications of our findings.     

Children's participation in school grounds developments: creating a place for education that promotes children's social inclusion

This paper advances the idea that ‘education for the social inclusion of children’ is similar but different to ‘inclusive education’ as it has come to be understood and used by some authors and UK government documents. ‘Inclusive education’ tends to carry an inward emphasis on the participation of children in the education system (with discussions on school culture, transitions, truancy, exclusion rates, underachievement, and school leaving age). In contrast, education for the promotion of children's social inclusion requires an outward emphasis on children's participation in ‘mainstream’ society while they are still children. The latter emphasis is seen to be lacking in educational policy discourse in Scotland though a recent shift in policy towards education for active citizenship is noted. Examples are provided to show how many policy statements enact a limitation on the scope for education to promote children's social inclusion by emphasizing children's deficits as social actors and focussing on the ‘condition’ of social exclusion. The paper draws on an empirical study of children's participation in changing school grounds in Scotland. The analysis shows how the enclosure of learning in books, classrooms and normative curricula was challenged. Learning from school grounds developments was constructed relationally and spatially, but the scope of what was to be learned was often delineated by adults. The paper closes with a discussion of how education that promotes the social inclusion of children will benefit from seeing both children and adults as current though partial citizens and using socio-spatial opportunities for the generation of uncertain curricula through their shared and/or differentiated participation.     

School district size and student educational attainment: evidence from Denmark

This paper analyses the effects of the size of school districts on educational attainment of students after compulsory school in Denmark. Using administrative microdata for individual students and their parents, logit models for the probability of obtaining different levels of education are estimated where the explanatory variables include district size, per student expenditure, and a wide range of controls for family background and district socioeconomic characteristics. It is found that attending schools in districts with a population of less than 15,000 (corresponding to less than 1800 students in public primary and lower secondary schools) has negative effects on educational attainment later in life: The probability of completing a secondary education (upper secondary school or vocational education) or a further or higher education is reduced by approximately 3 percentage points compared to having attended primary and lower secondary school in a district with more than 15,000 inhabitants.     

社会资本对美国少数民族参与高等教育的影响

美国高等教育入学机会中存在明显的种族差异 ,白人的中学毕业生比黑人和西班牙裔的中学毕业生更容易进入大学。对于影响高等教育入学机会的因素 ,教育经济学集中研究家庭收入和政府财政支持对入学机会的影响 ,把高等教育看作一种投资来分析投资回报率、大学学位的收入等对学生入学选择的影响。本文以社会资本理论为框架 ,提出家庭内部及家庭与学校之间的社会关系和社会网所产生的资源 ,对美国少数民族学生高等教育入学机会产生显著影响。笔者以长期跟踪调查研究的美国两万多名学生为样本 ,运用因素分析法测定社会资本的各个指标 ,同时分别从学生和学校两个维度进行多层次分析。多层次分析结果表明 :在学生水平上 ,家庭的社会经济地位、中学的专业成绩和中学选修的课程对美国少数民族学生的高等教育入学机会产生显著影响。在学校方面 ,学校社会经济地位的平均水平、教会学校以及家庭的教育期望也深刻影响着美国少数民族学生的高等教育入学机会。     

Losing All Interest in School: Social Participation as a Predictor of the Intention to Leave Upper Secondary School Early

Early school leaving in upper secondary education is a serious problem for both students and society. Several reviews have shown that there is no simple cause of early school leaving, but it seems to relate to demographic variables, social factors, academic achievement, and school factors. In this study, data from 2,045 students aged 16 from upper secondary schools in Norway were analyzed using a hierarchical regression model. Their intention to leave school was the dependent variable. Our analyses found that teacher support and loneliness in the school context were strong predictors of such intension. The effects of peer acceptance and friendship were minimal.     

Determinanten der Studierbereitschaft unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Studiengebühren

Even more than other European countries, Germany must fear a serious future skills shortage and lack of experts. Therefore, increasing the proportion of high school graduates who wish to study at a university is a clear political objective. The aim of this paper is to identify variables that hinder or support the decision to pursue university studies. We used longitudinal data of 23,000 graduates of upper secondary school of the years 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008 to analyze how tuition fees (which are charged only in some of the German federal states), family status, and students?? own cost-benefit analyses impacted their decision in favor or against taking up university studies. Results showed that the subjective costs of higher education were highest for persons of low social economic background, and for women. Also, the introduction of tuition fees in some federal states in the year 2006 lowered the percentage of students who wanted to enter higher education. Contrary to our expectations, however, this effect was observed in all federal states, irrespective of whether they had introduced tuition fees or not. Our results suggest that participation in higher education can be increased by both lowering (social and psychological) costs and raising (social and psychological) benefits of higher education.     

Changes and challenges in the transition to adulthood: views and experiences of young people with learning disabilities and their families

The transition to adulthood poses one of the most complex challenges for young people with intellectual disabilities. In order to conduct a wide-reaching and in-depth study of this process, we need to know the views of these young people themselves and their families. This article presents research designed to collect the experiences and perceptions of young people with disabilities and their families regarding perceived problems and support in their transition to adulthood in Spain. A qualitative case study method was used to achieve this. Data were collected in three stages on the following topics: educational pathway (primary and secondary school), social support networks and free time, and construction of a personal plan for the future (labour market inclusion and independent living). Various different instruments were used, including interviews, focus groups and visual methods. As for the results, the young people who participated in the study experienced difficulties with both successfully completing secondary education and continuing their education. The families in our study were not very satisfied with the guidance received from professionals upon finishing secondary school. They also complained about the lack of training options available to young people with disabilities. The participants expressed certain fears regarding social inclusion and labour market integration. They are aware that they will need help, and have doubts about whether they will receive the necessary support to progress with their plans for labour market integration and independent living. As a result of the study, we propose several recommendations to improve opportunities for the social inclusion of young people with disabilities in their transition to adulthood.     

The effect of the Free High School Tuition law on upper-secondary school choice in Japan

The aim of this study was to analyse the determining factors behind parents’ and students’ decisions when choosing upper-secondary schools in Japan and how these factors were affected by the implementation of the new “Free High School Tuition” law introduced in 2010. Public and private upper-secondary schools can be either vocational or academic. This school choice was analysed using the characteristics of families and schools included in the PISA 2009 and 2012 questionnaires in a multinomial logit model. The most influential family characteristics in the upper secondary school choice in Japan are related to the family budget, parental education, class, and status. Moreover, the results show that the implementation of the new law affected families’ school choice. Nevertheless, the law did not have the same equalising effect on families with more than one child and low-budget families in areas with a limited offer of private schools.     

Children’s Daily Routines During Kindergarten Transition

Routines are an important feature of family life and functioning in families with young children. Common daily routines such as dinnertime, bedtime, and waking activities are powerful organizers of family behavior and may be instrumental to children and families during times of transition, such as elementary school entry. Daily routines were examined in 132 families with children entering kindergarten. Although the majority of families reported regular daily routines for their children, parents anticipated that their child’s daily routines would substantially shift upon kindergarten entry, including changes in children’s sleep habits. Significant changes in child and family routines have been implicated in adjustment difficulties during kindergarten transition. Results of this investigation are discussed in terms of aligning family daily routines with kindergarten expectations. Furthermore, educational professionals in early childhood education and elementary school can partner with families to promote seamless kindergarten transitions for all children.     

Until when does the effect of age on academic achievement persist? Evidence from Korean data

According to an analysis of Korean student panel survey data, monthly differences in age had a significant influence on academic achievement until middle school (lower secondary education). However, this age effect did not persist when students graduated from high school (upper secondary education). Furthermore, some evidence is found that younger students, upon entering high school, were more likely to concentrate on academic studies, and less likely to experience minor distractions, thereby compensating for their poor academic achievement in middle school.     

An approach to understanding school attendance difficulties: pupils' perceptions of parental behaviour in response to their requests to be absent from school

The UK government has encouraged schools and local authorities to promote school attendance because of its associations with academic attainment and antisocial behaviour. Legislation makes school attendance a parental responsibility. This small‐scale study collected data on parent–child interaction immediately prior to school absence to examine how such interaction influenced the development of attendance difficulties. Good and poor school attenders, of 12–13 years of age, were compared on quantifiable measures of their self‐reported requests to be absent from school, their perceived parents' responses, self‐reported whole‐day and lesson truancy, and expected parental reaction to truancy. School absence requests were significantly more frequent among the poor attenders, who gained more absence and whose parents were inconsistent in their responses to the requests. Education social work/welfare services and school pastoral staff need well‐formulated methods, backed by empirical research, if they are to work effectively with parents and young people and substantially raise their low attendance.