Dropping out because of the others: bullying among the students of Estonian vocational schools

Although it is arguably a fundamental democratic or human right of a child to feel safe at school, many children and adolescents have to face peer victimisation in schools on a daily basis, and occasionally through several levels of education. Long-term victimisation may have detrimental consequences for the victim, including a negative effect on educational attainment. This study provides an insight into the lives of five young people who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out from Estonian vocational schools because of peer victimisation. The study is based on in-depth face-to-face personal interviews. Four superordinate themes with associated subthemes are addressed: ‘experience of victimisation’, ‘social context’, ‘lack of support’, and ‘quitting as a survival strategy’. The stories of the bullying victims reveal how the victimisation has shaped them and their educational pathways by compelling them to discontinue their vocational training.     

Individual characteristics of students in vocational education moderating the relationship between school engagement and vocational identity

In any country, there is a group of students who are at risk of dropping out of school without any qualifications. This is detrimental for many of those students, because failure to graduate increases risks of unemployment and societal exclusion. To reduce this risk, specialized curricula aim to prepare these students for their working life by fostering the development of a vocational identity, that is, how they define themselves as workers. As a prerequisite to achieving this goal, students need to attend school and feel engaged with school. The curricula seek ways to stimulate emotional school engagement, taking into account the heterogeneous target group of students they serve. To address potential consequences of individual differences, this questionnaire study (N=996) conducted in the Netherlands explored how various individual characteristics of students in these specialized curricula moderated the relationship between emotional school engagement and vocational identity. Results show that stronger school engagement always coincided with a stronger vocational identity; however, the strength of the relationship varied. Stimulating emotional school engagement was specifically important for the subgroups of students who are young, less agreeable, less motivated, and less resilient. In order to foster the vocational identity of their students, the specialized curricula are recommended to draw nuanced conclusions and formulate refined strategies to effectively respond to the heterogeneous group of students who are at risk of dropping out.

     

Changing policy contexts and teachers´ work-life narratives: the case of Estonian vocational teachers

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, the work of teachers worldwide has undergone deep change. We have seen that teachers have encountered recent challenges differently and adapted to educational changes to a different extent depending on their personal disposition, but also school leadership and workplace support. This study focuses on the example of Estonian vocational teachers that serves as an interesting case for analysing how the interplay of the transitional context and neo-liberal policy trends adopted since Estonia regained its independence in 1991, after 50 years under Soviet rule, have affected the individual trajectories of teachers’ lives. This paper aims to understand how the interplay of the institutional context and individual (work) lives shapes Estonian vocational teachers’ understandings of their work and professionality. We suggest that certain periods of practice are visible in teachers’ narratives and those periods might be considered as enabling different degrees of agency. However, our interviews also revealed that different reform periods have been perceived and responded to differently. In the context of 25 years of the educational reform process, the policies and requirements introduced have been refracted at different levels (Goodson & Rudd, 2017), including that of the vocational field, the schools and individual teachers. Our results confirm that teachers individual, social, cultural and material resources such as competence, career stage, relations and networks, school leadership and prevailing culture at schools have their role in enabling or hindering the agency of teachers.     

高等职业教育院校中的成人教育发展探讨

高等职业教育院校中的成人教育具有服务范围广泛、办学形式多元、教学内容务实等特点,决定了高等职业成人教育必须不断创新创优,继续提升办学实力,加强校政、校企、校校合作与交流,为社会培养更多具有创新能力的技能型人才,服务经济社会发展。     

Engagement,conduct of life and dropouts in the Danish vocational education and training (VET) system

This study provides support for the idea that school engagement is a central concept when trying to understand the dropout process. One of the strengths of this concept is that it involves understanding dropping out as a process, rather than as an event. However, the concept of school engagement also presents a number of problems. It tends to be functionalistic in nature: Processes of students’ school engagement and disengagement are partly the consequences of institutional initiatives – for example, how teachers act or how the school environment is organised. Furthermore, mainstream dropout researchers formulate the concept of engagement both simplistically and mechanistically by seeing engagement as something that the students possess to varying degrees. Inspired by critical psychology, this study includes a different concept of student engagement: We must take the students’ life conduct as the point of departure when approaching their school engagement and decision to drop out. The theoretical claims in the paper are substantiated by empirical results from 160 interviews with vocational educational and training (VET) students in the Danish VET system, and this paper will show how school engagement is closely related to the events in the other contextual settings of students’ lives.     

试析对职业教育在认识上的误区

目前,我们把高等教育分为普通高教和高等职教,其实,普通高教属高等职教范畴。教育应划分为基础教育和职业教育,初、中、高等职教分别应以初中、高中和高中以上科学化知识为基础。根据当前中职生化基础现状,让其直接考入高等职校,实际上忽视或说混淆了高等职教所需的基础,违背了教育发展规律,将给职教带来诸多困难和问题。因此,中职生深造应另辟正确途径。     

The relation of National Certificate Courses to city and guilds courses in building subjects

Abstract

This article sets out to evaluate the quality of educational provision offered in vocational secondary schools in Malta. The economic and political context which saw the setting up of trade schools in the early 1970s is described, and an account of the educational goals for these new schools, intended to rekindle the motivation for learning in low and non‐achieving students, is offered. The article then explores the extent to which these goals were achieved, particularly through the examination of three related areas, namely the form (the status of trade schools as separate educational institutions), the content (the curriculum) and the process (classroom processes and instructional methods) evinced in these schools. The article concludes by arguing that the failure of trade schools to provide a worthwhile educational experience has to be located in the relationship between mental and manual work in the wider social order, and that the problems identified in this article could be endemic to vocational schooling at the secondary school level and are therefore not necessarily context‐bound.     

Still I Rise: Youth Caught Between the Worlds of Schools and Prisons

The US has one of the most inequitably funded school systems and the largest prison population in the industrialized world. These two factors help to construct what is known as the school to prison pipeline. The past 30 years has included punitive policies within schools and the criminal justice system that have resulted in a disproportionate number of Latino and African–American youth being suspended from school, dropping out, and/or incarcerated. In this article, the lived experiences of incarcerated youth framed by institutional policies within prisons and schools are discussed. In total, fifteen interviews with incarcerated youth who spontaneously discussed drug trafficking were analyzed using criminological theory. A key theme for many youth was how a lack of educational opportunity and success shifted their focus to attaining economic opportunities through drug trafficking. Policy implications are discussed relating to school and corrections funding along with the costs to society.     

高职院校专业趋同问题及其对策——以湖北省为例

地区间经济结构趋同,市场驱动的盲目性以及学校依托现有条件开设专业的普遍行为,是高职院校专业结构趋同的主要原因。实现区域专业结构优化和职校校内专业结构优化是解决这一问题的有效途径。据此,各高职院校要研究专业发展的宏观规律;依托地方特色,发展优势专业;找准学校市场定位,科学规划专业结构;发展优势专业,加强院校之间的合作;围绕专业重点,建设专业群。     

Effects of a Learner-Centred Environment on the Academic Competence and Motivation of Students at Risk

This study examined the efficacy of a learner-centred environment in enhancing the academic achievements and motivation of high school students who are at risk of dropping out of school. Three groups of students at high academic risk were compared. The control group consisted of students who are exposed to a remedial academic program in a traditional school context, and the experimental groups consisted of students enrolled at schools that have implemented a structured academic program in a learner-centred environment. It is shown that a learner-centred environment yields significantly higher achievement scores and a somewhat higher internal motivational orientation. These results suggest that a structured academic program in a learner-centred environment could provide hope for students at academic risk and other students who are likely to be lost to the academic educational system.     

Invest for the Long Term or Attend to Immediate Needs? Schools and the Employment of Less Educated Youths and Adults

For the past 20 years, researchers worldwide have shared a consensus that tracking leads to failure in school. But educational systems continue to use this practice for many reasons. One argument used to support the practice is that students who enter the vocational track early in their careers tend to enter the labour market more quickly. Data show, however, that when these people are in their 40s, they become the most vulnerable to poverty, especially during periods of economic recession. In addition to moving towards more comprehensive educational systems as the best long-term way to improve the chances of all future adults, our research demonstrates that schools can play a key role in preventing and reversing the risk of unemployment and poverty of low educated youth. The INCLUD-ED project has analysed effective actions in eight European countries (Slovenia, United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Romania, Belgium, Finland, and Spain) that respond to the educational needs of those who have experienced tracking. These effective alternatives are vocational programmes that include an academic-type of curriculum and allow students to move to higher education, as well as adult education programmes in schools which meet families' training needs, improving their opportunities in the labour market.     

The emergence of the marketing professional in schools

Abstract

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on existing literature on educational marketing practices in schools, and through in-depth interviews with a unique sample of school marketers, this study explores the emergence of the school marketing professional. The interviews reveal the diverse backgrounds and experiences of these individuals, the transfer of their business skills into schools and the tensions in professional boundaries with educators who traditionally performed school marketing activities. Ultimately, the study furthers insights into the co-existence of educational and managerial agendas in the schools market.     

Secondary school students who drop out of school in rural Pakistan: The perspectives of fathers

ABSTRACT

Background: The problem of students dropping out of school is one of the barriers to improving educational outcomes in poor and developing countries.

Purpose: This small scale, in-depth study sought to explore the phenomenon of students who drop out from secondary education, through the perspectives of fathers of such students in a rural district of Pakistan.

Method: Primary data were collected through detailed, individual interviews with 14 fathers whose sons had dropped out from secondary education. The study adopted a framework involving push and pull factors to analyse qualitatively the processes and examine the reasons for dropping out that prevailed inside and outside school.

Findings: The analysis suggested that, from the perspectives of the fathers, family poverty, poor academic performance and issues relating to teachers’ engagement with teaching at school were main factors involved in a student dropping out of school.

Conclusions: The findings from this small scale, detailed analysis of data draw attention to the issues arising from a tension in mainstream teachers’ educational roles in and beyond the school. It further highlights the need for greater investment in secondary education, in order to help to reduce rates of student drop out in the remote rural areas of Pakistan.     

我国辍学现象的经济学分析

中小学生辍学问题是世界性的教育难题 ,已引起世界各国的普遍关注。我国不少学者认为 :中小学生辍学的主要原因是经济条件差或家庭经济困难。但中小学生辍学作为一种教育现象 ,不仅受经济发展水平的制约 ,还受民族文化传统、健康水平、成人文化水平、学校教育环境等综合因素影响。运用经济学的方法对我国东、中、西部三个经济区分析发现 :我国小学生辍学与人文发展指数及学校教育密切相关 ,相对而言 ,与经济增长的相关性略低 ,这反映了人文发展水平对小学生辍学的影响较大     

高职学生学习倦怠的状况研究

为了了解当前高职学生的学习心理状况,采用量表法对河南省三所高职院校的546名学生进行了学习倦怠的研究。结果显示：高职学生总体上存在一定程度的学习倦怠心理,其中表现突出的是行为不当和低成就感;男生在行为不当因子上的得分显著高于女生;来自职业高中的高职学生学习倦怠程度显著高于来自普通高中的高职学生。     

评估的导向作用是贯穿高职教育教学工作的主线

高职高专院校人才培养工作水平评估是政府教育行政部门对高职教育的一种宏观管理措施,评估对高职教育教学工作具有导向、认证和促进三个作用。其中评估的导向作用贯穿于高职教育教学工作的全过程,起主导作用,它可以使被评院校达到四个学会,即学校学会如何办学、干部学会如何管理、教师学会如何教书、学生学会如何学习。     

What happens to pupils permanently excluded from special schools and pupil referral units in England?

There is widespread consensus in the research and policy‐related literature over the last decade that young people who have been permanently excluded from school are at a far greater risk of a variety of negative outcomes than young people who have not had this experience. These negative outcomes include prolonged periods out of education and/or employment; poor mental and physical health; involvement in crime; and homelessness. This article presents evidence from a small‐scale qualitative study of destinations and outcomes post‐exclusion for a group of young people considered to be at particular risk of such negative outcomes: namely, those who have been permanently excluded from special schools or Pupil Referral Units (now known as short‐stay schools). The specific focus of this paper is on the 24 young people's educational trajectories pre‐ and post‐exclusion; the reasons for their exclusion from school; and on what forms of alternative provision were available to them after their permanent exclusion.     

A follow-along study of postsecondary outcomes for graduates and dropouts with mild disabilities in a rural setting.

Eighty-six students with mild disabilities living in a rural area who had graduated (n = 52) or dropped out of (n = 34) high school were interviewed at two points in time (7 months apart) about their employment, residential status, and participation in postsecondary education and training programs. Information was also collected on students' high school experiences (educational, vocational, and work) and the reasons they dropped out of school. Of the students who had graduated (Caucasian = 26, black = 25, and other = 1), 31 were male and 21 were female. Of the students who had dropped out (Caucasian = 18, black = 15, and other = 1), 22 were male and 12 female. It was found that the majority of graduates and dropouts were employed full-time at both interviews, and held jobs that paid above minimum wage and provided employee benefits, as well. Nevertheless, by the time of the terminal interview, graduates had worked proportionally more time since high school than dropouts and had been employed in their current job more than twice as long. Neither group of former special education students was particularly active in pursuing postsecondary education or training programs. Finally, these former students had participated in a limited range of educational and vocational experiences during high school, both in terms of diploma tracks and vocational education programs. The implications of the findings for long-term employment and community adjustment are discussed.     

日本职业技术教育体系研究与启示

日本的职业技术教育是一个从自身国情出发的、同民族产业发展阶段相适应的、独具特色的体系。在这个体系中 ,包括了职前与职后的职业技术教育 ,教育系统内的学校职业技术教育与教育系统外的职业训练 ,各级政府、民间和企业创办的职业技术学校和职业训练设施。他们的许多做法值得我们研究与借鉴。在中国特色职业教育体系建设中 ,应实现办学主体多元化 ,办学层次多样化 ;应本着科学、合理的原则规划职业技术教育办学机构 ;应加快建设与职业教育大发展相适应的法律法规体系 ,为职业教育健康持续发展提供强有力的法律保障 ;应严格职业资格证书制度 ,推动我国完整的职业培训体系的健康发展     

Not all school dropouts are the same: Ethnic differences in the relation between reason for leaving school and adolescent substance use

Several national studies have revealed that students choose to drop out of school for a variety of reasons. Moreover, there are ethnic differences in the reasons dropouts give for leaving school. In the present study, the relation between reason for dropping out and substance use was explored in Mexican American and non‐Hispanic White adolescents. The results revealed that for Mexican American adolescents, substance use was highest among those who left school to be with their friends and lowest among those who left for family‐related reasons. Among non‐Hispanic White adolescents, there were no significant differences in substance use as a function of reason for leaving school. For both ethnicities, nearly one‐third of the dropouts reported that their substance use was an important contributor to their decision to leave school early. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Recommendations are made for ways in which the reasons that dropouts give for leaving school can be used to inform school programs. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons.