Re-orienting Ethiopia’s educational policy in the classical humanist perspectives of renaissance utopias

Ethiopia has launched a grand scheme of renaissance to realise fast-paced economic growth. The two Growth and Transformation Plans spanning five years each (2010/11– 2015/16 and 2016/17 – 2020/21) outlined major targets towards which the country intends to mobilise all its resources. In the education sector, this vision is understood as producing a workforce that can realise massive industrialisation. However, what is conceived as ‘renaissance’ in Ethiopia and what kind of education is viewed as capable of bringing it is very mechanical, reductive and utilitarian compared to the Renaissance movements of the late-medieval Europe, which were holistic endeavours to culturally uplift and humanise individuals and societies. The purpose of this paper is to compare the educational views of Christian humanists – the European renaissance thinkers who wrote the early-modern renaissance utopias – with what is conceived today as ‘renaissance’ education in Ethiopia as embedded in major educational policy documents.     

Maternal schooling and children’s relative inequalities in developmental outcomes: evidence from the 1947 school leaving age reform in Britain

This paper investigates whether mothers’ participation in post‐compulsory education impacts on children’s relative inequalities across four developmental outcomes. The empirical analysis uses information from children born in 1958 in Britain. Mothers of the 1958 British cohort were affected by the 1947 school leaving age reform, which increased the age of compulsory schooling from 14 to 15 years. We selected the first‐born cohort members whose mothers were born in 1933 and 1934 and whose mothers completed compulsory schooling only. We found that the additional year of maternal schooling was significantly associated with relative improvements in mathematics attainment for their children, but no significant differences for reading or behavioural outcomes. The impact on mathematics was mainly for boys. These results suggest wider dispersion in mathematics attainment between sons whose mothers benefited from the additional year of schooling in 1947 and those whose mothers did not.     

The institutional shaping of children’s educational experiences in secure custody: A case study of a secure children’s home in England

Secure Children’s Homes accommodate some of the most vulnerable children in society and yet they have evaded sustained academic attention. Consequently, little is known about children’s education in this type of setting. Through the lens of institutional ethnography, this paper explores how experiences of education inside one Secure Children’s Home in England are shaped by the institution. This approach makes visible that while the small-scale of the setting is of value, the mix of children accommodated for qualitatively different reasons is problematic for both the delivery of education and the children’s engagement in learning.     

Researching children’s rights in education: sociology of childhood encountering educational theory

This paper aims to explore and develop a theoretical approach for children’s rights research in education formed through an encounter between the sociology of childhood and John Dewey’s educational theory. The interest is mainly methodological, in the sense that the primary ambition of the investigation is to suggest a fruitful and useful theoretical base for formulating research problems and undertaking research in children’s rights in education. The paper argues that, particularly in educational settings, research into children’s rights can and must be attributed to children both as full-status humans in a socio-politically contextual present, and as continually growing and changing, immature and dependent humans. From the theoretical encounter suggested in the paper, the much-used distinction of the child as either ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ can be reconsidered, and another point of departure for the study of children’s rights issues in education can be discerned.     

Inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools in Ghana: influence of teachers’ and children’s characteristics

The issue of where to teach children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities has been a great concern as countries respond to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Salamanca Statement on inclusion of 1994. In this study, the responses of 500 trained and untrained mainstream primary school teachers selected from three of the ten regions of Ghana were analysed to investigate their attitudes to including children with SEN and disabilities in mainstream schools in Ghana. These attitudes were examined alongside teachers’ characteristics such as gender, age, length and level of teaching experience, and knowledge of SEN, and also the type, nature and degree of children’s SEN. The results showed that teachers in Ghana were positive towards the inclusion of children with SEN and disabilities with a few reservations which are elaborated. On the basis of the findings, conclusions were drawn that the inclusion agenda should be subject to national and local interpretation, aimed at ensuring that policies and regulations on SEN are fashioned to meet local situations and standards.     

Impact of early childcare on immigrant children’s educational performance

This paper investigates the impact of attending early childcare on immigrant children’s cognitive outcomes. Our analysis makes use of administrative data on the entire population of students in the fifth grade collected by the Italian Institute for the Evaluation of the Educational System (INVALSI) for school years 2014/2015 to 2016/2017, matched to unique administrative records on early childcare availability at the municipal level. Our identification strategy exploits cross-sectional and time series variations in the provision of early childcare services across Italian municipalities as an instrument for individual attendance. Our results indicate that the effect of early childcare attendance differs between native and immigrant children. Estimates show a positive and significant effect on the language test scores of immigrant children, with the effect being mostly driven by children with low-educated mothers and by children who, at home, speak a language highly dissimilar to Italian. Unlike immigrants, native students are negatively impacted by early childcare attendance. Effects are stronger on math test scores for children with highly educated mothers and in municipalities with a relatively low public supply of early childcare.     

Listening to children’s voices in educational research: some theoretical and methodological problems

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in children’s experiences and perspectives of their own lives. This interest has been stimulated by legal and political initiatives (e.g., the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), and by theoretical developments in education and social science disciplines. Children are no longer viewed primarily as “becomings”, but as “beings”, whose ideas, experiences, choices and relationships are interesting in their own right. Children, like adults, are “social agents”, who make sense of their experiences. This paper discusses the multi‐level approach metaphorically termed “listening to children’s voices”. First, there is the methodological level – i.e., how to listen. However, this paper does not go into detail regarding what kinds of methods are suitable for grasping the sense of children’s experiences. Second, studies of children’s (or adults’) experiences are underpinned by insider epistemology, the core of which is that insiders have a privileged access to knowledge of their own experiences. The question that will be addressed is what kind of knowledge is insider knowledge; two versions of insider epistemology are discussed in this paper. Third, the approach of listening to children is also underpinned by theory of the subject (or subjectivities). The paper briefly discusses five conceptions of the subject in terms of their possible implications for research on children’s experiences and perspectives. It is argued that even though some definitions of the subject are directly opposed to each other, it is possible to combine some perspectives. The relational conception of the subject, and the theory of interactionism developed by Brian Fay may be helpful for developing knowledge of lived experience, especially when individuals and groups being studied are seemingly very different from the researcher. It is concluded that an open (or weak) thesis of insider epistemology and a relational theory of the subject can offer a powerful theoretical foundation for research on experiences of children, especially of children whose voices are seldom heard.     

Do parents’ and teachers’ views of children’s educational resilience matter?

This study set out to examine parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of children’s educational resilience. As expected, the parents attributed greater levels of educational resilience to their children than did the teachers. However, both the parents and teachers assessed the sixth graders’ educational resilience as higher than that of the third graders. The results suggest that perceptions of educational resilience may represent a different dimension from views relating to children’s achievement in school.     

Fathers’ and mothers’ home learning environments and children’s early academic outcomes

The home learning environment (HLE) that children experience early on is highly predictive of their later academic competencies; however, the bulk of this work is operationalized from mothers’ perspectives. This study investigates the HLE provided by both mothers and fathers to their preschoolers (n = 767), with consideration for how parents’ practices relate to one another as well as how these practices predict children’s early academic outcomes. Using an SEM framework, results indicate that while, overall, mothers provide HLE activities more frequently than fathers do, both mothers (β = .18, p < .05) and fathers (β = .22, p < .05) make unique contributions to their preschooler’s early academic skills, but only for families where mother has less than a bachelor’s degree. For families where mother has a bachelor’s degree or higher, the effect of father’s HLE practices is not a significant predictor of children’s academics when considering mother’s HLE. For all families, fathers are providing a variety of HLE activities to their young children; and, although these may occur less frequently than mothers’ practices, they are particularly important for the academic development of children whose mothers have less than a bachelor’s degree. Practical implications are discussed.     

Deleuze’s children

Children, the image of the child, and the gendered figures of the girl and the boy are thematics that run through the work of Deleuze and feature prominently in his joint writing with Guattari. However, there are many different children in Deleuze’s writings. Various child figures do distinct things in Deleuze’s work. In this article, I argue that his work on children can be utilized to rethink popular, teleological notions of childhood and ‘growing up’.     

Daily fluctuations in young children’s persistence

Children's behavior changes from day to day, but the factors that contribute to its variability are understudied. We developed a novel repeated measures paradigm to study children's persistence by capitalizing on a task that children complete every day: toothbrushing (N = 81; 48% female; 36–47 months; 80% white, 14% Multiracial, 10% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 1% Black; 1195 observations collected between January 2019 and March 2020). Children brushed longer on days when their parents used more praise (d = .23) and less instruction (d = −.22). Sensitivity to mood, sleep, and parent stress varied across children, suggesting that identifying the factors that shape an individual child's persistence could lead to personalized interventions.     

Interprofessional capital in children’s services transformations

This paper discusses the adoption of an integrated approach to children’s services. The paper opens by introducing the Scottish policy statements that recommend that it is at the level of the school and community that integrated services need to be effective for the aims of social justice and inclusion to be achieved. The policy discourses are analysed to reveal a number of potential issues of contention between the different practitioner groups involved in children’s services relating to the relocation of the space of integration and the nature of practitioner‐, practice‐ and governance‐level relations. The social capital theory is then introduced, and a multi‐level conceptual framework of sub‐types of social capital is proposed to chart and analyse intersections and potential points of disjuncture in the work of the different practitioner groups in schools. The concept of human capital is used to explore questions of practitioner knowledge, expertise and research practices. It is suggested that mapping the capital resources used by the children’s sector practitioners provide a framework to analyse how inter/transprofessional relations currently operate and to identify interstices where practitioners’ social and human capital need to be reconstructed to better serve children and young people, and their families.     

Variability in children’s early reading strategies

The present study examines the development of sight word reading in young children by examining changes in their self‐reported reading strategies over time. A sample of 65 five to seven year olds were asked to read 40 real word items, all carefully matched for letter length and word frequency, on three separate occasions. Changes in the children’s word identifications were measured using immediately retrospective verbal self‐reports. Overall, the results showed some variability in the children’s self‐reported reading strategies. Over time the children relied less on phonological strategies and moved towards reliance on directly retrieving words from memory. This change was most evident in the older children; while both year groups showed similar patterns of shifting reliance from explicit phonological strategies to retrieval, this shift was simply less frequent among the younger children. An analysis of word‐specific changes in reading strategies showed that the older children had a better sight vocabulary for more complex word items. These findings provide further support for Ehri’s mediated phase theory in explaining children’s development in learning to read.     

Bystanders’ roles and children with special educational needs in bullying situations among preschool-aged children

Despite the growing body of evidence that the origins of bullying lie in early childhood, very little is known about the nature of the phenomenon in preschool groups. The current understanding among studies conducted in the school environment is that bullying prevention can only be effective if training with individual children takes place parallel to broader interventions in the classroom. The aim of this study was to examine how bullying prevention should be focused among under school-aged children. Since we know that children with special educational needs (SEN) have been found to be extremely vulnerable to bullying and victimization, we examined the role of three- to six-year olds with SEN in bullying situations. In addition, we examined whether the peripheral roles of other children in bullying situations can already be observed in preschool groups. The data were collected from a survey of day care staff in the city of Vantaa (n = 771). According to staff reports, 18% of bullying took place in situations in which children with SEN were present. Bullies with SEN used more physical forms of bullying and bullies without SEN used more psychological forms of bullying. The findings also showed that the multiple, peripheral roles of the bystanders in bullying situations are already occurring in preschool groups, especially among boys. It is important to target intervention programs in preschools both on individual children and at group level.     

Interpretation of children’s views by educational psychologists: dilemmas and solutions

This paper considers how listening to children’s views and taking account of them is understood in different ways by educational psychologists. Rationales for listening to children include (1) supporting their rights to express views, (2) therapeutic benefits of participation, and either (3) valuing their views as insightful contributions to problem-solving or (4) considering them as contributory factors to the problem. This creates dilemmas about interpretation on different occasions, and a range of theoretical stances are discussed in terms of how far they can support robust decision-making about this interpretation, and a practical way forward is suggested using principles based on critical realism.     

The educational developer’s portfolio

The roles and responsibilities described in internationally advertised job opportunities for educational developers reflect the diversity and emerging professionalism of the field. Models adapted from the traditional teaching portfolio are a promising means of articulating these roles and responsibilities, and of defining the nature of the educational development profession.     

School closures and educational attainment in Ethiopia: Can extra classes help children to catch up?

School closures impact children's attainment adversely, but understanding the effects of closures on children's attainment in lower-income countries is still limited. Addressing this deficit, this study examines how past school closures have impacted children's educational attainment in Ethiopia. The study uses individual student-level data from the Young Lives School Survey and standardised test scores in mathematics and language recorded at the start and end of the school year to model children's attainment. Multiple regression with propensity score matching is used to analyse how attainment over the school year is impacted by school closures for a matched sub-sample of 4842 students. The effectiveness of additional classes to make up for lost learning is also evaluated. Past school closures have had a detrimental effect on attainment in mathematics, but not literacy. Extra classes, specifically those that families do not pay for, have helped children in the past to recuperate lost learning and could serve this function post-Covid-19. Inequalities in learning outcomes, measured by Gini coefficients in educational attainment, are widened by school closures. Applying these results to the extensive school closures under Covid-19 furthers our understanding of the likely effects on academic attainment and can inform policy to mitigate the impact.     

Young people’s voices: disciplining young people’s participation in decision-making in special educational needs

In recent years, education and family policy in the UK has sought to incorporate the views of children and young people through an active participation agenda, in the fulfilment of children’s rights under the obligations of the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child. Drawing on empirical evidence, this paper suggests that this aspiration is flawed. The inclusion of young people’s voices in decision-making is context dependent, and influenced by individual relationships, both positive and negative. It is framed by policies that subjugate children within disciplinary technologies that determine a regime of ‘truth’ about effective and appropriate participation. Drawing on data gathered as part of a wider study on the relationships between services users and services providers in special educational needs, this paper demonstrates that active inclusion of the voice of the child can be illustrated to be at least variable, and at worst prejudiced. It is suggested that the notion of participation produces tacit forms of ‘government’ that further classify and divide young people, magnifying their marginalization.