Self‐concept,enterprise and educational attainment in late adolescence

Abstract

This study used data obtained from a large random sample of 16‐19 year olds in four areas in U.K. and from a smaller university student sample to construct an easy‐to‐use measure of purposefulness, a characteristic lying at the core of the concept of enterprise, and to examine the relationship between purposefulness and educational attainment.

This instrument was found to be reasonably valid and reliable for both samples. Further, for women, purposefulness was positively related to educational attainment whilst for men this was not the case. The implications of this study are threefold: conceptualising enterprise in terms of a person's motivational, attributional and behavioural style has implications both for the content of, and expectations from, enterprise education and training. Second, the difference in the relationship between educational attainment and purposefulness for the two sexes suggests that there may be different opportunities that the educational system and the labour market offers to men and women. Third, this measure can be usefully employed for vocational guidance.     

Targeting educational disadvantage by area: continuity and change in urban areas in England, 1968–2014

Focusing on data and policies from England, trends in educational disadvantage by area are traced from the late 1960s when the first pilot projects were established in the UK, to the present. The origins of these developments and the subsequent rises and falls of such area-based policies in England are reviewed. Specially collected data for the pilot areas from the 1960s and national data for England from 2000 are used to draw out some striking patterns of changes over the period. Though many of the areas remain highly disadvantaged, educational measures at age 16 and at entry to higher education (HE) indicate some important changes. Thus the settled, white working-class pilot area in the 1960s with just below average results had fallen back very substantially by 2013, particularly in entry to HE. By contrast the newly settled Asian immigrant area in Birmingham where educational performance was exceptionally poor in the 1960s had moved above average despite remaining highly disadvantaged. Analysis of the national results since 2000 using local area data showed that these trends were widespread across England. Disadvantaged ‘multicultural urban areas’ were doing markedly better than the disadvantaged white working-class urban areas, where in many cases traditional industries had closed. This was especially marked at entry to HE where multicultural areas had rates close to the national average of 40% while white working-class urban areas had rates of entry to HE of between 10% and 15% of the age group and this gap has widened rapidly in recent years. These trends are likely to be the source of major resentment, with one group finding itself increasingly excluded from higher level employment opportunities, and the other failing to find opportunities that match their expectations once they leave education.     

Pure ethnic gaps in educational attainment and school to work transitions: When do they arise?

This article decomposes the observed gaps in educational attainment and school-to-work transitions in Belgium between grandchildren of natives and of women of “non-Western” nationality into (i) differences in observed family endowments and (ii) a residual “pure ethnic gap”. It innovates by explicitly taking delays in educational attainment into account, by identifying the moments at which the pure ethnic gaps arise, by disentangling the decision to continue schooling at the end of a school year from the achievement within a particular grade, and by integrating the language spoken at home among observed family endowments. The pure ethnic gap in educational attainment is found to be small if delays are neglected, but substantial if not and for school-to-work transitions. It is shown that more than 20% of the pure ethnic gap in graduating from secondary school without delay originates in tenth grade. Language usage explains only part of the gap in school-to-work transitions for low educated.     

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.     

Talkin’ bout my generation: Boomers, Xers, and educational change

From 1998 to 2003, Andy Hargreaves and Ivor Goodson, along with colleagues Shawn Moore, Sonia James-Wilson, Dean Fink, and Corrie Giles, undertook a large-scale study of eight secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, and New York in the United States to investigate teachers’ perceptions and experiences of educational change over 30 years spanning from the 1970s through the 1990s (Hargreaves and Goodson in Edu Admn Quart 42(1):3–41, 2006). The Change Over Time? study not only provided a unique glimpse into how schools and teachers experience educational change but also demonstrated that most of what educators and scholars previously considered when looking at educational change neglected its political, historical, and longitudinal aspects. Hargreaves and Goodson highlighted five change forces that shape educational change: waves of reform, changing student demographics, teacher generations, leadership succession, and school interrelations. This article, based on work conducted in Massachusetts from 2007 to 2009 (Stone-Johnson in Enduring reform: The impact of mandated change on middle career teachers. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, 2009; Teachers’ career trajectories and work lives. Springer, Dordrecht, 2009), elaborates upon two of these aspects, waves of reform and teacher generations, highlighting the response of the current generation of teachers in mid-career to the most recent wave of reform.     

Teachers’ guidance,family participation and track choice: the educational disadvantage of immigrant students in Italy

In Italy, as in other European countries, students of foreign origin are over-represented in the vocational school tracks, with relevant consequences on their limited chances of attaining a university degree. While research has long underlined the weight that a family’s social, cultural and economic capital has on a child’s school performance, educational expectations and choices, the role that school and teachers themselves play in the transition from lower to upper secondary school has been rarely explored in Italian sociological research. The present study aims to bridge this gap in the literature, showing how teachers’ orienting practices, interacting with highly differentiated patterns of family participation in the school guidance process, can play a relevant role in reproducing foreign-origin students’ segregation into the lower tracks of the school system.     

Beyond a battery hen model?: a computer laboratory,micropolitics and educational change

This paper investigates what happened in one Australian primary school as part of the establishment, use and development of a computer laboratory over a period of two years. As part of a school renewal project, the computer laboratory was introduced as an ‘innovative’ way to improve the skills of teachers and children in information and communication technologies and to lead to curriculum change. However, the way in which the laboratory was conceptualised and used worked against achieving these goals. The micropolitics of educational change and an input–output understanding of computers meant that change remained structural rather than pedagogical or philosophical.     

Does continued participation in STEM enrichment and enhancement activities affect school maths attainment?

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills are very valuable for economic growth. However, the number of young people pursuing STEM learning trajectories in the United Kingdom was lower than the predicted demand during the last decade. Several STEM enrichment and enhancement activities were thus funded by the government, private, and charitable organisations to improve understanding of and raise pupil interest in these subjects. One possible way of measuring the impact of these activities in supporting pupil understanding of maths was to track the proportion of young people obtaining a ‘good’ grade in standardised national tests such as the GCSEs. Attainment is of course only one possible outcome of education but certainly a very important one because students are more likely to continue studying subjects in which they score higher. This makes maths attainment even more important as it is a pre-requisite for admission to STEM degree courses. This longitudinal study makes use of the National Pupil Database to assess the impact of these schemes on maths attainment of participating schools. Following up 300 intervention schools for five years the study shows the intervention group did not do any better than the comparator. The paper suggests further directions for research and offers recommendations for practice.     

Inequalities in educational opportunities in France: educational expansion,democratization or shifting barriers?

This paper is concerned with inequalities in educational opportunities in France and presents data collected from cohorts born between 1919 and 1973, a period characterized by educational expansion. Data from large-scale representative French surveys were compiled in such a way as to make accurate historical and international comparisons possible. The paper argues that there has been a shift in social inequalities, from entry into collège (lower secondary school) to entry into lycée (upper secondary school leading to the baccalauréat). Finally, policy implications have been drawn from international comparisons of data on the reduction of social inequality.     

Spirituality in children and young people: a suitable topic for educational and child psychologists?

In this article the concept of spirituality, especially with relation to school age children and young people, is discussed. Some of the possibilities and constraints present in this area are noted, especially the unease with which many researchers and practitioners view such a difficult to define topic and also its traditional association with religious organisations.

However, in more recent literature, the spiritual dimension has been seen as a universal human characteristic (within which spirituality in religion is viewed as a sub‐set), which is characterised by a deeper state of meaningfulness. In the case of children and young people, modern writers have argued that the encouragement of spiritual growth is important because it is related to a non‐material, ethical and self‐awareness aspect of their development and is a necessary counterbalance to the attainment‐focused demands of the National Curriculum.

As an aid to future study in this area, a possible measurement of spirituality in school‐aged children (The SQ Pupil Inventory) is reproduced at the end of this article. This inventory represents the work in progress of the late Beverley Ruddock who was carrying out her doctoral research in this topic until her sudden death in late 2008.     

Truancy in Europe: Does the type of educational system matter?

Truancy is known to: Hamper academic achievement, predict a range of school-related problems and cause early school leaving. Hence, the development and implementation of measures to tackle truancy are considered as important strategies to prevent early school leaving in Europe. Despite this, there is almost no comparative research which studies variation in truancy rates. This article relies on PISA 2012 data from 24 European countries to empirically answer two questions: (1) To what degree do truancy rates vary cross-nationally? and (2) Do these differences in truancy rates relate to characteristics of the educational system? We found that between-country truancy rates varied more than differences in early school leaving. Moreover, even after taking into account control variables such as economic development and youth unemployment rates, the ways in which educational systems select and group pupils are closely related to truancy rates.     

Solving arithmetic problems in first and second language: Does the language context matter?

Learning mathematics in a second language is a challenge for many learners. The purpose of the study was to provide new insights into the role of the language context in mathematic learning and more particularly arithmetic problem solving. We investigated this question in a German–French bilingual educational setting in Luxembourg. Participants with increasing bilingual proficiency levels were invited to solve additions in both their first and second instruction languages: German and French. Arithmetic problems were presented in two different conditions: preceded by a semantic judgment or without additional language context. In the French session we observed that additions were systematically performed faster in the condition with an additional language context. In contrast no effect of the context was observed in the German session. In conclusion, providing a language context enhanced arithmetic performances in bilinguals' second instruction language. This finding entails implications for designing optimal mathematic learning environments in multilingual educational settings.     

The case of educational gerontology in Lebanon: a harbinger of empowerment,emancipation and social change?

Context: In Lebanon, older adults face socioeconomic challenges that are expected to worsen due to an increase in older adult population, chronic governmental neglect, institutionalised ageism and a lack of educational and social gerontologists. Consequently, local older adults are in dire need for social change, which can be initiated through later life learning. The University for Seniors (UfS) is a University for the Third Age providing learning opportunities for older people in Lebanon. While most older adult learning programmes are occupied with their learners’ self-fulfilment, Critical Educational Gerontology promotes emancipatory learning and social change. Study Objective and Design: A case discussion based on a variety of data sources is used to showcase and then challenge the practices of UfS from a critical educational gerontology perspective. To do that, we consider the semantic difference between emancipation and empowerment in their relation to power. Recommendations: We recommend programme-specific measures starting by revisiting the current philosophy of learning, targeting social change as an additional goal to later life learning, and advocacy for the establishment of educational degrees to prepare professionals and academicians in the field of social gerontology. We also recommend a more critical use of empowerment and emancipation within critical educational gerontology.     

Group-based educational inequalities in India: Have major education policy interventions been effective?

Despite seven decades of policy thrust, group-based educational inequalities persist in India. The tenacious social group-based stratification often proves to be a hurdle for educational participation policies to be effectively rolled out. Given these realities, this study reviews all major national education policy interventions since t 1950s. Using four rounds of National Sample Survey (NSS) data, we analysed the pattern of educational attainments in terms of Average Years of Schooling (AYS) and educational inequalities in India for the period 1994-2012. Three indices of inequality - Gini, Theil’s enttropy and Atkinson - have been constructed to study inequality by gender, place of residence and social groups. . We also empirically estimated the determinants of educational attainments in India by using OLS and Tobit Models. Further using the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition technique, we analysed the educational attainment gaps between groups. The study concludes that policy interventions have done little to reduce the group-based educational attainment gap and it’s time to place improved focus on secondary and higher education while continuing the efforts in primary education.     

First-year undergraduate induction: Who attends and how important is induction for first year attainment?

The first year of study in higher education is a time of major transition for students. While the importance of induction has been widely demonstrated, there is evidence to suggest that not all students benefit equally from participation in induction. This study examined attendance rates at induction, the relationship between induction attendance and first-year attainment and, finally, whether this relationship differed as a function of demographic factors, entry qualifications and the number of credits attempted. Data from students enrolled in the first year of full-time undergraduate study in a UK metropolitan institution of higher education in 2011–12 was collected from an internal cross-sectional survey and from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. Results showed that attendance at induction differed as a function of a number of demographic characteristics. In line with and extending previous research, ethnicity and previous entry qualifications predicted unique variance in attainment, as did the number of credits attempted and attendance at induction. The attainment gap related to attendance at induction was greater for students who attempted fewer than 120 credits. Overall, the results emphasise the importance of attendance at induction and the need for early engagement with new students, which may be particularly beneficial to those unable to attend induction.     

ADHD and academic attainment: Is there an advantage in impulsivity?

Pupils diagnosed with ADHD and pupils with ADHD symptoms tend to do less well at school than their symptom-free peers. This has been found to be particularly true for predominantly inattentive pupils. This paper aimed to establish the relative importance of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity to the academic progress of young children. A large dataset which held children's reading and maths attainment at the end of their first year at school, as well as teachers' ratings of ADHD-related behaviours based on the DSM-IV criteria was analysed. Inattention was strongly linked to under-attainment whilst impulsivity was positively related to attainment for similar levels of inattention. The item “Blurts out answers” on the teachers' rating scale was particularly important. When impulsivity acted as an overt sign of cognitive engagement it seemed to have a positive function. This raises questions about the inclusion of the “blurting out” item in the ADHD DSM criteria.     

Systems thinking: a missing component in higher educational planning?

In developing corporate identities, universities have adopted management practices that generate problems similar to those documented in relation to business and industry. See, for example, Senge (1990). The operating environment contains interacting feedback loops, many containing substantial delays. The resulting system dynamics mean that effects emerge removed both in space and time from causes, and this confounds the intentions of managers who assume immediate and direct outcomes from their policies. Difficulties in achieving expected outcomes are discussed in relation to problematic elements associated with artificial internal structures, funding formulae, the relative importance of system parameters versus system structure, and the significance of time-scales and delays in influencing system behaviour. It is argued that university management should move forward from a corporate framework to locate itself within an ecological world view.     

ICT-use, educational policy and changes in pedagogical paradigms in compulsory education in Denmark: From a lifelong learning paradigm to a traditional paradigm?

For years, increased use of ICT in education and training has been part of the Danish education policy, and the number of computers in schools and the actual use of ICT have grown. At the same time, school leaders’ and teachers’ pedagogical paradigm in primary and lower secondary schools seems to be changing from a lifelong learning paradigm (focussed on student-centred, active, and autonomous leaning) to a more traditional paradigm (focussed on curriculum-centred teaching and instructions). The aim of this paper is to describe this development in relation to the way ICT is used as well as to changes in educational policy. Beck and Beck-Gerrnsheim (2002) theory about ‘institutionalized individualization’ as characteristic of the reflexive society serves as a theoretical framework for better understanding the observed changes.     

Imagination, emotions and scientific thinking: what matters in the being and becoming of a teacher of elementary science?

Christina Siry and Johaira Lara in researching pre-service teachers field based experiences of elementary science education bring to the fore the importance of teacher identity. In this paper, an alterative reading of pre-service teaching experience is given, one that complements the analysis provided by Siry and Lara, but which utilizes the cultural-historical concepts of emotions and imagination and creativity. It is argued that these important concepts give further insights into becoming a teacher of elementary science.     

Educational practice in India and its foundations in Indian heritage: a synthesis of the East and West?

The paper examines education practice in India in terms of the division between indigenous cultures on the one hand, and the formal culture of learning and knowledge systems inherited from colonial times on the other. These ‘two Indias’ are still reflected in the modern educational system in India, seen in the vast differences between the formal school system, whose benefits reach only a minority of the population, and the millions of crafts-persons working in India's informal sector, many without education or training. The paper looks at reasons for these divisions within the culture and history of India's formal, non-formal and informal systems of education and training. The paper also throws light on the aspirations to unite these divided cultures of learning by looking at some of the writings of J.P. Naik, the famous educationist and secretary of the first Report of the Education Commission (1964–66) after India's independence. The analysis needs to be seen against the background of international educational thought which is improving the value, relevance and quality of non-formal and informal learning, as key pillars for building lifelong learning systems.