Tackling early school leaving and the governing of educational transitions in Italy

ABSTRACT

This article presents a critical policy historiography of how Early School Leaving has been understood as a social problem and what policy responses have been enacted to tackle it in the Italian context, devoting a specific attention to the analysis of the translation of EU policy ideas, tools and recipes to reduce ESL. It shows how the formulation of a global and integrated national strategy to tackle ESL in Italy in 2018 can be interpreted as the result of a troubled process of re-culturing. Such a reculturing is the effect of the complex interplay between the legacies of the Italian welfare regime in education and the co-option of the ESL issue within a EU political frame that struggles to combine economic rationalism and social justice. Such a struggle is interpreted as contributing to a profound rethinking of education and its mission.     

The scientific heritage of Portuguese secondary schools: a historical approach

Portuguese schools hold important collections, most organised in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This scientific heritage, however, is still to be discovered. This article focuses on the creation, development, and role of natural history collections in Portuguese secondary schools, between the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, that is, before and after the introduction of laboratory-based teaching in science education. Material culture is thus used to expand the current narrative of science teaching in Portugal, by tracking these kinds of collections. Contrary to the current view on science teaching in Portuguese secondary education, in this article I argue that by focusing on collections, and more generally on the material culture of secondary schools, a new picture emerges that contradicts the traditional discourse emphasising the scarcity of appropriate school buildings, infrastructure, and equipment. A brief overview of the current state of Portuguese natural history teaching collections is also provided, drawing attention to their vulnerability, given the absence of a general policy or guidelines orienting its conservation.     

Principals’ emotional support and teachers’ emotional reframing: The mediating role of principals’ supportive communication strategies

The purpose of this research is to achieve a deeper understanding of emotional support in principal–teacher relations. The study aims to shed light on the role of principals’ supportive communication strategies in providing emotional support to teachers, and on the proximal affective outcome of such support. The study used quantitative data obtained from 190 schoolteachers to explore the effect of principals’ emotional support on teachers’ emotional reframing through principals’ supportive communication strategies (empathic listening and empowering and normalizing messages). The analysis indicated an indirect effect of principals’ emotional support on teachers’ emotional reframing through principals’ supportive communication strategies. The results and their implications are discussed.     

Physics in upper secondary schools in Denmark

This article is the third in a series reporting on the changes in attitudes and interests‐‐mainly with respect to physics‐of several hundred students as they proceed through the Danish upper secondary school (Gymnasium). It concentrates on the results of the final investigation which took place shortly before the students leave the school.     

School leaving certificates and the selection of pupils for secondary technical schools

Abstract

Concentrating upon the pre-entry phase of vocational education and training for 16–19 year olds in the United Kingdom, Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany. Three models of the phase are identified before the system of each country is reviewed. The vocational education and training systems are seen to reflect the societies in which they have developed.     

Modelling inclusive special needs education: insights from Dutch secondary schools

Inclusive special needs education is prominent on the international education agenda. Research on the characteristics of inclusive education for students with special needs and schools providing this is scarce, however. Our aim in the present study was therefore to further theory-building with regard to inclusive special needs education. On the basis of the relevant literature, we identified three core aspects of inclusivity: the learning environment, the guidance provided by teachers and the general care structure. With the help of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses conducted on data obtained from school professionals in 79 secondary schools in the Netherlands, we were able to identify 12 underlying characteristics for a conceptual framework to further research on the inclusive nature of schools and education. Multilevel structural equation modelling of the judgments of school professionals at the level of the school also showed that the inclusive special needs education in at least secondary schools can be characterised by two main factors: (1) learning environment and (2) guidance and care. The analyses showed considerable agreement on the important aspects of inclusivity for schools and thus how differences between schools can be explained. The results further showed the work of the care coordinator – which includes cooperation with external partners and teachers with mentoring roles – to be the clearest indicator of the extent of the inclusive special needs education within schools. This finding is interpreted as suggesting that the recommended teaching practices and student care for adequate included special needs education have not yet been integrated into teachers’ thinking and acting. Follow-up research drawing upon the developed framework is therefore called for to not only more generally validate the framework but also determine if the situation in school has changed, now that the policy and practices for inclusive education have become more familiar.     

Student transition from primary to lower secondary school in Cambodia: Narrative insights into complex systems

This article has three purposes. First, it presents findings from a study of student retention and dropout in Cambodia, as pupils transition from primary to lower secondary school. Second, it aims to understand from an in-depth, emic perspective the dynamics of this process and the challenges that individual families and their students face around this transition. Third, it offers policy-relevant suggestions for addressing obstacles to students continuing in school. It meets these goals by combining complexity theory with the use of narrative research methods in interviews with student-parent pairs in urban, rural, and remote communities in Cambodia.     

Different pathways towards dropout: the role of engagement in early school leaving

In this study, we examine the development of student engagement in relation to dropout. We focus on different growth trajectories of engagement between groups of students and on whether these trajectories lead to differences in the survival of the student. The development of behavioural and emotional engagement of 4063 graduates and 541 (11.7%) dropouts is examined from Year 7 to Year 12 and this development is linked to the probability of dropping out in each grade by means of a discrete-time survival mixture model. For emotional engagement, results point to a model with two different subgroups: one group starting at a high level of engagement and following a (relatively) stable pattern and the other group starting at a lower level of engagement and following a decreasing trend. For behavioural engagement, the results indicate that a three-class model showed the best fit: a high and (relatively) stable group, a high and decreasing group and a low and stable group. In terms of dropout, the unstable and low groups demonstrate a significantly higher probability of dropping out, as evidenced in the steep, declining survival curves. Different background variables are included to gain more insight into engagement and dropout, and to predict membership in the low and decreasing class.     

Enjoyment and learning: Policy and secondary school learners’ experience in England

Policy in England increasingly stresses the importance of enjoyment in education, both as a right in itself and as an essential support for learning. This paper draws on a large national dataset to focus on the perspective of young people aged 14–19 in England in 2007–2008. It considers alternative ways in which enjoyment and learning might be conceptualised. It analyses the evidence from young people to explore their experience of enjoyment at school or college and their perception of its relationship to learning. It concludes that the form of enjoyment most strongly perceived as enmeshed with learning is the least commonly experienced; and that policy that refers to ‘enjoyment’ as a general and undefined term fails to distinguish particular affective states that may or may not be supportive of learning.     

Being ‘nuff’ and ‘scudding class’: exploring girls’ and boys’ perceptions of popularity,gender and achievement in Antiguan secondary schools

This paper will report on the findings from classroom observations and focus group discussions conducted on the topic of popularity and fitting in at school with girls and boys from four government secondary schools in Antigua. The findings show that whilst boys did experience difficulties negotiating academic success and acceptable masculinities, the consensus was that popularity was associated with low achievement for both girls and boys. However, there was evidence that some girls were able to work hard and maintain better peer relations than other high achieving students, but that this ‘balancing’ required conformity to hetero‐feminine norms as well as the espousal of rigid views about what girls can and can't do. This suggests that real equality is far from being reached.     

Risk-based school inspections: impact of targeted inspection approaches on Dutch secondary schools

In most countries, publicly funded schools are held accountable to one inspectorate and are judged against agreed national standards. Many inspectorates of education have recently moved towards more proportional risk-based inspection models, targeting high-risk schools for visits, while schools with satisfactory student attainment levels are excluded from inspections. This paper looks into these newer inspection models and aims to enhance our understanding of the potential effectiveness of such targeted models on student attainment and other performance indicators. Random effects models, analyzing changes in schools over time, indicate that targeted inspections particularly have an effect on student attainment in literacy in weak schools, while also impacting on student satisfaction, student numbers and student-staff ratios.     

Emotional intelligence throughout Portuguese secondary school: a longitudinal study comparing performance and self-report measures

This study examines the developmental trajectories of ability and trait emotional intelligence (EI) in the Portuguese secondary school. Within a three-wave longitudinal design, 395 students (M _age ?=?15.4; SD?=?.74) completed both the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire (ESCQ) and the Vocabulary of Emotions Test (VET). Results revealed that EI exhibited different developmental trajectories during late adolescence according to the type of measure used, while students’ VET levels evidenced an increase during secondary school, their ESCQ levels remained stable during this period. Moreover, students’ gender, verbal indicator, and type of school (public vs. private) have no significant effect on their rate of EI change, whereas students from lower sociocultural and lower professional status backgrounds demonstrated significantly greater increases on the ESCQ and VET compared to higher status adolescents. The results are examined in the context of adolescent emotional development.     

A tracer study of Lebanese upper secondary school students

This paper presents data arising from a tracer study of 90 terminating Beirut upper secondary school students. Nearly all the students intended to transit to university, about half of them to science and technology programmes, and subsequently did so. Median anticipated earnings upon graduation were realistic, but a lack of information or guidance about higher education and career options was noted by a considerable proportion. The results of the study are discussed with reference to the as yet poorly elucidated dynamics of schooling with regard to attrition and transition to higher education and employment in Lebanon.     

Differences between secondary schools: A study about school context,group composition,school practice,and school effects with special attention to public and Catholic schools and types of schools

The results indicate that in Flanders secondary schools of different denomination and of different school type (based on their curriculum offerings) differ with respect to several characteristics. With respect to the educational framework, learning environment and learning climate differences between schools are small and differences are more situated within schools. Multilevel analysis reveals that almost 19% of the variance in mathematics achievement is at school level. The effect of denomination is small and disappears when student background (which is related to school practice) is taken into account. The effect of school type remains important when controlled for student background and denomination. Group composition, the social and learning climate, and the opportunity to learn seem to matter and explain almost 90% of the school effect. They also explain more than four fifths of the effect of school type (and denomination together) which accounts for 65% of the school level variance.     

‘Perceived’ competition and performance in Italian secondary schools: New evidence from OECD—PISA 2006

In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the performance of Italian secondary schools as measured by maths achievement scores (PISA 2006 dataset). Competition is measured by an indicator of ‘perceived’ competition (generated from an answer provided by the schools’ principals). The methodology employed is a propensity score matching that is corrected to take into account heteroskedasticity and finite sample bias. The results show a positive effect of competition on school performance. Nevertheless, this effect is quite low (between 3.62% and 4.05% computed at the average score level) and is consistent with previous findings about educational systems in Italy and worldwide. This is relevant for policy‐making because competition appears to impact school performance even in a country like Italy where specific pro‐competitive policies are quite absent.     

Special educational resources in the Swedish upper secondary schools: a total population survey

This paper analyses the special educational resources in the Swedish upper secondary schools using a total population survey that covers all upper secondary schools. Special educators and special teachers together constitute the special educational resources at each school. With two types of regression models (logistic and linear regression), the study investigates which variables at school level determine the presence and availability rate of special educational resources. The main findings are that there is a great difference between public and independent schools in the presence and accessibility of special educational resources, where many independent schools do not offer special educational support for their students. It also shows that what kind of provider (public or independent school) and the size of the school are especially important variables for predicting presence of special educational resources. When analysing the variance of availability rate of special educational resources, student variables (grades from compulsory school and parental educational level) on the school level, together with school size, are especially important.