The achievement of indigenous students in Guatemalan primary schools

This paper analyses the difference in academic achievement between indigenous and nonindigenous children that attend rural primary schools in Guatemala. The gap ranges between 0.8 and 1 standard deviation in Spanish, and approximately half that in Mathematics. A decomposition procedure suggests that a relatively small portion of the achievement gap is explained by differences in the socioeconomic status of indigenous and nonindigenous families. Other results are consistent with the notion that school attributes play an important role in explaining the achievement gap. The paper discusses several explanations—such as the lack of bilingual education—that are consistent with the empirical findings.     

Representations of indigenous knowledges in secondary school science textbooks in Australia and Canada

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that presenting principally western perspectives in science texts is a form of ethnocentrism, racism or cultural imperialism. In order to address this problem, a number of science texts have appeared which attempt to incorporate greater diversity of knowledge types. This paper employs discourse analysis techniques to examine the approach taken to minority group knowledges in two recently published sets of junior secondary science texts, one used in Australia and the other in Canada, with a specific focus on the incorporation of indigenous knowledges into the texts. An evaluation is provided on the kinds of indigenous knowledges incorporated in the texts and the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches used.     

Bilingual education in Peru: Evidence on how Quechua-medium education affects indigenous children's academic achievement

This study uses the Peruvian Young Lives International Study of Childhood Poverty's School Level data to investigate the effect of Quechua-medium instruction on academic achievement. We find that Indigenous children who attend Quechua-medium schools achieve 0.429 standard deviations higher scores in mathematics compared to Indigenous children who attend Spanish-medium schools. There is no evidence that these effects are caused by quantitative or language achievement acquired prior to entering school. Our findings suggest that Quechua-medium education for children of Quechua speaking parents may play a role in ameliorating the Indigenous test score gap.     

加拿大发展终身学习的策略及启示

90年代以来，加拿大政府实施了一系列推动和发展终身学习的策略，主要体现在制定相关文件提供经费保障、完善技术支持、建设学习载体三个方面，本文择其要点进行评析，并进一步阐述其对我国发展终身学习的借鉴意义。     

The role of guidance professionals in enhancing the capabilities of marginalized students: the case of indigenous women in Canada

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - Inspired by Sen’s capability approach and the intersectional perspective, we examine how guidance professionals facilitate or...     

Pluralism,identity, and the state: national education policy towards indigenous minorities in Japan and Canada

This paper examines educational policies toward indigenous minorities in Japan and Canada during the period of nation‐building, from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. Both Japan and Canada first segregated indigenous children into separate educational institutions and then tried to assimilate them into mainstream society. Beneath these broad policy similarities, however, lie different rationales, with substantially different implications for education and social policy in diverse societies. In Japan, national integration was promoted through a cultural or ethnic rationale, a socially coherent approach that nonetheless allows little room for minorities. Canada approached national integration using a notion of citizenship that both allows considerable space for minorities but is challenged by unity. These two strategies can be seen in two polar models of the state – a civic‐assimilationist approach of the ‘French model’ and an ethnocultural exclusionist model of the formation of the German state. The paper argues for a multicultural pluralist model including both civic and cultural/ethnic identities.     

Public subsidies to private schools do make a difference for achievement in mathematics: Longitudinal evidence from Canada

Selection into private schools is the principal cause of bias when estimating the effect of private schooling on academic achievement. By exploiting the generous public subsidizing of private high schools in the province of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, we identify the causal impact of attendance in a private high school on achievement in mathematics. Because the supply of highly subsidized spaces is much higher at the high school level than at the grade school level, 94% of transitions from the public to the private sector occur at the end of primary school, we assume that these transitions are exogenous with respect to changes in transitory unobserved variables affecting math scores conditional on variables such as changes in income and child fixed effects. Using 7 cycles of data from Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey on Children and Youth (NLSCY), we estimate the effect of attending a private high school on the percentile rank and a standardized math test score with different models (child fixed effects, random effects and a pooled OLS) and restricted samples to control for the degree of selection. The results, interpreted as a treatment on the treated effect show that the effect of changing schools, from a public grade school to a private high school, increases the percentile rank of the math score between 4 and 10 points and by between 0.12 and 0.36 of a standard deviation depending on the specification and samples.     

Metacognition, achievement goals, study strategies and academic achievement: pathways to achievement

The purpose of this research was to develop and test a model of effective self-regulated learning. Based on effort expenditure we discerned effective self-regulators and less effective self-regulators. The model comprised achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach and -avoidance goals), metacognition (metacognitive knowledge, regulation and experience), study strategies (metacognitive, deep cognitive, surface cognitive and resource management strategies) and academic achievement. The relationships in the model were tested with controlling for intellectual ability, gender and age. The results showed that effective self-regulated learning involved two pathways: a metacognitive and a strategy pathway. The first pathway involved a positive relationship of mastery goals and a negative relationship of performance-avoidance goals with metacognition. Metacognition positively affected the use of the four study strategies. The strategy pathway involved positive effects of mastery and performance-approach goals on the use of metacognitive and deep cognitive strategies. Further, performance-approach goals positively affected the use of surface cognitive and resource management strategies. The use of metacognitive and resource management strategies had a positive and the use of surface cognitive strategies had a negative effect on exam scores.     

Educational and indigenous justice in Africa

This article examines the way in which some of the most discriminated against, disadvantaged and marginalised groups on the African continent, are re-defining education through strategies aimed at recognition of rights and social justice. It uses Fraser's analysis of social justice – distribution, recognition and participation – to examine the demands of the indigenous movement in Africa for rights to education. Over the past 10 years the concept of ‘indigenous’ has become embedded in African regional resolutions and reports while communities self-identifying as indigenous have been shaping new political and educational spaces for their participation and decision making about their development and their education. Taking the example of the East African pastoralists and the Maasai of Ngorongoro District in Tanzania, it looks at indigenous communities’ initiatives to define and achieve a qualitative education which is relevant and meaningful for their lives today. It concludes with a discussion of the potential for the indigenous movement in Africa to ‘reframe’ education for the benefit of not only indigenous communities but for all learners.     

An investigation of perfectionism,mental health,achievement, and achievement motivation in adolescents

This study examined the relationship of perfectionism with measures of achievement and achievement motivation and mental health aspects of depression and self‐esteem in high school students. Participants were 123 tenth‐ through twelfth‐grade students. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that students' personal standards were significant predictors of academic achievement. Students' personal standards also significantly predicted achievement motivation. Analyses of the relationship between perfectionism and depression and self‐esteem found that as students' personal standards increased, their levels of depression decreased and self‐esteem increased. Furthermore, when students experienced a discrepancy between their personal standards and actual performance, their depression levels increased and self‐esteem decreased. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Improving student achievement

A cognitive processing capacity model of teaching and studying improved immediate posttest and delayed posttest performances of low-ability students, while it reduced performance differences between the low- and high-ability students. A skeletal study outline and a restudy and retest provision also made positive contributions to performance.     

Neo-piagetian predictors of achievement in physical science

This article examines the predictive value of the cognitive variables of developmental level, mental capacity, cognitive style, short-term storage space, and numerical inductive reasoning for student achievement in college science. Achievement was analyzed for each of the categories of pure recall, computational, complex items, and total score of a midterm exam as well as for the composite score on a final exam. The sample for this study consisted of a class of 32 nonscience majors enrolled in Physical Science I at the University of Southern Mississippi. The results showed that developmental level was the single best predictor of achievement. Short-term storage space and mental capacity were significant predictors of achievement for computational and complex items, but, as expected from theoretical considerations, not for pure recall items. The degree of field dependence did not well predict performance on pure recall or computational items. The results also indicate that mental capacity and field dependence do not contribute significantly to the variance if developmental level is held constant. The pattern of the predictive power of numerical inductive reasoning parallels, in magnitude, that of mental capacity. The results of this study and its implications indicate that the construct of short-term storage space has great potential to guide classroom practice and the development of instructional materials. A strategy is outlined that would guide curriculum planners and classroom teachers in the development of materials which would allow students to develop complex problem-solving behaviors.     

The importance of place in indigenous science education

In this issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education, Mack and colleagues (Mack et al. 2011) seek to identify the necessary components of science education in Indigenous settings. Using a review of current research in informal science education in Indigenous settings, along with personal interviews with American educators engaged in these programs, the authors suggest some effective practices to use Indigenous ways of knowing to strengthen science programming. For the past 4 years, we have been interested in the importance of place in culturally relevant science education. We have explored the role of place and have used Gruenewald’s critical pedagogy of place (2003) to examine the importance of place in a variety of Indigenous contexts. In response to Mack and colleagues, in this paper we explore the importance of place as a means to reinhabituate Indigenous youth who live in urban, First Nation, and rural Costa Rican contexts.     

The determinants of student achievement in Turkey

Recent achievement test results show that Turkish students have been performing poorly compared to students from other countries. Using science literacy results from the PISA 2006 survey, we aim to measure the determinants of student achievement in Turkey within the education production function framework. We find that program types have large effects on student achievement. Since many students are allocated across program types as a result of a centralized exam, we try to control for past academic achievement and also for differences in the average socioeconomic background of students in a given school. The results indicate that students cluster in schools according to their socioeconomic background, and previous academic record is important, however, the effects of program types persist. Policies to augment socioeconomic background, such as conditional cash transfers and lifelong learning programs that prioritize parents will increase educational output.     

The longitudinal effects of achievement goals and perceived control on university student achievement

In the area of achievement motivation, students’ beliefs pertaining to achievement goals and perceived control have separately guided a large amount theoretical and empirical research. However, limited research has considered the simultaneous effects of goals and control on achievement. The purpose of this study was to examine primary and secondary control as potential mediators of the effects of mastery and performance goals on achievement, measured as final percentage in Introductory Psychology and GPA. The sample consisted of 224 first-year university students at a Canadian doctoral granting university. All participants completed two surveys and consented to release their grades to the researchers. We found that neither performance goals nor mastery goals had direct effects on achievement. However, performance goals had a positive indirect effect on achievement through primary control. Indirect effects also emerged for mastery goals, positively through primary control and negatively through secondary control. These results offer one explanation for the often-found non-significant relationship between mastery and achievement and are discussed in light of interventions aimed to modify goals and/or control and thereby increase achievement.