Determinants of private school participation: All about the money?

For those who grew up in Britain in the latter half of the twentieth century, there is known to be a strong association between social class or family income and attending a private school. However, increasing private school fees and promotion of school choice in the state sector have potential implications for the predictors of participation in private schooling in the twenty-first century. In this article, through analysis of rich, longitudinal data from a recent, representative birth cohort study, we provide new evidence on this issue. Given the high and rising fees required to send a child to private school, one might think that the decision is entirely connected with financial resources. However, while these remain an important factor, we argue that other determinants are also important. In particular, we highlight the importance of parental values and geographical proximity to high-quality state school alternatives: a one standard deviation increase in levels of parental traditional values is associated with a 2.5 percentage point higher probability of their child attending a private school, while each minute of additional travel time to the nearest state school judged ‘Outstanding’ by England’s schools inspectorate is associated with a 0.2 percentage point higher probability of attending a private school. We also examine the characteristics of those who ‘mix and match’ state and private schooling, noting their similarity to private school attendees in terms of their values but lower levels of financial resources.     

Organizational climate, services, and outcomes in child welfare systems

Objective

This study examines the association of organizational climate, casework services, and youth outcomes in child welfare systems. Building on preliminary findings linking organizational climate to youth outcomes over a 3-year follow-up period, the current study extends the follow-up period to 7 years and tests main, moderating and mediating effects of organizational climate and casework services on outcomes.

Methods

The study applies hierarchical linear models (HLMs) analyses to all 5 waves of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW) with a US nationwide sample of 1,678 maltreated youth aged 4–16 years and 1,696 caseworkers from 88 child welfare systems. Organizational climate is assessed on 2 dimensions, Engagement and Stress, with scales from the well established measure, Organizational Social Context (OSC); youth outcomes are measured as problems in psychosocial functioning with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL); and casework services are assessed with original scales developed for the study and completed by the maltreated youths’ primary caregivers and caseworkers.

Results

Maltreated youth served by child welfare systems with more engaged organizational climates have significantly better outcomes. Moreover, the quantity and quality of casework services neither mediate nor interact with the effects of organizational climate on youth outcomes.

Conclusions

Organizational climate is associated with youth outcomes in child welfare systems, but a better understanding is needed of the mechanisms that link organizational climate to outcomes. In addition, there is a need for evidence-based organizational interventions that can improve the organizational climates and effectiveness of child welfare systems.     

Family portrait: a profile of educational developers around the world

Educational development (also called academic or faculty development) has been described as fragmented, disconnected, and a ‘family of strangers,’ due mostly to the different academic backgrounds of its members. In this paper, the authors report on a survey of over 1000 educational developers from 38 countries on six continents. To help the field gain a clearer picture of itself at the international level, the authors provide a profile of developers’ demography, institutional locations, academic backgrounds, and current roles, and discuss the implications for educational development as a field and developers as a community.     

Re‐imagining doctoral education: Professional Doctorates and beyond

Portents of the demise of the Professional Doctorate have emerged in some recent policy and institutional circles in Australia, raising questions about the meaning and relevance of the Professional Doctorate in an era of ‘league tables’ and research assessment in Australia. This article argues that such portents, based largely on narrow market‐driven arguments, are premature, reactive and unhelpful, in that they foreclose on a set of critical questions concerning the future purpose, scope and practice of doctoral education. The article argues that the simple re‐assertion of the PhD as the default award represents a restoration of the logics and imperatives of disciplinarity and of older notions of so‐called ‘real’ research. Further, questions of the changing economies of knowledge and practice within, between and beyond the reach of the university, are subordinated and disavowed. The article presents a re‐reading of the emergence of Professional Doctorates, from the perspective of a decade‐and‐a‐half of development and change. It suggests the need to revisit that history critically in the light of the current developments in doctoral education, in knowledge production and in developing different relations around knowledge between universities and different social and professional domains. Such revisitings can bring out emerging issues for doctoral education at a time when anxieties may inhibit taking up opportunities for innovation and linking with new kinds of knowledge production that go beyond Euro‐centric and university‐centric traditions.     

Including pupils with special educational needs in secondary school physical education: a sociological analysis of teachers' views

This paper explores physical education (PE) teachers' views of the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in PE from a figurational sociological perspective. Starting from the premise that teachers' views cannot be adequately explained by studying the concept of inclusion or the teacher in isolation, it is argued that we can only begin to make sense of such views by locating teachers within the figurations of which they are a part and by exploring two particularly salient features of those figurations: namely, teachers' habituses and contexts. In doing so, the paper focuses upon the training teachers receive, the constraints imposed upon them by their colleagues and pupils, and, most importantly, the suitability of the National Curriculum for meeting the needs of pupils with SEN. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the unintended consequences of the inclusion of pupils with SEN in PE.     

Improving pre-laboratory preparation of first year university chemistry students

This study uses an action research approach to investigate how different modes of pre-laboratory preparation contribute towards a fruitful laboratory experience for first year students on an access programme. We considered the experience to be fruitful if the students successfully acquired procedural understanding, communicative competence and were able to apply the conceptual understanding to make the purpose of the labs meaningful. A group of students was observed by participant observers during 1996. Data was gathered during laboratory sessions and from written pre-laboratory work. These data were analysed and changes were instituted in the running and conceptualization of the laboratory in the subsequent year. A group of students was again observed and data collected. Two important factors emerged from the analysis of the data. One finding was the importance of adequate student preparation for the laboratories, regardless of the mode of preparation employed. Another was that the ability to prepare depended on the conceptual and procedural understanding of the laboratory as a whole. Preparedness is also important if conceptual benefit is to be obtained from the practical experience.