DOES THE SCHOOL COMPOSITION EFFECT MATTER? EVIDENCE FROM BELGIAN DATA

ABSTRACT:  Even if the literature on the effects of pupil composition has been extensive, no clear consensus has been reached concerning the significance and magnitude of this effect. The first objective of this article is to estimate the magnitude of the school composition effect in primary schools (6th grade) in French-speaking Belgium. Different indicators of school composition are used: academic, socio-cultural, 'language' and sex composition. Except for sex composition, the results show that the school composition effect explains significant amount of between schools variance even after controlling for pupils' initial performance, socio-cultural background, and non-cognitive dispositions. The second objective is to examine covariance between school composition and several organisational variables and their joint effect on school performance. The second set of analyses is intended to question the conceptual nature of the school composition effect, establishing whether it is direct or indirect.     

Inclusive education and social inequality: an update of the question and some geographical considerations

The aim of this article is to review the current state of inclusive education in the world and to suggest a few relevant considerations. The first section “Two parallel concerns” retraces the inescapable connections between the educational aspects of inclusive education and more general concerns regarding inequality. The second section “Inclusive education in academic publications” scrutinizes academic publications and identifies two major themes among their contents: at first sight the internal transformations occurring in schools attract attention, but subsequently the territorial environment also gives rise to some concern. The third section “Inclusive education in the publications of international organizations” notes our search criteria for sifting through the documentation of the World Bank, OECD and UNESCO. The IBE/UNESCO workshops reflect varied, though converging interpretations of the concept of inclusive education in different parts of the world. All the official publications, however, tend to concentrate on the internal dynamics of schools, and there are not many that take a look at relations between inclusive education and public policy. Our last section “The geographical dimension of inclusive education” puts forward a few arguments in favour of paying more attention to inclusive education at the local and national levels. The main reasons for highlighting the local dimension arise from the combined factors of social deprivation, the need to co-ordinate measures taken in schools and the possibility of allowing a significant opening for community participation. The main reasons for paying attention to the national dimension relate to possible synergies between inclusive education and the expansion of education (for example, is schooling progressing at the same pace at different educational levels?), as well as between inclusive education and social protection (for example, do the many educational conditions applied to cash transfers have consistent pedagogic implications?).     

How schools and students respond to school improvement programs: The case of Brazil's PDE

This study uses rich empirical data from Brazil to assess how a government program (PDE) that decentralizes school management decisions changes what goes on in schools and how these changes affect student outcomes. It appears that the PDE resulted in some improvements in management and learning materials, but little change in other areas including evaluation and community relations. However, we find no evidence that schools’ participation in the PDE improved student achievement. The results for grade passing are stronger. Students in PDE schools saw greater increases in grade passing rates than students in non-PDE schools during the period of our study. We also estimate a positive relationship between PDE spending and student gains for those schools in the program, especially for spending on teaching and learning materials and furniture. We find no benefit of electronics spending or spending on teacher training, two of the three largest areas of school investment.     

Understanding motivational structures that differentially predict engagement and achievement in middle school science

Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students’ science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however, little is known about how different aspects of motivation interact with student engagement and science learning outcomes. This study examines the relationships among motivational factors, engagement, and achievement in middle school science (grades 6–8). Data were obtained from middle school students in the United States (N?=?2094). The theoretical relationships among motivational constructs, including self-efficacy, and three types of goal orientations (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoid) were tested. The results showed that motivation is best modeled as distinct intrinsic and extrinsic factors; lending evidence that external, performance based goal orientations factor separately from self-efficacy and an internal, mastery based goal orientation. Second, a model was tested to examine how engagement mediated the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and science achievement. Engagement mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and science achievement, whereas extrinsic motivation had no relationship with engagement and science achievement. Implications for how classroom practice and educational policy emphasize different student motivations, and in turn, can support or hinder students’ science learning are discussed.     

Epistemic Frames as an Analytical Framework for Understanding the Representation of Scientific Activity in a Modeling-Based Learning Unit

Research in Science Education - Set in the context of modeling-based learning (MBL), this research investigated the potential of epistemic frames as a theoretical and analytical framework for...     

Faculty and online education as a mechanism of power

This study uses a critical perspective to examine how online education is used in brick-and-mortar institutions as a mechanism through which power is exercised by and against professors who teach online. Based on a larger study of 25 professors and administrators at four institutions, this work focuses on the experiences of 12 professors. Foucault’s conceptualization of power framed our interpretation of interviews conducted with these professors. Our findings suggest online education enhanced faculty autonomy and visibility, but that it was also used to control faculty members, and for some professors, it was used to alter their professional identities.     

‘How do I do it if I don’t like writing?’: Adolescents’ stances toward writing across disciplines

This research embedded in the National Study of Writing Instruction examines higher- and lower-achieving adolescents’ stances toward content-area writing through a qualitative discourse analysis of interviews with 40 students in California, Kentucky, New York, and Texas secondary schools. The study asked: (1) How do students’ stances toward writing compare in general and across disciplines? (2) How do stances compare among middle and high school students and among students with different achievement histories? Results suggest that adolescents generally hold positive attitudes toward writing that allows for the expression of subjective stances, which they report is more commonly assigned in English language arts classrooms. Implications for the adoption of new US standards for disciplinary writing are discussed.