The quality of special education for students with special needs in ordinary classes

Teachers and the school psychological services were asked to assess the quality of educational programmes offered to students who were found eligible for special education in Norway and who attended ordinary classes. Adequacy and equity of the programmes and an assessment of social inclusion were used as indicators of quality and as dependent variables. Financial resources, centrality of residence of the students, presence of physical restrictions, availability of teaching materials, grade level, class size and students’ disabilities were used as independent variables. The results showed that resources made available by the municipalities had an impact on equity as well as adequacy. This was also found for the availability of teaching materials, which had a significant impact on the quality of the programmes. A significant relationship between the three dependent variables and grade level was found as quality decreased with grade level. Special problems with equity as well as adequacy of the programmes offered to students with moderate to severe problems in reading, writing and arithmetic, and for students with psychosocial problems, are reported. Although the students scored low on social inclusion as assessed by the teachers, the parents reported that most of them thrived well or very well at school.     

Economic independence among former students with special educational needs: changes and continuities from their late twenties to their mid-thirties

Abundant research exists on the transition from school to work of youth with disabilities. However, few studies investigate their subsequent long-term participation in working life. This study, drawing on a life course approach, aimed to examine how former students with special educational needs succeeded in finding full-time employment with sufficient pay to make them economically independent. The extent of economic independence was investigated in their late twenties and their mid-thirties. The sample (N?=?216) originates from a Norwegian longitudinal research project that commenced in the mid-1990s when the study participants just had started upper secondary school. Their special needs provision and their physical, psychological and/or social difficulties were recorded at the same time. After their teens, they were interviewed every fifth year. At both age phases close to 50% of the study participants were economically independent, men to a much greater degree than women. By logistic regression analyses, it was revealed that the independent variables influenced economic independence differently among men and women, for example, that educational attainment was important for women, but not for men. However, possession of a driving licence was crucial for men, but was relatively unimportant for women, at least in the first age phase. There was also a differential impact of parenthood. Having children increased the likelihood of being economically independent for men, whereas the impact was opposite for women, especially when they were approaching their mid-thirties. Processes of cumulative advantages and disadvantages were also observed, indicating that previous negative life course experiences dramatically reduce the chances of obtaining economic independence.     

Partnership,participation and parental disillusionment in home–school contacts: a study in two schools in Norway

This small‐scale study investigates the origins of parental disillusionment with school, with a focus on the extent to which disillusionment is related to the level and quality of partnership between parents and teachers. It also compares the reactions of parents when teachers take the initiative in contacting them about a child's learning or social problems with those of teachers when parents contact them. Sixteen pairs of parents and teachers who had met to discuss such problems agreed to take part in separate interviews. At least at the outset, partnership was consistently more effective when teachers initiated the contact than when parents initiated it. Initial tensions in the relationship could be reduced when either a parent or a teacher took action to improve the relationship. Parental disillusionment occurred in only three cases, where neither parent nor teacher could see their way to any compromise.     

Rethinking access,success and student retention in Open and Distance Learning

The focus of this paper is access problems distance students encounter when required to use the Internet for their studies, and how such problems influence the students’ ability to gain access to higher education. Empirically, the paper is informed by a qualitative case study of a Master’s programme in public administration offered to a group of students in a relatively remote area of Indonesia. It shows how access problems certainly become a challenge for such students, not only because of the absence of technology but also because of social constraints related to the presence of technology. However, as there are often no proper alternatives, new technology may well be considered a step forwards for such students, even if the new technology to some extent creates serious problems.     

Prediction of learning and comprehension when adolescents read multiple texts: the roles of word-level processing, strategic approach, and reading motivation

Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 (Vidal-Abarca et al., 2011) to read five different texts presenting conflicting views on the controversial scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Participants were administered a multiple-choice topic-knowledge measure before and after reading, a word recognition task, and a reading motivation inventory that included two dimensions: Science reading self-efficacy, focusing on readers’ beliefs about their capabilities to comprehend what they read in science, and science reading task value, focusing on readers’ beliefs about how important, useful, and interesting it is to comprehend science texts. In addition, strategic reading pattern was assessed in terms of the degree of non-linear reading behavior. Multiple regression analysis showed that word recognition skills strongly predicted learning from the texts, as assessed by participants’ increase in topic knowledge. However, when multiple-text comprehension indicated by performance on open-ended short-essay questions was the dependent variable, not only word recognition but also strategic reading pattern and science reading self-efficacy emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Science reading task value was not related to performance. This study provides new evidence that new literacy competencies needed in a knowledge society, such as synthesizing or integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information, still largely involve word-level, strategic, and motivational processes that may profitably be targeted through systematic instruction.     

Knowledge about the Greenhouse Effect and the Effects of the Ozone Layer among Norwegian Pupils Finishing Compulsory Education in 1989, 1993, and 2005—What Now?

The greenhouse effect and the effects of the ozone layer have been in the media and public focus for more than two decades. During the same period, Norwegian compulsory schools have had four national curricula. The two last‐mentioned prescribe explicitly the two topics. Media and public discourse might have been sources of information causing informal learning among pupils. The point of departure for this questionnaire‐based examination of the development of pupils’ knowledge about the greenhouse effect and the effects of the ozone layer from 1989 to 2005 is the changing curricula and formal and informal learning. In 2005 the trends seem to be that more pupils confuse the greenhouse effect with the effects of the ozone layer. At the same time, specific knowledge about the greenhouse effect is improving. This article will discuss some possible causes for these trends, and give some recommendations for teaching the topics in accordance with the last national curriculum implemented in 2006.     

Social Support and Socioeconomic Status Predict Secondary Students' Grades and Educational Plans Indifferently Across Immigrant Group and Gender

Social support and socioeconomic status (SES) have received considerable attention in explaining academic achievement and the achievement gap between students with ethic majority and immigrant background, and between boys and girls. Using a Structural Equation Modeling approach we examine (1) if there exist a gap in school achievements between these groups, (2) whether social support and SES is associated with achievements across these groups, (3) whether social support is associated with achievements after controlling for SES, and (4) whether achievement gaps are explained by group differences in social support and SES. Self-reported cross-sectional survey and register data from 8,574 10th graders in Norway was employed. Although we found group differences in achievements, and direct associations with social support and SES, we found no group differences in these associations. Controlling for SES and other sources of social support, teachers' support remained a significant positive influence on students' school outcomes.     

Parental disillusionment with school: prevalence and relationship with demographic variables,and phase,size and location of school

This study examines the prevalence of parental disillusionment with school and its relationship with demographic variables, and phase, size and location of schools. Findings are based on data from 1569 parents of children in grades 5 to 10 from 20 schools in 9 municipalities in Norway. Previous research in other countries shows benefits for the children's attainments at school of positive relationships between parents and teachers. However, only a few studies in Norway have focused on home–school collaboration. Parents in this study are more likely to report disillusionment in big schools than in small schools. Also, parents with low income tend to be more disillusioned than parents with high income. However, the general lack of significant differences between schools might indicate that parental disillusionment was more likely to arise from conflicts between teachers and parents and from policy and practice in the school.     

The Relative Predictive Contribution and Causal Role of Phoneme Awareness,Rhyme Awareness,and Verbal Short-Term Memory in Reading Skills: A Review

The acknowledgement that educational achievement is highly dependent on successful reading development has led to extensive research on its underlying factors. A strong argument has been made for a causal relationship between reading and phoneme awareness; similarly, causal relations have been suggested for reading with short-term memory and rhyme awareness alike. Here a meta-analysis is presented that seeks to determine spuriousness in these factors' relationships with reading by examining each factor's unique predictive value. The results show that phoneme awareness is the strongest unique predictor. Since the meta-analysis is based on concurrent data, it is unsuited to enlighten time-order relationships, but longitudinal and experimental studies both support the notion of a causal relationship between phoneme awareness and reading, in contrast to rhyme awareness and verbal short-term memory.     

The Role of Epistemic Beliefs in the Comprehension of Multiple Expository Texts: Toward an Integrated Model

In present-day knowledge societies, competent reading involves the integration of information from multiple sources into a coherent, meaningful representation of a topic, issue, or situation. This article reviews research and theory concerning the comprehension of multiple textual resources, focusing especially on linkages recently established between dimensions of epistemic beliefs and multiple-text comprehension. Moreover, a proposed model incorporates epistemic beliefs into a theoretical framework for explaining multiple-text comprehension, specifying how and why different epistemic belief dimensions may be linked to the comprehension and integration of multiple texts. Also discussed is the need for further research concerning mediational mechanisms, causality, and generalizability.