Helping Teachers Support Pupils with Mental Health Problems Through Inter-professional Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of Teachers and School Principals

ABSTRACT

A qualitative study conducted in four lower secondary schools in Norway explored teachers’ and school principals’ experiences of collaboration with a variety of extended services (ES). Particular attention was directed to the ways (if any) they perceived collaboration to be relevant to helping teachers support pupils with mental health problems through their everyday social and pedagogic practices. Findings of the study indicated that teachers valued initiatives that could help develop mutual understandings of teachers’ and ES professionals’ roles and responsibilities. Initiatives to build inter-professional relationships were perceived as laying the foundation for more productive collaboration. However, to be able to provide coherent, sustained support in the classroom, teachers needed guidance from ES professionals. This required a shift in collaborative processes away from a focus on individualized pupil support towards helping teachers support pupils through their classroom-based social and pedagogical practices. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Internal branding in higher education: dialectical tensions underlying the discursive legitimation of a new brand of student diversity

ABSTRACT

Most studies on branding in higher education focus on external branding or image-building towards external stakeholders such as students. Internal branding is an underexplored topic, even though it should be considered as important as external branding. Internal branding is about achieving the necessary internal support for the external brand. Drawing on the theoretical concept of discursive legitimation, we explore the strategies that contribute to an internally supported new brand with student diversity as brand value. We conducted a case study of a Flemish university college that has (largely) succeeded in achieving internal support for its new external brand of student diversity. Analyzing the case from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, we specifically zoomed in on the dialectical tensions underlying the discursive legitimation of this new brand. We identified three specific tensions, which illustrate the inherent complexity of the internal branding process: authorization as (dis)empowerment, normalization as (dis)empowerment and moralization as (dis)empowerment.     

Rhythm production at school entry as a predictor of poor reading and spelling at the end of first grade

Rhythm plays an organisational role in the prosody and phonology of language, and children with literacy difficulties have been found to demonstrate poor rhythmic perception. This study explored whether students’ performance on a simple rhythm task at school entry could serve as a predictor of whether they would face difficulties in word reading and spelling at the end of grade 1. The participants were 479 Norwegian 6-year-old first graders randomized as controls in the longitudinal RCT on track (n = 1171). Rhythmic timing and pre-reading skills were tested individually at school entry on a digital tablet. On the rhythm task, the students were told to tap a drum appearing on the screen to two different rhythms (2 Hz paced and 1.5 Hz paced). Children’s responses were recorded as they tapped on the screen with their index finger. Significant group differences were found in rhythm tapping ability measured at school entry, when groups were defined upon whether children went on to score above or below the 20th percentile reading and spelling thresholds in national assessment tests at the end of grade one. Inclusion of the school-entry rhythmic tapping measure into a model of classification accuracy for above or below threshold reading and spelling improved accuracy of classification by 6.2 and 9.2% respectively.     

Toward a “thoughtful lightness”: Education in viral times

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life temporarily and perhaps forever. As such, how educators respond to the contemporary situation is not without consequence. Inspired by...     

‘It’s a bit taboo’: a qualitative study of Norwegian adolescents’ perceptions of mental healthcare services

The aim of this study is to investigate adolescents’ perspectives on mental healthcare services. Based on theoretical perspectives concerning barriers for help-seeking, individual interviews were carried out in order to obtain the adolescents’ perspectives on knowledge of services for mental health problems, potential barriers for help-seeking, and services to which they have access. The sample consisted of vocational students from an upper secondary school in the southwest of Norway (n = 8). None of the informants was currently in treatment for mental health problems. Interview data were transcribed and analysed with the assistance of NVivo Software. Qualitative content analysis indicated that the adolescents have limited knowledge of available resources, and, that stigma-related factors may prevent the adolescents from seeking help for mental health problems. Future directions for delivering mental health services for adolescents are given.     

Relationships between learning approach,procrastination and academic achievement amongst first-year university students

Individual differences in student learning influence academic performance, and two aspects influencing the learning process are the particular learning approach the students use and procrastination behaviour. We examined the relationships between learning approaches, procrastination and academic achievement (measured 1 year later as the grade point average (GPA)) amongst 428 first-year university students. Deep and strategic learning approaches positively predicted GPA, and a mediation analysis showed that the strategic learning approach also partly mediated the effect between deep learning approach and GPA. Less procrastination was associated with a strategic learning approach, but procrastination tendencies did not predict GPA. Recommendations are made for educating new students in cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, helping reduce their procrastination and facilitating the use of deep and strategic learning approaches.     

Low‐skilled adults in formal continuing education: does their motivation differ from other learners?

This study aims to analyse low‐skilled adults’ motivation for formal adult education. The study examines how adults’ motivation for formal education is affected by educational level, age, gender, employment status and citizenship. Survey data were collected from adults enrolled in formal educational programmes at different educational levels. Of 753 respondents, 88 were attending primary or lower secondary programmes. The remaining participants were in upper secondary schools, post‐secondary/tertiary vocational education, or in Bachelor’s or Master’s degree courses. Differences according to education levels can be explained in part by typical characteristics of the people involved at various levels of the education system. However, even when controlling for factors that may cause differences in motivation, adult learners at the lowest educational levels differ from others. The main difference is that low‐skilled adults more frequently state that they have been obligated to undertake training. These results indicate that when recruiting low‐skilled adults for learning activities, there is a need to develop targeted policy instruments instead of alluding to moral and social obligations.     

Cross Informant Agreement of Behavioral and Emotional Strengths between Finnish Students and Teachers

Drop-out from upper secondary school is considered a widespread problem, closely connected with youth unemployment. The aim of the current study was to examine whether parents' level of education predicted drop-out for 16–24-year-olds when accounting for basic skills. For this purpose, data from the Norwegian (n?=?996) and American (n?=?641) samples in the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) were used. Stepwise logistic regression showed that parents' educational level was a significant predictor of early school leaving in both countries, but explained significantly more of the variance in USA than in Norway. Mothers' educational level predicted early school leaving in USA also when accounting for youth's basic skills, but this was not the case in Norway.     

Sociology of Education: Outlines Towards a Diagnosis and Thoughts on Some Major Challenges

Sociology of education in Norway has traditionally been preoccupied with the classic problems related to education and the reproduction of social inequality. As the general social scientific and political focus on inequality decreased, the sociology of education also became less visible. At the same time, the sociology of youth evolved, and brought with it a shift from theories of reproduction towards theories of individualization and cultural detachment. New challenges for sociology of education are also discussed. These are related to the educational system's position as the main socialization arena for young people, as well as new developments within educational policy, and thus within school. What kind of identities are “produced” within the educational system?     

Towards a Theory of Pedagogic Text Analysis

The present study examines why businesses and government ministries use and need occupational second foreign language (L3) skills, but fail to mention these in job advertisements. It contrasts data from two quantitative surveys of language use in business and government domains with two studies of the mention of L3 skills in job advertisements. While the former show that L3 languages are still used and still considered important and relevant, the latter show that such skills are hardly mentioned in job advertisements, not even as cautious requests in positions where these would be highly relevant. The authors discuss whether this may be due to the lack of L3 skills among new employees or due to the belief that English is sufficient, also known as “Anglophone complacency.”