Do Belonging and Social Exclusion at School Affect Structural Brain Development During Adolescence?

Students’ sense of belonging presents an essential resource for academic and health outcomes, whereas social exclusion at school negatively impacts students’ well-being and academic performance. Aiming to understand how feelings of school-related belonging and exclusion shape the structural brain development, this study applied longitudinal questionnaire-based data and MRI data from 71 adolescent students (37 females, M_age at t1 = 15.0; t2 = 16.1 years). All were white participants from Germany. Voxel-based morphometry revealed only an association of social exclusion (and not of belonging) and gray matter volume in the left anterior insula: From t1 to t2, there was less gray matter decrease, the more social exclusion students perceived. School-related social exclusion and disturbed neurodevelopment are thus significantly associated.     

Investigating Gender Differences in Mathematics and Science: Results from the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey

Research in Science Education - The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related fields remains a concern for educators and the scientific...     

Determinants of faculty salary in prestigious versus less-prestigious departments: A comparative study of academic disciplines

This study examines the role of research performance and seniority in determining faculty salary in university graduate departments. Four fields were studied: chemistry, physics, political science, and sociology. Seniority was found to be positively related to the pay structure in most of these fields and in most of the prestige levels, though slightly more so in the social sciences. Overall, research performance dimensions were found to be the major predictors of salary. Articles are most effective in predicting salary in the physical sciences and least effective in the social sciences. The reverse is true regarding published books.The applicability of these findings to university administration is discussed and potential changes in the reward systems are elaborated.     

Beyond English language proficiency scores: understanding the academic performance of international undergraduate students during the first year of study

ABSTRACT

Past research into the relationship between English proficiency test (EPT) scores and score profiles, such as the IELTS and the TOEFL, has shown that there is not always a clear relationship between those scores and students’ subsequent academic achievement. Information about students’ academic self-concept (ASC) may provide additional information that helps predict future academic success. Research has consistently shown a positive relationship between students’ ASC and subsequent academic achievement and educational attainment in both school and higher education settings. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between the academic performance of international students and their language proficiency and academic self-concept as well as other characteristics related to academic success. The study focused on first year international students in undergraduate business programs at an English-medium university in Canada. The following information was collected about the student participants: grades in degree program courses, annual GPA, and EPT scores (including subscores). In addition, students completed an academic self-concept scale. To obtain additional information about success in first-year business courses, instructors in two required courses were interviewed about the academic and language requirements in their courses and the profile of successful students. Correlations between the students’ course grades, GPA, EPT scores, and ASC score were calculated. The instructor interviews were analyzed using a content analysis procedure. The findings from all data sources were triangulated and show that language ability, ASC, and other factors impact academic success during the first year in a business program. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Kurt lewin at the tavistock institute

Notions of action research and of integrating object relations and field psychologies have exerted a steady influence on both the initial formation of The Tavistock Institute in London and on the subsequent 60 years of its professional identity and approach to work. These notions can be tied directly to early scientific contact with Kurt Lewin, and indirectly through the Lewinian philosophy that staff incorporated into an overall ‘house style’. From 1990, however, changes in the Institute's funding environment undermined this historical source of integrity. Recent developments to reclaim and update the roots of Kurt Lewin at The Tavistock Institute.     

Schulformen als differenzielle Lernmilieus Institutionelle und kompositionelle Effekte auf die Leistungsentwicklung im Fach Franz?sisch

Auf der Basis von zwei repr?sentativen Schülerstichproben der Schweizer Kantone Wallis (N = 926) und Fribourg (N = 778), die w?hrend der 8. Jahrgangsstufe im Fach Franz?sisch als Fremdsprache unterrichtet wurden, geht der vorliegende Beitrag der Frage nach, ob Schülerinnen und Schüler je nach besuchtem Bildungsgang unterschiedliche Fortschritte in der Entwicklung ihrer Fachleistungen machen. Von besonderem Interesse ist dabei, ob und in welchem Ausma? die Zusammensetzung der Schülerschaft (Kompositions-effekte) und m?glicherweise auch institutionell differierende didaktische und curriculare Angebote zwischen den Bildungsg?ngen (Institutionseffekte) als lernmilieupr?gende Faktoren von Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der Fachleistungen sind. In Mehrebenenanalysen zeigten sich auch nach Kontrolle der individuellen Eingangsvoraussetzungen (einschlie?lich des Vorwissens) bedeutsame Unterschiede in den Lernzuw?chsen an den verschiedenen Bildungsg?ngen. Die weiteren Analysen lassen darauf schlie?en, dass sowohl von kompositionellen als auch institutionellen Effekten auf die Leistungsentwicklung auszugehen ist.     

A limited,apolitical, and open Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s work is often characterized and used in terms that seek to produce widespread political and economic changes across societies. Peter Roberts, however, in his book Paulo Freire in the twenty-first Century, offers readers a much different way of approaching Freire’s work. Throughout his book, Roberts presents Freire as recognizing the limitations of educational initiatives, as not seeking specific macro-political objectives, and as emphasizing openness to alternative discourses. These themes weave throughout each chapter of the book, in which Roberts examines a wide range of topics, from Freire and Dostoevsky to reason and emotion to political correctness to Freire and the Tao Te Ching. In this review essay, I engage a number of purposes. I elucidate and trace these three themes as they weave throughout and support the various topics that Roberts examines in his book. I illustrate how Roberts’s treatment of these themes challenges many of the interpretations of Freire’s work found within the critical literature, and, through this critique, it offers readers new ways of thinking about Freire’s thinking. Lastly, I discuss how Roberts’s thoughts suggest new ways that Freire’s work, and critical education in general, might begin to make more meaningful and practical inroads into public education and might develop new avenues of scholarship on Freire’s work.     

Prenatal Maternal Stress and Child IQ

The evidence for negative influences of maternal stress during pregnancy on child cognition remains inconclusive. This study tested the association between maternal prenatal stress and child intelligence in 4,251 mother–child dyads from a multiethnic population-based cohort in the Netherlands. A latent factor of prenatal stress was constructed, and child IQ was tested at age 6 years. In Dutch and Caribbean participants, prenatal stress was not associated with child IQ after adjustment for maternal IQ and socioeconomic status. In other ethnicities no association was found; only in the Moroccan/Turkish group a small negative association between prenatal stress and child IQ was observed. These results suggest that prenatal stress does not predict child IQ, except in children from less acculturated minority groups.