Continuing professional development (CPD) as a means to reducing barriers to inclusive education: research study of the education of refugee children in the Czech Republic

This article discusses the extent to which former special needs students – now in their late 20s – achieve economic independence. The emphasis is on class placement – that is, whether being educated in special or regular classes in upper secondary school contributes to favourable occupational outcomes. The empirical evidence is based on interviews of 373 young Norwegians who were surveyed regularly for more than 10 years. The analyses reveal that nearly half of the young adults found jobs that made them economically independent. Students schooled in regular classes attained vocational or academic competence and obtained a driving licence to a much greater degree than did students educated in special classes. In turn this increased the chances of earning a living. That is the indirect effect of class placement. The direct positive effect of schooling in regular classes was observed among people with rather low functional abilities and among those who did not succeed in attaining competence or obtaining a driving licence.     

Contents of Volume 26 2002

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 26 2002     

Effects of speed on temporal patterns in classical style and freestyle cross-country skiing

The purpose was to study the adaptation to speed in the temporal patterns of the movement cycle and determine any differences in velocity, cycle rate and cycle length at the maximum speed level in the different classical style and freestyle cross-country skiing techniques. Eight skilled male cross-country skiers were filmed with a digital video camera in the sagittal plane while skiing on a flat cross-country ski track. The skiers performed three classical style techniques the diagonal stride, kick double poling and the double poling technique and four freestyle techniques paddle dance (gear 2), double dance (gear 3), single dance (gear 4) and combiskate (gear 5) at four different self-selected speed levels slow, medium, fast and their maximum. Cycle duration, cycle rate, cycle length, and relative and absolute cycle phase duration of the different techniques at the different speed levels were analysed by means of a video analysis system. The cycle rate in all tested classical and freestyle techniques was found to increase significantly (p < .01) with speed from slow to maximum. Simultaneously, there was a significant decrease in the absolute phase durations of all the investigated skiing techniques. A minor, not significant, change in cycle length, and the significant increase in cycle rate with speed showed that the classical and freestyle cross-country skiing styles are dependent, to a large extent, on an increase in cycle rate for speed adaptation. A striking finding was the constant relative phase duration with speed, which indicates a simplified neural control of the speed adaptation in both cross-country skiing styles. For the practitioner, the knowledge about the importance of increasing cycle frequency rather than cycle length in the speed adaptation can be used to optimise a rapid increase in speed. The knowledge about the decrease in absolute phase duration, especially the thrust phase duration, points to the need for strength and technique training to enable force production at a high cycle rate and skiing speed. The knowledge that the relative phase duration stays constant with speed may be used to simplify the learning of the different cross-country skiing techniques.     

Preschool morphological training produces long-term improvements in reading comprehension

We evaluated the effect of morphological awareness training delivered in preschool (8 months before school entry) on reading ability at the end of grade 1 and 5 years later (in Grade 6). In preschool, one group of children received morphological awareness training, while a second group received phonological awareness training. A control group followed the ordinary preschool curriculum. The comparison between each training condition and the control condition is quasi experimental, whereas the comparison between the morphological and phonological treatments is randomized at group level. In Grade 1 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores than children in the control group on both word reading and text reading measures, but no differences were found between the experimental groups. In Grade 6 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores compared with the control group on a latent measure of reading comprehension, whereas the children in the phonological awareness training group did not differ from the controls; although the experimental groups did not differ significantly from each other. The results suggest that early training in morphological awareness can have long-term effects on children’s literacy skills.     

Class placement and competence attainment among students with special educational needs

John Olav Myklebust is Professor of Sociology at Volda University College in Norway. In this article, he discusses his analysis of data emerging from a longitudinal study of 494 young people with special educational needs who have been followed over a period of six years. This analysis focuses on the attainments of these students during their time in upper secondary education and asks whether placement in special or ordinary mainstream class groupings is more beneficial. The results indicate that students receiving special support in ordinary classes obtain vocational or academic qualifications more often than students in special classes. Professor Myklebust pursues his analysis by looking at the influence of a number of other variables, including assessments of functional level, family stability and gender. He concludes that the relationship between attainment and placement in an ordinary classroom does not change, even when these variables are taken into account, and argues that his findings provide further support for the inclusion of learners with special educational needs in ordinary mainstream classes.     

Too early or too late? Transition to parenthood among former students with special educational needs

This is a study of transition to parenthood, one of the least‐studied topics in disability research. More than 250 students with special educational needs are followed from their first year of upper secondary school into their mid‐30s. Their transition into parenthood is analysed by logistic regression at two ages, at 23 years and at 36 years. Five antecedent covariates are used: gender, functional level, transition to upper secondary school, type of class and support in class. The analysis shows that early births are far more frequent among females than males, a pattern similar to that found in Norway 20 years ago. At the age of 36 there is no difference between men and women. However, the probability of childlessness is higher among those with low functional level, among those schooled in special classes and those with a teaching assistant. This pattern is more pronounced among women than among men.     

Parental views on the statutory assessment and educational planning for children with special educational needs

In Norway more than 95 per cent of the students in each annual school-leaving cohort from the lower secondary school continue on to upper secondary education. The result is that there is a wide range of abilities among the students, and so various forms of adapted teaching are necessary. Each year almost 10 per cent of the new entrants in upper secondary are classified as students with special needs. The main focus of this paper is on how different forms of adaptation influence the flow of special needs students through upper secondary education. Two groups are compared: one with students who in their first year are taught exclusively within ordinary classes, and one with students who receive adapted teaching in small groups outside ordinary classes. The analysis controls for the level of functional difficulties among the students. The study illuminates how the organization of the specially adapted teaching influences successes as well as failures among the students. A sample of special needs students from six Norwegian counties has been followed prospectively through upper secondary education. Results of this follow-up study are presented within a theoretical framework based on transitions in the life course.     

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.     

Complexity, networks and knowledge flow

Because knowledge plays an important role in the creation of wealth, economic actors often wish to skew the flow of knowledge in their favor. We ask, when will an actor socially close to the source of some knowledge have the greatest advantage over distant actors in receiving and building on the knowledge? Marrying a social network perspective with a view of knowledge transfer as a search process, we argue that the value of social proximity to the knowledge source depends crucially on the nature of the knowledge at hand. Simple knowledge diffuses equally to close and distant actors because distant recipients with poor connections to the source of the knowledge can compensate for their limited access by means of unaided local search. Complex knowledge resists diffusion even within the social circles in which it originated. With knowledge of moderate complexity, however, high-fidelity transmission along social networks combined with local search allows socially proximate recipients to receive and extend knowledge generated elsewhere, while interdependencies stymie more distant recipients who rely heavily on unaided search. To test this hypothesis, we examine patent data and compare citation rates across proximate and distant actors on three dimensions: (1) the inventor collaboration network; (2) firm membership; and (3) geography. We find robust support for the proposition that socially proximate actors have the greatest advantage over distant actors for knowledge of moderate complexity. We discuss the implications of our findings for the distribution of intra-industry profits, the geographic agglomeration of industries, the design of social networks within firms, and the modularization of technologies.     

Science and the diffusion of knowledge

Scientists, social scientists and politicians frequently credit basic science with stimulating technological innovation, and with it economic growth. Despite a substantial body of research investigating this general relationship, relatively little empirical attention has been given to understanding the mechanisms that might generate this linkage. This paper considers whether more rapid diffusion of knowledge, brought about by the norm of publication, might account for part of this effect. We identify the importance of publication by comparing the patterns of citations from future patents to three groups of focal patents: (i) those that reference scientific (peer-reviewed) publications, (ii) those that reference commercial (non-scientific) publications; and (iii) those that reference neither. Our analyses strongly implicate publication as an important mechanism for accelerating the rate of technological innovation: Patents that reference published material, whether peer-reviewed or not, receive more citations, primarily because their influence diffuses faster in time and space.