Social influence or selection? Peer effects on the development of adolescents’ educational expectations in Germany

Abstract

Educational expectations are a key predictor of educational attainment. Throughout adolescence, friends increasingly function as ‘significant others’ and, thus, can affect the development of these expectations. Although scholars often interpret the clustering of students with similar expectations within friendship networks as the outcome of peer influence, a similarity of friends can also be a result of friendship selection processes and preselection due to ability tracking. We apply multilevel social network models to panel data of adolescents from Germany (1,992 ninth-grade students in 91 classes) to disentangle these mechanisms. Beyond selecting similar friends (homophily), we find that adolescents adapt their expectations towards the average expectations of their friends (social influence) but only in secondary-school tracks that support diverse educational paths. We conclude that peer socialization is important for the development of students’ educational expectations in contexts that are sufficiently heterogeneous to allow for the emergence of distinct peer milieus.     

Building a more robust conception of early career researcher experience: what might we be overlooking?

Two decades of research into early career researchers has highlighted the interaction of a constellation of influences in making sense of their experiences. Such research largely draws on either quantitative or qualitative traditions. While both traditions explore similar phenomena, research questions are often framed differently and use different methods. Interestingly, there are few studies in which design integrates quantitative and qualitative processes. In this paper, we describe such a design in which we examined post-PhD researcher agency, social support and intention to remain in or leave the academy. The quantitative analysis highlighted two profiles representing variation in intention to remain based on the interaction of community and supervisory support. The qualitative analysis, while supporting this finding, suggested other influences as well. Examining these other influences in-depth led to a more robust representation of the interplay of personal life and work in relation to intention to remain. We concluded work-related factors are insufficient to explain intention to remain. We suggest future research in this area should explore what other factors may be overlooked in understanding (a) intention to remain and (b) early career researcher experience more broadly. Finally, we propose research designs integrating both quantitative and qualitative processes may prove fruitful in future research, not just in this area but more broadly.     

Analysing support in inclusive education systems – a comparison of inclusive school development in Iceland and Canada since the 1980s focusing on policy and in-school support

ABSTRACT

This paper compares the systems of support in inclusive education in Canadian and Icelandic schools. The rationale for comparing these two support systems is grounded in the idea that they were developed in two countries with a long tradition of inclusive school development. They shifted the responsibility and the necessity of support for all learners towards the regular school, as it is embedded in the Salamanca Statement. The comparison is based on research findings from two comprehensive qualitative studies on inclusive education (Óskarsdóttir 2017. “Constructing Support as Inclusive Practice: A Self-Study.” Doctoral Thesis University of Iceland, Reykjavík; Koepfer 2013. Inclusion in Canada. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt) and is focused on the role of support as an integral part of inclusive practices. A system of support can be considered an inevitable pillar of inclusive education, in order to remove barriers, to enable participation in educational and social activities and to ensure equitable access to learning. Although the organisation and implementation of support is contextualised and bound in different historical and political frameworks, this international comparison shows that both countries – with all its ambivalences and conflictual settings – emphasise a human-rights based understanding of inclusion. They on a cultural transformation process of schools to implement support for all pupils.     

Children's Games: a mechanism of cultural appropriation among peers

This work studies the evolution of the knowledge of the rules of a children's game and the capacity of putting them into practice at ages ranging from four to seven. The procedure followed was: 1° realisation of an interview with each subject in order to get their knowledge and acceptation of the game's rules; 2° a game session of two of the children of the sample, assigned at random. The results show distinguishable evolutive levels of knowledge and practice through age, with the development of the capacity of putting the rules into practice before being able of formulating them. These results are discussed from the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky.     

Innovative Training of In-service Teachers for Active Learning: A Short Teacher Development Course Based on Physics Education Research

In this contribution we describe a short development course for in-service physics teachers. The course structure and materials are based on the results of educational research, and its main objective is to provide in-service teachers with a first contact with the active learning strategy “Tutorials in Introductory Physics,” developed by the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Washington. The course was organized in a constructivist, active learning environment, so that teachers have first to experience, as regular students, the whole Tutorial sequence of activities: Tutorial pre-test, Tutorial, and Tutorial Homework. After each Tutorial, teachers reflect on, and recognize their own students’ learning difficulties, discussing their teaching experiences with their colleagues in small collaborative groups first and the whole class later. Finally they read and discuss specific Physics Education Research literature, where these learning difficulties have been extensively studied by researchers. At the beginning and at the end of the course the participants were given the conceptual multiple-choice test Force Concept Inventory (FCI). The pre-/post-instruction FCI data were presented as a practical example of the use of a research-based test widely used in educational research and in formative assessment processes designed to improve instruction.     

Conceptions of learning and approaches to learning in Portuguese students

The article describes a study that attempted to characterise Portuguese students’ conceptions of learning and approaches to learning. A sample of university students answered open questions on the meaning, process and context of learning. Results, derived from content analysis, replicate most conceptions of learning described by phenomenographical research (i.e. distinction between learning as memorisation and learning as comprehension). Moreover, new variants of known conceptions of learning emerged (e.g. learning occurs through: exploratory practice; learning to learn; motivation) and an apparently new conception (i.e. learning as understanding and application). The same sample answered a questionnaire which attempted to measure motivation and learning strategies. Through factorial analysis of results it was possible to confirm the presence of three well-known approaches to learning: surface, deep and achieving.     

Changes and challenges in the transition to adulthood: views and experiences of young people with learning disabilities and their families

The transition to adulthood poses one of the most complex challenges for young people with intellectual disabilities. In order to conduct a wide-reaching and in-depth study of this process, we need to know the views of these young people themselves and their families. This article presents research designed to collect the experiences and perceptions of young people with disabilities and their families regarding perceived problems and support in their transition to adulthood in Spain. A qualitative case study method was used to achieve this. Data were collected in three stages on the following topics: educational pathway (primary and secondary school), social support networks and free time, and construction of a personal plan for the future (labour market inclusion and independent living). Various different instruments were used, including interviews, focus groups and visual methods. As for the results, the young people who participated in the study experienced difficulties with both successfully completing secondary education and continuing their education. The families in our study were not very satisfied with the guidance received from professionals upon finishing secondary school. They also complained about the lack of training options available to young people with disabilities. The participants expressed certain fears regarding social inclusion and labour market integration. They are aware that they will need help, and have doubts about whether they will receive the necessary support to progress with their plans for labour market integration and independent living. As a result of the study, we propose several recommendations to improve opportunities for the social inclusion of young people with disabilities in their transition to adulthood.     

Exploring the relationship between doctoral students’ experiences and research community positioning

Despite the growing number of studies exploring PhD students’ experiences and their social relationships with other researchers, there is a lack of research on the interaction between the type of experiences and the social agents involved, especially in relation to not only problems and challenges, but also to positive emotions and experiences. In this study, we addressed this gap exploring the relationship between four ecology doctoral students’ most significant experiences and their perceived position in the research community. Additionally, we aimed at exploring the utility of a methodological device with two instruments, Journey Plot and Community Plot. Results showed, in one hand, that both positive and negative experiences were significant in students’ trajectories, but the proportion varied greatly across participants. Supervisors were related to negative experiences, whereas the broader community was mostly source of positive experiences. Research writing and communication experiences were significant in relation to all the social agents, while other contents of experience were restricted to the smallest social layers (e.g. research motives were confined to the individual layer, and research organization to the individual and supervisor layers). Relationships between the type of experiences and participants’ position in the community were found and implications for doctoral education discussed.