Transtheoretical-based bullying prevention effectiveness trials in middle schools and high schools

Background Bullying threatens the physical and mental well-being of students across a broad range of schools. Tailored interventions based on the Transtheoretical model and delivered over the Internet were designed to reduce participation in each of three roles related to bullying (bully, victim and passive bystander).

Methods Effectiveness trials were completed in 12 middle schools and 13 high schools in the USA. A diverse sample of 1237 middle (6th–8th grade, with 45.1% in the 7th grade; ages 11–14) and 1215 high school (9th–11th grade, with 41.6% in the 9th grade; ages 14–17) students were available for analyses.

Results Analyses showed significant treatment effects for both intervention groups when compared to control for both the middle and high school programs.

Conclusions Given the relative ease of dissemination, these programs could be applied as stand-alone practices or as part of more intensive interventions.     

School choice in England: evidence from national administrative data

We study school choice in England using a new dataset containing the choices of all parents seeking a school place in state secondary schools. We provide new empirical evidence to inform how the school choice market functions, including the number of choices made, whether the nearest school is the first choice and the probability of an offer from the first choice school. These indicators show that school choice is actively used by many households in England. We use the rich data available to describe how choices vary by pupil, school and neighbourhood characteristics and how school choice is used differently by different groups and in different parts of the country. For the first time, we are able to present national data on how the school choices made by parents vary according to pupils’ ethnic group and across urban and rural areas. We show, contrary to some existing literature that has relied on smaller and less representative samples of parents and pupils, that school choices do not vary significantly by social background. We show that parents pro-actively use the choice system and present new evidence on the extent to which the current school admissions criteria that prioritise distance penalise poorer families.     

The impact of vouchers on preschool attendance and elementary school readiness: A randomized controlled trial in rural China

Although preschool has been shown to improve children's school readiness in many developing countries, preschool attendance in poor rural areas of China is still low. The high cost of preschool is often regarded as a major barrier to attendance. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a one-year voucher/CCT intervention on preschool attendance and school readiness. To do so, we conducted a randomized controlled trial among 150 young children in a poor, rural county in China. Our analysis shows that the intervention, consisting of a tuition waiver and a cash transfer conditional on attendance, raised attendance by 20 percentage points (or by 35%). However, the intervention did not have measurable impact on children's school readiness. We believe that poor quality of preschool education in rural China (in terms of both teaching and facilities) contributes to our findings.     

What is behind the decline in student achievement in Australia?

Australian school student achievement in reading and mathematical literacy has fallen in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) collection since 2000. This study finds that these declines were widespread in the student population, affecting both males and females. However, the decline in reading literacy occurred throughout much of the achievement distribution, while the decline in mathematical literacy was more pronounced at the top of the distribution (there were fewer high performing students in 2009 compared with 2003). Declines in both literacy domains were apparent across the entire distribution of schools, however, the falls in school performance were more apparent in private schools than in the government-run school systems in Australia. The declines were not associated with many other characteristics of schools, including many factors that might have been thought to be associated with school performance.     

Explaining urban–rural differences in educational achievement in Thailand: Evidence from PISA literacy data

Using the Thai PISA 2009 literacy test, this paper offers two contributions to the literature on the achievement gap between students in urban and rural areas. The first contribution relates to the estimation of the student-level education production function at different points along the achievement distributions. With the use of Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, the second contribution demonstrates how much of the achievement differential between urban–rural students can be explained by unmeasured school characteristics. It has been found that the impact of student, family as well as school characteristics on student achievements vary along the test achievement distributions. Decompositions exercises at the mean find that about 45–48 percent of urban–rural achievement gaps are accounted for by the unmeasured characteristics of schools. The disaggregated decomposition exercise along the achievement percentile shows that these characteristics account for about 12–15 percent low-performing students and increase to about 61–69 percent for high-performing students.     

Home Literacy Environment and the beginning of reading and spelling

Reading and writing are necessary prerequisites for a successful school career. Therefore it is important to identify precursor variables which predict these abilities early in order to identify children possibly at risk of developing reading or spelling difficulties. Relevant precursors include letter knowledge, phonological awareness (PA), vocabulary, and cognitive abilities. Moreover, also social aspects such as the socioeconomic status of the family (SES), the migration background and the “Home Literacy Environment” (HLE) are of importance. So far, only a few studies are available which analyse the early development of different possible explanatory factors simultaneously in the years before and after school enrolment. In particular, the relative impact of HLE on early and later linguistic competencies in a German context remains unclear. Thus, in our longitudinal study, covering the period from kindergarten to Grade 1, we focused on the role HLE plays in the development of language competencies of 921 German children, compared to the impact of several other important variables.     

Review of the Study Findings

No abstract available for this article.     

分析姚鼐《古文辞类纂》选文标准之源流关系

中国古代文学批评选本是一种运用时间较长,范围较广,而又深具民族特色的古代文学批评形式.从挚虞开始,选本就有区别优劣,即文学批评之作用.作为一本古代散文选集,<古文辞类纂>有其自身独特的编选标准及范围.从现代学者对<古文辞类纂>之评论、<古文辞类纂>之选录标准形成原因、选文标准之详说及此选本对现代之贡献四个方面来探求<古文辞类纂>选文标准之源流关系.     

中学语文教学应重视人文精神的培养

文章就当前中学语文教学中人文精神流失造成的严重后果,进行了深刻地反思,结合中学语文教学的实际,提出弘扬人文精神的几种具体设想。     

中学数学教师教学信念的现状调查研究

教学信念不仅影响教师对教学理论及教学经验的诠释,也会影响教师的教学计划,更会决定教师的教学行为,探讨教师的教学信念具有重要的意义。中学数学教师的教学信念取向符合新课程的理念,不存在性别差异,但有城乡差异。新课程培训对教师的教学信念有一定影响。