Looking back on school – the views of adult graduates of a residential special school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties

The authors of this article, Garry Hornby and Chrystal Witte, conducted a follow-up study with adult graduates of a residential special school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties in New Zealand. Twenty-one graduates were located and interviewed ten to 14 years after they had left the residential school. The interviews focused on various factors related to the graduates' quality of life (reported elsewhere) and on their views of their education, both at the residential school and at mainstream schools, which are reported in this paper. It was found that these adult graduates were overwhelmingly positive about the support they received while at the residential school. They talked, for example, about the help they received in addressing their learning and behavioural difficulties. However, they were consistently negative with regard to their experiences of mainstreaming. For example, respondents noted the lack of understanding that they experienced from mainstream teachers. In drawing out the implications of the findings from this study, Garry Hornby and Chrystal Witte suggest that one factor which could result in improving outcomes for these students is better special needs training for teachers in mainstream schools.     

Modifications of Recognition Memory Processes in Preterm Children: An Event‐Related Potential Study

Prematurity may cause hippocampal compromise. Therefore, hippocampus‐dependent memory processes (recollection‐based retrieval) may be more impaired than hippocampus‐independent processes (familiarity‐based retrieval). The memory of 18 children born preterm with reduced hippocampal volumes, without neonatal complications (weeks of gestation < 34, weight < 1,600 g), and 15 controls (8–10 years) was tested using an item recognition task. While groups were equal in memory performance, dissociation was found: The event‐related potential (ERP) correlate of familiarity was intact in the preterm group, whereas the correlate of recollection was attenuated. A follow‐up experiment ruled out that this was due to general cognitive deficits. Furthermore, gestational age correlated with the ERP index of recollection. Thus, recognition memory in preterm children may be characterized by a compensation of attenuated recollection by familiarity.     

The effect of school closures on standardised student test outcomes

The school closures owing to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis resulted in a significant disruption of education provision, leading to fears of learning losses and of an increase in educational inequality. This article evaluates the effects of school closures based on standardised tests in the last year of primary school in the Dutch-speaking Flemish region of Belgium. Using a 6-year panel, we find that students of the 2020 cohort experienced significant learning losses in three out of five tested subjects, with a decrease in school averages of mathematics scores of 0.17 standard deviations and Dutch scores (reading, writing, language) of 0.19 standard deviations as compared to previous cohorts. This finding holds when accounting for school characteristics, standardised tests in Grade 4 and school fixed effects. Given the large observed effect sizes, the effect of school closures appears to be a combination of lost learning progress and learning loss. Moreover, we observe that inequality both within schools and across schools rises by 7% for mathematics and 8% for Dutch. The learning losses are correlated with observed school characteristics, as schools with a more disadvantaged student population experience larger learning losses.     

Does school time matter?—On the impact of compulsory education age on school dropout

A straightforward way to prevent students from leaving education without a higher secondary diploma is increasing the compulsory education age. The idea is that, by staying longer in school, more students eventually obtain a higher secondary diploma. This paper examines the impact of a one-year increase in compulsory school-age on dropping out of secondary education by a difference-in-differences analysis. For this, we exploit a recent compulsory education policy reform in the Netherlands. After controlling for confounding factors and observable covariates, we find that the one year increase in compulsory school-age reduces dropout by 2.5 percentage points. The effect, however, is entirely situated in the group non-liable to the policy reform. We observe that native Dutch vocational students, mostly without retention in grade, but also without a higher secondary diploma at hand, more often left school in the immediate period before the policy reform. Given the economic revival at that time, this may reflect anticipation of labor market opportunities.     

Do you see what I mean? Shared reference in non-native, early signing deaf children

A group of non-native, early signing deaf children between the ages of 7 and 11 years were tested on a referential communication task. A group of hearing children matched for sex and mental and chronological age were also included in the study. The aim was to study the deaf children's ability to take another persons perspective in a task that resembled a real-life communicative situation to a higher extent than the standard theory of mind (ToM) tasks. A further aim was to investigate the possible importance of a number of background variables such as mental and chronological age, working memory, and false-belief attribution. Results show that the hearing children outperformed the deaf children on the referential communication task and that results were highly correlated with both chronological and mental age, as well as with working memory. There was a positive, but not significant, correlation between false belief and success on the referential communication task. This is an indication that the two tasks tap different abilities and that false belief might be necessary, but not sufficient in order to be skilled in the art of referential communication. The possible role of working memory in the referential communication task is also discussed. The results support the hypothesis of the importance of early talk about mental states for the later development of ToM abilities.     

Inclusive spaces in post-secondary education – exploring the experience of educational supports for people with a neuropsychiatric disability

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of studying among people with a neuropsychiatric disability who received support from a Supported Education (SEd) programme, and people who did not receive this support. The research employed a narrative approach, where 14 participants with a neuropsychiatric diagnosis were asked to write a short reflective narrative about their experience of studying, with/without support from a SEd intervention. The results show that the persons without support from the model relied on their family as their primary support, and that support from formal support providers was not available prior to receiving a formal diagnosis. Those who received services from SEd were generally satisfied with the support they received, and did not emphasise the family as support givers in the same way. The study points to the importance of developing neurodiverse spaces, which can serve as transitional environments and that can help supported education models adapt to the needs of this group.     

Lernkultur: überlegungen zu einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Grundlegung qualitativer Unterrichtsforschung

Zusammenfassung In der Kritik an der schulp?dagogischen Rezeption des Kulturbegriffs, insbesondere an der normativ aufgeladenen Konzeption einer „neuen Lernkultur“, wird in diesem Aufsatz an einem sozialwissenschaftlichen, im engeren Sinne „praxistheoretischen“ Verst?ndnis von Kultur Anschluss genommen. Lernkultur konstituiert sich in p?dagogischen Praktiken, in regelgeleiteten, typisierten und routinisierten, k?rperlich aufgeführten und Interaktionen einschlie?enden Bearbeitungen verschiedener (p?dagogischer) Differenzen, etwa der zwischen der sozialen Ordnung eines p?dagogischen Angebotes und anderen Ordnungen, zwischen Vermittlung und Aneignung und der zwischen schulisch relevantem und anderem Wissen. Diesem Verst?ndnis von Lernkultur entspricht methodologisch die Entscheidung für eine in besonderer Weise vorgehende, videobasierte Erforschung p?dagogischer Praktiken. Das w?re als Konstituierung einer „empirischen Didaktik“ zu verstehen.      

Small country,big business? New Zealand as education exporter

This paper discusses New Zealand’s role in the global market for tertiary education. The internationalisation and liberalisation of education markets is progressing rapidly in today’s globalising world, as reflected by the incorporation of education as a service into the GATS framework. Through the example of New Zealand as a case study for the internationalisation of education services, the study depicts the way the government is involved in this process. Commodification of sectors traditionally subject to domestic public policy is often associated with a less interventionist state, but our example of education shows that this is not necessarily the case, at least not in the medium‐term: New Zealand’s government rather appears to be an active facilitator of the liberalisation process in education. We review its recent move towards treating education as an international export good and present data on the growth of this industry. The paper concentrates on the particular ways by which New Zealand’s government is trying to facilitate this process of liberalising the education sector.     

Estimating scale economies and the optimal size of school districts: A flexible form approach

This paper investigates estimation methods to model the relationship between school district size, costs per student and the organisation of school districts. We show that the assumptions on the functional form strongly affect the estimated scale economies and offer two possible solutions to allow for more flexibility in the estimation method. First, we introduce a model by adding higher‐degree district size polynomials, allowing for multiple optima. Second, we develop a Fourier cost function, innovative in the literature on scale economies in education. We then compare both models to classical approaches in the literature. We illustrate how a minor change in the estimation method can alter policy conclusions significantly using Flemish school district data. In doing so, we find sizeable potential cost savings from the consolidation of school districts, especially at the lower tail of the district–size distribution. The organisational transition from small to large school districts is characterised by an interval between two optima. Beyond an apparent slowdown in cost savings in medium‐sized school districts, cost savings from school district consolidation increase again, up to the optimal size of around 6,500 students. Beyond this optimum, school districts incur diseconomies of scale. The commonly used quadratic form (‘U’‐shaped cost function) overestimates scale economies, and fails to identify the interval between both optima.