Pre-Service Geography Teachers’ Professional Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development

The professional competencies pre-service geography teachers acquire in university influence their contribution to education for sustainable development (ESD) in their future school careers. We assessed pre-service geography teachers’ (n = 100) competencies and attitudes towards the official, German ESD orientation framework to determine the specific need for higher education action. The results are a high competence assessment and even higher importance assigned to the ESD-related professional competencies. In the context of ESD, pre-service teachers are most confident in their content knowledge and social and personal competencies and least confident in their pedagogical knowledge. The cross-sectional analysis shows the perceived competence level rising with the semester number and a strong positive influence of the school practice module.

Career Maturity for Deaf Children: Obstacles And Solutions

This research was conducted at SMK Garut Regency on Deaf children who have difficulties in making decisions about careers at school and post-school careers. The decision to choose student majors is currently based on the strong will of parents, besides that teacher are less able to provide alternatives to the choice of majors they are interested in and are not based on the results of the assessment of talents and interests. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to see the obstacles of students in achieving career maturity based on the results of the needs analysis. This study uses a qualitative approach with descriptive methods. The participants of this study were Deaf children that had an impact on language skills and cognitive abilities in interpreting information, other subjects were classroom teachers, subject teachers, and special education teachers closest to the student's environment. Data collection techniques used observation, interviews, and documentation studies, and data analysis techniques used data triangulation. The results of this study indicate that the obstacles for students in making career decisions are caused by the impact of their deafness so that they are hampered by expressive and receptive communication skills that do not support them to ask questions so that they only get information from outside and find it difficult to interpret the information they get. The encouragement and prestige of parents and friends are other obstacles in determining student decisions that are not following their interests and talents. Another obstacle is that teachers have not specifically assessed the interest in talent for student careers before entering school to date. Based on these findings, a solution to determine the level of career maturity of students at this time requires an assessment of interests and talents which can then be used by teachers or parents in making transition programs in which focus is on developing soft skills for children in terms of making appropriate career decisions.

Understanding the Empty Backpack: The Role of Timing in Disproportionate Special Education Identification

Studies related to disproportionate special education identification of students from historically marginalized groups have used increasingly complex analyses to understand the interplay of factors that cause and maintain disparities. However, information regarding the influence of students’ grade level at initial special education placement remains limited. Situated in labeling theory and life course theory, we used discrete-time survival analysis to examine temporal student- and school-level factors related to patterns of placement for minoritized students within one large urban school district. Results showed that gender, race, and socioeconomic status were all factors generally associated with special education identification, and that African American and Latinx students were more likely to be placed into special education later in their school careers. This disproportionality in delayed placement was associated with particular special education labels; for example, African American students identified post-elementary school were more likely to be labeled with emotional disturbance and specific learning disability compared to same-age White peers, and Latinx students were more likely to be labeled with specific learning disability and intellectual disability compared to same-age White peers. These results implicate inequities that emerge at the intersections of age, race, and perceptions of ability that should be considered in future studies of educational equity.

How do foster children placed in long-term family foster care experience school?

Background: Foster children often experience school problems and perform less well than average. This may result in failed school careers and compromised future career paths. Nonetheless, few studies have focused on the perspective of foster children regarding education. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 foster children (M = 14 years, range = 12–18 years) placed in long-term family foster care about their experiences regarding “school.” Results: A thematic analysis distinguished four main themes: (1) the importance of school for foster children; (2) the impact of the foster care placement on the school performance (3) support foster children receive with regard to their functioning and performance at school; and (4) the fear of stigmatization. Discussion: Foster children attach a great importance to school and receive support from different persons. Yet, many foster children are confronted with school difficulties, such as bullying, hindered concentration, and negative reactions to being placed in foster care. Interventions should be developed to support this group and improve their performances. Furthermore, actors who get in touch with foster children should be better acquainted with foster care.

Socioeconomic Inequality in Children’s Achievement from Infancy to Adolescence: The Case of Germany

When in children’s lives do gaps by family socioeconomic status (SES) in cognitive skills emerge, how large are they before children enter school, and how do they develop over schooling? We study the evolution of achievement gaps by parental education from birth to adolescence in Germany. We exploit data from fifty-seven tests taken from the age of seven months to sixteen years by the National Educational Panel Study. Because Germany has one of the most stratified education systems in the Western World, we hypothesized that achievement gaps will grow particularly during tracked secondary schooling. However, our findings show that SES gaps emerge and expand long before children enter school and then remain stable throughout their school careers. Because gaps stop growing, we tentatively conclude that schooling decreases inequality in learning by family SES.

Neighbourhood and school effects on educational inequalities in the transition from primary to secondary education in Amsterdam

Drawing on an advanced analysis of individual longitudinal register data of school careers of four cohorts of children in Amsterdam, this article suggests that school advice is highly differentiated between children of different migrant and socioeconomic backgrounds. Moreover, apart from these individual characteristics, we demonstrate that the socioeconomic composition of neighbourhoods and schools is important for understanding differences in school advice. The analysis shows that neighbourhood and school socioeconomic disadvantage negatively affects the school advice of children with highly educated parents, while socioeconomic advantage positively affects all children and especially children of lower- and intermediate-educated parents. The positive neighbourhood effects are, however, mediated by primary school context. We suggest that while most of the educational inequalities may be explained by individual characteristics, residential and school segregation intensify these inequalities, especially through the beneficial effects of neighbourhood and school advantage.

IMPLEMENTASI TEORI SUPER PADA PROGRAM LAYANAN BIMBINGAN DAN KONSELING KARIR UNTUK MAHASISWA PERGURUAN TINGGI

This literature study of guidance and counseling service programs in high school careers aim to be able to plan careers in the future. Many challenges will be faced by students in determining careers, including career uncertainty, access to information and career development programs, and economic and technological challenges. To anticipate the challenges of the hands it is necessary for universities to provide optimal service to the development of student careers. The existence of a super theory career guidance program that focuses on developing vocational identity (vocational identity) in early adulthood, is expected to help early adults in developing vocational identities as a whole, so that adolescents avoid the confusion of role confusion, especially the role of vocational identity.Keywords: Theory Super, Guidance And Counseling, Career

Afrikaanse taalvariasie: Uitdagings vir regverdige meting van jong kinders se taal

Approximately 5% of children show a language delay (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness and Nye 2000), and there are indications that this figure is higher in South Africa, especially amongst very young children (Van der Linde, Swanepoel, Sommerville, Glascoe, Vinck and Louw 2016). There are no adequate instruments with which to ascertain which young Afrikaans-speaking children will require assistance to overcome future language-related academic problems. This article reports on the challenges experienced owing to Afrikaans language variation during the development of a parent questionnaire with which the language acquisition of young children can be measured. This questionnaire comprises questions on early developing communicative gestures, first words, and early grammatical constructions, and parents are requested to indicate on the list which gestures, words and constructions their child comprehends and/or produces. The length of the questionnaire needs to be contained, because the completion of the questionnaire should remain a realistic task for parents, also for those with low literacy levels. Decisions regarding the inclusion or exclusion on the questionnaire of the words found in specific varieties of Afrikaans are however often not straightforward. Existing language assessment instruments the world over typically discriminate against children who are not part of the dominant culture and language community. Given South Africa’s stained history with regard to the recognition of speakers of non-standardised language varieties (cf., e.g., Hendricks 2012; Williams 2016), the compiling of a valid parental questionnaire is non-negotiable. It is thus necessary to consider carefully which words should appear on the list, because a good parental questionnaire can contribute to culturally and linguistically fair language assessment of young Afrikaans-speaking children. Such a questionnaire will assist in identifying children who struggle to acquire their language and who need extra assistance in order for their language to improve sufficiently before the commencement of their school careers. That way, they will have a better chance of accessing the curriculum, of experiencing academic success, and of having a sufficiently long school career to realise their potential.

La institución del Bullying

Resumen El acceso, permanencia y egreso de la educación superior en México representan uno de los principales retos en la actualidad en materia educativa. Desde hace décadas se han desarrollado y consolidado líneas de investigación sobre las trayectorias y los estudiantes universitarios. A través de la revisión de diversas investigaciones sobre las trayectorias escolares universitarias en México se busca poner de manifiesto los factores que interactúan y marcan las secuencias y pasajes de los estudiantes por la educación superior, al mismo tiempo que mostrar cómo la heterogeneidad de trayectos educativos revela la interacción y acumulación de diferencias sociales, reforzando con ello la ambivalencia de la educación: como reproductora de desigualdades y considerada como canal de movilidad social. Palabras clave: Trayectorias escolares, estudiantes universitarios, desigualdad social. Abstract The access, permanence and progress of higher education in Mexico represent one of the principal’s challenges in the field of education. For decades, researches on school careers and university students have been developed and consolidated. Through the review of researches on school careers in Mexico, the papers aim is to reveal the factors that interact and mark the sequences and passages of students through higher education, and the same time it shows how the heterogeneity of educational trajectories reveals the interaction and accumulation of social differences, reinforcing with it the ambivalence of education: as a reproducer of inequalities and considered as a channel of social mobility. Keyworks: School careers, university students, social inequalities

Promoting Deeper Learning in High School: Evidence of Opportunities and Outcomes

Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly interested in students’ deeper learning skills, or the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills students need to succeed in school, careers, and civic life. This article presents evidence about whether the concept of deeper learning—applied across a variety of approaches—has potential merit as a means for education improvement. The analysis, based on 16 high schools implementing a school-wide approach to promoting deeper learning within the context of small schools, indicates that students who attended schools focused on deeper learning reported greater opportunities for deeper learning, greater competency in some deeper learning domains, had higher rates of graduating from high school, and were more likely to enroll in 4-year colleges than similar students who attended comparison schools.