scholarly journals From Catchment Areas to Parental Choice: Education Policy Reforms and Their Effects on School Segregation

Author(s):  
Isabel Ramos Lobato

Parents’ selective school choices play a key role in exacerbating school segregation across the globe. As a result, numerous studies have investigated parents’ choice practices, while less attention has been paid to the role of the institutional context itself. Taking the introduction of free primary school choice in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, as an example, in this article, I seek to provide insights into the motivations behind the policy reform and its subsequent effects. The article illustrates how the new admission system changes not only the roles, motivations, and strategies of parents, but also those of primary schools. Consequently, the abolition of primary school catchment areas led neither to more equality in choice nor to a responsible competition between primary schools. Instead, it reinforces social divisions and symbolic differences between primary schools.

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 1829-1852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Taylor ◽  
Stephen Gorard

There have been many claims that the introduction of parental choice for schools in the United Kingdom would lead to further socioeconomic segregation between schools. However, little evidence of this has actually emerged. Instead during the first half of the 1990s, in particular, the number of children living in poverty became more equally distributed between UK secondary schools. Part of the explanation for this lies with the prior arrangements for allocating children to schools, typically based upon designated catchment areas. In this paper we argue that the degree of residential segregation that exists in England ensured that schools were already highly segregated before the introduction of market reforms to education, and has continued to be the chief determinant of segregation since. We then suggest that the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which advocates a return to the use of catchment areas and distance to school when allocating places in oversubscribed schools, may be leading inadvertently to increased socioeconomic segregation between schools.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 133-151
Author(s):  
János Zolnay

The paper is written to foster understanding of the function of primary school pupils’ highcommuting rate in Hungary’s towns and cities and its role in the process of school choice. Based ontwo studies and on data collection covering all primary school pupils in the city of Pécs, I analyzed thepattern, direction and success rate of pupils’ efforts to find higher quality schools than their districtschools. The aim of the study was to unpack the “commuting games” of the primary schools. Resultsindicate that, in contrast to national trends, the commuting rate of low-status and Roma primary schoolpupils is also very high within the city. However, while most of the commuting pupils have managedto enrol in higher quality schools than the ones in the catchment area of their homes, the majority oflow-status and Roma commuters appear to be attending lower quality schools than those close to theirhomes, because prestigious schools informally deter them. My findings challenge the literature whichclaims that the selection mechanisms of public education are predominantly regulated by the mutualchoices of prestigious schools and high-status pupils. Schools and their local or central maintenenceagents are unable to control the processes against the background of a centralized system.


Author(s):  
Claudia Prieto-Latorre ◽  
Oscar D. Marcenaro-Gutierrez ◽  
Luis Alejandro Lopez-Agudo

2021 ◽  
pp. 175717742110124
Author(s):  
Melvin Frie ◽  
Lisa M Havinga ◽  
Janneke Wiersema-Buist ◽  
Charlotte G Veldman ◽  
Marjan JT de Vries ◽  
...  

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) often presents asymptomatically or milder in children compared to adults. The role of young children in the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains largely unknown. In the Netherlands, the first action of loosening the partial lockdown that had been implemented to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission was the reopening of primary schools on 1 May 2020. We subsequently conducted a prospective cohort study among healthcare workers (HCWs) with primary school-attending children versus HCWs without children living at home. We tested each HCW three times for SARS-CoV-2 from May 20 to June 15 2020 at 1-week intervals. In total, 832 nasopharyngeal swabs were taken from 283 HCWs with primary school-attending children living at home and 864 nasopharyngeal swabs from 285 HCWs without children living at home. All nasopharyngeal swabs tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. In our region with a low population density and low SARS-CoV-2 prevalence, reopening of primary schools did not lead to an increase in infections. The results of this study may serve as an example for the implementation of regional strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission in countries with large variations in both population density and SARS-CoV-2 prevalence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (32) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Mert Baştaş ◽  
Hüseyin Aktunç

The general purpose of this research is the examination of the role of the leader in the institutional communication process in TRNC primary schools. While conducting the research, principals and deputy principals, who are administrators in primary schools, were accepted as leaders in schools. At this point, it has been tried to determine how teachers perceive corporate communication in TRNC primary schools and whether their administrators show a leading role in terms of communication skills. Among the most important results of the research; Primary school teachers with a bachelor's degree had a more positive attitude towards the communication skills of their administrators than primary school teachers with a master's degree. Most of the teachers (69.4%) participating in our study stated that the most important feature that a leader should have is "effective communication skills".


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Besi ◽  
Maria Sakellariou

Internationally, a great number of researchers have pointed out the significance of school–family relationship in the process of children’s transition to primary schools. However, only recently has it been a subject of research in Greece. The purpose of this particular research, which has a sample of 1602 pre-primary and primary school teachers, is to investigate teachers’ viewpoints on the role of parents in the process of their children’s transition to primary school. Data has been collected through the use of questionnaires. Statistical analysis has shown that the overwhelming majority of teachers consider cooperation with parents as necessary. They indicate that the most important factors for successful transition are parents’ level of trust in teachers, their views on schools and learning, and their support for the new situation their child experiences. As far as the most appropriate practices are concerned, almost all teachers mention updating parents at the beginning of the school year, while many suggest that parents and children visit primary schools and that common meetings of both kindergarten and primary school teachers with parents take place before school begins. It therefore seems that teachers acknowledge the role of parents in the process of transition and suggest appropriate practices for their participation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Nadia GHALIA ◽  
Sawsan KARA

The study aimed to identify the role of the teacher in the distance learning process in schools within the Green Line from the perspectives of teachers and school principals in them, as well as to reveal the level of consideration of individual differences and the statement of the relationship between them. The survey descriptive approach was used, the study sample included teachers and principals in primary schools, who numbered (330) teachers and principals. The primary school was significant, and the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences attributed to the study variables about the teacher’s role in the distance learning process in light of the Corona pandemic and its relationship to taking into account individual differences among students in Arab primary schools.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sa Li

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes of teaching ability of pre-service teachers during their internship. Methods: The pre-service teachers were divided into experimental group and control group, and the video of each class was recorded, encoded and scored by experts from primary schools, and SPSS was used to analyze the data. Results: The teaching ability of the pre-service teachers in the primary school Chinese subject had a significant improvement in the six weeks of teaching practice. The teaching ability of the pre-service teachers in the primary school mathematics discipline had no significant improvement in the six weeks of teaching practice; there is no significant difference in the teaching ability of pre-service teachers who have experienced six classroom lectures and 18 classroom lectures. Conclusion: Educational universities should attach importance to the role of educational internship in promoting the development of pre-service teachers' teaching ability and increase the internship time. Instructors should pay attention to the cultivation of pre-service teachers' teaching reflection ability and give feedback and guidance in time.


Author(s):  
Andrew E. Clark ◽  
Sarah Flèche ◽  
Richard Layard ◽  
Nattavudh Powdthavee ◽  
George Ward

This chapter investigates the impact of the different schools and teachers in the Avon area on the outcomes of the children they taught. It begins by investigating the role of the whole school in considering what difference it makes which school a child goes to. Here, primary and secondary schools have major effects on the emotional well-being of their children. The variation across schools in this regard is as large as the variation in their impact on academic performance. There is also a huge variation in the impact of individual primary school teachers on the emotional well-being and academic performance of their children. These effects of primary schools and teachers persist throughout the following five years and longer.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document