National vigor and international silence: The background and development of Japanese sociology of education

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110053
Author(s):  
Shinichi Aizawa

This article addresses topics related to Japanese sociology of education over the past three decades. The main academic interests of Japanese sociology of education have been educational choice and socialization in secondary education, topics also discussed in Durkheim’s masterwork, L’Évolution pédagogique en France. The interests of Japanese researchers in the sociology of education were aroused because of drastic changes in the youth labor market in the mid-1990s and national curriculum reforms influenced by international educational evaluation, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment, in the 2000s. Though the number of empirical studies has increased substantially over the past two decades, this field must make efforts to develop its theoretical sophistication in order to connect to worldwide research on sociology of education.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
Marianne Ødegaard

PISA + is a research project on learning and teaching strategies in schools. (+: Prosjekt om Lærings- og Undervisnings-Strategier i Skolen). Both mathematics and reading are included in addition to science. It is a qualitative, in-depth study, which tries to scrutinize and understand the results from the past PISA studies (Programme for International Student Assessment) (Kjaernsli, Lie, Olsen, Roe & Turmo 2004; Lie, Kjarnsli, Roe & Turmo 2001) and evaluation studies of Norwegian schools (Klette, 2003; Schmidt et al. 1996). It is based on sociocultural principles from theorists such as Vygotsky (1934) and Bakhtin (1981).  The methodology is infl uenced by the Norwegian evaluation study of Reform 97 (Klette, 2003), and the international project The Learner’s Perspective Study (Clarke, 2002). PISA+ is partly associated with LPS. Hopefully our results may offer some knowledge valuable for improving learning in schools.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-146
Author(s):  
Supanutt Sasiwuttiwat ◽  
Somkiat Tangkitvanich

There have been limited empirical studies on the varieties of education models. This paper applies clustering analysis to classify 59 education systems in the world into clusters based on their institutional arrangements (or regimes). Using a data set obtained from the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) survey in 2015, we discover three main findings on the varieties of education models. (1) There are approximately five to eight clusters of education regimes. Among these, there are three top-performing clusters in the PISA test—namely, those focusing on test-based accountability (exemplified by Singapore), those focusing on teacher empowerment and educational equity (exemplified by Finland), and those focusing on school choices and competition (exemplified by the Netherlands). Rather than being grouped in a single top-scoring club, high-scoring education systems belong to different regimes. Thus, there are many pathways to education excellence. (2) Not all systems in the top-performing clusters have high test scores. In fact, many are doing not so well and have many challenges. Thus, policymakers should be aware that no formula of institutional arrangement can guarantee success. To adopt good practices from other countries, policymakers must analyze the strengths and weakness of their own systems and understand the conditions for successful adoption. (3) There is no clear-cut “East Asian model,” consisting mainly of East Asian countries. This implies that East Asian education regimes are not truly distinct from others. Thus, the rise of East Asia to the top of the PISA league table illustrates diversity rather than a single-best model. Our study on the varieties of education models provides policymakers with two main options for education reform. An important question is whether to improve their education systems under existing regimes or to transform them into new regimes. The leaders in the same clusters can provide lessons for improving the current systems by adjusting a few practices. Meanwhile, leaders in other clusters can provide examples for transforming into new regimes.


PLoS Medicine ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. e1003846
Author(s):  
Qiguo Lian ◽  
Chunyan Yu ◽  
Xiaowen Tu ◽  
Minglin Deng ◽  
Tongjie Wang ◽  
...  

Background Grade repetition is practiced worldwide and varies considerably across the globe. Globally, around 32.2 million students repeated a grade at the primary education level in 2010. Although a large body of research has documented grade repetition’s academic and non-academic effects, the limited evidence on associations between grade repetition and school bullying is inconsistent and ambiguous. This study aimed to investigate the global association of grade repetition with bullying victimization in a large-scale school-based cross-sectional study. Methods and findings We used the latest global data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. PISA 2018 was conducted between March and August 2018 in 80 countries and economies among students aged 15–16 years attending secondary education. The students reported their experiences of repeating a grade at any time point before the survey and of being bullied in the past 12 months. The outcome measures were 6 types of bullying victimization. We accounted for the complex survey design and used multivariate logistic regression models to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of grade repetition with bullying victimization after adjusting for potential confounders (sex; age group; migrant status; school type; economic, social, and cultural status; and parental emotional support). This study included 465,146 students (234,218 girls and 230,928 boys) with complete data on grade repetition and bullying victimization in 74 countries and economies. The lifetime prevalence of grade repetition was 12.26%, and 30.32% of students experienced bullying at least a few times a month during the past 12 months. Grade repetition was statistically significantly associated with each type of bullying victimization. The OR (95% CI) of overall bullying victimization for grade repeaters compared with their promoted peers was 1.42 (95% CI 1.32–1.52, p < 0.001). The sex-specific analysis produced similar results in both boys and girls. Furthermore, girls who repeated a grade had higher risks of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around than boys. The major limitation is that this study only included students attending schools and therefore may be subject to possible selection bias. In addition, the cross-sectional design hinders us from establishing causality between grade repetition and bullying victimization. Conclusions In this study, we observed that, globally, both boys and girls who repeat a grade are at increased risk of being bullied compared with promoted peers, but girls may experience higher risks than boys of specific types of bullying associated with repeating a grade. These findings provide evidence for the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization. Sex differences in risk of experiencing some types of bullying suggest that tailored interventions for girls who repeat a grade may be warranted.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert W. Marsh ◽  
Philip D. Parker ◽  
Reinhard Pekrun

Abstract. We simultaneously resolve three paradoxes in academic self-concept research with a single unifying meta-theoretical model based on frame-of-reference effects across 68 countries, 18,292 schools, and 485,490 15-year-old students. Paradoxically, but consistent with predictions, effects on math self-concepts were negative for: • being from countries where country-average achievement was high; explaining the paradoxical cross-cultural self-concept effect; • attending schools where school-average achievement was high; demonstrating big-fish-little-pond-effects (BFLPE) that generalized over 68 countries, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/non-OECD countries, high/low achieving schools, and high/low achieving students; • year-in-school relative to age; unifying different research literatures for associated negative effects for starting school at a younger age and acceleration/skipping grades, and positive effects for starting school at an older age (“academic red shirting”) and, paradoxically, even for repeating a grade. Contextual effects matter, resulting in significant and meaningful effects on self-beliefs, not only at the student (year in school) and local school level (BFLPE), but remarkably even at the macro-contextual country-level. Finally, we juxtapose cross-cultural generalizability based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data used here with generalizability based on meta-analyses, arguing that although the two approaches are similar in many ways, the generalizability shown here is stronger in terms of support for the universality of the frame-of-reference effects.


Methodology ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 149-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Lüdtke ◽  
Alexander Robitzsch ◽  
Ulrich Trautwein ◽  
Frauke Kreuter ◽  
Jan Marten Ihme

Abstract. In large-scale educational assessments such as the Third International Mathematics and Sciences Study (TIMSS) or the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), sizeable numbers of test administrators (TAs) are needed to conduct the assessment sessions in the participating schools. TA training sessions are run and administration manuals are compiled with the aim of ensuring standardized, comparable, assessment situations in all student groups. To date, however, there has been no empirical investigation of the effectiveness of these standardizing efforts. In the present article, we probe for systematic TA effects on mathematics achievement and sample attrition in a student achievement study. Multilevel analyses for cross-classified data using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedures were performed to separate the variance that can be attributed to differences between schools from the variance associated with TAs. After controlling for school effects, only a very small, nonsignificant proportion of the variance in mathematics scores and response behavior was attributable to the TAs (< 1%). We discuss practical implications of these findings for the deployment of TAs in educational assessments.


Author(s):  
Erika Anne Leicht

Despite their stated intention of providing equal educational opportunity for all, many democratic countries separate their students into different classes or even different schools based on their demonstrated academic ability and likely future career. This practice is often referred to as “tracking or “ability grouping.” This study aims to determine whether different types of educational tracking have different effects on students’ academic achievement. Specifically, this study investigates whether disparities in educational achievement between students of highly educated versus minimally educated parents are greater in countries that practice more explicit and complete forms of tracking. It also explores tracking’s effects on average achievement and overall achievement variance. Analysis of data from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicates that tracking generally does increase score disparities between children from different educational backgrounds. Tracking is also associated with higher overall variance of scores. At the same time, tracking may have a slight positive effect on average achievement. However, results are not consistent across all countries, and patterns are different in different subject areas and for different types of tracking. The results of this study neither condemn nor extol tracking. Rather, they indicate that tracking plays a relatively minor role in determining the quality and equity of an education system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Siti Hannah Padliyyah

Indonesia is ranked 56th out of 65 participating countries in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) based on data 2015. According to PISA results, the average science score of Indonesian students is 403, where this number is categorized as low. This is because students are still in the process of understanding and have not yet fully recognized the location of their mistakes. Students can diagnose the location of their mistakes through self-diagnosis activities. Self-diagnosis activities require the active role of students during the learning process. One approach that can increase the active role of students is STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). However, research at this time is still rarely found self-diagnosis activities that are applied to the STEM approach. Therefore, this research has the aim to find out the increase in mastery of physical concepts and self-diagnosis of students on the STEM learning approach to the theory of poscal law class XI High School.This study uses a One-Group pretest-posttest design with a sample of 30 ini 11th grade highschool from one schools in Bandung. . Based on the findings, there is an increase in mastery of concepts [<g> = 0.51] from pre-test to post-test. In self-diagnosis activities identified that there are differences in scores [z = 1.75; p = 0.9599] student assessment results of researchers and self-scoring results. Deeper self-diagnosis triggers a series of implicit steps that encourage them to rearrange their cognition by correcting the mistakes they make when solving problems. So that learning activities using the STEM approach that involves self-diagnosis activities can improve students' mastery of concepts.


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