Teachers with Special Needs. De-Psychiatrization of Children in Schools

Psychiatrization not only affects adults. Ever more children in Western countries are being diagnosed with a mental disorder of behavior, such as ADHD. Children may often be labelled with the best intentions, for example in order to be able to provide them with suitable care and guidance. However, this labelling can have exclusionary effects and often entails the consequence that important discussion about contextual factors that give rise to (the perception of) unwelcome behavior or academic underperformance rarely, if at all, takes place. In this article we contend that although children are of central concern to schools and the design of pupils’ education, it is important not to make pupils the sole owner of problems that arise. It is therefore high time that a far more critical normative stance towards inclusive education is taken, in which the presently widespread biomedical approach is met with a school community response that focuses not on the nature of individual disorders but on the special need for additional capacity that schools and teachers have in meeting (perceived) deviant behaviors and emotions and/or academic underperformance. We argue that teaching should not set out to remedy individual diagnoses, but that teachers should be supported to extend their professional competence to the benefit of all pupils.

Of Young People and Internet Cafés

This study examines how adolescent experience in Internet cafés (known as wangba in Chinese) relates to academic attainment in urban, rural, and Tibetan schools of China. By documenting the frustrations teenagers express in their negotiations with adults surrounding access to and use of wangba and, by comparing self-reported academic standing of students from similar backgrounds with how they differ in their experience in wangba, the study finds that visiting wangba is not strongly correlated with the probability of students reporting either high- or under-achievement. While students without any experience in wangba are substantially less likely to report academic underperformance, the association disappears after matching when the logit regression model is less model-dependent and vulnerable to the problems associated with missing data. The paper concludes that visiting wangba alone is not systematically correlated with academic attainment, and that much adult anxiety concerning adolescent visit to wangba represents moral-technological panic and, offers a simplified explanation for educational problems that have deep macrosocial roots.

School academic performance of children hospitalised with a chronic condition

ObjectiveTo examine academic outcomes among children hospitalised with a chronic health condition.DesignPopulation-level birth cohort.SettingNew South Wales, Australia.Participants397 169 children born 2000–2006 followed up to 2014.Intervention/exposureHospitalisations with a chronic condition.Main outcome measuresAcademic underperformance was identified as ‘below the national minimum standard’ (BNMS) in five literacy/numeracy domains using the national assessment (National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy) data. Multivariable logistic regression assessed the adjusted ORs (aORs) of children performing BNMS in each domain at each grade (grades 3, 5 and 7, respectively).ResultsOf children hospitalised with a chronic condition prior to National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) (16%–18%), 9%–12% missed ≥1 test, with a maximum of 37% of those hospitalised ≥7 times, compared with 4%–5% of children not hospitalised. Excluding children who missed a NAPLAN test, more children hospitalised with a chronic condition performed BNMS across all domains and grades, compared with children not hospitalised (eg, for BNMS in reading at grade 3: n=2588, aOR 1.35 (95% CI 1.28 to 1.42); for BNMS in numeracy at grade 3: n=2619, aOR 1.51 (95% CI 1.43 to 1.59)). Increasing frequency and bed-days of hospitalisation were associated with 2–3 fold increased odds of performing BNMS across all domains and grades. Children hospitalised with mental health/behavioural conditions had the highest odds of performing BNMS across all domains at each grade.ConclusionsChildren hospitalised with a chronic condition underperform academically across literacy/numeracy domains at each school grade. Health and educational supports are needed to improve these children’s academic outcomes.

Large for Gestational Age and Risk for Academic Delays and Learning Disabilities: Assessing Modification by Maternal Obesity and Diabetes

The objective of this study was to examine academic delays for children born large for gestational age (LGA) and assess effect modification by maternal obesity and diabetes and then to characterize risks for LGA for those with a mediating condition. Cohort data were obtained from the New York City Longitudinal Study of Early Development, linking birth and educational records (n = 125,542). Logistic regression was used to compare children born LGA (>90th percentile) to those born appropriate weight (5–89th percentile) for risk of not meeting proficiency on assessments in the third grade and being referred to special education. Among children of women with gestational diabetes, children born LGA had an increased risk of underperforming in mathematics (ARR: 1.18 (95% CI: 1.07–1.31)) and for being referred for special education (ARR: 1.18 (95% CI: 1.02–1.37)). Children born LGA but of women who did not have gestational diabetes had a slightly decreased risk of academic underperformance (mathematics-ARR: 0.94 (95% CI: 0.90–0.97); Language arts-ARR: 0.96 (95% CI: 0.94–0.99)). Children born to women with gestational diabetes with an inadequate number of prenatal care visits were at increased risk of being born LGA, compared to those receiving extensive care (ARR: 1.67 (95% CI: 1.20–2.33)). Children born LGA of women with diabetes were at increased risk of delays; greater utilization of prenatal care among these diabetic women may decrease the incidence of LGA births.

Addressing Illness-Related Chronic Absences

School attendance is a predictor of academic achievement. Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% or more school days affects 14% of all students nationwide. District attendance processes, policies, and data were analyzed in a demographically diverse southern California high school. A review of the attendance history of 117 ninth and tenth graders, who missed at least 10% of days in school, showed that 66% of the absences were due to illness. Prior to the project, these students were not referred for nursing intervention. Results of this quality improvement project supported the adoption of a specific code for absences due to illness. A district procedure for illness chronic absence was adopted to allow early nursing intervention for students with chronic absences prior to the development of illness-related academic underperformance. This project demonstrates nursing roles in the quality improvement and care coordination aspects of the NASN’s Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice™.

"We Had to Stick Together"

Studies investigating disadvantaged urban neighborhoods often focus on students’ academic underperformance, ways they succumb to environmental stressors, involvement in illicit activities, and adherence to street-oriented behaviors and culture. This article focuses on the ways a select group of Black boys in the US successfully navigated structural impediments and interpersonal challenges during their secondary school years and eventually matriculated to college. Drawing on interview data, the article examines students’ sense-making and the importance of their peers in navigating the urban environment: (1) interactions with people in the neighborhood and (2) strategies to negotiate the urban environment context in pursuit of their educational aspirations. The students’ narratives highlight the benefits they assign to their peer relationships and collectivist efforts to support their educational goals.

Quantification, Inequality, and the Contestation of School Closures in Philadelphia

Public education relies heavily on data to document stratified inputs and outcomes, and to design interventions aimed at reducing disparities. Yet despite the promise and prevalence of data-driven policies and practices, inequalities persist. Indeed, contemporary scholarship has begun to question whether and how processes such as quantification and commensuration contribute to rather than remediate inequality. Using the 2013 closure of 24 Philadelphia public schools as a case study, I employ a mixed-methods approach to illuminate quantification and commensuration as nuanced processes with contingent, dualistic, and paradoxical relationships to inequality. The quantified approach to selecting schools for closure predisposed poor and minority communities to institutional loss because academic underperformance, a key selection metric, was correlated with disadvantage. Paradoxically, academic performance measures, coupled with commensuration strategies, also enabled advocates to successfully overturn closure recommendations. I offer an evidentiary account of how quantification can perpetuate inequality, and I complicate prevailing understandings of quantification as a technology of power.

Deferred Enrollment: Chicano/Latino Males, Social Mobility and Military Enlistment

Chicanos/Latinos comprise the largest racial and ethnic population in the U.S. public K-12 schools, yet hold some of the largest rates of academic underperformance in high school and college completion. This study aims at understanding the academic trajectories of five Chicano/Latino males and their decision to enlist in the military after high school graduation. Using in-depth semistructured interviews, participants discussed the role that high school structures, family, social capital, and sociocultural forces played in their career decision-making process. Results showed that students viewed the military as a way of upward social mobility and their most viable career option after completing high school. The study also highlights the lack of resources available to students who may not be viewed as college material by school personnel.