Intensive Teaching: Examining Teachers’ Professional Pressures and Pedagogical Practices at an Elite School

This article asks the following questions: What pressures do teachers face from parents and senior administrators? How do the pressures teachers face from parents and senior administrators affect how they teach students? Specifically, how does this affect the methods they engage in to generate ‘good’ student outcomes? It answers these questions by analysing interviews with 24 high school teachers at an elite international school in Bangalore, a city in southwest India. This article argues that the pressures teachers face from senior administrators and parents to produce high-achieving students result in them engaging in intensive teaching practices. These practices represent teachers’ attempts to produce students capable of earning high grades and entrance into competitive colleges and universities. This article extends our understanding of the factors that shape teachers’ pedagogical practices by making explicit connections between affluent parenting practices and the professional roles of teachers at elite schools. As such, this article makes important contributions to the literature on the sociology of education and teaching.

How High Achievers Learn That They Should Not Become Teachers

In this article, Zid Mancenido examines how high-achieving students are socialized to believe that they should not become K–12 classroom teachers. Research has well established that academically successful students are often disinterested in teaching as a career, yet there has been little attention to how this disinterest is developed through the process of career exploration. To address this gap in the literature, Mancenido conducts a narrative inquiry based on interviews with high-achieving recent college graduates and graduating seniors. He presents six representative vignettes to demonstrate how high achievers learn through explicit and implicit signals that teaching is not appropriate for someone like them. This process is social, with parents and peers playing a significant role in shaping beliefs. These findings suggest that policy efforts to recruit more high achievers into teaching may benefit from more focus earlier in the career exploration pipeline.

Matematiikan parhaat osaajat lukion lopussa ja heidän matematiikka-asenteissaan tapahtuneet muutokset

Tutkimus perustuu Opetushallituksen ja Kansallisen koulutuksen arviointikeskuksen keräämään pitkittäisaineistoon. Samaan ikäluokkaan kuuluvat oppilaat ovat osallistuneet kansallisiin matematiikan kokeisiin ja matematiikka-asenteita kartoittaviin kyselyihin vuosien 2005–2015 aikana neljällä eri mittauskerralla perusopetuksen kolmannelta vuosiluokalta toisen asteen loppuun. Tutkimusaineiston kokonaisotos käsittää yhteensä 3896 oppilasta. Tutkimuksessa keskitytään tarkastelemaan matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneitä opiskelijoita. Matematiikan parhaiksi osaajiksi määritetään kansalliseen matematiikan kokeeseen osallistuneet lukiolaiset, jotka saivat pitkän matematiikan ylioppilaskokeesta arvosanan laudatur tai eximia cum laude approbatur (n = 146). Ensin tutkimuksessa selvitetään, miten parhaiden osaajien matematiikka-asenteet muuttuivat perusopetuksesta lukion loppuun ja toiseksi, miten opetuksen pedagogiset ratkaisut yläkoulussa ja lukiossa selittävät osaamiseltaan parhaiden tyttöjen ja poikien asenteissa tapahtuneita muutoksia. Selittävien tekijöiden analyysissa käytetään päätöspuuanalyysia (DTA) ja lineaarista regressioanalyysia. Matematiikan parhaiden osaajien matematiikasta pitäminen kasvoi lukio-opintojen aikana, mutta minäkäsitys ja kokemus matematiikan hyödyllisyydestä laskivat. Matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneiden tyttöjen asenteissa tapahtuneet muutokset poikkesivat asenteiden yleisestä muutossuunnasta. Parhaiden tyttöjen minäkäsitys kasvoi yläkoulun ja lukion aikana lähes parhaiten menestyneiden poikien tasolle ja tytöt pitivät matematiikasta lukion lopussa poikia enemmän. Matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneiden tyttöjen ja poikien asenteiden kehittymistä selittivät erilaiset opetuksen pedagogiset ratkaisut. Molemmilla myönteisiä asenteita vahvistivat yleisesti oppilaskeskeisyyteen, yhteistoiminnallisuuteen ja oppijoiden tarpeiden huomioimiseen liittyvät pedagogiset ratkaisut. In English The study is part of a longitudinal research. Students belonging to the same age group were followed from the third grade of primary education to the end of upper secondary level. The data was collected by EDUFI and FINEEC during 2005–2015. The data consists of 3896 students. The target group consists of mathematically high-achieving students at the end of their studies in upper secondary school. The definition of high-achieving students based on success in matriculation examination of advanced math (n = 146). First we examine how high-achieving students’ attitudes towards mathematics change from primary education to the end of upper secondary level and then how pedagogical solutions in grades 7–9 and in upper secondary level explain boys’ and girls’ changes in attitudes. Decision tree analysis (DTA) and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. The results indicated that high-achieving students liked more mathematics during upper secondary school but self-concept and experience of usefulness of mathematics decreased. The changes of high-achieving girls’ attitudes differed from the general trend of change. High-achieving girls’ self-concept increased almost to the same level than high-achieving boys’ during grades 7–9 and in upper secondary school. Additionally, girls liked mathematics more than boys at the end of upper secondary level. The development of high-achieving girls’ and boys’ attitudes was explained by different pedagogical solutions. Both girls’ and boys’ positive attitudes were generally reinforced by pedagogical solutions related to student-centeredness, cooperative learning and paying attention to students’ needs. Fulltext in Finnish.

Why do Low-Income, High-Achieving Students not Apply to Top Universities?

In this study, the behavior of low-income, high-achieving students when applying to prestigious universities is analyzed. It was postulated that this behavior is due to a lack of information provided to these students and the effect of several behavioral heuristics that influence these students’ application decisions — namely, availability, simulation, and the status quo bias. This paper focuses on the behavior of low-income, high-achieving students who do not apply to prestigious students and therefore behave in a manner typical to their income level rather than their ability. These students, who are less likely to attend magnet schools or live in major metropolitan areas, are often left out of initiatives and college resources available to high-income students. To address this disparity, two solutions are proposed to encourage income-typical students to apply to prestigious universities: the continuation of test-optional policies and virtual college tours.

Teaching Quality and Students' EFL Achievements in Ethiopia: Analysis From the Perspective of the Basic Dimensions of Teaching Quality

Teaching quality is important for students’ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Achievements. The three basic dimensions of teaching quality (student support, classroom management, and cognitive activation) showed effectiveness in some subjects in developed countries, but there is very little investigation on its effectiveness in developing ones. Using hierarchical linear modeling and re-centered influence function regression, this study investigates the extent to which the three basic dimensions of teaching quality affect students’ EFL achievements and how much the effect varies across achievement distributions in the context of Ethiopia. Findings reveal that classroom management does not affect students’ EFL achievements and this is consistent across achievement distributions. However, cognitive activation positively affects students’ EFL learning achievements and the effect is consistent across the distribution of achievements. Similarly, student support affects students’ EFL achievements positively, but its effect is higher for high-achieving students. Implications of the findings were discussed.

The application of the analytical hierarchy process and simple additive weighting methods in making decisions for high achieving students in vocational high schools.

Vocational High School is a formal education unit that organizes vocational education that prepares students, especially to work in certain fields. In determining students who excel in certain fields, it is necessary to have a decision support system to improve the quality of decisions in determining students who excel from the highest average score. However, using the highest average score does not get optimal results because it is not adjusted to the existing needs in determining outstanding students. In this study, it can be used as a reference in making decisions for outstanding students by applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process and Simple Additive Weighting methods. The steps taken are: Data collection, Data Preprocessing, Ranking and Comparison of Results between Analytical Hierarchy Process, Simple Additive Weighting with manual weighting results. The results of the ranking comparison show that there are 6 students with the top ranking who are recommended to be outstanding students in the linguistic group.

The application of the analytical hierarchy process and simple additive weighting methods in making decisions for high achieving students in vocational high schools.

Vocational High School is a formal education unit that organizes vocational education that prepares students, especially to work in certain fields. In determining students who excel in certain fields, it is necessary to have a decision support system to improve the quality of decisions in determining students who excel from the highest average score. However, using the highest average score does not get optimal results because it is not adjusted to the existing needs in determining outstanding students. In this study, it can be used as a reference in making decisions for outstanding students by applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process and Simple Additive Weighting methods. The steps taken are: Data collection, Data Preprocessing, Ranking and Comparison of Results between Analytical Hierarchy Process, Simple Additive Weighting with manual weighting results. The results of the ranking comparison show that there are 6 students with the top ranking who are recommended to be outstanding students in the linguistic group.

Primary school expectations: the invisible curriculum as a tool for understanding learning inequalities

This paper reports the results of a study aimed at understanding the processes governing the construction of educational inequalities in French classrooms, the French school system being particularly unequal. Traditional explanations have focused on the factors governing the production of inequalities but have not always shown how these factors translate into learning inequalities in class. Consistent with relational approaches, the study draws on ethnographic research conducted over an 18-month period in 6 socially contrasting Parisian schools. Both students from wealthy families considered to be ‘high-achieving’ and students from poor families viewed as being ‘low-achieving’ were observed over the course of full school days to understand the factors that lead them to develop different activities. The evidence suggests that children interpret teacher expectations very differently, although the same expectations were observed in all the classes observed during the study. These expectations point to an invisible curriculum operating alongside the formal curriculum and generally perceived only by high-achieving students, who are able to grasp and understand it through their prior socialization. A further characteristic of the invisible curriculum is that it is rarely made explicit by teachers. This finding highlights the need to further examine explicitation strategies in schools.

Difficulties in Solving Non-Routine Problems: Preliminary Analysis and Results

Students have been taught to solve problems since primary school. However, they still have been having difficulties in solving mathematics problems, especially non-routine problems. By searching errors in mathematics skills and cognitive abilities that have been causing difficulties in solving non-routine problems, this study aims to determine the dominant difficulties that high-achieving students commonly face. A problem-solving test (PST) that comprises four non-routine problems involving algebra was distributed to 56 Form Four selected students through purposive sampling. Each problem is followed by a reflection that allows students to describe the difficulties they face while solving the problem. Hence, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of answer scripts as well as students’ reflection shows that the dominant difficulties faced by high-achieving students when solving non-routine problems are language and information management skills. Poor mastery of these two skills has resulted in students being unable to decipher the problem accordingly which then leads to failing to solve the problems. The findings of this study provide important insight for educators and also researchers in assisting students to deal with their difficulties to solve non-routine problems.

OBSTACLES PREVENTING HIGH ACHIEVERS FROM LOW SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS TO ENTER UNIVERSITIES: A REVIEW

All students, regardless of socioeconomic status, deserve equitable access to universities. However, many high-achieving students are excluded from this privilege, most of whom come disproportionately from families on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. This study aims to identify the barriers that influence high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue higher education. A total of ten relevant articles from prominent publication databases were chosen for this review. The results show that the majority of researchers believe that parents' negative attitudes, parents' low expectations, first-in-family, vogue career identity, financial factor, and thinking style factor are the primary impediments to high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds attending university. The results also enable university career counsellors to assist high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds to overcome any obstacles to effectively join universities and fulfil their educational goals.