Poverty and educational achievement in the US: A less-biased estimate using PISA 2012 data

In the current paper, we employ the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data to calculate a less-biased estimate of poverty on US achievement. The PISA was specifically chosen as it is an assessment removed from a specific curriculum and instead focuses on concepts that students should know in order to participate in a global economy. Using a propensity score matching approach, our findings suggest that US students in poverty have notable educational attainment deficiencies compared to a matched group of students who are not in poverty. In other words, when we select two students who have a great deal in common but for the fact that one comes from a poverty background, the student in poverty is expected to perform nearly 28 points, or about a quarter of a standard deviation lower, on the PISA assessment. In real terms, this puts math achievement for children not in poverty on-par with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, while children in poverty are well below the OECD average.     

Conquering with capital: social,cultural, and economic capital’s role in combating socioeconomic disadvantage and contributing to educational attainment

While socioeconomic barriers to learning have been well-documented by education, sociology, and social policy scholars, further research is needed to understand how students with low-socioeconomic status excel in high-performing schools. The collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with female college students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds provide rich insights into the stark differences between the educational practices of low and high-SES students. Building on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of how habitus and capital influence practices in the field of education exposes unique, strategic practices that low-SES students use to attain educational success within a system of reproduction and power. While entering a high-performing school is often perceived as a definitive step for accessing high-quality educational resources, my findings illustrate how it is actually an important intermediary step within a more complex process. Increasing educational opportunity and attainment for low-SES students requires improving their access to social, cultural, and economic capital through knowledgeable mentors who contribute to a habitus and portfolio of capital which enable practices to successfully navigate and challenge the educational system.     

新时代推进大中小学劳动教育的三重维度

劳动教育肩负着培养德智体美劳全面发展的社会主义建设者和接班人的重要任务,因此,新时代推进大中小学劳动教育是青少年学生全面发展的客观需要。新时代推进大中小学劳动教育需要从时代性、规律性、创造性三重维度着手,把握新时代大中小学劳动教育的时代特征,遵循新时代大中小学劳动教育的内在规律,激发新时代大中小学劳动教育的内生动力。     

Placement Educators’ Experiences and Perspectives of Supervising International Social Work Students in Australia

International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality placement opportunities and dealing with issues such as language and cultural barriers. While placement issues have been mostly investigated from a student perspective, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of placement educators towards supervising international social work students. It draws on an online survey of 83 placement educators working for an Australian university. The majority of placement educators reported that they supervised international students differently to domestic students. These differences were negatively framed as challenges involving students’ language competence, their understanding of cultural norms, and knowledge of Australian welfare systems. This framing implies that cultural and linguistic differences between international students and placement educators are viewed in terms of student deficiency rather than as a positive opportunity for mutual learning and professional development.     

Episiotomy practice in the Middle East: A Lebanese teaching tertiary care centre experience

Problem

There is lack of data on the rate of episiotomy in Lebanon and the study’s hospital.

Educational gradient of health in rural China

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how rural residents’ educational attainment is associated with their self-rated health in China. Taking advantage of the National Exercise Facility Survey that was collected between December 2015 and March 2016, we find that educational attainment has a significant and positive correlation with self-rated health, net of the effects of age, gender, and geographical region. This correlation is mediated by factors such as perceived importance of exercise and healthy lifestyle. Relatively, people’s cognitive knowledge about health-related information and material resource access fail to play a significant mediating role. The findings highlight the non-material and non-cognitive attributes of educational attainment in shaping the gradient of health in the rural setting of China. Interventions that expand formal education to the mass and optimize teaching contents may offer an effective means to balance the health gradient.     

Mothers' work patterns and Children's cognitive achievement: Evidence from the India Human Development survey

As female labor force participation increases globally, the relationship between maternal employment and children's development remains unclear. Using data from the India Human Development Survey (2005), we investigate the link between maternal employment and children's arithmetic and reading achievement. We develop a work pattern typology that goes beyond standard measures of employment and captures work intensity and its compatibility with child-rearing in a transitional economy. We find that the relationship between maternal employment and children's outcomes is not unidimensional. For example, children of self-employed mothers are not disadvantaged compared to those with stay-at-home mothers, but maternal employment in salaried jobs or wage work outside the home is negatively associated with cognitive skills in children. However, this negative association is reversed at higher levels of maternal education, suggesting greater access to resources and flexibility associated with better jobs mitigate the negative aspects of maternal employment posed by time constraints. Additionally, maternal employment is associated with maternal involvement in schoolwork and financial investment in academic activities, providing evidence that both time and resources devoted to children's education are significant.     

Acceptance of homosexuality through education? Investigating the role of education,family background and individual characteristics in the United Kingdom

Higher educated people tend to be more accepting of homosexuality than lower educated people. This has inspired claims that education leads to a higher acceptance of homosexuality. Alternatively, the association between education and acceptance of homosexuality could be confounded by (un)observed family background and stable individual characteristics. This study investigated the association between education and acceptance of homosexuality and the role of potential confounders in a unique longitudinal sample of British siblings. Multilevel and fixed effects analyses show that both perspectives apply. A large part of the association between education and acceptance of homosexuality could be attributed to family background and observed individual characteristics (one third), as well as unobserved individual characteristics (an additional third), but the positive association remains. Findings are discussed in light of existing explanations regarding the effect of education on the acceptance of homosexuality.     

Enoch Powell,empires, immigrants and education

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, an intervention that is still viewed as one of the most incendiary statements of the perceived decay and violence likely to follow legislation intended to assure minoritised British citizens of equal rights regardless of their ethnic origin. In this essay, Sally Tomlinson (one of Britain’s foremost multicultural theorists) reflects on Powell’s legacy and the contemporary scene where in the US, UK and across Europe, White resentment and fear is increasingly shaping ‘mainstream’ debates about nationhood, migration and education.     

Reform priorities for prosperity of nations: The Legatum Index

We apply a four-stage methodology (i.e., cluster analysis, data mining, partial least square path modeling, and importance-performance analysis) to identify the critical paths to multi-dimensional prosperity of nations. Using the Legatum Prosperity Index across 142 countries as a proxy for prosperity, we find strong evidence of the positive causal mechanisms among dimensions of prosperity. This implies that individual dimensions of prosperity should not be weighted equally in designing policies that support prosperity of nations. In line with human capital theory, we find that education and the pupil to teacher ratio are the key policy drivers of prosperity enhancement.