Educational Justice: Closing Gaps or Paying Debts?

The question of our educational obligations to disadvantaged students has typically been conceptualized using the language of achievement gaps: how and to what extent should we ameliorate gaps between students in terms of their attainment of certain valuable outcomes that are correlated with education? Recently, some have argued that the language of achievement gaps is misconceived and problematic, and that we should instead conceptualize our obligations to students as an education debt that is owed to certain disadvantaged students as descendants of historic and structural injustices. Underlying this argument is a deeper conviction that the moral requirement to bring about a fair patterned distribution of educational outcomes is constrained by an obligation to rectify historical injustices. By conceptualizing the issue as a debt, rather than a gap (the argument goes), we can keep the priority of historical obligations squarely on the table. In this article, I defend the conceptual framework of achievement gaps in primary and secondary education by arguing that patterned principles of educational justice are not constrained by any claims and obligations that arise in virtue of historic injustices.     

Resilient teenagers: Explaining the high educational aspirations of visible-minority youth in Canada

While previous studies show that visible minority and immigrant students are disadvantaged within the school system, findings from a national Canadian survey of 15-year old students and their parents indicate that visible-minority immigrant students nevertheless have higher educational aspirations than Canadian-born nonvisible minority students. Using the 2000 Youth in Transition survey, this paper examines sociodemographic, social psychological, and school performance factors that help explain much of the difference in aspirations between these groups. We conclude by identifying areas of future research that could further uncover the family, school, and community processes that shape aspirations and the relationships between aspirations and future educational and occupational attainment.     

印度农村医疗的现状与对策

自印度独立以来,政府就致力于采取各种有力措施来改善人们的健康情况并已卓见成效。尽管印度政府采取了一系列的发展政策,经济、地区发展不平衡及男女不平等还是为医疗部门带来了巨大的挑战。分析印度政府在农村所面临的问题以及为解决这些问题政府颁布的新政策。     

Comparative differences in the self-perceptions of disadvantaged and advantaged students

Previous research had indicated positive and significantly higher self-perceptions for disadvantaged children in comparison to advantaged children in grades four through eight. The intention of this research was to determine whether disadvantaged children maintain their more positive self-images when they enter the more integrated environment with advantaged children. It was discovered that both disadvantaged and advantaged high school students had significantly lower self-perception scores than did the elementary school pupils. The importance of the study is in the continued non-support of the hypothesis that disadvantaged children of all ages have negative self concepts—whether in segregated or integrated situations. However, the study further shows that high school students' self-images are not as high as those of younger children—whether they are disadvantaged or advantaged.     

Theoretical and methodological directions in mindset intervention research

Growth mindset interventions directed at students aim to change students' beliefs about the malleability of ability. These interventions have had mixed results, with some showing impressive findings (e.g., improving grades and persistence in science and closing performance gaps), while other implementations have shown null findings. This heterogeneity suggests that growth mindset interventions should not be viewed as a sole solution for improving educational outcomes for students and that further research is needed to identify the contextual factors that influence their effectiveness. We propose new theoretical directions in mindset research that adopts an anti-deficit model and moves away from focusing exclusively on students and their belief systems. Instead, we encourage a new wave of mindset research that considers the institutional, cultural, and contextual environment that either corroborates or negates students' mindset beliefs. We propose a new approach to mindset research that emphasizes innovative approaches to better understand the conditions under which mindset interventions are effective.     

Beyond Knowledge Gaps: Examining Socioeconomic Differences in Response to Cancer News

This article tested a model, informed by the knowledge gap hypothesis, to predict information seeking about cancer immediately following news about the diagnosis or death from cancer of a national celebrity. I identified five celebrity news events and examined their impact using data from the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey. News coverage about celebrity news events was more likely to promote information seeking among people with greater education than among those with less education. These differences were explained, at least in part, by the fact that highly educated people had greater health knowledge and community involvement than less‐educated people. These factors may contribute to widening socioeconomic gaps in prevention behaviors. I suggest strategies to address these gaps.     

Cultural group norms for harmony explain the puzzling negative association between objective status and system justification in Asia

Why do poorer and less educated Asians trust their institutions of governance more than their richer and well educated counterparts, despite their disadvantaged position within society? System justification theory (SJT) assumes that this trust is driven by a system-level motivation that operates independently from social identity needs. In two nationally representative surveys spanning several years (N_total = 221,297), we compared SJT's explanation with a newer social identity model of system attitudes (SIMSA): that system justification amongst disadvantaged Asians is driven by a group norm for harmony, especially amongst those who are strongly invested in their national ingroup. The results supported SIMSA more than SJT. Specifically, a strong sense of national identification boosted trust in systems of governance amongst poorer and less-educated Asians, both when societal norms for harmony (Study 1), and personal endorsement of this norm (Study 2) were strong. Hence, social identity needs help to explain stronger system justification among objectively disadvantaged Asians.     

Foucault's "fearless speech" and the transformation and mentoring of medical students

In his six 1983 lectures published under the title, Fearless Speech (2001), Michel Foucault developed the theme of free speech and its relation to frankness, truth-telling, criticism, and duty. Derived from the ancient Greek word parrhesia, Foucault's analysis of free speech is relevant to the mentoring of medical students. This is especially true given the educational and social need to transform future physicians into able citizens who practice a fearless freedom of expression on behalf of their patients, the public, the medical profession, and themselves in the public and political arena. In this paper, we argue that Foucault's understanding of free speech, or parrhesia, should be read as an ethical response to the American Medical Association's recent educational effort, Initiative to Transform Medical Education (ITME): Recommendations for change in the system of medical education (2007). In this document, the American Medical Association identifies gaps in medical education, emphasizing the need to enhance health system safety and quality, to improve education in training institutions, and to address the inadequacy of physician preparedness in new content areas. These gaps, and their relationship to the ITME goal of promoting excellence in patient care by implementing reform in the US system of medical education, call for a serious consideration and use of Foucault's parrhesia in the way that medical students are trained and mentored.     

Community-based college guidance for the disadvantaged

New techniques of counseling and guidance must be developed in order to increase substantially the number of disadvantaged students going to college. One major effort should be an organized community guidance program whose essential elements are: (a) professional school and college counselors operating outside the school; (b) key community persons acting as links between potential college students and professional counselors; and (c) ongoing programs providing literature, speakers, and special services geared to motivate and help disadvantaged students to enroll in and be successful at college.     

An Application of Brief Experimental Analysis with Early Writing

Students’ poor performance on national assessments of writing suggests that educators need effective approaches to assess and intervene with writing problems. Brief experimental analysis (BEA) has supporting evidence for identifying interventions in reading, but little research has investigated BEA with writing. Early writing is an especially important period for students, and the current study sought to extend BEA research in early writing. Results showed that BEAs for 3 first grade students identified promising writing interventions, and extended analyses showed improved performance for each student following implementation of the interventions. Implications for future research in direct assessment and intervention are discussed.     

Social and life skill competence in potential early school-leavers

Competencies in social and life skills of a group of students expecting to leave school at the end of Grade 10 in Australia is compared with groups expecting to continue. Academic performance and skills were also assessed. The results of the study indicated that the potential early school-leavers were disadvantaged both socio-economically and academically. But, surprisingly, the findings indicated that they were not significantly different from the other two groups of students targeted in the study in terms of their social and life skills. The results imply that potential early leavers in school populations may be unnecessarily disadvantaged because school programmes, in concentrating on a narrow range of cognitive skills, do not build on personal competency skills already possessed by students of all levels of ability. Whilst this is the case, potential early school-leavers will be likely to continue to be disaffected and disadvantaged educationally.     

The Impact of Participatory Research on Urban Teens: An Experimental Evaluation

Although there is much practice of community-based participatory research in economically-developing countries and increasingly in North America, there has been little systematic assessment of empowerment effects. Youth-led participatory research holds particular promise for fostering positive development and civic participation among economically disadvantaged urban youth. The present investigation uses a clustered-randomized, within-school experimental design to test the effects of youth-led participatory research on the psychological empowerment of 401 students attending urban public schools. We find that attending a participatory research elective class during the school day was associated with increases in sociopolitical skills, motivation to influence their schools and communities, and participatory behavior. We found no significant effects for perceived control at school. The implications for participatory research and related youth development interventions are discussed.     

Dynamic Testing in Selection for an Educational Programme: Assessing South African Performance on the Raven Progressive Matrices

This article describes the research results of an investigation into the use of dynamic testing for the selection of candidates for an educational programme. The selection of students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds for mathematics‐, science‐, and technology‐based programmes is a problem for which most South African higher education institutions still have to find adequate solutions. Dynamic testing procedures are often seen as more fair to use for selection than single‐session tests in situations of unequal educational opportunity. The possibility that a selection instrument using a dynamic testing process could add significantly to the selection effectiveness already achieved in a South African mathematics and science foundation year using single‐session tests was investigated. The performance of a group of educationally disadvantaged black South African students on the Raven Progressive Matrices is compared to that of other groups reported in research literature. Considering the disadvantaged nature of the South African group, the group performed well on the Raven test when compared with data from other countries.     

Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Childhood Obesity in a Sample of Low-Income,Single Female,Parent/Guardian Households: Implications for Family Therapists

The United States is in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic that disproportionately impacts underserved and diverse populations. In this study, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 low-income, single, female, parent/guardians of an overweight or obese 3- to 8-year-old from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Following the tenets of the thematic analysis approach, interviews focused on identifying risk and protective factors influencing parental and child health behaviors associated with child weight status. Results from the interviews are organized according to the Socioecological Framework to help identify risk and protective factors at various system levels. Findings from this investigation have relevance for family therapists as they can inform clinical and advocacy-focused interventions with disadvantaged families affected by childhood obesity.     

When stereotypes disadvantage boys: Strength of stereotypes in mathematics and language arts and their relations with grades

There is growing concern about boys' lagging performance in school, not only in language arts, where the gap is particularly pronounced, but also in mathematics. Stereotypes associating one gender with language arts or with mathematics are likely to contribute to these gaps. Such stereotypes can translate into explicit beliefs such as the extent to which students are aware of societal stereotypes or the extent to which they personally believe stereotypes to be true, but also indirectly into performance following a stereotype threat manipulation. However, few studies have considered these multiple stereotype expressions in both mathematics and language arts to examine their importance in predicting boys' and girls' actual grades in school. To fill this gap, two complementary studies examined high school boys' and girls' awareness and endorsement of stereotypes about both language arts (n = 299) and mathematics (n = 243), as well as whether stereotype threat impaired boys' performance on a spelling test. Although the effect of stereotype threat was not significant overall, our results showed that students were aware of and endorsed strong stereotypes advantaging girls in language arts. In mathematics, students endorsed counter-traditional stereotypes slightly advantaging girls. Our results also showed that these multiple expressions of stereotypes related to students' grades. In doing so, our work provides insights regarding possible targets for interventions to reduce gender gaps disadvantaging boys in school.     

An integrative framework on the impact of allies: How identity-based needs influence intergroup solidarity and social movements

What impact do advantaged group allies have within social movements? Although solidarity between advantaged and disadvantaged group members is often encouraged to achieve long-term social change, allies run the risk of being ineffective or counterproductive, therefore making it important to shift our focus towards understanding the impact of allies. We propose an integrative theoretical framework describing the positive and negative impact of allies based on their distinct identity-based needs: advantaged group members’ need for moral acceptance and disadvantaged group members’ need for empowerment and respect. By consolidating extant literature and identifying gaps in prior research, we propose a set of hypotheses concerning (a) tensions that arise within intergroup solidarity efforts for social change between advantaged group allies and disadvantaged group members, and (b) the role of allies in influencing broader public opinion to advance the psychology of social change.     

STRUGGLING WITH A NONTRADITIONAL PAST

This article reports findings from a qualitative study that explored the educational experiences of women who were academic high achievers and who were disadvantaged as children. An interesting result was that most participants, if not all, believed that one reason they were successful was because they never revealed their personal histories to education professionals. This article describes the participants' relationship to the concept of disadvantage and the process they went through to have a voice in a system that rewarded them for their silence. It also addresses the question of when it is appropriate to disclose personal information in educational settings. Some believe there should be a separation between the personal and the professional. Others argue that women and disadvantaged students need education that is connected to their life experiences. If this is true, we must ask how this connection can be made when people from disadvantaged backgrounds believe they must hide who they are to succeed.     

Getting black kids into college

The gap between black and white in college enrollment is widening. The guidance counselor plays a key role in the drive to eliminate the differences between the races in preparation for college and to secure the scholarships and grants necessary for enrollment. Comparability in enrollment means about 850,000 black students on college campuses; about 400,000 are there now. Comparability in 1976 will mean about a million black students enrolled. Master Counselors are required for this job, both to work with the children and to press for more federal aid in this area.     

Effects of an early reading intervention based on grapho-syllabic decoding and fluency training in French elementary schools

IntroductionStudies conducted in recent decades have led to the development of instructional interventions to help prevent or eliminate a large proportion of reading difficulties. However, few experiments have been conducted in French schools.ObjectiveAims for this research were to create, implement and evaluate a remediation program for French students with reading difficulties up to the end of elementary school.MethodThis paper examines the effects of a decoding-skills and fluency-based intervention on 133 struggling readers in second- to fifth-grade. Depending on the nature of their reading difficulties, students were given a year-long training based either on grapho-syllabic conversion — focusing on syllable units, rather than phonemic units, is considered a promising way of helping French-speaking beginning readers — or on repeated reading techniques, used to improve fluency.ResultsIncreases in written-word identification scores were greater for students who followed the program than they were for a control group of 184 students with reading difficulties who did not follow the program.ConclusionThe results show that programs combining early evaluation of written-word identification abilities followed by a year-long series of remediation sessions focusing on specific difficulties can help students progress in written-word identification. However, further research is needed to examine why our program was less effective with children from disadvantaged (“éducation prioritaire”) areas.     

学校心理环境对小学4～6年级学生学业表现的作用及条件

本研究基于具有良好全国代表性的中国儿童青少年心理发育特征数据库,使用多水平建模,分析了来自全国100个区县421所学校的心理环境特征对10826名小学4~6年级学生学业表现的影响途径及其发挥作用的条件。研究结果表明:(1)小学4~6年级学生学习动机和态度及学业成绩中分别有10.0%和33.3%的变异来自学生个体以外的学校因素。(2)在控制学生年级、性别、家庭背景和学校所在地、师资、学校学生总体家庭社会经济地位(SES)等基本特征后,学校总体和学生个体知觉两个层次的学校心理环境对学生学习动机和态度的影响均显著大于其对学生学业成绩的影响;与个体知觉到的心理环境相比,学校总体心理环境对学生学业成绩的作用相对较强。(3)学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现的影响受到学校所在地、学校师资水平、学校学生总体社会经济地位的显著调节。学校总体心理环境对处于师资水平较低、平均家庭年收入较低学校学生的学习动机和态度具有相对更强的保护作用;对处于农村、师资水平较低、平均家长文化水平较低学校学生的学业成绩具有相对更强的保护性作用。上述结果表明,学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现具有重要影响,个体知觉到的心理环境仅部分中介其作用;且学校总体心理环境对学生学业表现的作用强度受到学校所在地、师资水平和学校学生总体社会经济地位的调节。