Parental Choice in Israel's Educational System: Theory vs. Praxis

In the last two decades the Israeli educational system has undergone major changes which have transformed it from a state-controlled, overly bureaucratic and almost fully state-financed system into a decentralized, partly locally controlled and increasingly privately financed system. Advocates of this transformation of the educational system appeal to the ideal of parental choice. They argue that the implementation of parental choice programs in education shows more respect to the children and their unique talents, take their self-realization seriously and promotes equal opportunities in education. The ideal of parental choice is also upheld in relation to value of cultural pluralism. Supporters of educational autonomy advocate the restructuring of schools in a way allowing them to develop a unique climate and curriculum consistent with respective communities and parents' preferences. The aim of this paper is to assess critically the changes that Israeli educational system has undergone against the background of the principle of equal educational opportunities. The main claim of the paper is that these changes undermine this principle. It will be argued that these changes actually cater mainly to the educational interests of middle and upper middle classes in Israeli society.     

Taming the Conflict over Educational Equality

This article proposes an approach to educational distribution that attempts to minimise enduring tensions among conflicting values. At the foundation of this approach is a threshold of educational adequacy based on what is needed for citizens to participate in a democratic society. This threshold is justified because it minimises conflict with parental rights and because it better manages ‘the bottomless pit’ problem of educational distribution. This threshold is then modified to stipulate that, after the threshold has been reached, public resources should be distributed equally across students from all backgrounds. While this modification is essential to sending messages of equal citizenship, it also leaves a ‘moral residue’ because it allows wealthy parents to invest greater private resources in their children, thus preserving their children's competitive advantage. Minimising this harm requires policy mechanisms outside of schools that more aggressively break the link between educational outcomes, success in market competition, and social goods. Something ‘external’ to educational institutions is necessary, then, for the achievement of educational justice.     

Equality of Opportunity and Differences in Social Circumstances

It is often supposed that the point of equality of opportunity is to create a level playing-field. This is understood in different ways, however. A common proposal is what I call the neutralization view: that people's social circumstances should not differentially affect their life chances in any serious way. I raise problems with this view, before developing an alternative conception of equal opportunity which allows some variations in social circumstances to create differences in life prospects. The meritocratic conception which I defend is grounded in the idea of respect for persons, and provides a less demanding interpretation of fair access to qualifications; it nevertheless places constraints on the behaviour of parents, and has implications for educational provision in schools.     

Electronic doors to education: study of high school website accessibility in Iowa

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in all aspects of daily life, including education, work, and access to places of public accommodations. Increasingly, these antidiscrimination laws are used by persons with disabilities to ensure equal access to e-commerce, and to private and public Internet websites. To help assess the impact of the anti-discrimination mandate for educational communities, this study examined 157 website home pages of Iowa public high schools (52% of high schools in Iowa) in terms of their electronic accessibility for persons with disabilities. We predicted that accessibility problems would limit students and others in obtaining information from the web pages as well as limiting ability to navigate to other web pages. Findings show that although many web pages examined included information in accessible formats, none of the home pages met World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for accessibility. The most frequent accessibility problem was lack of alternative text (ALT tags) for graphics. Technical sophistication built into pages was found to reduce accessibility. Implications are discussed for schools and educational institutions, and for laws, policies, and procedures on website accessibility.     

Inez Beverly Prosser and the education of African Americans

Inez Beverly Prosser (ca. 1895-1934) was arguably the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in psychology. Her dissertation, completed in 1933, examined personality differences in black children attending either voluntarily segregated or integrated schools and concluded that black children were better served in segregated schools. This research was one of several studies in the 1920s and 1930s that was part of the debate on segregated schools as maintained in the United States under the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). This article examines the life and career of Prosser in the context of educational barriers and opportunities for African Americans in the early part of the twentieth century and explores the arguments that pitted African Americans against one another in determining how best to educate black children, arguments that eventually led to the desegregation decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).     

The role of educational counsellors in Kuwaiti secondary schools

Previous studies of educational counselling in Kuwaiti secondary schools have identified several concerns including inadequate facilities, a lack of clear role definition, and possible difficulties arising from the attempt to combine Western counselling models with Islamic values. To obtain information about the current state of educational counselling all 32 educational counsellors from Kuwait's credit course secondary schools were interviewed and were asked to complete checklists and time‐scale questionnaires. Analysis of the results suggest that development of the service has been uneven, and that role ambiguity, inadequate training and poor accommodation remain problematic. Recommendations for the remediation of these problems are made.     

Evaluation of Guidance Programs: Call the Question

Difficulties of time, counselor qualifications, appropriateness of the evaluating criteria, and concern for a positive impact on education confront those who attempt to evaluate guidance programs. These obstacles have been overcome in some programs. The notion that evaluation is on a priority level equal to that of other guidance practices is a most important concept. Evaluation may lead to improvement of the qualify of the impact of guidance programs on the educational setting. Also, evaluation should help counselors define more clearly their role in the public schools.     

On Public Aid to Christian Schools in the United States: A Reformed Christian Perspective

This paper seeks to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the topic of public aid to Christian schools in a Reformed Christian perspective. To do so, I need to clarify a Reformed Christian approach in regard to this topic and then review the studies of the issue in legal and educational aspects in the light of the Reformed perspective. Through reviewing legal and educational discussions, I argue that Christian schools are necessary for people to exercise their religious freedom and make a society more moral and spiritual and thus deserve receiving public aid. Nevertheless, public aid to religious schools needs to be carried out in a careful, restricted way.     

Improving urban and disadvantaged schools: Dissemination and utilization perspectives

There has been increasing concern in a number of countries about the perceived deterioration of schools that serve immigrant, minority or poor children. Field reports suggest that such schools tend to be bureaucratic, politicized, and isolated from the most up-to-date information about educational innovations that may improve the educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. Even in countries with relatively well-established dissemination systems, these schools may be “out of the knowledge utilization loop.” In this paper, the organizational properties of U.S. urban schools that may lead to their isolation from knowledge will be discussed, and a variety of strategies to improve dissemination and utilization will be outlined, including political/community organizing, linking dissemination to organization development, increasing the salience of ties between universities and schools, the development of teacher networks, and action research. The paper will conclude with some principles for designing a dissemination system that will effectively promote knowledge utilization in urban centers. p]The conditions in some of our schools are so bad, and the physical and social environments in which these schools are located are so frightful, that we may have to cross off some...as expendable. (Halpin, 1966, as quoted in Englert, 1993: 3.) Her research and teaching interests include innovation processes in education, knowledge use in schools, and schools as workplaces. Recent publications include articles on social values and the quality of teacher work life,Reforming the Urban High School: What Works and Why with Matthew B. Miles, andReshaping the Principalship, with Joe Murphy. The preparation of this paper was supported, in part, by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Effective Secondary Schools, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Grant No. G-008690007). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of either of the supporting agencies. An earlier version was presented at a conference on dissemination and school improvement held at Haifa University, June 1993.     

Should the State Fund Religious Schools?

abstract   In this article, I make a philosophical case for the state to fund religious schools. Ultimately, I shall argue that the state has an obligation to fund and provide oversight of all schools irrespective of their religious or non-religious character. The education of children is in the public interest and therefore the state must assume its responsibility to its future citizens to ensure that they receive a quality education. Still, while both religious schools and the polity have much to be gained from direct funding, I will show that parents and administrators of these schools may have reasons to be diffident toward the state and its hypothetical interference. While the focus of the paper is primarily on the American educational context, the philosophical questions related to state funding and oversight of religious schools transcend any one national context.     

Counselling in schools: Looking back and looking forward

The history of counselling in schools is briefly outlined. Recent educational reforms have led to a fragmented approach which represents a return to the earlier view that counselling should be provided by outside specialists. This is particularly evident in relation to the issue of student exclusion from schools. It goes against the growing emphasis on the inclusion of students and on attention to the student voice in education. Counselling has an important part to play in enhancing both learning and effective schooling. Interviews with staff and students in two schools are drawn upon. It is argued that a polarisation of the cognitive and the personal/social is false and shortsighted.     

The Public Schools: America's Achilles Heel

In a 1973 paper in The American Psychologist, a case was made for why it would take many decades for Blacks to improve their performance on school achievement and other cognitive tests. The paper was in opposition to Jensen's conclusion which emphasized genetics. One important part of the argument was deliberately omitted in that paper. The present paper deals with that omission which concerns the fact that our schools violate what is known about context for productive learning, a fact by no means peculiar to city schools. The near total failure of the educational reform movement has had and will continue to have consequences beyond the educational arena, one of these being Black anti-Semitism. Our cities are social time bombs. When they will ignite and explode is unpredictable. If classrooms become context for productive learning, the predicted positive outcomes require changes outside the schools, that is, the work arena.     

Religion,education and conflict in Northern Ireland

The aim of this article is to re‐evaluate and reaffirm the contribution of the churches and of Christianity to the realization in Northern Ireland schools of legitimate and progressive educational values such as the cultivation of tolerance, moral integrity and civic virtue. Implicit in this is a critique of educational initiatives that seek to undermine the influence of Christianity in schools. There is also discussion of the reasons why the increasing secularization of education in Northern Ireland should be resisted. The paper begins with a brief historical overview of the ongoing tension between religious and secular influences in education and notes the ways in which developments in education have tended to marginalize religion and to denude public education of Christian religious content and influence. Critical attention is then given to the role of religion in the Northern Ireland conflict, for it is the conviction that the conflict is religious that provides much of the stimulus for efforts to secularize education and schools. This is followed by some brief comments on the positive role that religion can play in religious education and in schools. The article concludes with a brief review of the reasons why a proper balance between secular and religious influences in schools in Northern Ireland should be maintained.     

Experiences with the encephalopathy questionnaire in developmental control of early childhood brain-damaged children

The Meyer-Probst questionnaire on typical encephalopathic behavior in children with early brain damage was used with 32 children attending special schools, at intervals during the first four years of school. Over a long-term test, the questionnaire has proved to be a suitable method for the registration of educational and physiotherapeutic results.     

A new discourse on spirituality in public education. Confronting the challenges in a post-secular society

Australia is facing a new frontier in the educational discourse of spirituality as we transition into a globalised and post-secular society. Teachers are now faced with the question of how to respond to the intrinsic spiritual awareness of secondary school students and the subsequent inquiry process into matters of personal spirituality, meaning and worldview. In Independent and Catholic schools across Australia, spirituality has a dimension to learning and has a significant place in the curriculum and in the classroom, inculcated through pastoral care programmes and the teaching of religious education. However, in public schools, there is a paucity of research investigating whether young people consider spirituality to be an important and worthwhile component of their educational experience. This article highlights the importance of inquiry into spirituality in public education, through political discourse, and the potential for resurgence in exploring spiritual lived experience from a phenomenological perspective.     

流动性、教育安置方式和心理弹性对流动儿童孤独感的影响:一项追踪研究

采用潜变量增长模型对426名流动儿童进行四次追踪测查,旨在考察流动儿童孤独感的变化趋势,探索不同流动性和教育安置方式的流动儿童孤独感变化的差异性以及心理弹性对孤独感变化的促进性作用。结果发现：（1）流动儿童的孤独感呈线性下降趋势;（2）打工子弟学校流动儿童的孤独感起始水平显著高于公立学校流动儿童;流动性高的儿童的孤独感起始水平高于流动性低的儿童,但流动性和教育安置方式对孤独感的发展趋势没有显著预测作用;（3）对于流动儿童来说,较高的心理弹性水平不仅能显著预测更低的孤独感起始水平,同时也能显著预测更快的孤独感的下降速率。本研究启示,增加进入公立学校学习的机会、降低流动频率和提升心理弹性对降低流动儿童的孤独感水平具有重要的意义。     

Including or excluding religion and worldviews in schools? Finnish teachers’ and teacher students’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

How schools navigate between the demands presented by secularisation, and the increasing plurality of religious traditions has become a very topical issue in many European countries, including Finland, in recent decades. The question is both practical and philosophical by nature because the ways in which various beliefs and values are represented in school practices and teaching content profoundly concern the educational mission of the schools. However, despite the topicality of the issue, little attention has been given to teachers’ perceptions on whether public schools should, or should not, provide space for various religions and worldviews to become visible within the school life, and how schools should respond in practice to the perceived needs. In order to gain new knowledge on the topic, this study investigated Finnish teachers’ and university students’ (N = 181) perceptions of the representations of religions and worldviews, based on the perspectives of inclusion and exclusion. The statistical analysis revealed three factors titled as ‘Religiously responsive approach’, ‘Secularist approach’ and ‘Equal visibility approach’. According to the main findings, current and future educators show various degrees of inter-religious sensitivity but principally supported the equal visibility of various traditions, rather than favouring strongly inclusivist or exclusivist practices.     

God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School

Professors who teach educational psychology at the member colleges and universities of the Association of Christian Schools International were surveyed concerning their approach to teaching educational psychology. Sixty-two surveys were returned from the 169 schools. The survey indicated that 96.7% of the responding schools offer a major in education and require their education majors to take a course in educational psychology. A majority of the respondents were very interested in approaching the topic from a biblical perspective and desired more resources to do so. An outline is presented of the challenges that must be overcome before a learning theory that is both scientific and biblical can be developed and empirically verified.     

The Inclusion Inventory

Abstract

While several studies have investigated the effects of inclusive education on children receiving special education services, less effort has been directed toward assessing implementation of inclusive educational practices. This article describes development of the Inclusion Inventory, a 90-item tool designed to survey educators' perceptions of inclusive educational practices in their school. Administration of the Inventory to 2,763 respondents from 72 schools across a large southwestern state yielded internal consistency reliability coefficients of .72 and above for the seven subscales. Respondents with experience in inclusive educational practices and those from schools where teams implement inclusive education tended to have higher ratings on the Inclusion Inventory. Implications are considered for educators and others involved in inclusive education.     

Are You Being Served? The Relationship between School Climate for Service and Teachers' Engagement,Satisfaction, and Intention to Leave: A Moderated Mediation Model

The notion of service has been receiving increasing attention in organizational psychology literature in recent years, due to the client-oriented managerial movement. Yet, little to no attention has been paid to the service notion in educational psychology despite its high relevance to educational settings, given the pressure to be more service-oriented and possess a client-focused state of mind. The present study explores the notion of service in school domains by examining the joint effects of climate for service and the internal service in schools on teachers' work attitudes: work engagement, job satisfaction, and intention to leave their work. The notion of climate for service emphasizes the school's attitude of teachers as service providers to its clients (students and their parents); internal climate emphasizes the school's attitude of providing service to its teaching staff. The study was conducted via a sample of 423 teachers from 30 different schools in Israel. We hypothesized that the indirect relationship between the climate for service and teachers' job satisfaction and intention to leave work would be mediated by teacher work engagement. Our findings supported this hypothesis. Moreover, this indirect relationship via teacher work engagement was demonstrated most strongly when the internal service quality received was high, providing teachers with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. Therefore, service-oriented resources—both climate for service and internal service—may be crucial in affecting teachers work attitudes and should be specifically targeted by principals and other educational decision makers.