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1.
Recent concern with the academic performance of schools has led a number of local education authorities to develop systems for measuring the ‘added value’ that can be attributed to particular institutions in their control. An analysis of data published by one Midlands shire county on the performance of A level candidates in 1992 raised questions about the relative levels of academic achievement of pupils who remained within the Catholic school system compared to those who transferred to local authority institutions for their full‐time education after the age of 16. A small representative sample of students from a Catholic school who had transferred to a non‐Catholic sixth form college to take A level courses was interviewed. The students’ comments suggested they found significant differences in the college ethos compared to that of their previous Catholic school. Those findings together with the analysis or the available data from the local authority, raise issues that merit further detailed research.  相似文献   

2.
This paper is offered as a contribution to a debate about the public accountability of church‐affiliated schools grant‐aided by the state. The paper provides an account of two parallel secondary school systems in Northern Ireland, popularly described as ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’, in effectiveness terms. The outcome measure is academic performance in public examinations taken by pupils at the end of the period of statutory schooling. The paper extends earlier work of the author by focusing on Catholic schools in the light of access to a second and more up‐to‐date data set and to recent Scottish findings. Having indicated ‘raw’ performance differences between the two sectors, a value‐added approach to performance measurement is presented. Doubt is cast on aspects of the received wisdom concerning the superior academic performance of Protestant‐educated pupils.  相似文献   

3.
At a time when the faith-based identity of schools is facing serious challenges, the researchers undertook a longitudinal study of the relevant opinions, beliefs and values of student-teachers at a Catholic university campus in Australia. The focus of the current paper is on the responses of first-year students to a survey regarding their choice of secondary school, the purposes of schooling and the characteristics of Catholic schools. Relevant context are addressed including global education trends, the values and characteristics of Catholic education and relevant aspects of Australian schooling and youth culture. Regardless of religious affiliation, self-reported religiosity or type of school attended, providing a ‘safe and caring school environment’ emerged as the most important purpose of schooling and as a key reason for choice of school, while faith-based purposes and reasons received particularly low ratings. ‘Caring community’ was regarded as by far the most important characteristic of the Catholic school, followed by engagement in social justice programmes. The findings are briefly compared with parallel findings for teachers in Queensland Catholic schools.  相似文献   

4.
While recognising the limitations of published government ‘league tables’ as an appropriate method of comparing the relative effectiveness of schools, an analysis of the data they provided on the 1992 examination results notes the apparent success of Catholic schools. A summary of some of the limited available research evidence on Catholic school effectiveness is given and the suggestion made that a rigorous study of their organisation and ethos could provide knowledge of value for improving the effectiveness of all schools.  相似文献   

5.
This paper presents the findings of a pilot study that explored students’ experiences of test anxiety when taking A-level examinations. Four focus groups were convened with a sample of 19 participants in the south of England to explore the triggers of test anxiety and the perceived need for interventions to assist high test-anxious students cope with the examination process. The findings suggested that the participants experienced two types of anxiety: ‘pre-exam anxiety’ (relating to, for example, revision and mock examinations) and ‘exam-day anxiety’ (relating to practical concerns, such as school policy on the arrival of students and the time available to complete the examination). Only three participants reported feeling that their examination performance was significantly impaired by test anxiety; most reported that a degree of anxiety aided their performance. With test anxiety perceived by most participants as motivational and useful, there was little support for any interventions from examination boards, parents or teachers to help reduce or manage test anxiety. However, based on participants’ experiences of the pre-examination period, it is suggested that test anxiety may impede students’ ability to prepare for their examinations, and that interventions during this stage may be useful. The findings also imply that there are some practical steps that could be taken by the educational community to help reduce students’ test anxiety.  相似文献   

6.
Despite a long history of interest in North American and Western European literature, researchers in the UK are only now beginning to turn attention to the issue of academic stress in schoolchildren and how it may affect emotional well‐being, health and performance on school assessments. Based on the author's experiences of designing an extensive research project, this article explores the conceptual and methodological difficulties encountered when designing and conducting research in this area. First, there is a lack of precision in terminology used. The terms ‘stress’, ‘anxiety’ and ‘worry’ are used interchangeably in the literature as if they referred to the same phenomenon, and the domains of ‘examination stress’ and ‘academic stress’ are not clearly defined. As a consequence, it is not clear exactly what phenomenon the literature is actually referring to. Second, it is not always clear in the literature what the term ‘stress’ is referring to. In some cases, it is being used to refer to the properties of a stimulus (e.g. an examination) and in other cases to the subjective experience of distress. Assuming a subjective experience of distress will necessarily follow from a particular stimulus is problematic as it fails to account for the interpretation of that stimulus to the student involved. The much ignored construct of test anxiety may offer some advantages to the researcher by having a clearly defined domain and referent. Third, there is an overwhelming bias in the research towards quantification and ways of ‘measuring’ stress and anxiety in students. The usefulness of this approach is considered along with the potential advantages of alternative approaches.  相似文献   

7.
Until recently, children and young people’s perspectives have been largely overlooked in considering optimal approaches to supporting their wellbeing at school. This article reports student views on the meaning of ‘wellbeing’ and how this is best facilitated, gathered as part of a large, national research project aimed at understanding and improving approaches to wellbeing in schools. The data reported here were gathered through 67 focus groups, involving 606 primary and secondary school students, across three Catholic school regions in different Australian states. Students provided rich accounts of how they view their wellbeing, conceptualised across three interconnected themes of ‘being’, ‘having’ and ‘doing’. They identified relationships with self, teachers, friends, peers and significant others, as central to their wellbeing. The findings point to immense potential in accessing and utilising children and young people’s views for change and reform in schools in the area of student wellbeing.  相似文献   

8.
Performance assessments have been touted for their multidimensional and ‘realworld’, or authentic, appearance, yet this complexity is at the heart of the most serious problems in the use of performance assessments. If performance assessments are more multidimensional and situational, then perhaps performance assessment scores represent other things besides the construct of interest. This study empirically explored that possibility, namely that scores on a performance assessment reflect a motivational variable (perception of control), in addition to the construct intended, while an objective test does not. Data from high school Spanish students who took an objective test, a performance assessment and a measure of perceptions of control suggest that perceptions of control indeed predict performance assessment scores but not objective test scores.  相似文献   

9.
Abstract

TVEI in its pilot phase seeks to ‘test and explore’ new approaches to the education and training of 14‐18 year‐olds. Quantitative performance indicators can be used to assess its impact in two ways. ‘Whole‐school’ comparisons contrast the performance of TVEI schools with other schools nationally, and with their own performance in earlier years. ‘Within‐school’ comparisons contrast TVEI with non‐TVEI students from the same schools. Whole‐school comparisons, based on the year group which included the first Scottish pilot TVEI cohort, found no impact of TVEI on examination attainment, truancy, staying‐on at 16 or the employment of early leavers. Within‐school comparisons found a favourable (if problematic) effect on truancy, but found no significant average effect across the Scottish projects on the other outcomes. However the effects of TVEI on all outcomes varied across schools or projects. The true test of the success of the TVEI pilot is its ability to learn from this variation, and will be measured in respect of later cohorts.  相似文献   

10.
This article considers the notion of ‘underachievement’ as it is applied to pupil performance in school. It argues that rather than being a straightforward concept, underachievement is one where little consensus exists over its definition and measurement. Previous work on underachievement has tended to cluster around two manifestations of the issue. On the one hand, there is the comparative notion of differential achievement—often specifically low achievement—as used in media commentaries and, on the other, there is its definition in psychological research as the discrepancy between an individual's performance on a test of mental ability a subsequent school examination. Using a stricter definition of underachievement that takes into account a range of background as well as academic variables when predicting examination performance, this paper describes the construction of a model for predicting individual performance in future Key Stage 3 examinations. Individuals whose examination performance was then significantly lower than expected were termed underachievers. The composition of this group was examined in light of existing ‘moral panics’ about underachieving working-class boys.  相似文献   

11.
The increased demand for secondary schooling, which took place in New Zealand in the years after 1924, had important consequences for the Catholic educational mission. No longer was it sufficient to provide a comprehensive elementary system of education that transmitted a ‘simple faith to a simple people’, and a secondary schooling for the educational advancement and social mobility of the select few. Justified on the basis of the need to protect the faith of the growing number of pupils going on to secondary school, the expanded educational mission was also grounded in a new Catholic identity as ‘moral’ patriotic citizens committed to Catholic family values and successful participation in New Zealand society. Catholic secondary schools offered a utilitarian secondary education, which focussed on success in state‐mandated examinations, to the children of parents ambitious for their social and economic success in the world. Nevertheless, there were tensions in a Catholic educational mission that worked for the social and educational advancement of Catholic pupils while aiming for their ultimate salvation and the protection Catholic religious and cultural values.  相似文献   

12.
The Catholic school system in the United States is undergoing significant changes in size, populations served and the funding models which have traditionally supported such schools. The closing of many schools in urban areas in the last 10 years in conjunction with the rising costs of schooling suggests that unless a new approach to funding schools is developed, the future of Catholic education in the United States is seriously threatened and with it the American Church. This article explores the link between traditional sources of funding Catholic schools and the increased role of federal and state funds. The rise of Charter Schools has added a significant model for Catholic schools to emulate in regarding future sources of funding. Three strategies for future funding are explored with an emphasis on the development of Faith-based Charter Schools and the development of ‘Catholic’ Charter Schools.  相似文献   

13.
Fifty primary and 52 secondary teachers were interviewed about their concerns and fears as first‐year teachers in Catholic schools. Teacher variables of gender and maturity, as well as school variables such as socio‐economic status (SES), non‐English speaking background (NESB), school size and primary/secondary level were examined as sources of difference in expressed concerns and needs. Ranked concerns associated with meeting individual differences were ranked highest followed by ‘Content’, ‘Control’ and ‘Motivation’, ‘Teaching Migrants’, ‘Record Keeping’ and ‘Communication’. Open‐ended responses differed from ranked responses with ‘Efficacy’, ‘Control’ and ‘Content’ the most frequently mentioned fears. In general, no significant differences were found between rankings of concerns for primary/secondary levels or for teacher gender. However SES, NESB and teacher tender were significantly related to concerns for certain subsets of data.  相似文献   

14.
The ethnographer’s embodied action during research is a complex of habit, belief, social and institutional positioning, and intention. This article examines what urban anthropologist Wacqaunt calls ‘carnal sociology’ and considers its implications for ethnographers of religious educational spaces. Contemporary ethnographers of education have renewed their interest in religious educational spaces—religious schools, houses of worship, public festivals. In conducting research in the field of religious education, ethnographers often cross familiar and unfamiliar boundaries, engaging in forms of participant observation and practice beyond their own religious categories: we research in religious spaces and with religious communities different from our own commitments. Drawing on interactional data from a multi-year ethnography of an urban Catholic school and parish in Philadelphia (USA), I consider how my own embodied participation in the religious rituals of the school and parish led to a reflexivity on practice, and initiated institutional and youth-driven social positioning in response.  相似文献   

15.
This article builds on the recent Special Interest issue of this journal on ‘Philosophy for Children in Transition’ (2011) and the way that the debate about philosophy in schools has now shifted to whether or not it ought to be a compulsory part of the curriculum. This article puts the spotlight on Catholic schools in order to present a different argument in favour of introducing compulsory philosophy lessons into the curriculum. It is explained that in faith schools, such as Catholic ones, there is an additional need or imperative to have compulsory philosophy as part of the curriculum. This is because it serves as an effective way of avoiding the inherent dangers of confessional education, particularly the indoctrination challenge. It is argued that Catholic schools also have some intriguing theological reasons that can be used to justify the inclusion of compulsory philosophy in the school curriculum. It is proposed that when it comes to philosophy in schools there is a distinctive Catholic school perspective. As part of this it is explained why Catholic schools, perhaps more than others, need philosophy to be a compulsory part of the curriculum.  相似文献   

16.
The impact of selective education systems on pupil performance has long been a contentious issue, but the advent of national value‐added datasets linking performance across key stages for the majority of pupils in England has enabled detailed analysis to throw some light on the issues. The main finding has been a distinct difference in Key Stage 3 test levels for pupils on the ‘borderline’ between grammar school and secondary modern school, even when prior attainment is taken into account. Possible explanations for this apparent ‘grammar school effect’ are discussed.  相似文献   

17.
This research aims to look at how a group of primary head teachers’ in the North West of England perceive the Catholic nature of their schools and how they give their account of Catholic education for twenty-first century Britain. They go on to describe their feelings about the mission of their school. The head teachers’ views of how they identified their school’s Catholicism are critiqued in the light of Catholic Church teaching on the nature of Catholic schools and compared to academic and theological models of Catholic education.  相似文献   

18.
In Britain, educational qualifications gained at school continue to play an important and central role in young people’s educational and employment pathways. Recently there has been growing interest in documenting the lives of ‘ordinary’ young people. In this paper we analyse the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales in order to better document the experiences of those with ‘middle’ levels of school General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment. The overall pattern of school GCSE attainment is one of increasing levels of performance. GCSE attainment is still highly stratified. Girls performed better than boys, and there were some marked differences in attainment for pupils from the main minority ethnic groups. Most notably, parental socio-economic positions are the most important factor. The analyses fail to persuade us that there are clear boundaries that demark a ‘middle’ category of school GCSE attainment. We conclude that sociologists should study ‘ordinary’ young people; however, school GCSE attainment is best understood as a continuum, and measures such as the number of GCSEs or point scores are preferable.  相似文献   

19.
Several societies throughout the global North and South are now witnessing unprecedented patterns of marginally higher female academic performance and educational attainment. But the processes that have generated such patterns and responses to their development have not been uniform across or within these societies. In multiracial Fiji, statistics reveal higher secondary school enrolment and lower attrition rates for Fijian females compared with Fijian males, and while national examination scores are not aggregated by sex, Fijian girls are widely viewed as relatively ‘higher achievers’. Drawing from participant observation in a working-class, co-educational, predominantly Fijian secondary school and a selective Fijian girls’ secondary school, this article explores how the intersections of social class, culture and sex structure in schools mediate the interpretation of, response to, and assessment of Fijian female academic achievement.  相似文献   

20.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study are two highly respected studies of school pupils’ academic achievement. English policy-makers have been disappointed with school children’s performance on these tests, particularly in comparison to the strong results of young people from East Asia. In this paper, we provide new insight into the England–East Asia gap in school children’s mathematics skills. We do so by considering how cross-national differences in math test scores change between ages 10 and 16. Our results suggest that, although average math test scores are higher in East Asian countries, this achievement gap does not increase between ages 10 and 16. We thus conclude that reforming the secondary school system may not be the most effective way for England to ‘catch up’ with the East Asian nations in the PISA math rankings. Rather, earlier intervention, during pre-school and primary school, may be needed instead.  相似文献   

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