Access, Coping and Relevance of Education in Youth Transitions: The German Transition System Between Labour Society and Knowledge Society

In 1985 significant school reforms prolonged the duration of primary schooling in Kenya from 7 to 8 years. The goal of the reforms, amongst other changes, was to increase skills and consequently increase earnings for workers with primary school education. This paper explores whether the extra year of primary schooling may have enhanced skills and consequently increased relative wages for workers with the additional eighth year of primary schooling. Such an analysis is important for two reasons. First, we are the first to gauge the impact of the reforms on relative wage changes for workers with primary school education in a developing country setting particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Second, and more importantly, such an inquiry is warranted because by focusing solely on relative wage changes for primary school educated workers, we consider whether the reforms did actually increase relative wages for workers with more i.e. 8 years of primary schooling without the confounding effects of post primary school education (i.e. secondary, tertiary, middle-level and university education) on earnings. Our empirical technique takes advantage of exogenous variation induced by the new policy and employs a data-driven pseudo regression discontinuity design to consider whether the new school reforms did indeed create a wage discontinuity for workers with 7 and 8 years of primary school education at the cutoff point in 1985. Utilizing data from the 2004/2005 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey, our findings shed new light. We find that although the relative wage for workers with 7 years of primary schooling is marginally higher, the trajectory of the age-earnings profile is relatively steeper for workers with the 8th year of primary schooling. This finding, consistent with human capital theory, suggests that workers with the extra year of primary schooling would earn a higher future relative wage. As such, from a policy standpoint, increasing the duration of primary school education may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for increasing relative wages for workers with the added year of primary schooling at least in the short run. Short run underlying factors, such as differences in age, years of labor market experience, compounded by transition bottlenecks (not considered in this paper but widely discussed in the literature) may inhibit an instantaneous wage increase for workers with the added year of primary schooling.

Twenty-one children aged 5-6 years (mean age: 71.2 months; S.D. = 2.7) were videotaped in 4 different kindergartens throughout the school day for a period of one week. Eighteen of these children were then followed up after the summer holidays and videotaped for one week while attending the first year of primary school. The behaviors measured for each child were yawning and general motor activity. It was found that: (1) The frequency of yawning appears to be 5 times higher in the first year of primary school than in the last year of kindergarten; (2) Throughout the school-day the percentage of yawning children is higher in the first year of primary school, with the exception of the 1400-1430 period; (3) In the first year of primary school, the percentage of yawning children and the frequency of yawning peak between 900 and 930 and 1430 and 1500; (4) In this school institution the percentage of children who get up from their chair and spontaneously move above increases from the beginning to the end of each school-day. Three cardio-vascular variables were investigated in 17 children of the sample population: heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure. We found that: (1) The lowest values for heart rate in the first year of primary school are in agreement with the classical data of child development, as the children are 5-6 months older than in the last year of kindergarten. However, this is not the case at 1400 when the heart rate peaks at a higher level in the first year of primary school; (2) If the evolution in time of the blood pressure agrees in both institutions with the classical data of human chronobiology, i.e. the maximum values at 1400, the differences in mean level at all times during the school day between both institutions do not agree with what is commonly accepted, i.e. an increase in blood pressure with age; (3) The amplitude of the variations of the heart rate and blood pressure from one 30-min period to another throughout the school day is significantly higher in primary school. The comparison of the data obtained in both school institutions suggests that the observed differences are related to sharp modifications in school rhythms and constraints when the children go from the last year of kindergarten to the first year of primary school.

The choice of language used to impart education can have important effects on the process of human capital formation. We develop a dynamic model to understand the implications of the choice of language used in education. The main contribution of the framework is to show that the number of years of primary schooling during which mother tongue instruction is provided might have non-linear effects on human capital. The marginal benefit to human capital in the provision of mother tongue instruction is seen to be positive for a certain duration of primary schooling, after which it turns negative. Panel data from 29 African countries support the conclusions of the model. The data show that the marginal benefit to human capital is positive and increasing for the first 4 years of primary schooling in the mother tongue and then turns negative. The data also indicate that providing mother tongue instruction for the first 4 years of primary schooling could increase average years of schooling in the affected cohort by around 0.80 years.

Objective: In recent years, school belonging has been associated with wellbeing and has been targeted in mental health promotion programmes in schools. Less attention has been paid to the relationship between school belonging and loneliness, especially during primary school years. This study aimed to first analyse the relationship between socioemotional well-being, school belonging and loneliness during primary school years, and secondly, according to the belonginess hypothesis, to examine the role of school belonging as a mediator of the relationship between socioemotional wellbeing and loneliness. Methods: Children (N = 517) of primary school age were recruited from three schools in London to participate in a mental health screening, which involved the completion of standardized self-reported scales for sense of school belonging, loneliness and socioemotional wellbeing. Results: Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that although correlated, socioemo-tional wellbeing does not predict loneliness. However, in line with belonginess hypothesis, school belonging partially mediated the relationship between socioemotional wellbeing and loneliness in primary school age children. Conclusions: Our findings provide novel data concerning the key role of school be-longing in shaping the relationship socioemotional wellbeing and loneliness in primary school years. This has implications for practitioners working to promote health and wellbeing in schools. KEY POINTS What is already known about the topic: High levels of school belonging have been associated with academic success and better long-term developmental outcomes. Loneliness has been recognised as a potential risk factor related to socioemotional wellbeing of children The relationship between socioemotional wellbeing and loneliness has mostly been investigated in secondary school adolescents and young people. What this topic adds: School belonging partially mediates the relationship between socioemotional wellbeing and loneliness in primary school age children. The effect of school belonging on loneliness could reveal important pathways for the development of related evidence-based interventions. Effects of school belonging on loneliness can be seen as early as in primary school age, which has implications for early intervention.

This study performed comparative analyses in two pediatric cohorts to identify dietary patterns during primary school years and examined their relevance to body composition development. Nutritional and anthropometric data at the beginning of primary school and two or four years later were available from 298 and 372 participants of IDEFICS-Germany (Identification and prevention of Dietary-induced and lifestyle-induced health Effects In Children and infants Study) and the KOPS (Kiel Obesity Prevention Study) cohort, respectively. Principal component analyses (PCA) and reduced rank regression (RRR) were used to identify dietary patterns at baseline and patterns of change in food group intake during primary school years. RRR extracted patterns explaining variations in changes in body mass index (BMI), fat mass index (FMI), and waist-to-height-ratio (WtHR). Associations between pattern adherence and excess gain in BMI, FMI, or WtHR (>75th percentile) during primary school years were examined using logistic regression. Among PCA patterns, only a change towards a more Mediterranean food choice during primary school years were associated with a favorable body composition development in IDEFICS-Germany (p < 0.05). In KOPS, RRR patterns characterized by a frequent consumption of fast foods or starchy carbohydrate foods were consistently associated with an excess gain in BMI and WtHR (all p < 0.005). In IDEFICS-Germany, excess gain in BMI, FMI, and WtHR were predicted by a frequent consumption of nuts, meat, and pizza at baseline and a decrease in the consumption frequency of protein sources and snack carbohydrates during primary school years (all p < 0.01). The study confirms an adverse impact of fast food consumption on body composition during primary school years. Combinations of protein and carbohydrate sources deserve further investigation.

In this article some results are presented of a twofold study into the Dutch language proficiency of Turkish children who were born and bred in the Netherlands. The oral Dutch language 'profi-ciency of eighteen Turkish and fifteen Dutch children was studied in September 1981, at the moment all children entered primary school, and in March 1984, when they had reached third grade. A number of morphological, syntactic and lexical features were studied. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) in the first grade, at the very start of their (primary-) school career, the Turkish group is significantly less proficient in oral Dutch than their Dutch peer group in all but one of the grammatical features. (2) In the third grade, after two and a half years of primary school education, the Turkish group is still significantly less proficient in oral Dutch than the Dutch group in most of the features. (3) As for several morphological aspects of oral Dutch language proficiency, most of the individual Turkish children progress faster in two years of education than the Dutch group: that is, many of the Turkish children are morphologically less behind after two years of primary school than at the beginning of their school career. (4) As for a number of syntactic aspects and one aspect of lexical diversity of speech, most of the individual Turkish children do not progress faster in two years than the Dutch children: syntactically they are equally behind after two years of primary school. (5) In none of the features that were studied did the differences in language proficiency between the Dutch and the Turkish groups increase during two years of schooling: thus, no evidence is found for a possible cumulative difference between this specific group of second language learners and native children.

Transition from primary school to high school can be a time of significant stress for young people. Social connection may mitigate the stress experienced by young people, yet their play activities, which are a key source of connection and friendship, have not been examined. The aim of the study was to capture the play behaviours of children in outdoor school environments. Children's play behaviours in their final year of primary school and those in their first year of high school were captured using a standardised tool (Tool for Observing Play Outdoors). Observations occurred in school outdoor environments during break times in the South Australian autumn of 2021. Frequencies and types of play were compared between year levels using descriptive statistics and contingency tables. Data were collected from four schools (two metropolitan and two regional), which were all from a similar level on the Index of Educational Disadvantage. Four observation sessions were held at each school. Parents of 42 (16 girls) primary school students and 85 (33 girls) high school students gave permission for their children to participate. Physical play was the most frequent activity observed in both primary school and high school followed by expressive play. Year level was significantly associated with the type of play engaged in. Findings demonstrate children in the first year of high school continue to engage in physical and social play albeit less than those in the final year of primary school. Further research is needed to determine whether the physical and social environment or onset of puberty is more influential on changes in children's play.

This study investigates prospective relationships between phonemic awareness and reading performance during the first year of Finnish primary school. Pedagogical interest lay in finding out whether systematic use of phonics in reading instruction supported children’s reading performance even if children can already decode. A total of 85 children were examined three times on phonemic awareness and four times on reading performance during the first school year. At the beginning of the school year, they were also tested on initial reading skills. The results showed that the development of phonemic awareness and reading performance was reciprocal. Reading performance predicted phonemic awareness in the beginning of the first year while the development of phonemic awareness during the first year predicted reading performance at the end of the first school year. The results suggested further pedagogical tools are necessary that consider the support phonemic awareness still offers, even when children have become literate.

During the 1980s, school-based education within the German dual system of vocational education and training saw heavy criticisms. The industry’s representatives particularly criticised that the school-based education was far from reality, not contributing towards tackling the challenges of working life in the companies. In other words, the schools were not oriented towards the customer. In response to this critique, the concept areas of learning (German = Lernfeldkonzept) was introduced in 1996 as a structural principle for the framework curricula. The reform had wide-ranging consequences not only on the course and lesson design but also on the organisational framework conditions of the schools, the cooperation between schools and companies and the required qualification profile of the teachers. The classic distinctions of ‘theory equals school-based learning’ and ‘practical experience equals work-based learning in companies’ are to be removed through the orientation of school-based content to the practical requirements of the vocational and professional work. It is no longer the inputs (useful knowledge) but rather the outputs (holistic vocational activities structured into areas of learning) that are defined. The reform introduced a work-centred and competence-based turn in the school-based component of dual vocational education and training. In this chapter, the underlying understanding of competence, the design principle and pedagogical foundation of the new concept ‘areas of learning’ are described and embedded on the one hand in a historical contextualisation and on the other hand contrasted to the competence-based approach in general education.

This paper reviews current knowledge about the impact of vocational education and training on the labor market outcomes for young people in advanced market economies, and asks whether the results can be extrapolated to countries in the Western Balkans and the EU neighborhood. It draws four main policy conclusions. First, in transition countries, specialized vocational education should not be replaced by streaming or tracking within comprehensive school systems or integrated into general education programmes. Abandoning effective vocational schooling may worsen the labor market outcomes for the less able and disadvantaged young people. Inadequate vocational school systems should be strengthened, while ensuring effective pathways to higher levels of education. Second, while apprenticeship systems enable lower ability students and minorities to access the labor market, they may lock women into traditional female occupations. Well-organized and resourced school-based vocational education may be preferred by women who feel they could benefit from them, and may furthermore reduce school drop-out rates. Third, occupational mobility can be improved by effective school-based vocational education. If returns to such education are sufficiently high, they can incentives mobility. While for developed economies there is little difference in rates of return between general and vocational education, in transition economies, returns to vocational education are higher than returns to general education. Fourth, while occupational mobility is needed for countries undergoing structural change, it should be noted that too much mobility can also be harmful to the skill retention, especially for women. Special attention should therefore be given to providing complementary opportunities for retraining and for lifelong learning to all workers, but especially to women, to encourage and support the desired degree of mobility in the labor market.

Neurodisability describes a broad set of conditions affecting the brain and nervous system which result in functional limitations. Children with neurodisability have more hospital admissions than their peers without neurodisability and higher rates of school absence. However, longitudinal evidence comparing rates of hospital admission and school absence in children with neurodisability to peers without neurodisability throughout school is limited, as is understanding about whether differences are greatest for planned care (e.g., scheduled appointments) or unplanned care. This study will describe rates of planned and unplanned hospital admissions and school absence due to illness and medical reasons throughout primary school (Reception to Year 6, ages 4 to 11 in England) for children with neurodisability and all other children, using linked individual-level health and education data. We will use the ECHILD (Education and Child Insights from Linked Data) database, which links educational and health records across England. We will define a primary school cohort of children who were born in National Health Service-funded hospitals in England between 1 st September 2003 and 31 st August 2008, and who were enrolled in Reception (age 4/5) at state-funded schools. We will use hospital admissions records to identify children who have recorded indicators of neurodisability from birth up to the end of primary school (Year 6, age 10/11). We will describe rates of planned and unplanned hospital admissions and health-related school absence for three groups of children: those with a neurodisability indicator first recorded before beginning primary school, those with neurodisability first recorded during primary school, and those without a record of neurodisability before end of primary school. We will further explore whether differences between these group vary across primary school years and by socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Introduction: All children, with or without a (presumed) disability, deserve the opportunity to grow, play, and learn alongside their peers. However, transitions can present challenges for children with disabilities. Therefore, it is crucial to empower children, parents, schools, and childcare providers. We collaborate with childcare facilities, schools, and welfare organisations to promote inclusivity from the start. It is our expectation that the support provided to individual children will broaden the perspectives of workers and educators, leading to a more inclusive approach and the development of skills in working with children with special needs in the future. Method: In Flanders (the northern part of Belgium), we are responding to these challenges through global individual support (GIO) for young children. GIO is accessible and quickly deployable assistance in childcare and schools. The support takes place in childcare, preschool or first year of primary school. It is a mixture of stimulation, coaching, training and assistance with activities. Our staff, equipped with disability-specific knowledge, collaborates with childcare workers and schoolteachers to establish a more inclusive environment from a very young age. Key components include early intervention, active engagement of both parents and the child in guiding the support process, collaborative efforts in exploring, attempting, and seeking solutions or pathways for enhanced inclusion, and empowering children, parents, childcare providers, and (pre)schools. This approach embodies integrated care, leveraging the strengths of the child, parents, childcare providers, schools, and disability-specific support, with a particular focus on transitions (e.g., from home to childcare, from childcare to preschool, and from preschool to the first year of primary school). We do not impose any fees for providing global individual support to parents. Results: A survey taught us how parents experience the global individual support for young children. Parents strongly endorse the principle that Global Individual Support begins with the idea of inclusion and focuses on the capabilities/strengths of their child. They perceive a sense of guidance, active involvement and participation. In 2022, a total of 1079 children received global individual support (66.1% in preschool education, 21.5% in the first grade, 12.4% in baby and toddler programs ). In 52% of cases, support was completed within 4 months. Disability-specific knowledge workers spend an average of 1-3 hours per session in the inclusive environment. Various stakeholders emphasise the added value of collaboration and modelling in an inclusive context. The challenge lies in alignment with the diverse actors involved. Global individual support for young children in Flanders is currently being evaluated. In this presentation we will discuss the key insights and recommendations of this evaluation, from both policy and practice perspectives. Bart Vanvaerenbergh - director, Home Guidance Kadodder Anne Buelens - policy maker, Flemish Agency for People with Disabilities (VAPH)

Young people’s aspirations remain an enduring focus of education policy interest and concern. Drawing on data from an ongoing five-year study of young people’s science and career aspirations (age 10–14), this paper asks what do young people aspire to at age 12/13, and what influences these aspirations? It outlines the main aspirations and sources of these aspirations as expressed by young people in England in the last year of primary school (survey of 9000+ Y6 pupils, aged 10/11, interviews with 92 children and 76 parents) and the second year of secondary school (survey of 5600+ Y8 pupils, aged 12/13, interviews with 85 pupils). We demonstrate how aspirations are shaped by structural forces (e.g. social class, gender and ethnicity) and how different spheres of influence (home/family, school, hobbies/leisure activities and TV) appear to shape different types of aspirations. The paper concludes by considering the implications for educational policy and careers education.

Teachers observe the activities of pupils, and know the types and features of them. However, the observations must be subjective. It is difficult to generalize the knowledge of a teacher. This paper proposes a method to make subjective and quantative observations of pupils about their reading aloud and problem solving activities, the implementation of the method, and the observation results of the implemented reading activity observation system. About read aloud activities and the question answering activities, the implementation observes the timing of key operations and the process of gazing positions. To measure the reading ability, the text read and the questions to measure the level of understanding are prepared. The prepared text and questions are targeted to the third year of Japanese primary school. In the third year of a primary school, reading difficulties are manifested. The implementation generates many kinds of easy-to understand reports. The knowledge acquired from the observations are easy to generalize. This paper shows the method, the implementation, and the observation results.

This book is an ethnography of teachers and children in grades 1 and 2, and presents arguments about why gender and childhood sexuality should be taken seriously in the early years of South African primary schooling. The opening chapter presents an overview of the relationship between gender and childhood sexuality. Taking issue with gender and sexual innocence, the book questions the epistemological foundations of childhood discourses that produce innocence. The paradox between teachers’ dominant narratives of childhood innocence and children’s own conceptualisation of gender and sexuality are set in motion. The chapter shows that children are actively invested in gender and sexuality. The chapter provides the theoretical framing of this study that draws from a structural social constructionist framework with critical reflections on gender power relations. It argues that children are social actors and gender and sexuality are negotiated under social conditions that constrain agency in South Africa. The chapter provides methodological details of the study in four schools with attention to the varying social contexts in which they schools are situated. The chapter ends with an overview of each chapter in the book.