The teacher wellbeing turn: neuropolitics, education and the psy-complex

The funding of England's schools, like so much of our education system at the moment under a new government, is a matter of hot debate. And the rural dimension is one important aspect, which becomes particularly interesting when you consider how England voted at the last general election in May. The election, which was the closest since the 1970s, saw no party winning an overall majority and thus the Conservatives and the centrist Liberal Democrats taking over from Labour as a ruling coalition. If you look at a map showing how the nation voted, the two governing parties dominate Parliamentary seats outside the big cities especially in the south of England. Labour's core vote is in the inner cities. In recent years, however, when it comes to school funding, those in urban areas--which tend to have more Labour voters--have been better off. Will this change under the new coalition government? You might expect so, given the reality of how politics works, but it is by no means clear what's going to happen to funding for England's schools. To understand why, I will need to explain something about our funding system. But beware: This may not be for the fainthearted, as funding does tend to be complicated. English System Now, unlike in the United States, the funding of schools in England is more or less a national system, with the bulk of cash allocations decided centrally according to complex rules overseen from London. Local councils have some powers to vary the cash their schools receive under the funding formula, but only at the margins. And, since the current calculation mechanism began life in the 1990s, rural areas, in particular, have been complaining because they tend to be the losers. A list of the most well-funded local school authorities in England is dominated by those in inner London, with the top 50 of the country's 150 council areas almost entirely made up of urban districts. By contrast, the 50 lowest funded mainly comprise those serving schools in small towns and the countryside. The differences can be huge: Average perchild funding in Camden in central London is more than double what it is in North Somerset in England's South West, according to one government spreadsheet I've been studying. Traditionally, the funding formula has given weight to deprivation. With deprivation higher in the cities, this helps explain why schools in these areas have in the past tended to be better funded. Schools in London are also given extra funds to reflect higher living costs. Also, during its 13 years in power, Labour undoubtedly channeled extra money toward inner cities through specific grants targeting complex urban issues. Whether any of these disparities is about to be redressed depends on the impact of changes that have been given a huge amount of attention during the early period of this government, and that are part of the new regime's attempt to be seen as doing more to help students from poor backgrounds achieve. Under the plans, the main part of school budgets will continue to be calculated through existing national formulas. However, on top of this, for the first time the government will provide a set amount of money specifically for the education of each child who qualifies as disadvantaged. …

Investment in schools has wide‐ranging implications for society, from improving learning outcomes to economic growth and social cohesion. Addressing inequalities in school funding is important, as part of an effort to guarantee equal opportunities. However, little is known about the consequences of recent changes to school funding in England on school spending, including the introduction of the National Funding Formula (NFF) policy. We employed interrupted panel regression models to assess trends and inequalities in school spending, and whether the NFF policy was associated with a decline in geographical inequalities between schools in the most deprived fifth of local authorities and the rest of England. We used routinely available school‐level spending data for all publicly funded primary and secondary schools in England between 2015 and 2023, aggregated to lower‐tier local authority level (N = 315) and adjusted for inflation. We found reduced funding for schools in England over the last decade, with clear geographical inequalities. These cuts have particularly impacted schools in deprived local authorities. While funding across schools increased after the introduction of the NFF, inequalities in spending remain. These patterns are concerning in the context of rising inequalities in educational attainment and recent inflationary pressures impacting school spending. School funding policy should take into account social factors affecting schools in deprived areas, where pupils often face higher rates of poverty, food insecurity and housing instability.

This study investigates violence in the classroom as a unique job demand of teachers and examines how its effect on teacher wellbeing can be improved through teacher self-efficacy. Personal teaching efficacy, teacher efficacy in the school organisation, and teacher outcome efficacy are explored. A sample of 599 teachers from the USA completed a cross-sectional questionnaire of their wellbeing, workplace engagement, self-efficacy in handling violent events, frequency of violence experienced, and job characteristics. Findings show violence in the classroom is a significant predictor of teacher burnout and leaving the profession. Results suggest teacher self-efficacy in handling violent events lessens the impact of classroom violence on teacher wellbeing. Results also indicate that school support reduces the impact of violence on teacher wellbeing. This has implications for public education policy and highlights the importance of school-wide violence prevention and teacher victimisation training programs as key parts of pre-service and in-service training curriculum.

Today, entrepreneurs and small businesses (SMEs) represent a driving force of the national economy, a key component of the innovation cycle, and knowledge transformation into new products and processes. The importance of this sector is well recognized due to its significant contribution to various socioeconomic objectives, such as job creation, employment possibilities, poverty reduction, inclusive growth of the economy, social cohesion, and fostering entrepreneurship (innovations, ideas, skills). SMEs also increase competition among themselves, heat up the market scenario, and represent vital subcontractors to large enterprises (the "elephant and bee alliance"). At the same time, throughout recent history, this sector has shown exceptional toughness and resistance to crises, risks, uncertainty, and insecurity. Today, the global economy faces an exceptional moment of uncertainty. Geopolitical risks will be the key threat to the economic outlook for 2024. Rising geopolitical tensions and global financial risks, high inflation, tightening monetary and fiscal policies, labor shortages, high trade barriers, and slowing integration into global value chains all contribute to a more challenging business environment for SMEs. High and persistent inflation has become a clear and present danger for many countries around the world. The aim of this paper is to analyze how recent changes in the macroeconomic environment in Serbia, especially inflation, affect the dynamics and challenges of SME economic performance in the short and medium terms.

Estructura psicológica del bienestar docente: justificación de un modelo situado

Psychological structure of teacher well-being: Justification of a situated model

Diabetes self-management (DSM) is a crucial part in the management of diabetic patients. Most randomized controlled clinical trials reported significant benefits by diabetes self-management education (DSME) on DSM behaviors and metabolic control. Although the randomized clinical trials are the gold standard method in assessing the effectiveness of any intervention, including DSME interventions, the outcomes of these studies may reflect exaggerated effects; because in most of these studies, subjects in control group receive usual (standard) care with no any DSME. The lack of such education in the control group had many drawbacks: ( 1 ) make blindness impossible; at which non blinded studies may result in false-positive findings; ( 2 ) it may be unethical to recruit patients for participation in DSME studies as control subjects, most of these studies with long periods of follow up, without any direct benefit to them during the study period; the lack of direct benefit to control subjects in any clinical trial may results in high attrition (drop-out) rate. The high attrition rate in clinical trials especially in the control group can lower the statistical power of the study results; thus, the DSME program would appear to have positive effects even if the program had no real benefit. This problem of the DSME exaggerated effects can be solved partially through providing control subjects with education about some DSM behaviors or comparing the effect of DSME through different educational approaches (for example DSME by didactic vs interactive approach).

A clinical trial investigating the evaluation and individualized referral of alcoholic patients in general medical wards, as compared to simple abstinence counselling, is reported. Individualized referral included a complete medical and psychosocial evaluation of the patient’s condition, followed by a multidisciplinary meeting aimed at defining individualized therapeutic proposals organized in a network of specific therapy and support. Screening (using the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test) identified 107 patients. Eligible patients (n = 53), including those who refused to be randomized (n = 17) as well as those who were randomized (n = 36), were followed for 1 year. The study was limited by several problems arising from trial-related methods as well as from patient-related characteristics, such as a low rate of screening by residents, a high rate of exclusion (51 %), a high rate of randomization refusal (32%) as well as a high attrition rate after 1 year (42%). Among patients who were followed, we observed a high rate of abstinence (57%), which was longer in the intervention group, and was correlated with improved biological markers and scores in a quality-of-life questionnaire. This study emphasizes the need for other similar but larger trials; their design should take into consideration the methodological difficulties encountered in the present study, in order to limit the high exclusion and attrition rates.

Relatively high rates of teacher attrition have been consistently identified as a major issue for the teaching profession over several decades. As a result, there has been a growing interest in the wellbeing of teachers across the entire education sector. Recent research by Noble, Goddard and O'Brien (2003) has found that early childhood teachers, on average, maintained significantly lower burnout levels than did other teachers over their first year of service. However, at the beginning of their second year of service early childhood teachers reported significant increases in burnout, in comparison to primary and secondary school teachers who reported more gradual and consistent increases over the initial stages of their careers. The authors of this paper explore these significant statistics and call for further research to be conducted into how early career burnout develops in early childhood teachers. Such an exploration may assist in the reduction of burnout across the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector.

During the last four decades, many developing countries have suffered enormous foreign debts, growing fiscal deficits, high inflation, serious unemployment, and chronic balance of payments problems. Although it has been a developing country for these 40 years, Taiwan, the Republic of China, overcame these economic pains before the 1990s and has experienced high economic growth. Generally speaking, since the 1980s, Taiwan has had no foreign debts;1 prior to 1990, Taiwan enjoyed a fiscal surplus; and since 1954, except during the two oil crises of 1974 and 1980, Taiwan has not suffered from high inflation. Unemployment has not been a problem for Taiwan since 1970. But since 1980, Taiwan has been bothered by a shortage of labor instead. Finally, also since 1980, Taiwan has had no chronic balance of payments problems. These facts have all helped Taiwan to sustain its economic growth.

It's hard to overstate the hopefulness the nation brings to the challenge of educating students living in the debilitating grasp of urban poverty. To Oprah Winfrey, the School of Washington, D.C., 320-student public charter boarding school for 6th through 12th graders that sends most of its graduates to college, is a dream come true. President Barack Obama called a true success story when he signed public service legislation before an audience of dignitaries gathered at the campus last spring. Journalists also are drawn to inspirational charter schools like SEED. What makes them successful, they want to know, when so many schools leave so many students so poorly educated? Culture is big part of the answer. The schools tend to be small, personal places where adults and students are closely connected, where students care because they feel cared about. They're often tough-love places that demand discipline and send relentless message to students that education matters and that, if they work hard, they'll be successful, an orientation to the world that's utterly lacking in our deeply dysfunctional urban cores. There's regular recognition for strong grades and good citizenship. Students are taught sense of optimism that helps them get through the long school days and years required to catch them up to their middle-class peers. As charter they've been able to select teachers who share the schools' belief systems. They are inspiring places that prove that we can do better in urban education. But journalistic portraits invariably leave us with less-glossy image of inspiring charter schools like SEED. They convey sense of the difficulty and expense of the schools' work and the difficulty of scaling up these entrepreneurial educational enterprises. The New York Times Magazine duly noted in profile this fall that the school--which opened in 1998 and graduated its first seniors in 2004-had won college acceptances for 97% of its graduates and that 90% of the school's impoverished, almost exclusively black, graduates go directly to college, compared to 56% of black students nationwide. But the Times also points out that the school has very high student attrition rate, and that many of the separations are not voluntary, reality that diminishes the impressiveness of the school's college-going rate. SEED unapologetically expels more students than day schools, about 20 year, journalist David Whitman wrote in Sweating the Small Stuff (Fordham Institute, 2008), which profiles high-achieving urban schools. One-third of students repeat 8th grade, Whitman reports, and only about half of the school's 7th graders will graduate from SEED. The Times puts the school's graduation rate even lower, at about 30%. Last year, reduced its attrition by limiting the number of staffers permitted to expel students. But high student attrition afflicts many high-achieving charter including the well-regarded KIPP and studies show that it's the weaker students who leave. The accounts of and other schools also reveal that it's extraordinarily expensive to surround struggling inner-city students with the supports they need, making the schools difficult to replicate. The Times points out that now spends $35,000 year per student, or about four times the average federal, state, and local spending per public school student. It required an act of Congress to establish the school's funding at that level. When opened second school, in Maryland, in 2008, it again required special funding stream, provided by the Maryland state legislature. On Track to College To get sense of what it takes to get impoverished urban students on college track, consider the nine-year-old MATCH Public Charter High School, near Fenway Park in Boston. The school has an open-admissions policy and three-quarters of its students live in poverty, yet nearly 100% of its graduates win places at four-year colleges, and U. …

Given the high stress and attrition rate among teachers, there is a need to expand knowledge on situational experiences that contribute to teacher well-being. We investigated the links between student lesson-specific behaviour (disruptive behaviour, engagement), teachers' lesson-specific (positive, negative) emotions, daily (morning and end-of-working), and personal general well-being of 20 Taiwanese primary school teachers using a micro-longitudinal approach. By specifying multilevel structural equation models (MSEM), we found student behaviour predicts teachers' lesson-specific emotions, and this association varied across days and teachers. Teachers' lesson-specific positive emotions predict teachers’ well-being, suggesting positive emotions can be a protective factor for teachers.

Sweden’s first Elementary School Act of 1842 stated that every parish was obliged to organise and fund schools to be offered to all children in the parish. Many parishes were poor and had a difficult time funding schools. In some parishes, local industries, such as ironworks, organised, funded, and managed schools for their workers. Even though state regulations might have striven for more comprehensive schooling, parishes faced different local conditions that could have affected school organisation and results. This study examines four elementary schools in northern Sweden to analyse differences and similarities caused by local conditions and local actors. Two of the schools were ironworks schools and two were parish schools, and they are studied from the 1840s through the 1860s. This case study of the Robertsfors and Gideåbruk ironworks schools and the Bygdeå and Gideå parish schools focuses on the school organisation, school subjects, children’s attendance, and reported gained knowledge. The research questions are: how were the four schools organised in their local communities? Which subjects were taught in the schools? How were the children’s reported attendance and gained knowledge? What similarities and differences can be seen among the four local school cases? The results indicate both similarities and differences. One school, Gideåbruk ironworks school, reported higher attendance and higher results, traceable to variations in local actors and local conditions in Gideåbruk. The Gideåbruk ironworks and its role in the community seem to be crucial for the ironworks school organisation.

An Urban Myth? New Evidence on Equity, Adequacy, and the Efficiency of Educational Resources in Pennsylvania

per pupil in U.S. schools have been rising at substantially high rates (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992). Yet while education spending goes up, average student achievement does not. This article addresses this concern by making connections among school reform, school organization, and school finance. A premise of the article is that, in the future, achievement needs to rise much faster than resources if the nation is to attain the goal of high levels of cognitive achievement for all students. The first section discusses the nature of fund-