Educational Disadvantage Research Articles

Do the consequences of parental separation for children’s educational success vary by parental education? The role of educational thresholds

Research shows that children’s social background influences the extent to which they experience educational disadvantages when their parents separate. However, while some studies find larger separation penalties for children from lower social backgrounds t

Education in online schools in assessments of the older family generation

This article's topic is the analysis of the family influence on the choice of such an educational route for children as studying at an online school. The relevance of the research is connected with the development of online education in Russia and around the world, the digitalization of the educational sphere. The main attention is paid to the position of the older generation of the family — the grandparents of students — to the admission of grandchildren to online schools. Other research goals are the advantages and disadvantages of online education, the participation of the older generation in the implementation of the educational route for children in online schools, the Internet forum as a method of digital empirical sociology. There was an examination of statements of the participants of the Internet forum, where representatives of the older generation of the family, who chose online education for children, discussed a new educational format. The authors have developed a classification of thematic leitmotives of that conversation. Structuring of texts was carried out with the help of Russian specialized computer programs. It was found out that grandparents of online school students evaluate their grandchildren's education in two ways: a mixed position prevails, in which informants look for the pros and cons of education. It was discovered that the older generation is actively involved in the implementation of the educational route of grandchildren studying in online schools. The most popular leitmotives on the Internet forum were the comfort of learning, free time, improved health of children and an opportunity to prepare qualitatively for final exams. The least significant topics are replenishment of cultural capital and communication. The methodological analysis of the Internet forum as a method of collecting and analyzing sociological information is conducted. The empirical approach simplifies access to informants and the field stage of the study. The main problem was the complexity and ambiguity of the classification of the content of unstructured texts received on the Internet forum. The results of the project can be applied in different areas of social policy. Recommendations have been prepared for the federal program "Digital Economy in the Russian Federation" (2019–2024). In addition, it is important to provide families who have chosen online education for their children (through NGOs, mass media, publications in scientific publications) with up-to-date information. Practical effect for the sociology of culture, sociology of education, sociology of the family is the methodological justification and approbation of digital empirical methods. An additional scope of application of the results is training courses for students of sociological specialties.

The Unequal Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Infant Health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a large toll on population health and well-being. We examine the consequences of prenatal exposure for infant health, through which the pandemic may have lasting intergenerational effects. We examine multiple pathways by which the pandemic shaped birth outcomes and socioeconomic disparities in these consequences. Analysis of more than 3.5 million birth records in California with universal information on COVID infection among persons giving birth at the time of delivery reveals deep inequalities in infection by education, race/ethnicity, and place-based socioeconomic disadvantage. COVID infection during pregnancy, in turn, predicts a large increase in the probability of preterm birth, by approximately one third. At the population level, a surprising reduction in preterm births during the first months of the pandemic was followed by an increase in preterm births during the surge in COVID infections in the winter of 2021. Whereas the early-pandemic reduction in preterm births benefited primarily highly educated mothers, the increase in preterm births during the winter infection surge was entirely concentrated among mothers with low levels of schooling. The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to exacerbate U.S. inequality in multiple ways. Our findings highlight a particularly enduring pathway: the long-term legacy of prenatal exposure to an unequal pandemic environment.

The Effect of Social Benefit Reform on Educational Inequality

AbstractCross-country research argues that the design of welfare states and social protection systems shapes the intergenerational transmission of inequality. Studies that examine this relationship within a country are however lacking from the literature. Based on a quasi-experimental research design using difference-in-differences estimation and data from the Socio-Economic Panel, I analyse whether the educational disadvantage of children of long-term unemployment assistance recipients increased after changes to eligibility criteria, benefit levels, and conditionality were introduced in Germany in 2005. I find that differences in the probability to enter the academic secondary school track between children of parents receiving long-term unemployment assistance one year before the transition and children of parents not receiving unemployment or social benefits increased by 13 percentage points. In part, this was driven by the introduction of means-testing that changed the composition of unemployment assistance recipients. However, further decreases in the financial conditions of these already disadvantaged families following reductions in benefit levels appear as the main driver of the observed effect. Changes in parental subjective wellbeing due to increased benefit conditionality and stigma do not seem to play a significant mediating role. The findings highlight the important contribution of social policy to social mobility and equality of opportunity.

Validating school-based measures of educational disadvantage in Ireland

Reducing the socio-economic achievement gap is a key goal of education policy internationally. Since 2017, the stated intention in Ireland is to use the Pobal HP Deprivation Index to identify schools serving high proportions of disadvantaged students. In spite of this, little published research has compared the performance of the HP index to richer survey measures from large-scale educational assessments or examined its association with educational achievement at primary or second level. This paper aims to assess the validity and fitness for purpose of the HP index for use in identifying schools serving high concentrations of socio-economically disadvantaged students. Analyses draw on Ireland’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 dataset matched with administrative data. Findings show a strong correlation between school-average HP and other socio-economic measures examined. However, about one-in-five schools are identified as potential ‘false positives’ or ‘false negatives’ when school-average HP is used for identification purposes. Also, school-average HP explains less variance in reading achievement than other variables considered. Conclusions recognize the benefits of the HP index but emphasize the need for ongoing examination of the most appropriate methods of identification.

Global and regional estimates of orphans attributed to maternal cancer mortality in 2020

Despite women being disproportionally affected by cancer deaths at young ages, there are no global estimates of the resulting maternal orphans, who experience health and education disadvantages throughout their lives. We estimated the number of children who became maternal orphans in 2020 due to their mother dying from cancer in that year, for 185 countries worldwide and by cause of cancer-related death. Female cancer deaths—by country, cancer type and age (derived from GLOBOCAN estimates)—were multiplied by each woman’s estimated number of children under the age of 18 years at the time of her death (fertility data were derived from United Nations World Population Prospects for birth cohort), accounting for child mortality and parity-cancer risk associations. Globally, there were 1,047,000 such orphans. Over half of these were orphans due to maternal deaths from breast (258,000, 25%), cervix (210,000, 20%) and upper-gastrointestinal cancers (136,000, 13%), and most occurred in Asia (48%: India 15%, China 10%, rest of Asia 23%) and Africa (35%). Globally, there were 40 new maternal orphans due to cancer per 100,000 children, with a declining trend with a higher Human Development Index (range: 121 in Malawi to 15 in Malta). An estimated 7 million children were prevalent maternal orphans due to cancer in mid-2020. Accelerating the implementation of the World Health Organization’s cervical and breast cancer initiatives has the potential to avert not only millions of preventable female cancer deaths but also the associated, often-overlooked, intergenerational consequences of these deaths.

Challenges and advantages of distance learning in art institutions of tertiary education

The purpose of the work is to highlight the peculiarities of the organisation of the distance learning process, to justify the current need and importance of distance learning, and to structure its weaknesses and strengths. The research methodology consists in the application of theoretical and empirical methods, namely the analysis and synthesis of scientific works of the authors on the study issue; the method of visualisation of research findings, review-analytical, description, comparison methods enable revealing the importance and role of distance education. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the expansion of theoretical knowledge and practical skills of distance learning in art institutions of tertiary education, focusing on features and development prospects of distant learning. The comprehensive comparative analysis of distance education in art institutions of tertiary education has been carried out. It has been established that the considered form of distance learning is regulated by documents with access to public information. The main tasks that can be solved using the distant format have been defined. Conclusions. This study proved the effectiveness of the use of distance education in the field of education on the example of the National Academy of Culture and Arts Management. The advantages and disadvantages of distance education have been considered. The organisation of distance (online) education in art institutions of tertiary education has been outlined. Attention is focused on the main factors that must be taken into account to achieve a high professional level in the educational process. The list of the legislation of Ukraine which regulates and ensures the organisation of the distance educational process has been described. Keywords: distance learning, disadvantages of distance learning, quality of education, technologies of distance learning.

Diverse pre-service midwifery education pathways in Cambodia and Malawi: A qualitative study utilising a midwifery education pathway conceptual framework

ObjectivesEducated and skilled midwives are required to improve maternal and newborn health and reduce stillbirths. There are three main approaches to the pre-service education of midwives: direct entry, post-nursing and integrated programmes combining nursing and midwifery. Within these, there can be multiple programmes of differing lengths and qualifications, with many countries offering numerous pathways. This study explores the history, rationale, benefits and disadvantages of multiple pre-service midwifery education in Malawi and Cambodia. The objectives are to investigate the differences in education, roles and deployment as well as how key informants perceive that the various pathways influence workforce, health care, and wider health systems outcomes in each country. DesignQualitative data were collected during semi-structured interviews and analysed using a pre-developed conceptual framework for understanding the development and outcomes of midwifery education programmes. The framework was created before data collection. SettingThe setting is one Asian and one African country: Cambodia and Malawi. ParticipantsTwenty-one key informants with knowledge of maternal health care at the national level from different Government and non-governmental backgrounds. ResultsApproaches to midwifery education have historical origins. Different pathways have developed iteratively and are influenced by a need to fill vacancies, raise standards and professionalise midwifery. Cambodia has mostly focused on direct-entry midwifery while Malawi has a strong emphasis on dual-qualified nurse-midwives. Informants reported that associate midwifery cadres were often trained in a more limited set of competencies, but in reality were often required to carry out similar roles to professional midwives, often without supervision. While some respondents welcomed the flexibility offered by multiple cadres, a lack of coordination and harmonisation was reported in both countries. Key conclusionsThe development of midwifery education in Cambodia and Malawi is complex and somewhat fragmented. While some midwifery cadres have been trained to fulfil a more limited role with fewer competencies, in practice they often have to perform a more comprehensive range of competencies. Implications for practiceEducation of midwives in the full range of globally established competencies, and leadership and coordination between Ministries of Health, midwife educators and professional bodies are all needed to ensure midwives can have the greatest impact on maternal and newborn health and wellbeing.

Remote Learning in Higher Education: Evidence from Poland.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a sudden transformation at universities. The previous mode of teaching has been replaced by remote education, the effectiveness of which depends, among other things, on the technological infrastructure of universities and the digital competence of lecturers and students. The main objective of this study is to evaluate remote learning in higher education from the students' point of view. The uniqueness of the present research approach lies in the identification of four dimensions (socio-emotional, developmental, time-financial, and negative attitude) of students' evaluation of remote learning in higher education. The survey was conducted on 999 students studying remotely, including 518 women and 481 men. Most of the students surveyed had been studying remotely for 1-2 years and were studying full-time for their first degree. The research tool consisted of 16 mixed survey questions. Six of them were related to sociodemographic factors (including those related to the respondents' education), and eight were related to their experiences with and opinions about remote education, respectively. The remaining two questions were used to collect respondents' evaluations of the degree of importance to them of various advantages and disadvantages of remote education. The research showed that among the advantages of remote learning for students, the most important are saving time, the possibility of studying at a university far from home (another city, another country), the possibility of combining work and study, and reduced commuting costs. On the other hand, the disadvantages of remote learning of greatest importance to students include the loss of social ties due to lack of contact with peers, feelings of fatigue resulting from excessive use of information and communication tools, and greater susceptibility to various forms of distraction. In addition, the shape of students' education was relevant to the different dimensions of their evaluation of remote learning in higher education. The social-emotional size of remote learning is more important for students who study remotely in a blended mode (compared to uniform). The developmental dimension is essential for students who participate in remote learning activities for longer during the day. In addition, a more extended period of remote learning promotes the greater importance of the time-financial dimension when evaluating remote knowledge.

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes about teaching and learning in multilingual classrooms. Insights from the Austrian-wide summer school programme in 2021

ABSTRACT COVID-19-related school closures have caused educational disadvantages for school children around the world. Against this background, many countries have introduced catch-up programmes to counteract the growing educational inequality. The Austrian summer school was offered as such a supportive measure and primarily targeted learners with learning gaps, lower language skills, and German as an additional or second language (L2). In addition, pre-service teachers (PSTs) were, and still are, mainly involved in teaching during summer school. This study examines the extent to which PSTs believe they have the requisite knowledge and skills concerning linguistically and culturally responsive approaches to teach in multilingual classrooms to support students in catching up with potential learning losses. For this purpose, an online survey study was conducted during the nationwide implementation of the Austrian summer school 2021. Altogether, 109 PSTs in Western and Northeastern Austria were surveyed before and after participating in the summer school. The results show that despite their lack of knowledge and skills around linguistically responsive teaching approaches, PSTs experienced the summer school as a positive learning opportunity that improved their understanding of multilingualism and, according to their own assessments, supported their teaching skills in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts.

Migrant teachers in the classroom: a key to reduce ethnic disadvantages in school?

ABSTRACT The educational disadvantages of migrant students are a persistent problem in many Western countries. Against this background, policymakers often call for more diversity in the teacher workforce, arguing that migrant students might benefit from being taught by migrant teachers. Despite the popularity of this claim, there is almost no research-based rationale for increasing the diversity of teachers in Europe. This paper is a step toward filling this research gap for Germany, aiming to assess whether migrant teachers reduce ethnic educational disadvantages. Our analyses are based on a nationally representative large-scale assessment of ninth graders that provides information on the migration status of both students and teachers, with achievement tests and teacher-assigned grades in German as dependent variables. The results run contrary to widely held expectations, indicating little evidence that migrant students benefit from being taught by migrant teachers.

Who Counts? Educational Disadvantage among Children Identified as Homeless and Implications for the Systems That Serve Them

The Department of Education’s (ED) definition of homelessness includes any child who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) uses a narrower definition that excludes doubled-up families. These definitions determine how resources are prioritized for families, yet we know very little about the differences in risks faced by children identified by these departments. We leverage a data linkage between public schools and homeless management information systems in Minnesota to provide novel evidence on the educational risks faced by children identified as homeless by ED and HUD. We find that ED-identified-homeless and HUD-identified-homeless children experience comparable increases in chronic absenteeism and school instability in the year they experience homelessness, challenging the popular conception that doubled-up families face lower educational risks. Using these findings, we discuss strategies to integrate homelessness data better, assess needs, and prioritize resources for children experiencing homelessness.

Remote physics teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic: losses and potential gains

The Covid-19 pandemic forced the world into unknown territories of closed schools and remote teaching, and gave teachers a range of new experiences with physics teaching. We studied these experiences by using survey responses from 85 upper secondary physics teachers in Norway. We found that home-school physics instruction was characterised by a considerably lower occurrence of oral activity, collaboration and practical work than instruction in a normal situation. This suggests that students had difficult conditions for learning physics concepts and training key scientific practices, and may consequently be at a disadvantage in higher education. However, many teachers described valuable experiences that they would bring with them into their regular teaching, including home experiments and oral assessments. Such innovations can potentially enrich physics education, given that teachers are supported with tailored learning and assessment resources, and arenas for sharing new approaches within the physics teaching community.

An Examination of Science Achievement and School Compositional Effects in Ireland Using TIMSS Data

<p style="text-align:justify">Recent educational policy initiatives in Ireland have focused on improving outcomes in reading and mathematics among students, particularly those experiencing educational disadvantage. However, science achievement in Irish primary schools has received much less research attention, especially in the context of educational disadvantage. This article examines science achievement and its relationship to school compositional effects in primary schools at the national level, including school-average indicators of the school context, as well as examining factors associated with science achievement in three distinct categories of schools (those with high, moderate, or minor levels of educational disadvantage). The data are drawn from the Fourth grade Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 database for Ireland. Multilevel analyses were implemented in a stepwise manner. Findings suggest the relevance of school contexts with regard to science achievement. Before including school-level contextual variables, students from ‘minor disadvantaged’ schools achieved significantly higher science scores than students from schools with ‘moderate’ or ‘high’ levels of disadvantaged. However, this difference disappears after controlling for predictors at the school level. The findings highlight the importance of the home environment, including early numeracy activities and skills before children start school. Results are discussed with regard to educational policy and educational practice in Ireland.</p>

Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Accounting Education in Universities in Terms of Covid-19

The purpose of this publication is to explore and outline the advantages and disadvantages of online accounting education in the context of an emergency epidemic situation. The defined goal implies the implementation of the following tasks: study of the accounting education process in higher schools; carrying out a comparative analysis of the on-site form of training and online training. Scientific methods were used in the research process, such as: comparative analysis, synthesis, historical approach, induction. As a result of the research, guidelines are presented for overcoming the identified shortcomings in online learning.

Nursing University Students' Experience of Online Education in COVID-19 Pandemic: A Content Analytic Study

COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent online mode of education have challenged the national educational system and higher education. Thus, the present research aimed to explore students' experience of the advantages and disadvantages of online education at Bandar Abbas University of medical sciences during the pandemic. The present qualitative research conducted a content analysis of 26 nursing students' experiences. The sampling method was purposive. Unstructured face-to-face interviews were conducted with participants of the study to collect the required data. The interview protocol was followed. The required social distance was kept, and the ethical code was adhered to. The participants were interviewed as already arranged at a place of convenience. The interviews took between 40 and 60 minutes, depending on the immediate condition. The data collection continued until data saturation. The data analysis led to the extraction of 5 themes and 8 categories, including teacher-student miscommunication, student-student miscommunication, evaluation issues, anxiety, distancing from active learning, materials/sources, lack of physical attendance, non-educational activities, and 22 subcategories. The present findings could help professors and education authorities to better understand students' expected learning and the challenges of online education. They could, thus, be better aware of the existing barriers and could better plan to remove them.

Recognising the risks: perceptions of higher education amongst young white British males from areas of educational disadvantages

ABSTRACT Comparatively few young white males from poorer backgrounds progress to university. This paper considers evidence gathered from a study that explores the educational ambitions of these young men from five areas of educational disadvantage in North West England, at two stages in their learner journeys. The first stage relates to school year 10 (14–15 year olds), as pupils work towards their level 2 qualifications. The second focuses on year 12 (16–17 year olds), as post-16 options are embarked upon and attention is turned to longer-term plans. What emerges from this study are a number of shared concerns over higher education as a destination. In supporting claims made in various other studies that have considered learners from widening participation backgrounds more generally, it is argued that these can be expressed in terms of costs. For this group, the potential benefits of HE must be weighed against a range of consequences that, in scale and extent, are unlikely to be encountered by their more affluent peers, and that may not be so acutely felt by those from some other under-represented populations. The study concludes by arguing that practitioners should acknowledge these consequences when developing outreach interventions for this group.

Thai University Students' Perceptions of Online Education after Extended Period of Emergency Remote Education

For over 2 years, the Covid-19 pandemic forced large numbers of Thai students to engage in emergency remote education, but with the pandemic abating and students returning to face-to-face classrooms, this paper takes the opportunity to examine students’ feelings about their experience with online education. The aims of this research are thus to investigate students’ perceptions of their university’s preparedness and its provision of ongoing support for online learning, the quality of the online teaching, the advantages and disadvantages of online classrooms, the students’ technological self-efficacy, and their preferred mode of learning when the pandemic abates. The results reveal that students’ overall satisfaction with the university’s preparedness and support was at the moderate level, while the quality of online teaching and students’ technological self-efficacy were rated at the high level. In terms of the advantages and disadvantages of online education, the latter outweighed the former. The students’ preferred mode of learning after the end of the pandemic was face-to-face classrooms, followed in order by blended learning, and then fully online classrooms. The findings suggest that factors including the lack of university life experiences, an absence of classroom interaction, health problems, and heavy workloads could hinder the adoption of fully online classrooms.

Advantages and disadvantages of distance education in teaching clinical discipline to students of the medical university

The challenges of society have made adjustments to the medical education system of Ukraine. In the conditions of the pandemic of the coronavirus infection COVID-19 and the introduced martial law throughout the territory of Ukraine, distance learning (DL) turned out to be the only possible form of the educational process. The purpose of the study was to study the peculiarities of teaching the discipline "Propaedeutics of Pediatrics" in the conditions of the National Academy of Sciences. The process of DL at the Department of Propaedeutics of Childhood Diseases of the Dnipro State Medical University (DSMU) took place using the MOODLE electronic portal, the Google Meet video service, the YouTube platform, the website and the electronic magazine of the Dnipro State Medical University. An anonymous survey of 210 third-year students was conducted regarding their attitude and degree of satisfaction with the educational process at the Department of Propaedeutics of Childhood Diseases using educational distance technologies. As the results showed, the majority of the interviewed students are completely satisfied with the process of DL. However, when choosing a form of education, preference is still given to the classroom format of education. Among the advantages of DL, students noted the saving of time and financial costs for moving between buildings and clinical bases, the comfort of studying in a home environment, the possibility of studying at any convenient time, the availability of information resources, and the possibility of re-processing complex material. However, the biggest drawback of the DL was the lack of opportunity to work with the patient and master practical skills. So, DL, like any other method of teaching and learning, has its advantages and disadvantages. But currently existing technologies of medical education with the help of modern digital platforms, high-quality content filling of educational web resources, introduction of an effective system of quality control of acquired knowledge make it possible to adapt to the new realities of the educational process and ensure consistently high quality of medical education

Gifted students and teachers’ perceptions of distance education process in the COVID-19 pandemic

The development of educational technologies has contributed positively to learning and teaching process by diversifying educational environments and activities. With the development of distance education programs, it has also become possible to conduct online and offline courses through distance education. Due to the measures implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic that emerged in the world and in our country, face-to-face education could not be provided at schools, and teachers and students benefited from distance education. The purpose of this study is to investigate distance education process of gifted students and their teachers at the Science and Art Center (BİLSEM) during the Covid-19 pandemic. A case study method which is one of the qualitative research methods was used in the research, and data were collected through interview questions. The sample of the research consists of teachers and students at Halil İncekara Science and Art Center in Nevşehir. Data were collected with a semi-structured interview and analyzed descriptively. According to the results of the research, the advantage of distance education process is an increase in the efficiency of using time, space, transportation, and technology. On the other hand, the disadvantages of distance education are listed as limited socialization, problems in activities that require practice, lack of technological infrastructure and hardware, problems in the Internet connection, difficulty in understanding the subjects, an increase in communication problems and lack of peer interaction.