Obligatory School Research Articles

School entrance examinations as a small-scale data source for health monitoring of children using obesity as an example.

In the scope of the nationwide obligatory school entrance examinations (SEE), a standardised assessment of the preparedness for school of preschool children takes place in the federal states of Germany. For this purpose, height and weight of the children are determined. These data are available in aggregated form at county level, but are not yet being regularly compiled and processed at national level for use in policy and research. In a pilot project, the indexing and merging of SEE data from 2015-2019 was tested in collaboration with six federal states. This was done using obesity prevalence at the time of the school entrance examination. In addition, prevalences were linked to small-scale indicators on settlement structure and sociodemographics from public databases, differences in obesity prevalence at county level were identified, and correlations to regional influencing factors were visualised. It was feasible to merge SEE data from the federal states with little effort. The majority of the selected indicators were freely available in public databases. In an interactive, easily comprehensible and user-friendly Tableau dashboard for visualising the SEE data, it can be seen that obesity prevalences differ significantly between counties that are similar in terms of settlement structure or sociodemographics. Providing federal state SEE data and linking them to small-scale indicators enables region-based analyses and cross-state comparisons of similar counties and provides a data basis for continuous monitoring of the prevalence of obesity in early childhood.

Work descriptions written by third-graders: An aspect of disciplinary literacy in primary craft education education

This study focuses on disciplinary literacy in primary craft education. Disciplinary literacy refers to the specialised ways of reading, writing, and speaking in a particular discipline. In Finland, crafts is an obligatory school subject, and pupils are supposed to conceive and manage a complete crafts process, including documentation. However, disciplinary literacy in crafts has rarely been studied, let alone at the primary level. In this study, we explored the quality of a sample of work descriptions produced by third-graders. The data included digitally produced work descriptions (N=79) written by 42 third-grade pupils in a Finnish primary school. Based on a qualitative analysis, six main dimensions of work descriptions as a textual genre emerged: word count, crafts vocabulary, structure, spelling, multimodality, and self-assessment. The quality of work descriptions was analysed quantitatively according to scoring criteria based on these dimensions. A cluster analysis indicated that there were three groups of work descriptions with respect to their level of disciplinarity: limited, emerging, and advanced descriptions. The results show that the structure of the disciplinary texts develops first, and subject-specific vocabulary stabilises after that. The paper discusses the foundation for disciplinary literacy in primary craft education.

INDEKS MINAT BACA MASYARAKAT; STUDI KASUS DI KOTA KEDIRI, JAWA TIMUR

To improve the literacy rate of the population, the government, through the Ministry of Education and Culture, has initiated the National Literacy Movement (GLN) program since 2016, consisting of the School Literacy Movement (GLS), Family Literacy Movement, and Community Literacy Movement. motion exists. The National Literacy Movement has encouraged the growth of a reading culture. The purpose of habituation is to increase interest in reading and improve reading skills so that knowledge can be acquired better. The researchers chose Kediri city in East Java. Kediri City is a service city, a city with a thriving trade and service industry. The purpose of this study is to determine how to develop a test of variables and indicators that represent reading habits and suitable indicators for measuring levels of reading habits. Reading habits in Kediri city. East Java. According to the findings, the Kediri City Reading Interest Index is in the top category with 79.7, the score he is composed of four index dimensions. Each index value mentioned for the city of Kediri is a skill dimension index of 93.9. An Access Dimension Index of 65.3 belongs to the high category. 90.3 Very High Categorical Alternate Dimension Index. The cultural dimension index is 69.2, which is in the high category. The nine years of obligatory schooling are a great contribution to Kediri Municipality's efforts to increase community literacy, and electronic reading material for smartphones and computers (laptops, PCs, tablets, and/or tablets) that supports Latin letter reading and writing is also available. According to the aforementioned statistics, there is truly very great potential for local communities to independently provide print reading and Internet networks, as well as the use of computer devices that bridged the majority of the access to multiple reading sources. Therefore, we must concentrate on promoting more streamlined, secure, and dependable access.

Plans, hopes, dreams and evolving agency: case histories of young people navigating transitions.

ABSTRACT Young people’s transitions are important crossroads for their future position within society. At the end of obligatory schooling, adolescents have to decide on whether they want to attend higher secondary schooling or to enter the job market. These decisions are framed by educational and occupational aspirations. Based on young people’s narratives in a three-wave panel study, we analyze their imagined future starting one year before completing obligatory schooling. In a qualitative longitudinal case history approach, we analyze their aspirations as well as their embeddedness in their biography. We found that plans, hopes and dreams give more nuance to aspirations and are thus helpful conceptual frames for analyzing transitions. With two case histories, we illustrate different navigation processes: one with educational and the other with occupational focus but both starting with rather vague plans for their next steps. Despite different aspirations, both adolescents navigate the transitional phase and develop agency. The concretization of aspirations through plans, hopes and dreams brings evolving agency to light. Our results shed light on the process of change in young people’s aspirations with an emphasis on the person’s perspective and frame of reference.

Popularnost onlajn nastave engleskog jezika kao stranog sa učenicima poreklom iz Istočne Azije - percepcija nastavnika

Online teaching English as a foreign language to learners from East Asia has become very popular nowadays. It is a result of the intensive socio-economic development of this region's countries, such as Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan, which demands new roles of individuals for successful functioning in the current world. Due to following contemporary social changes, reaching the global market and adjusting the educational system to the modern concepts, English has become their obligatory school subject. The need for better language competence implies learning and improving this global language since the early age in East Asia, not only within formal education, but within the informal one as well. The lack of qualified teachers of English language and the use of inadequate teaching approaches and methods in the standard classroom resulted in the need for additional lessons, which numerous online language platforms from this region offer. For this reason, the interest in attending these lessons increased, as well as the interest in teaching English language online. The focus of this research is to introduce the main reasons for online teaching English as a foreign language to learners from East Asia and its advantages, in order to identify general causes of this job's current popularity. It is realized through the achievement of the following aims: 1) the most frequent reasons because of which the individuals decide to teach on platforms for learning English language, which are popular among East Asian learners nowadays, are provided, and 2) the advantages of such teaching environment are examined from the teachers' point of view. This is a cross-sectional study for the purpose of which a survey of 151 respondents worldwide was conducted by means of a self-perception questionnaire. Collected data were analysed by means of SPSS 22.0 program for statistical data analysis. The results indicate that: 1) some of the most frequent respondents' reasons for online teaching English language to learners from East Asia are: flexible work schedule, working at home, getting a job easily, meeting new people and cultures, while 2) from the teachers' point of view, the most common advantages of working in such environment are: feeling comfortable while teaching, flexible work schedule, satisfactory income, contact with foreign countries and cultures and less stressful environment for teaching English language. Taking into account these results, as well as the socio-economic requirements of the process of globalization in East Asia, it may be concluded that the educational concept of Hong Kong "Learning for Life, Learning Through Life" could be the policy of many Asian countries, whose aim is to enable learners to use the English language outside the classroom and learn it in a more flexible and comprehensible way. As long as the focus of teaching is not so much on form, as it is on the language functions (Pan, 2015), there will be the need for additional improvement of the English language in the countries of East Asia. Since the interest for teaching the English language within online platforms is continuing, and there are no considerable difficulties for being employed and adjusting to such work environment, it can be concluded that the future perspective of this job position is definitely guaranteed.

Classroom learning of English L2 requests: Input and interactional opportunities in French secondary schools

With today’s strong focus on communicative competence in second language (L2) classrooms, speech acts like suggestions, requests, refusals, and apologies are often investigated in interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) as well as instructional pragmatics. Even though there is strong evidence in ILP research that purports that L2 learners respond well to pragmatic instruction (Taguchi, 2015), the teaching of L2 pragmatics is not always prioritized in textbooks, teaching programmes or teacher education (Barron, 2016; Savvidou & Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2019) with the consequence that pragmatic learning can only occur incidentally. The present study examines opportunities to acquire L2 requests for 308 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners across 7 years of instruction in French secondary schools, investigating textbooks preferred by teachers, classroom interaction (39 hours), and teacher perspectives (semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers). After a pragmatic analysis of 15 EFL textbooks with a focus on requests, the study examines the incidence of metapragmatic input in 39 hours of teaching in 13 classes at 3 levels, and relates interactional patterns with interview data from the 10 teachers concerned. Findings suggest limited pragmatic input in both textbooks and classroom interaction. By comparing the profiles of teachers who encouraged L2 requests with those who did not, the study offers new explanations for L2 learners’ limited pragmatic development which also broadly corroborate previous findings of somewhat limited potential for L2 pragmatic development in obligatory school contexts.

The Representation of Earthquakes in Hindu Religion: A Literature Review to Improve Educational Communications in Nepal

In Nepal, after every large earthquake, local people appear to be motivated to get better prepared for future earthquakes. However, their motivation vanishes before effective preparation, mainly due to the lack of earthquake education in their community. Promoting up-to-date scientific knowledge to a society living under high earthquake hazard is important and contributes to reduce the related risk. The dissemination of information in Nepal lags far behind modern seismological knowledge, and part of the local population still believes in religious explanations and stories about earthquakes. We run an educational program in Nepal to make people better aware of earthquakes and to improve their preparedness through obligatory school education, but the dichotomy between scientific and religious visions of earthquakes remains a challenge. For more efficient acceptance of earthquake preparatory advices, it is important to better perceive the religious narration of earthquakes and to include these in the educational communications. Thereby, we reviewed the main sources of Hindu literature and gathered relevant and interesting explanations on earthquake evidences and causes. The primary religious interpretations of earthquakes in different Hindu texts are related to the Gods and their actions, and some sources also include physical descriptions of earthquakes related situations or processes. We found that most of the stories, causes and explanations of earthquake do not match with the concepts of modern science, yet there are exceptions such as a historically old advice to leave buildings during the shaking. The collected findings are important not only from a religious literature review perspective, but also and mainly to develop an inclusive and more efficient strategy to communicate about earthquake related topics in the classroom as well as with the public in Nepal.

O przydatności dla pedagogów diagnoz edukacyjnych w zakresie badania piśmienności młodzieży – uwagi na marginesie analizy dokumentacji egzaminów gimnazjalnych

Obligatory Polish middle school exams taking place just before the end of the last compulsory common stage of education provide the opportunity to reveal the level of pupils’ literacy. The acquisition of literacy defines the manner in which reality is perceived and how people participate in social life. In the article the following problem is addressed: To what degree do the Polish middle school exams diagnose the literacy of youth and to what extent can their results be of use to pedagogues? The analysis of documentation concerning exams from the years 2012–2016 indicates that the significant skills building literacy fall beyond the scope of diagnosis or are tested in such a way as to raise doubts. Thus exams provide limited information on the level of young people’s literacy.

Un acercamiento al sistema educativo de suiza: currícula 21 y su implicancia en el desarrollo humano sostenible

The world societies go through a very rapid transformation like result, between other things, to the incorporation of the technologies to all the ambiences of the personal and social life. Switzerland as other countries is not foreign tothese changes and in the educational ambience, it offers across its Curricula 21 an alternative according to the current requirements. The education in Switzerland is a competence transferred in 26 Cantons that shape the Swiss Confederacy.Twenty-one Cantons of German speech received the Curricula 21 for the harmonization of the obligatory school in the frame of the interactional Concordat HarmoS. The target of the Concordat consists of improving the quality of theobligatory public education and overcoming the obstacles that make the educational mobility difficult between the cantons.

Opinie przyszłych pedagogów na temat medialnie głośnych zmian w systemie edukacji

The article is a report of the author’s research conducted among students of the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw in the years 2015 and 2016. The aim of the research was to recognise the students’ political views, attitudes towards democracy and electoral activity, as well as their opinion on issues popular in the mass media, such as liquidation of gymnasium and switching to the 8-grade primary school and the abolition of the obligatory school enrolment age of 6 years. The research was conducted by the author’s questionnaire containing 16 closed-ended questions. The participants were 506 stationary students of the Pedagogical Faculty at the Maria Grzegorzewska University, specialization: pedagogy and special education. The group of participants was selected randomly. The results of the research prove unambiguously that the interest in politics is very low among students; the majority of them do not have any precise views and half of them declared not having participated in the elections for Parliament. Concerning the students’ attitude towards the proposed changes in the educational system, the percentage rate shows that both proposals of the Polish government (liquidation of gymnasium and abolition of the obligatory school enrolment age of 6 years) have more supporters than opponents. The author confronts the obtained results with the results of research undertaken by large research centres on all-Poland research groups, which allows to present the attitudes of pedagogy students on the background of the general public.

Association Between Sociodemographic Factors, Personality, and Oral Habits (Tooth Brushing and Smoking) in Spanish Adults.

The aim of the present study was to describe personality traits of a sample of Spanish adults, identify the main sociodemographic factors related to personality, and assess the influence of these traits on healthy dental habits. A cross-sectional design was used with 235 subjects, all of Spanish nationality and aged between 18 and 80 years, with a minimum educational level (ie, they had completed only the minimum obligatory schooling), ensuring that none of the subjects had any psychologic disturbance. The data on five personality dimensions were recorded. Sociodemographic and behavioral standard scores (z) were studied for each personality dimension, and the scores were related to the other variables studied. A significant linear correlation was observed between the z scores of the personality factors and the sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics. The men had personalities with significantly less neuroticism, less openness, less agreeableness, and less conscientiousness than the women. In behavioral terms, those who brushed more than once a day were more agreeable (0.1 ± 0.9) than those who only brushed once a day (-0.2 ± 1.2), and smokers had higher mean scores for extroversion (0.3 ± 0.9) than did nonsmokers (-0.1 ± 1.0). The most developed personality traits in this sample, as in the reference population, were conscientiousness (123.1 ± 22.9 points) and agreeableness (119.2 ± 19.1 points). The main sociodemographic factors of personality were found to be age and sex. Moreover, it was observed that certain personality dimensions were linked to smoking and tooth brushing habits.

Formulations d'opinions personnelles en contexte scolaire : de la prudence interactionnelle à l'affirmation de soi

The present study is interested in how oral expression is managed in classroom interaction and aims to contribute to our understanding of how personal opinion is sequentially organized in this context and what institutional practices are used by the teachers in order to lead students to reconfigure the way they proffer it during open discussion activities. Through a single case analysis and using Conversational Analysis, we analyze in detail a prototypic question-response sequence that regularly occurs in personal opinion exchange activities in our data. Based on a corpus of 7,5 hours of interaction that was audio and video recorded in French L1 classrooms of Western Switzerland, the data come from a degree of obligatory schooling referred to as secondary-1 and involve students aged between 13 and 14 years old. The expression of personal opinions holds our interest because this everyday activity is not explicitly evaluated in the classroom and yet, it is particularly challenging for students. Although students have at their disposal the linguistic resources to express their opinion, the interest lies in the way the teacher and the students adjust their interactional practices in order to display to each other the appropriateness of a given conduct.

Changes in living arrangement, daily smoking, and risky drinking initiation among young Swiss men: a longitudinal cohort study

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to assess the association between changes in living arrangement and the initiation of daily smoking and monthly risky single-occasion drinking (RSOD) in a cohort of young Swiss men. Study designLongitudinal cohort study. MethodsThe sample consisted of 4662 young men drawn from the Cohort Study on Substance Use Risk Factors who lived with their family at baseline. Follow-up assessments occurred 15 months later. Multiple regression models were adjusted for individual and family factors (family model), as well as for individual and peer-related factors (peer model). ResultsRelative to those still living with their parents at follow-up (n = 3845), those who had moved out (n = 817) were considerably more likely to have taken up smoking or RSOD after adjusting for several individual, family, and peer-related variables: OR (daily smoking) = 1.67 (95% CI 1.15–2.41) (P = 0.007) and OR (monthly RSOD) = 1.42 (95% CI 1.08–1.88) (P = 0.012). The strongest family-related predictors of smoking initiation were family structure and the lack of parental regulation and the strongest peer-related factors alcohol/drug problems in peers. Meanwhile, the strongest peer-related predictors of RSOD initiation were peer pressure (misconduct), perceived social support from friends, and perceived social support from a significant other, whereas family factors were not associated with RSOD initiation. Further subanalyses were conducted to examine the impact of different living arrangement changes on substance use initiation and revealed that living with peers at follow-up was associated with the greatest risk. ConclusionsWe identified a strong association between moving out of one's parents' home and daily smoking and monthly RSOD initiation in young Swiss men. Moving out to live with peers was an especially strong predictor of substance use initiation. Campaigns that aim to prevent heavy smoking and drinking should be intensified at the end of obligatory school.

ELT in Brazilian public schools: History, challenges, new experiences and perspectives

Historically speaking, the teaching of English was never a part of Brazilian primary schools programmes. Foreign language teaching as an obligatory school subject appears only in the sixth year of basic education, and its goal is more connected to the development of critical citizens, rather than to the promotion of proficient speakers of the language. Recently, however, a number of municipal public educational systems, often in partnership with private language institutes, have introduced ELT from the very first year of primary school. This is the case, for example, of the project Rio Global Child 2016, created by the City of Rio de Janeiro in partnership with Cultura Inglesa, a well-known private English institute in Brazil. What I intend to do in this paper, thus, is: firstly, to present an historical overview of ELT in Brazilian public schools, discussing its educational relevance and functions, the challenges faced by teachers and students, and both the beliefs and debates concerning the issue (cf. Almeida, 2012; Assis-Peterson, 2003; Moita Lopes, 1996; Tílio, 2012) – including also a first account of the Brazilian cities involved in the implementation of ELT in primary schools; and, then, to discuss critically Rio de Janeiro’s project for the teaching of English in primary schools. Such a discussion is necessary not only because it may help to understand better the risks of adopting a single method (and its materials) for teaching in contexts that can be extremely different from one another, but also because other projects and experiences may benefit from an honest account of the problems faced by the association of private and public spheres and interests exemplified by Rio’s project.

Changes in Legal Aspects of Public Education about Drugs and Their Importance.

Requirements for education on proper use of drugs were included in the junior high school educational guideline in 2012 incorporating pharmaceutical education in the obligatory school curriculum. This move is closely related to the country's new OTC drug marketing system. The amendment of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law (PAL) in 2013 highlighted the public's own role in "promoting proper use of drugs and other related products and making greater efforts to acquire knowledge and improve understanding of their effective and safe use". Furthermore, the Law to Amend the PAL and Pharmacists Law enforced in 2014 allowed all OTC drugs to be sold online under appropriate rules. Deregulation of online sale of OTC drugs is expected further to promote self-medication for minor illnesses and require stricter measures to ensure people's safety through their proper use. These legal amendments in recent years have made people's education about proper use of drugs one of the top priorities Japan should pursue at state level. Since 2000, the author has been offering education on drugs to early primary school children as part of their healthcare education program. In the future, dedicated education on drugs will be necessary for people of all ages including not only school children but also their guardians and elderly citizens as well.

School development in Austria and implementation factors for health promotion

This article investigates the associations between different approaches to the implementation of health promotion and existing structures that facilitate long-term implementation. The data was collected in a survey amongst heads of Austrian secondary schools. For analyses, four groups of schools were differentiated: (1) schools that implement health promotion voluntarily with the help of specialised organisations, (2) schools that implement health promotion as part of their obligatory school development programme, (3) schools that use a combined approach, and (4) for comparison schools that use neither of these strategies. The groups are compared according to a number of indicators for a supportive HP programme. The first three groups show more desirable characteristics in regards to aspects that facilitate the implementation of health promotion (e.g. high teacher support) than the comparison group. The best conditions are found in schools that use a combined approach. Hardly any differences are observed between the groups on the level of the outcomes of health promotion activities. The findings are discussed in the context of change management and the differences between programmed and participatory strategies of implementation. Some of the presented differences can be explained via this approach and hold valuable conclusions for policy makers and practitioners.

Principios justificativos de la reforma educativa: su concreción en Cataluña

La Reforma vigente en el sistema educativo español tiene en la Ley Orgánica de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo (1990) se base legal fundamental. Esta Reforma ha supuesto una reordenación general del sistema, prolongando la escolaridad obligatoria común para todos los alumnos hasta los 16 años. Los principios que rigen la Reforma se pueden agrupar en los capítulos siguientes: autonomía, atención a los nuevos tiempos sociales y económicos, concepción sistémica de la educación y respuesta a la sociedad democrática presente y futura. Para dar respuesta este último punto, la Reforma se preocupa de la participación social en el sistema, de no discriminación, de la atención de los alumnos con dificultades y de la igualdad de oportunidades. La Reforma ha sido también una oportunidad para actualizar los principios psicopedagógicos que rigen el curriculum escolar, el cual se muestra abierto y flexible, para atender la diversidad de territorios y centros del conjunto del Estado. La transferencia del sistema educativo a los gobiernos de las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas hace que se produzcan variaciones entre los diversos territorios del Estado, según las propias necesidades culturales y lingüísticas, así como la importancia que los mismos gobiernos y la sociedad en general quiera otorgar a su educación. Se mantienen unas normas básicas comunes para todos.

Validation of competence models for developing education standards

Following PISA 2000, Switzerland launched a project called HarmoS (Harmonization of obligatory School) to develop binding education standards for compulsory education in the three language regions of the country. These standards for four subject areas are based on models of competence. Part of the development is an empirical study to validate these competence models. The present article describes the design, methods, and some results of this validation study. It also discusses the study’s usefulness for defining the standards and the consequences of some methodological choices, particularly the heuristic application of the Rasch model.

Polish-German bilingualism at school. A Polish perspective

This article presents the institutional frames for the acquisition of Polish literacy skills in Germany and the maintenance of Polish-German bilingualism after the repatriation of bilingual children to Poland. These processes are examined in the context of recent developments in the European domestic job market. While the European Union has placed proficiency in several languages among its educational objectives, and foreign languages have been made obligatory school subjects in all member countries, the potential advantages of internal European migrations for producing high-proficiency bilinguals are being ignored. Bilingualism resulting from migration and biculturalism enjoys little social prestige in the host countries. In Germany, there is significant regional variation in how school authorities react to challenges posed by the presence of minority languages. In many cases, the linguistic potential of many second-generation migrants and re-emigrants gets largely wasted because of lacking interest and incentives from German and Polish institutions alike.

Actions of the Ministry of Religions and Public Enlightenment aimed at removing educational differences between the former Partitions of Poland in the Second Polish Republic

After 1918, the schooling authorities started to build of a national school system in Poland with proper legal acts (acts, edicts, and circulars). These pertained to such crucial issues as the establishment of school administration, the curricula, the rules of maturity exams, the establishment of state schools, and the implementation of obligatory schooling. The particular legal acts made it possible to systematically introduce the solutions to the organisation of schooling and to pedagogical practice. The legislative solutions were the first step in the removing of the differences between the former Partitions of Poland. That was not easy, because it was necessary to overcome the differences that were superimposed by the occupation governments as well as those developed by Polish society in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century.