Socioeconomic School Research Articles

Inclusive Teaching Online: Lessons Learned

ABSTRACT This study aimed to understand how students with disabilities were included in online classrooms as teachers reimagined learning during COVID-19 school shutdowns. Through a mixed-methods approach, researchers investigated the implications of COVID-19 restrictions for private school teachers in Dubai, UAE. Dubai private schools provide many different curriculums but present a uniquely homogenous socio-economic school population to study, in addition to ongoing mandates for inclusion during the shift to at-home learning. The study addressed the adaptations made by teachers that could continue to influence practices in the return to in-person learning. Researchers utilised an explanatory-sequential mixed methods approach to data collection. Initial surveys explored the training and experience of teachers, while interview data brought forth the challenges and successes experienced. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS software and included a factor analysis. The hypothesis tests for seven independent variables revealed several factors that could potentially lead to more successful outcomes. Qualitative results revealed a lack of adequate training and support for the use of inclusive practices and a need for teachers to reflect on pandemic teaching practices. Teachers reported many innovations and inclusive teaching methods; however, many of these new innovative, inclusive practices risk being lost if teachers do not engage in critical reflection.

The Role of Opportunity to Learn and School Socioeconomic Composition in Reducing Racial and Gendered Disparities in Mathematics Achievement

Mathematics literacy is crucial in many STEM fields, yet Black and Hispanic students are less likely to achieve high math proficiency. While previous literature investigated potential factors to mitigate racial or gendered disparities in mathematics literacy, few studies attended to the conditions under which the causal interpretation of the results obtained can be established. Guided by intersectionality theory and causal decomposition analysis, we examined the degree to which disparities in mathematics literacy (a) exist at the intersection of race and gender and (b) can be reduced by hypothetical interventions that equalize school socioeconomic status (SES) or opportunity to learn (OTL) across groups. We found large racial/ethnic differences in math literacy favoring Asians and whites and much smaller gender differences. We also found that equalizing school SES may reduce disparities for Black and Hispanic males and females; equalizing OTL may reduce disparities for Black and Hispanic males as well as Asian males and females; compared to white males. Our findings suggest that interventions that target specific race–gender groups are required to reduce disparities in math literacy.

The Role of High School Freshman Grades, Socioeconomic Status, and School Location on College Enrollment

Prior research underscores the pivotal role high school freshman grade-point averages (FGPA) play in college enrollment, with a focus predominantly on urban settings. This study broadens this perspective, employing a diverse Arkansas sample (n = 33,207), spanning rural, suburban, and urban high school students and filling a notable literature gap. Utilizing a logit analysis, we found that high school students with an A FGPA were 23% more likely to enroll in college than B FGPA peers. Those failing a course in their high school freshman year were 13% less likely to enroll in college. Among similar academic ability students, economically disadvantaged students were 15% less likely to enroll in college. Locale classifications showed no significant enrollment variations. We conclude that FGPA and socioeconomic status (SES) are stronger enrollment predictors than locale classifications, finishing with intervention recommendations for lower-SES students in exploring college options.

Empowering learners for the fourth industrial revolution: The crucial role of teachers and school management

This paper delves into the pivotal roles of teachers and school management in driving Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) readiness among leaners. It examines the ways in which teachers and school management can contribute to preparing learners for the demands of 4IR by fostering essential skills, mindsets and knowledge. Drawing from interpretivist paradigm, sample of this qualitative study included three secondary schools close to Empangeni (South Africa) and ranged from fully subsidised to partially subsidised, representing a rich and varied sample. Data collection included class observations, ethnographic field notes and semi-structured interviews with 27 purposively selected teachers including three principals, three heads of departments and 21 teachers. The collective data was analysed using the Atlas-ti and the research found that access to digital technologies, training and skills and continuous professional development remains a problem among teachers and school managers from poor socioeconomic schools whereas teachers and school managers from the richest and most high socioeconomic schools are technologically advanced and in readiness to empower learners for the 4IR. Based on these findings the study advocate for provision of technological resources to schools, comprehensive teacher preparation programs that focus on pedagogical approaches, effective use of digital tools, strategies and curriculum integration of digital technology.

Art Rooms: Sites of Empowerment and Success

Students in low socio-economic schools are over-represented in the group of students who leave school without a qualification. This paper derives from a study of New Zealand secondary art teachers

Digital instructional leadership in schools facing different levels of challenging contexts: A survey study during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study highlights the growing significance of integrating digital technology into instructional leadership in schools. Educational administration research cannot ignore the fact that digital technology has become an integral part of human interactions and organizational processes in twenty-first-century workplaces. This paper aims to explore digital instructional leadership behaviours of principals during the COVID-19 pandemic and explain behavioural differences in leadership related to different levels of socio-economic school settings. Data were collected through an online study from 380 teachers in Bahrain. We used a series of two-sample t-tests between percentages to compare differences in digital instructional leadership behaviours. The study revealed that means of principals’ digital instructional leadership behaviours were generally higher in schools serving student populations with a high rather than low socio-economic background. Principals in schools serving student populations with low socio-economic background were higher than their peers only in one digital instructional leadership behaviours, and this was related to socio-economic gaps. The study contributes to better understanding of digital instructional leadership, an approach that is becoming highly prevalent because of the pandemic, and sheds light on how levels of principals’ behaviours vary in different circumstances. Overall, the findings attest to the presence of a digital instructional leadership divide.

Addressing the Teacher Shortage Crisis: One Regional University's Approach to Mobilizing a Response to Partnering School Districts

Many researchers have studied the attrition problem that has been impacting teacher retention in K-12 classrooms for years, looking for ways to stem the tide of teachers leaving the workforce (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2003; Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). However, almost half of educators continue to leave the workforce after three to five years of classroom teaching. After Covid-19, that number has increased, posing a difficult situation for school districts needing to hire effective, certified teachers. However, the question remains: how can institutions of higher education prepare effective educators to go into classrooms and remain there for the duration of their career? Research has demonstrated that teachers with more experience have a greater impact on students’ academic growth than teachers who have less than three years’ experience in a classroom. Ensuring that teachers are prepared to be effective teachers who remain in classrooms beyond the five-year mark is critical to student learning, especially students in lower socio-economic schools who may lag behind their more affluent peers. Researchers at a regional university in Texas determined that meetings with superintendents across a large swath of central Texas might assist all stakeholders in preparing effective teachers to enter and support the workforce in their area. This paper highlights strategic meetings and key findings that have been put into practice to work toward a certified and effective teacher workforce.
 Keywords: teacher attrition, partnership-building, effective teacher workforce

Pilot feasibility and acceptability trial of BE REAL’s BodyKind: A universal school-based body image intervention for adolescents

Body dissatisfaction is prevalent among adolescents and a primary risk factor for eating disorders, yet there are few body image interventions for older adolescents that support development of positive body image. Therefore, we assessed the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of BodyKind, a four-lesson, mixed gender, teacher-led, school-based curriculum for older adolescents, that combines principles of self-compassion, compassion for others, cognitive dissonance, and social activism to address contemporary adolescent body image concerns (i.e., appearance bias, comparisons on social media) and strengthen positive body image development. The sample contained 147 adolescents, predominantly racial/ethnic minorities (>95%), 54.8% male, 41.5% female and 4.1% gender-minority students aged 15–18 years (M=16.24, SD=.96) from a low-income, inner-city high school in the Midwestern US. Two teachers received training and delivered the curriculum to students. This single arm, mixed methods trial assessed student and teacher acceptability, teacher fidelity and student intervention outcomes. Despite reasonable teacher fidelity, recruitment/attendance rates, post-intervention data loss (35% attrition) limited evaluations of program effectiveness and study feasibility. Important learnings regarding study feasibility will inform optimisation for future school-based trials. Findings demonstrate high acceptability of BodyKind among teachers and adolescents in a lower socioeconomic school setting, and further randomized controlled effectiveness trials are required.

Exploring the Effects of Student and School Socioeconomic Status on Student Academic Achievement between Rural and Urban Areas in South Korea

Exploring the Effects of Student and School Socioeconomic Status on Student Academic Achievement between Rural and Urban Areas in South Korea

Spatial Clustering of Tobacco Retailers Near US Public Schools.

Previous studies have found that tobacco retailers cluster near schools. However, all retail outlets may be located near each other and near schools due to existing infrastructure and zoning policies. We assessed whether tobacco retailers cluster near schools in the United States more than expected when accounting for existing retail locations. We identified 322 056 probable tobacco retailers, 95 110 public schools, and more than 3.8 million businesses comparable to tobacco retailers in land use and business type. We created 500 simulated tobacco retailer datasets by randomly selecting from the larger list of businesses. For each simulated dataset, we calculated the distance from schools to the nearest tobacco retailer (proximity) and the count of tobacco retailers within 800 m of schools (density). Observed proximity and density values were compared to 95% coverage intervals from the 500 simulations. We stratified analyses by urbanicity, percentage of students in the free and reduced-priced lunch program (FRLP), and percentage of Hispanic/Latino, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic white students. Tobacco retailers were closer to schools in rural areas, cities, and towns and more dense around schools in rural areas, cities, and suburbs compared to random locations in potential retail space. Schools with more students receiving FRLP had higher density than expected while schools with fewer students receiving FRLP had lower density than expected. Within rural areas, clustering did not vary across sociodemographic groups. Within non-rural areas, there were inequities in clustering by racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic school composition. Tobacco retailers cluster near schools after accounting for existing business patterns. There are inequities in clustering by sociodemographic school composition. This study provides compelling evidence that tobacco retailers cluster near US public schools and that there are racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities in clustering, even when accounting for overall retail location patterns. Given that public schools tend to reflect neighborhood demographics, policies to limit tobacco retailers near schools may reduce both school-based and neighborhood-based inequities.

School and residential segregation in the reproduction of urban segregation: A case study in Buenos Aires

The link between residential and school segregation is widely recognised as a key to explaining urban inequalities. However, most studies have focused on countries of the Global North. This paper attempts to identify to what extent socio-economic residential segregation explains secondary school segregation in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Based on a linear programming method, the study proposes a hypothetical pupil allocation model that takes into account the capacity of schools and is used as an ideal typus to compare with the real socio-economic school composition. Using a ‘decompose method’ of segregation differences to analyse the differences in segregation indices and a local segregation analysis, this paper finds that in a residential context with low segregation but high social inequalities, school segregation is a social mechanism that allows maintaining spaces of differentiation and distancing between groups. In discussion with the idea of a ‘vicious circle of segregation’, this article argues for the potential of a multi-domain approach to segregation, to understand how different domains work in articulated and complex ways to reinforce urban segregation.

School leadership, School Socioeconomic Background, and Educational Achievements in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.

School leadership, School Socioeconomic Background, and Educational Achievements in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.

Does socioeconomic sorting of teacher qualifications exacerbate mathematics achievement inequity? Panel data estimates from 20 years of TIMSS

Recent and older studies have reported either a persistence or a widening of the socioeconomic achievement gap—the difference in performance between students in top and bottom socioeconomic groups. Using a panel data technique with country fixed effects for 32 education systems and six waves of data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, we examine whether the sorting of teachers by specialization level in mathematics education and novice status across students of different socioeconomic backgrounds exacerbates mathematics achievement inequity despite the presence of a time-varying control for socioeconomic school segregation. We find modest evidence that sorting by mathematics education is associated with achievement inequity, but no evidence supporting the importance of sorting based on teacher experience. Socioeconomic school segregation, on the other hand, clearly and persistently exacerbates achievement inequity. The results have policy implications regarding the effective distribution of educational resources. Availability of data and materialsThe data are freely available via the TIMSS data repository.

Perceptions of Academic Resilience by Senior Phase Learners and Teachers from Low Socioeconomic Schools

This article reports on the perceptions of academic resilience of Grade 8 and Grade 9 learners and their teachers in low socioeconomic township schools. Learners from township schools experience many risk factors that can impede their academic success and careers. A lack of resources is one of the risk factors experienced by the learners. During COVID-19, where an online or hybrid learning model was relied on for teaching and learning, most township schools relied on the rotational learning model instead. The study’s main aim is to evaluate and understand the learners’ perceptions of their academic strengths, future aspirations and motivation, and to compare their perceptions with those that emerged from their teachers’ blind evaluations. The participants were teachers (n = 8) and learners (n = 12) from two purposively sampled township secondary schools. Data-generation instruments included semi-structured interviews for learners and a self-constructed Likert-type-scale questionnaire for teachers. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings suggest that risk factors to academic resilience exist within the family and the school environment. Lack of parental support and school security, poor teacher-learner relationship and unemployment were frequently mentioned. However, factors that can enhance academic resilience were also identified within the family, school and community. Risks and protective factors affecting learners’ immediate threats and needs were identified. Access to technology and the need for technological advances were not identified as resources or risks. Future research should examine the relationship between resilience, academic resilience, career aspirations and the role of technology in education.

THE IMPACT OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND SCHOOL TYPE ON ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

THE IMPACT OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND SCHOOL TYPE ON ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Enacting accountability reforms in Brazil: the mediating role of school leadership

This article aims to analyse the role of school leaders in mediating education accountability policies in Brazil. The study is framed by a sense-making and contingent leadership framework and is guided by a ‘realist evaluation’ methodological approach. The qualitative research conducted in four schools in Belo Horizonte shows that school leaders play a substantial role in mediating how school accountability reforms are received. They enact different roles, behaviours and practices, shaped by the sense-making and perception of accountability reforms and dependent upon three main contingent factors: leaders’ positional power and gender, socio-economic school composition and schools’ administrative dependency.

Accentuating School Infrastructural Amenities, Socio-Economic Goods and Services to Realize Quality Education in South Africa

The paper examines how infrastructural amenities, socio-economic goods and services, play an active role in ensuring the realization of quality education. It is an undisputed fact that teaching and learning have now become an essential tool in shaping the right to access quality education. However, quality education cannot be realized if infrastructural amenities, socio-economic goods and services are not up to standard. The judiciary, through its pronouncements has also reiterated on the significance of having a learning environment that is conducive for effective teaching and learning. This paper showcases the importance of infrastructural amenities and socio-economic goods and services, as an integral part of the realization of quality education. In doing so, the paper adopted a non-empirical approach generally acceptable in legal research activities. It concludes that the right to education is inalienable and as such, it is incumbent on the government and institutions responsible for the delivery of education, to ensure that the right is promoted and provided for at all costs. The paper recommends that the government must improve infrastructural amenities, socio-economic goods and services in schools, to create a learning environment conducive to r the realization of quality education.

Influence of High School Socioeconomic Status on Athlete Injuries during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Ecological Study.

It is presently unclear how the cessation of high school sport has affected injury incidence at different socioeconomic levels. The COVID-19 pandemic may have disproportionately affected athletes of lower socioeconomic status, potentially increasing injury risk in this population. To 1) Describe athlete injury incidence prior to and during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years in high school athletes by socioeconomic status; 2) Investigate the association between socioeconomic status and injury incidence in high school athletes. Ecological Study. High schools were matched between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. All athletes from all sports were included. High school socioeconomic status was determined by the school district median household income. Socioeconomic strata were defined as <$30,000, $30,000-50,000, $50,001-100,000, and >$100,000. Injury incidence proportion with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was calculated for each academic year. Mixed effects negative binomial models with robust errors were performed to assess the association between the incidence proportion ratio and high school median household income. Six states and 176 high schools were included (2019-2020: 98,487 athletes; 2020-2021: 72,521 athletes). Injury incidence increased in three of four socioeconomic strata during the 2020-2021 year (<$30,000: 2019-2020: 15.6 (13.1-18.1), 2020-2021: 26.3 (23.1-29.6); $30,000-50,000: 2019-2020: 7.8 (7.1-8.6), 2020-2021: 14.9 (13.8-15.9); $50,001-100,000: 2019-2020: 15.1 (14.7-15.4), 2020-2021: 21.3 (20.9-21.8); >$100,000: 2019-2020: 18.4 (18.1-18.8), 2020-2021: 17.3 (16.8-17.7)). An association was observed between injury incidence ratio and log median high school household income in 2019-2020 [1.6 (1.1-2.5)] but not 2020-2021 [1.1 (0.8-1.6)] school years. Athletes from lower socioeconomic high schools reported increased injury incidence compared to higher socioeconomic high schools during the 2020-2021 academic school year. These results highlight the increased COVID-19 pandemic vulnerability in athletes from lower socioeconomic high schools. High school sport stakeholders should consider how abrupt sport stoppage can affect lower socioeconomic athletes. 2.

Teachers and occupational therapists as interprofessional teammates: Implementation of an adapted social-emotional learning curriculum

Research supports health and educational benefits of social emotional learning (SEL) for children, particularly in lower socio-economic school settings. However, limited data exist on adaptation and implementation of such curricula by collaborating educators and health professionals for children with developmental and learning needs. We conducted a qualitative study to understand interprofessional experiences between a Kindergarten classroom teacher and occupational therapy (OT) personnel who implemented an adapted literacy-focused SEL program in the classroom for children ages 5–6 years old at high-risk for behavioral, developmental, and learning needs. This article describes themes that emerged from analysis of semi-structured interviews and observations conducted with participants implementing the study within the Title I school. The themes are: limited role understanding, contextual factors impacted interprofessional collaboration, and the perceived positive impact of SEL on students. While educators and related-service professionals can effectively implement classroom-level interventions for children with and without identified disabilities, future interprofessional education opportunities should develop role understanding and enhance team communication during pre-service learning.

The substantiveness of socioeconomic school compositional effects in Australia: measurement error and the relationship with academic composition

This study examines the effect of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement growth in Australian schooling, and its relationship with academic composition utilising the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) dataset. Previous research has found that school composition predicts a range of schooling outcomes. A critique of school compositional research has been that measurement error may have biased findings of compositional effects. Prior studies have found that socioeconomic compositional effect sizes are small when models include academic composition. The relationship between socioeconomic and academic compositions has yet to be fully determined. Multi-level regressions and structural equation models were compared to estimate the degree of bias in socioeconomic compositional effects due to measurement error. Multi-level path models were used to test if academic composition mediated the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. The results showed that measurement error did not bias compositional effects in the dataset, and academic composition mediates the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. We argue that school value-add research should include academic composition to account for contextual effects. The socioeconomic compositional effect is of practical significance to policy makers and educational researchers due to its relative size compared to average student achievement growth. Potential reforms include ensuring public subsidies to private schools in Australia do not increase school segregation and the amelioration of the effects of residential segregation through school funding reforms.