Urban School Students Research Articles

Food allergy and allergens associated with bronchial asthma among school children in an urban and rural area of Puducherry, India: a cross-sectional study

Background: Food allergy is mostly IgE-mediated which is estimated to affect 6% to 8% children and 3% to 4% adults the clinical and social impact of which takes a hard toll in early childhood. The objective is to study the magnitude of food allergy and differences in food allergens among the urban and rural school-going children.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 350 school going children, aged 5-10 years, attending to two private schools (n=192) and two government schools (n=158) in the urban and rural field practice areas respectively and data regarding food allergens was collected using a semi-structured proforma.Results: There was a significant higher (p<0.001) proportion of wheeze symptomatics among the urban (n=70, 44.3%) than the rural students (n=37, 19.3%). The students had higher allergies to Ice-cream (14.57%, n=51), prawn (11.14%, n=39), peanut (14.57%, n=51), garlic (14.57%, n=51), fish (11.14%, n=39) and milk (11.14%, n=39).Conclusions: There was a higher proportion of food allergy among the urban school students compared to the rural students. The food allergens also varied significantly in their influence on food allergy among the urban and rural areas.

School health performance score: a comparative study between rural and urban school performance

Background: Safe, secure and healthy environment for children to learn better and face the challenges of future life can be achieved by school sanitation and hygiene education. The objective of the study was to study School health performance score and compare between rural and urban school performance.Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out. It included randomly selected 46 rural schools and 11 urban schools. Both the school was compared in terms of school health services parameters.Results: In our study, 33854 students in total were enrolled from 46 rural schools as compared 9904 students from 11 urban schools. Mean number of students per school was noted to be 735.95±303.72 in rural schools and 900.36±172.83 students in urban schools. From the 46 rural school teachers, 7 teachers had semi-English as their mode of teaching as compared to 39 teachers whose mode of teaching was Marathi; while all the 11 urban school teachers taught their students only in Marathi.Conclusions: It was found that the school performance score overall as well as on individual item studies was significantly better in urban schools than the rural schools.

Profil Literasi Sains Siswa di SMP Negeri Perkotaan dan Pedesaan


 This study purposes to describe the profile of scientific literacy of students in urban andrural State Junior High Schools. In urban areas, this study was conducted in SMP Negeri3 Sidoarjo and in rural areas, the study was in SMP Negeri 2 Jabon. The subjects of thisstudy were 2 students of VIII grade from each SMP Negeri 3 Sidoarjo and SMP Negeri 2Jabon. In this study using qualitative methods, data was collected using tests, interviews,and observations. This scientific literacy test was adapted from the 2013 Pan-CanadianAssessment Program (PCAP) because students were in VIII grade. The results showedthat students in urban schools had scientific literacy on problem solving indicators reachinglevels 4 and 3, scientific inquiry indicators reached levels 3 and 2, and indicators ofscientific reasoning reached level 3. Meanwhile, students in rural schools had scientificliteracy at level 2 and 1 on indicators of problem solving, scientific inquiry indicators reachlevel 2 and 1, and scientific reasoning reaches level 3 and 2.

Comparison Degree of Myopia in Senior High School Students in Urban and Rural Area

Comparison Degree of Myopia in Senior High School Students in Urban and Rural Area

The Effect of Conservation Knowledge on Attitudes and Stated Behaviors toward Arthropods of Urban and Suburban Elementary School Students

ABSTRACTArthropods provide ecosystem services upon which humans depend, yet are declining across the globe. Arthropods are neglected from conservation efforts due to many factors that include a lack of understanding of their roles and conservation need. Knowledge gain of arthropod roles could therefore increase support for their conservation, albeit indirectly through attitude changes. Evidence suggests knowledge and attitudes are more highly correlated in children and that environmental attitudes are shaped before age 12 years. Differences in the connection between knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward arthropods may also be different in children from different cultures or from urban versus rural locations due to varying experiences with arthropods. We sought to understand if different types of knowledge increased positive attitudes and stated conservation-based behaviors toward insects in children in both urban and suburban schools. We conducted either a basic biology lesson or a conservation lesson on ecosystem services in both urban and suburban 4th and 5th grade classes, and used pre- and post-questionnaires to detect changes in knowledge, attitudes, and stated behavior toward arthropods. We found that urban students had significantly lower knowledge of, less positive attitudes toward, and fewer stated conservation behaviors toward arthropods but also exhibited the greatest positive changes when presented the conservation-based lesson. In addition, we found that being able to identify the type of arthropod correctly was related to more positive attitudes and stated behaviors. Finally, we found that while attitudes did not change toward some species, stated conservation behaviors did increase with knowledge of the arthropod’s role in the ecosystem. Education in urban schools, with a focus on both distinguishing arthropods as well as ecosystem services, provides the most change per effort for conservation. Arthropod lessons could be done by local professors and undergraduate students in urban classrooms or local green spaces.

Effects of a Kundalini Yoga Program on Elementary and Middle School Students' Stress, Affect, and Resilience.

The Your Own Greatness Affirmed (YOGA) for Youth program delivers yoga to urban inner-city schools with the goal of providing practical benefits that support underserved children at high risk of behavioral and emotional problems. A 10-week YOGA for Youth program delivered 1 to 2 times per week was implemented in 3 schools in urban neighborhoods to examine the effect of the program on student stress, affect, and resilience. Thirty children were administered the Perceived Stress Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and the Resilience Scale before and after the yoga program. After the program, informal qualitative interviews were conducted with school teachers, yoga teachers, and students to determine the overall impact of the yoga program. The quantitative results of this study indicated that the yoga program significantly improved students stress (p < 0.05), positive affect (p < 0.05), and resilience (p < 0.001). The qualitative results indicated that students, school teachers, and yoga teachers all found the program to be beneficial for students' well-being. Taken together, these data suggest that the YOGA for Youth program may provide students in low-income urban schools with behavioral skills that will protect against risk factors associated with the development of behavioral and emotional problems.

Do migrant students affect local students’ academic achievements in urban China?

We examine the educational spillover effects of migrant students on local students’ academic achievement in public middle schools in urban China. The identification of peer effects relies on idiosyncratic variation in the proportion of migrant students across classes within schools. We find that the proportion of migrant students in each class has a small, and positive, effect on local students’ test scores in Chinese, but has no significant effect on math and English test scores. We also find considerable evidence of heterogeneity in the effects of the proportion of students in the class on local students’ test scores across subsamples. Local students toward the bottom of the achievement distribution, local students enrolled in small classes and local students enrolled in lower-ranked schools benefit most in terms of test scores from having a higher proportion of migrant students in their class. Our findings have important policy implications for the debate in China about the inclusion of migrant students in urban schools, and for the assignment of educational resources across schools.

Facebook, Twitter Activities Sites, Location and Students’ Interest in Learning

This study was carried out to ascertain the influence of social networking sites activities (twitter and Facebook) on secondary school students’ interest in learningIt also considered the impact of these social networking sites activities on location of the students. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the research questions, while t-test statistics was applied in testing the null hypotheses. In carrying out the study, the researchers adopted Ex-post Facto research design. The sample of the study consisted of 240 senior secondary school Two (SSS11) students from public schools. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 students from the urban and 120 students from the rural areas. A 15-item Questionnaire was used in data collection. Cronbach Alpha was used to establish the internal consistency of the instruments. Cronbach Alpha Coefficients values of 0.88 and 0.72 were obtained. The findings of the study indicated that there is a significant influence of students’ Twitter and Facebook activities over their interest in learning. Students in urban schools had higher Mean Score interest in learning than those in rural location. The result also indicated that there is no significant difference in the Mean interest ratings of urban and rural students.

Сравнительный анализ особенностей мышления городских и сельских школьников

The results of the comparative analysis of the peculiarities of thinking of urban and rural schoolchildren of primary and senior levels of education are presented. In order to identify differences in the levels of formation of individual characteristics of thinking linked, inter alia, with the characteristics of social, physical and physiological development of students in urban and rural schools, a number of works were studied on the comparison of functional indicators of hemodynamics, psycho-emotional stability, verbal and logical thinking and characteristics of educational and cognitive activity among urban and rural schoolchildren. The results of the interpretation of the data obtained during the experiment conducted by the authors (54 respondents, 27 rural and urban high school students) are presented. It is concluded that rural pupils are characterized by higher level of development of abilities and qualities of the personality, providing them successful performance of the main types of mathematical activity: low level of psychoemotional tension, qualitative analysis of visual and visually-spatial information, logical conclusions, generalization of information, interest in the correct solution of a problem, etc. In the future, it is expected to find out possible reasons for “lagging” of urban schoolchildren from rural ones in terms of individual indicators of formation of mathematical thinking operations.

Linguistic Intelligence and Social Intelligence in Secondary School Students: A Regression Analysis

This study examines the infuence of linguistic intelligence on social intelligence. Sample for the study includes I52 urban secondary school students (77 boys and 75 girls) from muslim minority community, of class IX of Vikas High School, Edi Bazar Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The data for measuring Social Intelligence is collected using Tromso Social Intelligence Scale (TSIS) developed by Silvera et al. (200I)1. Linguistic Intelligence is measured using the GPA score of the students in the latest formative evaluation of languages (Hindi, Telugu and English). SPSS Ver.23 is used to measure the regression coeffcient and squared regression coeffcient. The correlation coeffcient between linguistic and social intelligences is r=0.507 (sig. at a=0.0I). The simple linear regression coeffcient of the two variables is R=0.507(p=0.000) and adj. squared regression coeffcient R2=0.252(p=0.000). The role of gender is found to be strong on both the variables and hence partial correlation is conducted blocking the infuence on gender on them. The partial correlation coeffcient is r12.3=0.387 (p=0.000). In the light of these evidences, there is a highly statistically signifcant, positive in nature and strong in magnitude relationship of linguistic intelligence and social intelligence in school students of VIIIth and IXth standards. Girls from muslim community are found to be more linguistically and socially intelligent than boys with point biserial correlation coeffcients between gender and linguistic intelligence being r=0.705 (sig. at a=0.0I) and between gender and social intelligence being r=0.355 (sig. at a=0.0I), respectively. The Educational implications are discussed in the light of the fndings of Sacher committee report.

Factors, Gender and Locational Differences of Stress among Secondary School Students in Ikwerre and Port Harcourt Local Government Areas of Rivers State, Nigeria

This study was conducted to ascertain the factors gender and location differences of stress among secondary school students, in Port Harcourt and Ikwerre Local Government Areas of Rivers State. Population of the study comprised all the senior secondary school class two (SS2) and junior secondary school class two (JSS2) students in Port Harcourt and Ikwerre Local government areas of Rivers State. Simple random and stratified random sampling techniques were used to draw a sample of 272 students used for the study. The sample was made up of 136 male and 136 female students. It also comprised 136 urban and 136 rural students. The JSS students were 136 while the SSS students were 136. The instrument used for the study was titled factors of Stress among Secondary School Students Inventory (FSSS1). The instrument which measured possible factors of stress among secondary school students comprised 26 items. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability co-efficient of the instrument which was 0.84. Three research questions and two hypotheses were answered and tested respectively, using mean, standard deviation and t-test. The results obtained were as follows: The identified sources of stress among secondary school students include: poor academic performance, too much punishment in school, some teachers not teaching during their period, gossiping from school mates, poor health condition, the issue of gaining admission into the university, parents poor financial condition, not having text books, parents sickness and traffic hold-up, to and from school. There was significant difference between male and female students stress. There was also significant difference between urban and rural secondary school students stress. It was recommended among others that government should expand the infrastructural facilities in the existing universities so as to enable them offer more admission to the students in order to reduce their stress in this regard; and that rural posting allowance be paid to teachers in the rural areas. In addition, counsellors, are to counsel students on stress coping strategies.

Patterns of oral Choice and Evaluation across secondary content areas

ABSTRACTOur study focuses on Choice and Evaluation, two of Mohan's knowledge structures to uncover how teachers and students across content areas developed disciplinary knowledge through classroom talk. Participants included in-service teachers and their students in rural and urban secondary schools in the Eastern and Western US. Through Choice and Evaluation, we examined opportunities for students across four disciplines to build up their knowledge of content matter or field. Findings revealed that teachers of math and science built students’ field knowledge through classroom exploration, eliciting Evaluation in dialogic patterns involving Choice, while social studies and language arts teachers helped students implicitly use Choice/Evaluation through projects based on their previous experiences. The essential role of student background knowledge in enabling participation across different types of oral exchanges is shown. This study uncovers tendencies across classrooms and makes linguistically informed suggestions for teachers in the disciplines.

Reducing stereotype threat in urban schools

Research suggests student performance may be negatively influenced by stereotype threat, “being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s group” (Steele and Aronson in J Personal Soc Psychol 69(5):797, 1995). However, studies have also found that educating students about stereotype threat and the nature of intelligence can attenuate its effects. This paper explored whether a brief intervention could improve performance and attitudes for 109 at-risk students in a large urban school. Results found the intervention did not result in statistically significant differences in grades, or increases in student beliefs about their ability to succeed in school. Educational implications are discussed.

Social centrality and aggressive behavior in the elementary school: Gender segregation, social structure, and psychological factors.

In this paper, we build on key findings in the sociological literature regarding different patterns of association between social centrality and overt aggressive behavior in the context of same-and-cross gender social interactions. We explore these associations in a population of urban elementary school students ( , SD = 0.69, N = 848), while addressing claims that the role of psychological factors is overstated in this literature. Our results indicate that, on average, social centrality is positively associated with aggressive behavior for boys, but negatively for girls. We also find a moderating effect indicating that the proportion of male peers with whom participants are reported to hang around, as well as their own gender play a role in the association between social centrality and aggression. These findings are discussed in the context of an ecological perspective on human development in which interactions among individuals, their social groups, and key environments are viewed as central to shaping developmental pathways.

No student left behind? Evidence from the Programme for School Guidance in Spain

This paper evaluates the effects of a remedial education programme implemented in Spain between 2005 and 2012 that offered after-school classes for underperforming students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. We use two different estimation strategies, re-weighting estimators and propensity score matching, and address the existence of selection bias. We find that this programme had a substantial positive effect on children’s academic achievement: the probability of falling behind the general progress of the group declined by between 3.5 and 6.4 percentage points and mean reading scores increased by between 8.5 and 17.4% of one standard deviation. We also find that a larger exposure to the programme improves students’ scores: whereas students in schools that participated in the programme for at most two years do not experience any significant positive effect, those in schools that participated for at least three years did. The programme significantly reduced the probability of belonging to the bottom part of the distribution (by between 3.2 and 7.7 percentage points) and improved mean scores (by between 8 and 21.5% of one standard deviation). Finally, we find that the impact of the programme is much stronger for students in rural schools than for students in urban schools.

Addressing the achievement gap

PurposeDeveloping countries in many parts of the world have experienced a disturbing trend in the differential pace of economic development among urban and rural communities. These inequities have been observed in education systems in Asia, Africa, and Latin America where researchers have documented differences not only in resource allocation but also in the academic performance among students in urban and rural schools. Recently researchers have shifted their focus from examining financial and physical resources to investigating the nature and impact of differences in human resources. The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in school organization processes associated with learning-centered leadership and teacher learning among urban and rural primary schools in Thailand. Teacher trust and teacher agency were proposed as possible mediators of leadership effects on teacher learning.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a cross-sectional survey design. The authors collected survey data from 1,011 teachers and 60 principals in 30 urban and 30 rural primary schools in Thailand. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping were used to analyze the proposed model of leadership and teacher professional learning. More specifically, data analysis was aimed at determining the nature of relationships among the constructs in the conceptual model and whether patterns of leadership and teacher learning differed in urban and rural primary schools.FindingsThe results affirmed a model whereby school leadership exerted significant indirect effects on teacher learning in both urban and rural primary schools. Data analyses determined that the path of leadership effects moved through trust to agency and then to teacher professional learning. Thus, while the authors found a strong direct effect of leadership on teacher trust, there were only small direct effects of leadership on teacher agency and no meaningful direct effects of leadership on teacher professional learning. Thus, the research affirmed a full mediation model of leadership effects on teacher learning. Finally, the study also affirmed that the measured variables were perceived as significantly stronger in the urban schools than in the rural schools.Social implicationsThe research expands on prior research on the “achievement gap” in Thailand by demonstrating the existence of a similar “human resource gap” when comparing urban and rural school leaders and teachers. This study implies that addressing the gap in student achievement will require action aimed at building the capacity of the principals and teachers who work with the rural pupils.Originality/valueThese results suggest differences in the quality of human resources between urban and rural primary schools in Thailand. There may be potential benefit to be gained from providing training focused on “learning-centered leadership” for principals and middle level leaders, as well as expanding access to quality professional development opportunities for rural teachers.

Assessment of Conceptual Difficulties in Chemistry Syllabus of the Nigerian Science Curriculum as Perceived by High School College Students

Poor performance in chemistry is an indication that students have difficulty in learning and mastering the content and applying these when they are under examination conditions. This study therefore was conducted to identify concepts perceived as difficult by chemistry students in Jalingo metropolis. One hundred and ninety eight SS3 or 12th grade students were randomly selected from six secondary schools offering science subjects within Jalingo metropolis. The data collection tool was Chemistry Difficult Concepts Identification Questionnaires which consisted of two sections. Means and standard deviation where used to analyzed the data collected while t-test statistic was used to test the null hypotheses. Findings showed that the students perceived 12 concepts (63.16 %) as difficult out of the 19 concepts in the questionnaire. Results based on gender showed that, the males perceived 15 (78.95%) concepts in the SSS3 chemistry concepts as difficult, while the females perceived eleven (57.89%) concepts as difficult. On the other hand, single-sex (boys only) perceived 17 concepts as difficult, girls only perceived 13 and co-educational perceived 12 concepts as difficult respectively. While students in rural and urban schools perceived each 11 varied concepts as difficult. The study also revealed that there was a significant influence of gender, school nature and school location on students’ concepts perceived as difficult in the chemistry syllabus of the Nigerian science curriculum. It was however; recommended that more time should be allocated to chemistry for effective teaching of the identified difficult concepts and usage of student-oriented practical activities, as this would help to concretize learnt concepts and reduce poor performances of students in both internal and external examinations.

Prevalence and risk factors of obesity among higher secondary school students in urban and rural schools of North Kerala

Background: Childhood overweight and obesity have become an important public health problem. Life style approach is required, and requires political and social commitment in addition to medical management. We investigated the prevalence of obesity and the association with risk factors relating to physical activities, in higher secondary school children of government and private schools.Methods: In 2015, we surveyed higher secondary students in North Kerala both in government and private sector schools. We measured height, weight and plotted Body mass Index on CDC (Child Developement Centre) charts. Factors affecting obesity like physical and sedentary activities (using Bharathy et al questionnaire) and school-based risk factors were also studied.Results: Multivariate logistic regression was done to evaluate the significance of these risk factors for overweight and obesity. On the basis of measurements taken in 496 higher secondary school students, the estimated provincial prevalence of overweight was found to be 7%, obesity 3% and malnutrition 18%. Children who studied in private school was found to have increased risk of overweight p=0.02 with odds ratio (OR of 2.97 95% confidence interval CI 1.27-6.97), whereas those who went to school by walking were at decreased risk (OR 2.78, 95% CI 1.16-6.65). Students involved in house hold chores for 4hours or more a week were associated with a decreased risk of overweight (OR 3.96, 95% CI 1.42-11.07) and those with less activity were at increased risk for obesity (OR 6.61, 95% CI 1.91-22.84).Conclusions: Home and schools provide important opportunities for public health initiatives for reducing childhood overweight and obesity. Children in private schools coming from higher socio-economic background are being less physically active and has thus susceptible to obesity and its consequences.

Sustainable Consumption Practices of Students through Practice-Oriented Approach of Education for Sustainable Development

Sustainable consumption practice is an effective approach to educating the younger generation in how to achieve sustainability in the future in agreement with sustainable development principles. This article aims to examine Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) knowledge and sustainable consumption practices. This study has three areas of focus, namely, (i) to study the difference between ESD knowledge and sustainable consumption practices among genders; (ii) to assess the difference between ESD knowledge and sustainable consumption practices by location; and (iii) to analyse the relationship between the variables of ESD knowledge and sustainable consumption practices. This quantitative study was conducted by using a questionnaire instrument. Two types of sampling techniques have been used, namely stratified sampling technique for the selection of schools and random sampling technique to select respondents at the selected schools. This study finds that ESD knowledge among male and female students differs, while sustainable consumption practices are the same in both genders. Next, in terms of sustainable consumption practices, there are differences between male and female students. Findings in regard to the location show that there is no difference between the school students in urban and rural areas in terms of ESD knowledge, except for the sustainable consumption practices variable, which shows significant mean differences between the groups of students from urban and rural areas. Overall, the students had acquired ESD knowledge and sustainable consumption practices. However, when examining the location of the schools, it turns out that the ESD knowledge of the students is similar but in practice the urban school students are better at implementing it. Thus, all parties, especially the schools, local communities, government agencies and non-governmental organisations can expand sustainability practices towards all levels of age and all school locations.

From The Editors

From The Editors