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Multiple deprivation affects a large proportion of schools in South Africa. The past 20 years of democracy have tended to focus on reforming education through curricula revision and a raft of redress-directed interventions, through the application of what we call a broad-brush policy approach. The paper argues that a broad-brush policy application fails to recognise the contextualised challenges faced in specific schools. The central purpose of the research was to discover the specific challenges and leadership issues that schools in multiple deprived communities face, and to identify ways in which such schools dealt with these challenges. The research was conducted through a case study approach of three schools in one of the most impoverished provinces of the country. In total 3 principals, 3 parents and 26 teachers were interviewed. The study found that while the three schools shared many similar conditions of poverty that drove the poor to marginal performance, stories of success tended to be strongly related to four key factors: (1) leadership that went beyond an ordinary focus on instruction; (2) staff stability; (3) flexible scheduling that allowed parental involvement; and (4) a focus on a school-wide project that acted as a rallying point and a source of pride for the entire school. The paper identifies asset-based leadership and servant leadership approaches as generative in schools facing multiple deprivation. The paper concludes with a call for more school-based improvement initiatives that seek to interrogate the impact of factors of multiple deprivation, and a broad policy redirection towards school improvement rather than educational reform, which has been the focus in the past 20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effect of composition may be strong in systems where students are systematically sorted based on their socio-economic background. This paper aims to model the differential effect of class composition on pupils’ achievement in Belgium (French-speaking Community), France, Spain and Portugal. Multilevel models are consequently tested on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011 data (20,830 pupils in 1139 classes). Our results suggest that socio-economic composition does not have an equivalent effect on pupil achievement in the four countries included in our analysis: its effect is strong in the French-speaking Community of Belgium and France but smaller in Spain and Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research set out in this paper attempts to identify whether one of three conventional IQ tests is more capable of identifying intellectual potential amongst poor children in Dar es Salaam. To this end 1857 children from 17 government schools in poor districts of Dar es Salaam were asked to complete a questionnaire and undertake a range of tests. The study included teacher, peer and self-nomination. It has been noted that static testing may not fully elicit the abilities of African children. It has been suggested that dynamic testing might provide a more fair and equitable means of assessment. Therefore 101 students took part in a control and intervention group in order to investigate. The findings show a significant correlation between IQ test scores and other test outcomes. Those with larger families and older children perform less well on IQ tests. Peer ability and self-confidence positively influence test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present call for structured mathematics programmes in preschools continues a trend from the nineteenth century, in which young children's lack of mathematical knowledge was considered to have a detrimental effect on their individual futures and those of the wider society. In this paper, an investigation of the philosophies behind several early childhood programmes shows that there is a long-standing acceptance that those not living in poverty should make decisions about the education, including the mathematics education, that children who are living in poverty should engage in. Consequently, the philosophies behind these programmes, and with them the advocated mathematics education, contribute to a homogenised view of the child. This fails to recognise the attributes that children and their communities have and situates those living in poverty as being deviant. The strong promotion in this century of structured mathematics education programmes is solidifying this homogenising process in a manner not seen in previous early childhood programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon several decades of literacy research in schools in high-poverty environments to explore what matters in young people's education. In dialogue with themes from Kevin Marjoribanks' work, such as student aspirations, family environments and teacher expectations, key insights are summarised. Referring to longitudinal case studies and a current ethnographic project, the interplay between literacy, poverty and schooling, and young people's aspirations and education outcomes is explored. Although the work of educators in high-poverty communities continues to be highly demanding, there are some schools and teachers making a durable positive difference to learner dispositions and literate repertoires. Teacher expectations and discursive practices are crucial in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to a brief report on benefits to handicapped children under Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, this paper raises two major questions: (a) How will special education relate itself to new and diversified programs emerging in general education, such as Compensatory Education? and (b) Are substantial numbers of children not truly handicapped in capacity, but simply functioning as handicapped due to environmental deprivation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology adoption for school education further gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the challenges and strategies of children belonging to the less privileged (we use 'privileged' in the article to identify those enjoying a standard of living or rights as majority of people in the society) families are different from those of the children who come from socio-economically better-off (privileged) backgrounds. The purpose of this research is to explore the experiences of children with school education and using technology for learning. Past studies have highlighted the use of internet and communication technologies as a promising solution to provide quality school education in the remotest parts of the country. Previous research has also ascertained that the socio-economic status divide has no significant impact on the students' ability to learn using technology. Children can use technology to learn irrespective of their socio-economic status and background. We conducted this exploratory qualitative study from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. A purposive sample of 14 students (9 from underprivileged and 5 from privileged family backgrounds) in the age group of 6–14 years, was used and unstructured interviews were conducted. We analysed the data using constructivist grounded theory methodology. We found that the experiences of privileged and underprivileged children differed with respect to access to internet, affordability of ICT device, quality teachers, parental support, and financial sponsorship. However, the experiences and perspectives of the children were found to be similar with respect to personal ownership of mobile phone device for unlimited time at own disposal, self-directed learning and having a trusted study advisor. The findings may be useful to policy makers and EdTech firms to build strategies and solutions for effective implementation of universal school education in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a pilot study where consultancy supervision was introduced into a primary school for pupils with SEBD in England. School staff engaged with supervision and evaluated their experience through a quantitative and qualitative methodology. The paper explores the nature of supervision, the qualities of the supervisory relationship and the areas of school staff lives to which supervision can be relevant. The project is set in context through reviewing current literature and professional guidelines on supervision. The positive results of the project are described and recommendations and conclusions drawn from the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family involvement has become increasingly recognized as essential to academic success. However, the racial and cultural gap between the teaching force and students in American schools is large and expanding, leading to increased challenges associated with relationship-building between families and schools. This is a study of teachers in a school district in the State of Florida that has high rates of poverty, large numbers of new and undocumented immigrants, and many families who speak languages other than English at home. Using a Bourdieusian theoretical framework, this study investigates teachers' recognition of their own habitus and that of families and of the doxa within the field of the school. This study asks the teachers, by their own accounts, what prevents them from greater success in developing and sustaining culturally sustaining family-school partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children living in poverty frequently enter kindergarten lacking critical cognitive, academic, and social-emotional skills, and this gap predictably widens through 12th grade. Several researchers have developed intervention programs intended to close the academic gap by building foundational curricular skills. These interventions may not be the most efficacious methods to address student needs. Given recent efforts to establish early childhood education standards and the implicit push to close learning and achievement gaps, it is important to identify research-based interventions for practitioners and decision makers. The purpose of this systematic review of empirical literature, reduced from 115 to 19 articles, was to identify research related to specific pedagogical and instructional approaches used to impact poverty's effects on elementary children's academic performance. The results of all 19 studies support emerging research suggesting that executive function is negatively impacted by poverty, highly malleable in early childhood, and strongly predictive of academic success when children enter school. Focusing on developing these skills, in addition to specific disciplinary skills, may help young at-risk learners gain a significant advantage in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Metacognition is a significant component of complex interventions for children who have developmental language disorders. Research into how metacognition operates in the content or process of developmental language therapy delivery is limited. Identification and description of proposed active therapy components, such as metacognition, may contribute to our understanding of how to deliver complex communication interventions in an optimal manner. Aims: To analyse aspects of metacognition during therapy derived from a manualized speech and language intervention (the Social Communication Intervention Programme—SCIP) as delivered to children who have social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD) and to examine the dynamic process of delivering therapy. Methods & Procedures: A purposive sample of eight filmed therapy sessions was selected from the video data corpus of intervention‐arm participants within a randomized controlled trial. The child–therapist interactions during therapy sessions from five children (aged between 5;11 and 10;3) in the SCIP trial were transcribed. Filmed sessions represented a variety of communication profiles and SCIP therapy content. Starting from existing theory on metacognition, cycles of iterative analysis were performed using a mixed inductive‐deductive qualitative analysis. A preliminary list of metacognitive content embedded in the intervention was developed into a metacognitive coding framework (MCF). A thematic analysis of the identified metacognitive content of the intervention was then carried out across the whole sample. Outcomes & Results: Thematic analysis revealed the presence of metacognition in the content and delivery of SCIP intervention. Four main themes of metacognitive person, task and strategy knowledge, and monitoring/control were identified. Metacognition was a feature of how children's ability to monitor language, pragmatic and social interaction skills, in themselves and other people, was developed. Task design and delivery methods were found to play a particular role in adjusting the metacognitive content of the therapy activities. Conclusions & Implications: This study makes explicit the metacognitive content and delivery within a complex developmental communication intervention. Discussion of the findings about metacognitive content provides an explanation of how the skilled speech and language therapist manipulates task demands, person knowledge and therapy methods towards the therapy goal. Clinical applications of the metacognitive framework are discussed. We suggest that the process of making the tacit knowledge of the therapist explicit can contribute to the implementation of complex evidence‐based interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community schools are becoming increasingly popular. They aim to enhance children’s educational performance by offering extended educational and social services. As community schools mainly focus on disadvantaged children, this study evaluates the effects of community schooling on the educational outcomes of these pupils. We focus on care pupils and pupils whose parents have a low educational attainment. We hypothesize that community schools are particularly beneficial to care pupils, namely, pupils with additional educational needs, and for pupils with parents with lower levels of educational attainment. Our analyses show that both pupil groups benefit in terms of reduced underachievement. The duration of community school attendance as such does not affect cognitive outcomes, but it proves beneficial to the educational achievement of both groups when the community school subsidy is taken into account as well. We show that different community school activities have partly contrary effects on care pupils and non-care pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports on a school improvement initiative undertaken by a private university in Pakistan. The Whole School Improvement Programme, designed with the purpose to improve the quality of education appropriate to children and teachers of poor communities, is being implemented in selected elementary schools. Central to the program is capacity-building of teachers as leaders. The program seeks to gain a better understanding into the ways in which teacher leadership can influence school change leading to improved student learning. The program focuses on institutional capacity-building through development of teacher leadership. Twenty teachers were developed as Lead Teachers. The Lead Teachers are responsible for leading the work of school improvement as internal change agents. The immediate impact of the training program on the Lead Teachers was assessed through comparison of pre-course and post-course test data supplemented by qualitative data. Comparison of the data indicated significant impact of the program on the confidence level of the participants in their competence as Lead Teachers. The qualitative data showed that a considerable shift has occurred in how they think about school improvement, how they perceive their role in school improvement and how they judge their abilities to work as Lead Teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous research has documented a substantial decline of standardized test scores of children from low-income backgrounds, relative to more advantaged peers, in later elementary grades, the so-called “fourth-grade slump.” This article examines changes in reading achievement from first to fifth grade for students in a large urban school system with a high proportion of students from economically deprived backgrounds. Students received first-grade reading instruction from Direct Instruction (DI), Open Court, or a mixture of reading curricula. Results indicate that students in schools using DI had significantly greater gains in both reading vocabulary and comprehension than students in the two other settings and that their average levels of achievement in fifth grade were above the national norms, thus countering the fourth-grade slump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working from a core perspective on the developmental implications of economic disadvantage, this study attempted to identify family-based mechanisms of economic effects on early learning and their potential school-based remedies. Multilevel analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort revealed that the accumulation of markers of economic disadvantage reduced math and reading testing gains across the primary grades. Such disparities were partially mediated by corresponding differences in children's socioemotional problems, parenting stress, and parents' human capital investments. These patterns appeared to be robust to observed and unobserved confounds. Various teacher qualifications and classroom practices were assessed as moderators of these family mediators, revealing teacher experience in grade level as a fairly consistent buffer against family-based risks for reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do voters publicly fund education? I examine two explanations: public funds may be a means for decisive voters to transfer wealth to themselves or voters may subsidize the education of others to raise social education levels and realize external benefits. I test these theories in the 1800s, when full tax support of primary schools emerged. States where median and mean wealth was closer together had higher fractions of education revenue from public sources. Attendance rates rose when the public share of education funding rose, especially for poor children. These facts are consistent with a model with external benefits of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on voluntary reading by students over the summer break and its impact on reading comprehension. The author suggests that minority and low-income readers fall behind in reading achievement during the summer months when compared with high-income white students. Two experiments are presented and the author concludes that books must be linked to student reading levels and interests. Teachers and parents also need to provide scaffolded support. Other topics include engagement with the text, summer loss, and book matching.

In this study, the authors explore the implementation of a statewide class-size reduction program in nine high-poverty schools. Through qualitative methods, they examined how schools used class-size reduction to change staffing patterns and instructional programs. Requiring changes in space allocation, class-size reduction was accomplished through attention to pupil:teacher ratio, with classes ranging from 15:1 to 30.2 team taught. Most partner classes used tag-team teaching, with one teacher leading and the other doing clerical work. Working without specific professional development to enhance teaching in smaller classes, it made sense that teachers continued to solo practice. Class-size reduction is both a programmatic and instructional reform, and as such, it requires specific professional development to promote change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether culture mediated teachers' reported classroom behaviors. Teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire with items that depicted a traditional classroom behavior or activity performed under specific cultural orientations. Reports of culture-based classroom behaviors were ascertained as a function of teacher cultural group and classroom cultural practice type. Classroom cultural practice was measured through a scale developed to assess typical classroom activities carried out in fundamental culture-specific manners. After teachers initially responded to how often they endorsed the culture-based classroom practices, an inference was made of the degree to which teachers maintained classroom behaviors specific to either individualistic, competitive, communal, or vervistic cultural orientations. Because teachers' practices are believed to be guided by mainstream European cultural values, it was predicted that they would report higher levels of such classroom practices. Patterns of relationships among the endorsement levels of the reported classroom behaviors were also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores patterns of special education services during the elementary grades among children who participated in either the Child-Parent Center (CPC) Preschool Program or other early childhood programs in the Chicago Public Schools. The study sample included 1,377 low-income, racial minority children in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Controlling for family background characteristics that might affect educational performance, children who participated in Child-Parent Center preschool had a significantly lower Tate of special education placement (12.5%) than the comparison group (18.4%), who participated in an alternative all-day kindergarten program. The estimated impact of CPC preschool intervention was best explained by the cognitive advantage hypothesis. This article provides support for the long-term impact of the CPC preschool intervention on special education outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks into the science program for disadvantaged children. The author points out that it is important for teachers to: (1) make a thorough examination of their attitudes concerning such children; and (2) make a careful assessment of their own biases, prejudices and expectations of such children. Significantly, popular beliefs such that disadvantaged children are non-verbal and disinterested in education must be addressed. School programs that are developed must not force middle class values on the children. The author contends that elementary science is an excellent medium for motivating and working with the special problems of disadvantaged children. The author recommends that significant considerations must be placed on the quality of learning experiences than on the quantity of the materials covered.

The article remarks that the form and content of liberal education in the elementary and secondary schools will vary with the conditions, capacities, interests and attitudes of students. According to the author, effective liberal education teachers must understand the learning problems of the students and youth they are teaching. For instance in the elementary school level, the author had observed that the typical slum school with its disadvantaged children creates problems of discipline that must be solved before the teacher can begin teaching liberal education.