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This study aimed to relate school diversity approaches to continuity and change in teacher–student relationships, comparing Belgian‐majority (N = 1,875, Mage = 14.56) and Turkish and Moroccan‐minority adolescents (N = 1,445, Mage = 15.07). Latent‐Growth‐Mixture‐Models of student‐reported teacher support and rejection over 3 years revealed three trajectories per group: normative‐positive (high support, low rejection) and decreasing‐negative (moderate support, high‐decreasing rejection) for both groups, increasing‐negative (moderate support, low‐increasing rejection) for minority, moderate‐positive (moderate support, low rejection) for majority youth. Trajectories differed between age groups. Student and teacher perceptions of equality and multiculturalism afforded, and assimilationism threatened, normative‐positive trajectories for minority youth. Diversity approaches had less impact on majority trajectories. Normative‐positive trajectories were related to improved school outcomes; they were less likely, but more beneficial for minority than majority youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge of how ethnic minority students explain and make sense of their friendship preferences in a university setting remains limited, despite the significance of friendships in the adaptation of students to higher education. Drawing on findings from qualitative interviews, this article explores the friendship preferences of 20 Turkish-Belgian university students in the northern part of Belgium. An inductive thematic analysis is conducted to analyse the interviews through constant comparison. The findings demonstrate that students who preferred same-ethnic friendships valued the role of familiarity and a shared understanding. Students with predominantly interethnic friends referred to having interests and attitudes similar to those of their friends. While students' friendship preferences evolved over time throughout their educational career, the university context allowed students to strengthen or change their preferences for certain groups of friends with particular traits and/or lifestyles and hence facilitated their preferences for homophilous friendships. These friendship preferences and searches were also shaped by inclusion/exclusion processes. Nearly all participants felt excluded or othered by peers of Belgian origin during everyday interactions on campus. However, they interpreted these exclusion experiences differently based on their peer groups and used distinct coping mechanisms, resulting in distinct patterns of friendship preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The aim of this study was to determine whether the use of primary health care differs between students enrolled in Belgian and German government-funded universities. The secondary aim of the study was to determine the factors that might explain such a difference. Methods. Participants were recruited through all Belgian and German government-funded universities. Because not all the universities agreed to participate, recruiting was also done through social media groups of the universities. An anonymous online survey was used for data collection. Results. In total, 2238 completed surveys were evaluated, of which 544 from students in Belgium and 1694 from students in Germany. In Belgium, more students had a family physician (87%) as compared to the students in Germany (73%) (p < 0.001). During the two months prior to the study, 37% of the Belgian students and 35% of the German students attended a family physician (p = 0.37). More German students attended a specialist (40%) as compared to the Belgian students (24%) (p<0.001). The German students also attended the emergency department more frequently (6%) as compared to their Belgian counterparts (3%) (p = 0.004). Conclusion. Belgian university students were more likely to attend a primary care physician than the German students. The health care seemed to be better organized for Belgian students and they were more satisfied with the delivered care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: The purpose of this study was to objectively assess changes in weight, BMI, body composition and waist circumference during the first semester at university in Belgian students, as well as to identify correlates of change in BMI and fat%. Methods: Weight, height, body composition and waist circumference were measured at baseline (October/November 2011) and follow-up (February/March 2012) in 101 first year university students. Additionally, a health behaviour questionnaire was completed at follow-up. Results: After one semester at university, students gained on average 1.0kg (range=−4.1kg, +7.7kg) of body weight consisting of 0.8kg of fat mass. In contrast, fat free mass and waist circumference did not change. Regression models showed that being male, higher amount of TV/DVD watching and higher frequency of eating at a friends’ place were contributors of BMI increase, whereas living in a student residence and lower frequency of reading and studying was related with higher increases in fat%. Conclusions: This is the first European study demonstrating that the first semester at university is a critical period for weight and fat gain. Future intervention studies should have special attention for male students and students living in student residences, and focus on promoting healthier food choices when eating out-of-home. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study identified decision-making profiles of students who make a choice of a major in higher education. These profiles were examined in a sample of Belgian students at the end of Grade 12, when the educational system expects that these adolescents choose a specific major. Using latent class cluster analysis on adolescents’ scores for coping with career decisional tasks (i.e., orientation, exploration, decisional status, and commitment), four clusters were identified. As expected, these profiles paralleled identity statuses (i.e., the achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion status). Results provided support for the external validity of the identified clusters through differential associations with several person variables (i.e., career decision-making self-efficacy, career choice anxiety, and decision-making style) and with academic functioning in higher education (i.e., commitment, academic and social adjustment). Implications for current educational research and research on career decision-making are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) was developed and has been extensively validated in Norwegian samples. The purpose of this study was to explore the construct validity of the Resilience Scale for Adults in a French-speaking Belgian sample and test measurement invariance between the Belgian and a Norwegian sample. A Belgian student sample (N = 363) completed the RSA, the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25), and Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-29). A Norwegian second sample (N = 315) was included in the analyses of invariance of the RSA. There were expected positive and negative significant correlations with SOC-29 and HSCL-25, respectively. The metric invariance was supported, with the exception of one of the six RSA factors. The findings demonstrate that the RSA may be a valid and reliable self-report measure of protective factors and further the results also indicated cross-cultural validity for the RSA in a French-speaking Belgian sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for Belgian scholar Roger Blanpain is presented.

Many distributional conflicts are characterized by the presence of acquired rights. The basic structure of these conflicts is that of the so-called claims problem, in which an amount of money has to be divided among individuals with differing claims and the total amount available falls short of the sum of the claims. We describe the results of a questionnaire in which Belgian and German students were confronted with nine claims problems. In the “Firm” version, respondents had to divide revenue among the owners of a firm who contribute to the activities of the firm in different degrees. In the “Pensions” version, they had to divide tax money among pensioners who have paid different contributions during their active career. Responses in the Pensions version are more egalitarian than in the Firm version. For both versions, the proportional rule performs very well in describing the choices of the respondents. Other prominent rules—in particular the constrained equal awards and constrained equal losses rules—fail to capture some basic intuitions. A substantial part of the respondents tend to become more progressive as the amount to be distributed decreases other things equal, and tend to become more progressive as the inequality in the distribution of claims becomes more unequal other things equal. All of these conclusions are robust with respect to the difference in home-country of the respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) are one of the most often used methods to coordinate entry into the electoral market. Party elites, however, do not know how voters will respond to the coalition formation at the polls. In this article, the authors report on an experimental study among 1,255 Belgian students. In order to study voter responses to the formation of PECs, respondents were presented with two ballots: one with individual parties (party vote condition) and one with coalitions (coalition vote condition). The aim of this experiment is to predict under what conditions party supporters will follow their initially preferred party into the coalition and vote for the PEC, and under what conditions they would desert the PEC at the polls. The decision whether to follow the coalition or not can be traced back to four considerations: dislike of the coalition partner; ideological congruence between coalition partners; size of the initially preferred party; and being attracted to a specific high-profile candidate. (Dis)liking the coalition partner is independent from the ideological congruence between the two coalition partners. The study's results also show support for an adjustment effect, as respondents became more loyal toward cartels over the course of the 2003–2005 observation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the association between unwanted early sexual experiences (UESE) and sexual adjustment among 2,608 Belgian students (men = 1,017; women = 1,587) and 1,081 South African students (men = 335; women = 739) and the severity of the experience in its bothersomeness. Of Belgian women, 14.2% (226) reported UESE compared to 31.3% (231) of South African women; and of Belgian men 12.3% (125) indicated that they had an UESE compared to 56.4% (189) of South African men. Against expectations, those without UESE showed significant poorer sexual adjustment. The severity of UESE was also associated with greater bothersomeness by all respondents except for Belgian men at the time of completing the checklist. However, no association was found between severity and bothersomeness at the time of UESE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have been conducted to examine the predictors of fear of crime among adults, but feelings of insecurity among children and adolescents have been practically ignored. The aim of this study is to search for relevant determinants of fear of crime in a representative sample of 1,212 Flemish (Belgian) adolescents, age 14 to 18, and one of their parents. The effect of parenting styles on the child's level of fear is investigated by means of (multigroup) structural equation modeling. The level of parental supervision (especially fathers) is associated with more fears being experienced by children. Active parental stimulation of participation in organized leisure activities results in lower levels of fear among female children. Parents who focus on independence and autonomy, in contrast, seem to raise boys who have lower degrees of fear. Other findings that relate to fear of crime in adolescence, such as gender differences and socialization, media and leisure patterns, and victimization and personal adjustment, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is generally perceived as endorsing universalistic and multi-cultural values. However, social identity and self-categorization theories predict that, when certain conditions are met, a negative relation between ingroup identification and tolerance towards outgroup members should be observed. We argue that the creation of the status of ‘Citizen of the Union’ in Maastricht may contribute to meeting those conditions and therefore to increase intolerance towards resident foreigners. If that is the case, a paradoxical situation could emerge, in which people's levels of tolerance towards foreigners would contradict group values. We examined the relations between values associated with Europe, European and national identification, and tolerance towards foreigners through a survey study with a—non-representative—sample of undergraduate French-speaking Belgian students. Results show that Europe was generally associated with humanistic values. But they also reveal that strong European identifiers tended to express more xenophobic attitudes than weak European identifiers, whilst national identification was not related with such attitudes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the establishment of the impact of uncertainty on demand for education. It states that Belgian students are sensitive to the probability of success when choosing an academic discipline whereas German employees with lower degrees of risk aversion have sorted themselves into occupations with lower earnings risk. Information on a report from related to education system in the U.S. is also offered.