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Educational poverty is widespread in compulsory education in terms of poor learning and socio-cultural disadvantages; it affects students with disabilities, students with learning difficulties, and those with an immigrant background. During the pandemic crisis, students with special educational needs (SENs) mostly suffered the risk of an additional deprivation. Within an advanced inclusive model during school closure, the Italian State guaranteed access to schools only to students with disabilities. What effects did this "equalizing" measure produce? What kinds of attitudes have teachers adopted and what roles have they played (active vs. passive) in order to make it sustainable? What was their acknowledgement of the educational poverty and deprivation? To what extent were their attitudes differentiated? This article explores the roles and attitudes of teachers during periods of lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. We assume that the teachers' attitudes were differentiated on the basis of five cultural dimensions (auto/hetero-referencing; vision of remote teaching; relationship with bureaucracy, relationships with students; teaching as performance or relation), and two functions (classroom teachers/ SENs teachers). The study is based on 42 semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers, principals, and parents in six lower secondary public schools with high rates of SENs students and multi-ethnicity (Northern Italy), and focused on the organisational, teaching, and relational aspects. Results seem to confirm that not all teachers agreed with the Ministry line and adopted a range of responses to the challenge of maintaining inclusivity, from the inert/impatient to the creative/active ones. Their attitudes changed during the post-pandemic period from atomistic to more collaborative, and their preoccupation with the fragile "uncertified students" increased. The article closes with recommendations on teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Aims Samples Methods Results Conclusion Students make many errors in visual programming. In order to learn from these, it is important that students regulate their emotions and view errors as learning opportunities.This study aimed to explore to what extent momentary emotions, specifically enjoyment, anxiety and boredom, as well as the error learning orientation of students, interacted during a 1‐day course on visual programming in an out‐of‐school learning environment.The sample consisted of 269 lower secondary school students (grades 7–9).The data were collected in an intervention study, with questionnaires applied directly before and after the course, and with four measurements of state emotions during the course.The results showed that error learning orientation had an expected effect on the students' emotions at the beginning of the course. The emotions changed positively over the course of the workshop, while the error learning orientation remained stable. No differences in error learning orientation were found between the control and intervention groups. An expected, reciprocal effect of students' emotions on their error learning orientation at the end of the course day could not be found.Changes in error learning orientation are difficult to achieve during 1‐day courses. Nevertheless, through targeted, pedagogical approaches, which aim to minimize the influence of unfavourable emotions that occur in problem‐oriented learning situations, teachers could help students develop a positive error learning orientation in the long term, whereby errors are viewed as an opportunity for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more digital technologies are being integrated into school learning, and one strategy by policymakers to reinforce this trend is employing digital one-to-one approaches. For digital technologies to be fruitfully integrated into school-based learning scenarios, teachers and their anticipations are key. In our study, we want to explore how internal, external and technological factors affect the instructional anticipations of mathematics teachers in a digital one-to-one educational environment. Therefore, we employed a modified model of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. Through our structural equation study, in which data from more than 900 mathematics teachers were analyzed, we identified that especially technological and external factors can predict mathematics teachers’ instructional anticipations. Findings from our study could be particularly relevant for educational policymakers, informing them about the importance of factors or interventions related to educational technology implementation.

Educational poverty is widespread in compulsory education in terms of poor learning and socio-cultural disadvantages; it affects students with disabilities, students with learning difficulties, and those with an immigrant background. During the pandemic crisis, students with special educational needs (SENs) mostly suffered the risk of an additional deprivation. Within an advanced inclusive model during school closure, the Italian State guaranteed access to schools only to students with disabilities. What effects did this “equalizing” measure produce? What kinds of attitudes have teachers adopted and what roles have they played (active vs. passive) in order to make it sustainable? What was their acknowledgement of the educational poverty and deprivation? To what extent were their attitudes differentiated? This article explores the roles and attitudes of teachers during periods of lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. We assume that the teachers’ attitudes were differentiated on the basis of five cultural dimensions (auto/hetero-referencing; vision of remote teaching; relationship with bureaucracy, relationships with students; teaching as performance or relation), and two functions (classroom teachers/ SENs teachers). The study is based on 42 semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers, principals, and parents in six lower secondary public schools with high rates of SENs students and multi-ethnicity (Northern Italy), and focused on the organisational, teaching, and relational aspects. Results seem to confirm that not all teachers agreed with the Ministry line and adopted a range of responses to the challenge of maintaining inclusivity, from the inert/impatient to the creative/active ones. Their attitudes changed during the post-pandemic period from atomistic to more collaborative, and their preoccupation with the fragile “uncertified students” increased. The article closes with recommendations on teacher training.

There is a wide debate on the convenience of grade retention for students' future cognitive development. Nevertheless, due to the endogenous characteristics of grade retention to explain students' academic performance, most of the literature fails in capturing its actual influence. In the present research, we intend to get as close as possible to the causal effect of grade retention on lower secondary education students' academic competences. In order to do this, we employ rich administrative census and longitudinal data from the most populated region of Spain (Andalusia) using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation method with student fixed-effects within-students between-academic years. Our results show a positive influence of grade retention on students' academic competences in the short term in mathematics but a null one in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital task design is an important issue when integrating technology into mathematics education. However, existing frameworks often are not fine-grained enough for supporting teachers in designing tasks or they only focus on geometric topics. In this paper, we share a case study as the first cycle of our design-based research study that aims to extend and adapt the well-known Dynamic Geometry Task Analysis framework for analyzing further digital materials. The adapted framework is named Digital Task Analysis (DTA) model and can be utilized to analyze, modify, and design digital materials from other mathematical topics. The model focuses on supporting teachers in integrating two essential aspects within digital materials, namely creating cognitively stimulating tasks and exploiting added value of technology. In this paper, we present the first analyses of three cases representing digital materials including visualizations addressing lower secondary mathematics following the DTA model. The results show that the presented DTA model is suitable to analyze such digital materials and has the potential to support teachers in designing, assessing, and modifying digital tasks that support learners in focusing their attention on mathematically relevant aspects of digital resources, and in deepening their awareness of how to formulate targeted tasks for learners.

Copyright of Sociology & Space / Sociologija i Prostor is the property of Institut za drustvena istrazivanja u Zagrebu (Institute for Social Research of Zagreb) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Entrepreneurship; Education / Przedsiebiorczość - Edukacja is the property of Press of Pedagogical University of Cracow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of E-Pedagogium is the property of Palacky University in Olomouc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Six Norwegian lower secondary school pupils (ages 14-15 years) with low writing achievement participated in a stimulated recall study aimed at exploring how pupils write and experience writing with speech-to-text (STT) technology in an educational context. The study employed an exploratory design, collecting data from screen recordings and stimulated recall interviews. The screen recordings were captured while the adolescents wrote a reflective text in Norwegian, using STT and keyboard. Findings showed that the pupils were able to produce a reflective text using STT technology while experiencing both benefits and challenges due to the technology. Benefits included the opportunity to use words that they did not know how to spell and verbal skills to produce arguments in writing. Challenges were mainly related to transcription errors and technological inaccuracies. Findings suggest that technological issues need to be addressed and sufficient planning and instruction is necessary before STT can be a truly beneficial tool for adolescents with low writing achievement in secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has linked demographic shifts in mental health issues among adolescents to a rise in personal expectations and a strong performance imperative, particularly within the educational system. This study aims to understand how early adolescents' experiences of school-related performance demands and their general well-being are structured by class, gender and school context. Along with short-term participant observations, focus group and individual interviews were conducted within four schools varying greatly in the socioeconomic status of the school district, performance level and location (n = 80). Connections between experiences of school-related performance demands, self-critique and mental health complaints, along with experiences of high performance demands outside of school, were more often found among pupils in schools located in high-resource areas. Schools in areas with lower socioeconomic status tended to be less competitive environments and provide alternatives to high performance within the school context, especially for girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem-posing is an essential component of mathematics education because, among other reasons, when students are given the opportunity to pose their problems, they can take ownership of their learning and become more engaged in the given subject. Thus, problem-posing can lead to a deeper understanding of the studied mathematical concepts. In a collaborative action research study, the authors explored whether well-structured problem-posing activities could be incorporated into classes with students of mixed ability in mathematics. This question is addressed by examining the correlation between students' mathematics grades and problem-posing success. The problem-posing approach used in this paper relies on problem solving as a parallel activity. Hence, the study also focuses on the relationship between problem posing and problem solving. The paper presents the results of a classroom experiment with 86 sixth-grade students and their teachers from Hungary and Romania. After evaluating the students' problem-posing products and problem-solving performances, the results show that problem posing, based on a worked-out model problem, is a feasible challenge for most students. Moreover, this experiment identified a direct relationship between successful problem posing and problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of epistemic beliefs in science (EBS) and socio-economic status (SES) on mathematics and science test results on both student- and school-level data was investigated via a secondary analysis of Estonian Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 survey data. The effective sample comprised 3991 students (52% girls, 48% boys) from 81 schools. Complementing bivariate correlation analysis, two-level regression models were computed where mathematics and science test scores were predicted from student- and school-level EBS as well as SES. Mathematics and science test scores had a medium-sized correlation with both EBS as well as SES on the student-level data. These correlations were larger on the school-level data. Multilevel analyses showed that both higher mathematics and science scores were predicted by male gender, higher student-level SES and EBS, and higher school-level SES. Higher school-level EBS significantly predicted better science test scores, but this was not the case with mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nordic Journal of Transitions, Careers & Guidance is the property of Ubiquity Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the most widespread challenges in education during the last years is the role of peers in the inclusion of students with special needs, in order to achieve socialization and academic achievements. With a descriptive character, this research has collected quantitative and qualitative data, the quantitative data were collected through the instrument of the questionnaire carried out with 128 students of the eighth and ninth grades of those classes where there were students with special educational needs. For the collection of these data, we focused on the Inclusion Index manual by the authors Tony Both and Mel Aincow, adapted and adapted in the Albanian language by Prof. Dr. Naser Zabeli, MA. Lulavere Behluli (Zabeli & Behluli, Indeksi per gjitheperfshirje, 2014) and a semi-structured interview was conducted with 5 support teachers and 5 assistants of students with special educational needs. The research was carried out in Kosovo, in four primary schools in the city of Gjilan. These schools were randomly selected while the classes were purposively selected. The results show that peers positively affect the socialization of students with special needs as well as educational development. From the obtained results, we also observed the differences between boys and girls, where we concluded that girls have more positive behavior-attitudes than boys towards peers with special educational needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational and professional training tracks can be a good option for many adolescents, many of whom enter these programs with a sometimes hidden burden of negative experiences and attitudes to school. This paper explores the sense of academic futility in future VET students at the end of lower secondary education. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 25 Czech students in which they described their experiences from lower secondary school, we found that despite the students' beliefs that their achievement is the product of their own effort, they describe situations from which it is evident that they noticed (i.e., perceived) that they actually did lose control over their results. At the same time, they explicitly claim that they have full control over their own achievement. This implicit sense of academic futility is created by several mechanisms at the school level: the curriculum, ineffective teaching, grading leniency, and teachers' distrust of students' capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change is rightly receiving increasing attention, including in the field of education. Climate change education (CCE) is becoming one of the key areas of education in general and it is therefore not surprising that more attention is also being paid to climate education research. This review study presents an analysis of papers focusing on climate education for ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) 1 and 2 students. The selection of the analyzed sources follows the PRISMA 2020 statement; out of 850 identified records, 43 made it into the analysis. Articles that met each of the following criteria were included in the analysis: (i) the impact of the article meets the inclusion in the Web of Science Core Collection service, (ii) the article was published in the period 2001–2020, (iii) the central theme of the article is CCE, (iv) the target audience is ISCED 1, ISCED 2 students or their teachers, (v) the article has a research character with the presentation of methodology and results, or it is a review study that includes an analysis of the records meeting the criteria described above. The quantitative description of the results shows the diversity in journals publishing studies, the exponential increase in their number in recent years, and the hegemony of the United States in this field of research. The qualitative content analysis shows that the most frequently addressed topics focus on knowledge, behavior, actions, experiences, and attitudes. The results show that as the urgency of climate change increases, so do the number and diversity of research studies on climate education for the target group. Most of these studies focus on the mitigation behaviors and willingness to act of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Española de Sociología is the property of Federacion Espanola de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers across all levels of education to adapt to distance learning. The overall purpose of this study is to provide insight into how agency was enacted by a teacher in this situation. Since such knowledge is highly limited, we designed a study where we observed how a lower secondary teacher taught his students (n = 49) remotely online across six synchronous lessons in Norwegian language arts. Based on the observation and an interview, we identify a teacher finding the situation demanding, but who responds by enacting transformative agency dealing with silent and invisible students online. The teacher experiments with various digital and social resources in his efforts to engage and interact with the classes, despite the distance. We identify that the institutional support dealing with changing educational landscapes was limited. In situations where transformative agency is needed, it is crucial that institutions support and acknowledge the complex process of explicating and envisioning new alternatives to traditional school practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential proximity to schools is a relatively unexplored topic, especially as concerns its link to socially disadvantaged and immigrant-origin students. Such students may be more likely to attend the nearest school to their home, since their (families') knowledge of school system is weak and school selection depends more on convenience than on evaluation of multiple schools' pros and cons. This paper examines if, and to what extent, home-school distance differentiates native and immigrant-origin students' educational experiences. Analyses – carried out in two Northern Italian cities (Milan and Bologna) and referring to students enrolled in the compulsory and comprehensive final year of lower secondary education in the 2014/15 school year – focus on minimum and actual home-school distances, the share of students engaging in 'flight' from the nearest school, and the appeal exerted by schools on culturally advantaged families. Results show that native and immigrant-origin students' school proximity is almost the same. Nonetheless, natives are more likely to attend schools that are farther from home; noteworthy differences are detectable in some disadvantaged areas. Native families, especially in Milan, are more likely to 'flee' towards non-state schools, which display a particularly strong appeal towards native families featuring high parental education status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pedagogy Studies / Pedagogika is the property of Vytautas Magnus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Slovak school system has undergone a process of transformation from a centralist, social and unified school system to a democratic, diversified and humanistic school system. Based on the nature of ethical education, we believe that it creates a suitable space for the implementation of experiential forms and methods of education. Concerning ethical education, it applies more than in other subjects that the primary thing is not the amount of knowledge, but a direct reflection and the inner acquisition of attitudes for practical life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite poetry’s important role in improving linguistic skills and creative thinking, students often find poetry writing to be difficult and boring. This study is an investigation of how the digital Poetry Machine influences students’ poetry writing by applying AI techniques. It uses qualitative and quantitative analysis of the log data of poems that the seventh graders wrote with the Poetry Machine. The results show that the draft poems functioned as affordances, which the students followed as models. The drafts encouraged students to experiment with several different poetic features. The data suggest an association between the number of edited versions and the quality of the final poem. The results suggest that a co-creative AI-based tool inspires and supports those students who engage in the writing process, and the poems are developed from the first versions. More studies regarding the role of AI based digital tools in developing students’ writing competencies would be worthwhile.

Problem-posing is an essential component of mathematics education because, among other reasons, when students are given the opportunity to pose their problems, they can take ownership of their learning and become more engaged in the given subject. Thus, problem-posing can lead to a deeper understanding of the studied mathematical concepts. In a collaborative action research study, the authors explored whether well-structured problem-posing activities could be incorporated into classes with students of mixed ability in mathematics. This question is addressed by examining the correlation between students’ mathematics grades and problem-posing success. The problem-posing approach used in this paper relies on problem solving as a parallel activity. Hence, the study also focuses on the relationship between problem posing and problem solving. The paper presents the results of a classroom experiment with 86 sixth-grade students and their teachers from Hungary and Romania. After evaluating the students’ problem-posing products and problem-solving performances, the results show that problem posing, based on a worked-out model problem, is a feasible challenge for most students. Moreover, this experiment identified a direct relationship between successful problem posing and problem solving.

More and more digital technologies are being integrated into school learning, and one strategy by policymakers to reinforce this trend is employing digital one-to-one approaches. For digital technologies to be fruitfully integrated into school-based learning scenarios, teachers and their anticipations are key. In our study, we want to explore how internal, external and technological factors affect the instructional anticipations of mathematics teachers in a digital one-to-one educational environment. Therefore, we employed a modified model of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. Through our structural equation study, in which data from more than 900 mathematics teachers were analyzed, we identified that especially technological and external factors can predict mathematics teachers' instructional anticipations. Findings from our study could be particularly relevant for educational policymakers, informing them about the importance of factors or interventions related to educational technology implementation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Paper chromatography is a simple and harmless experiment suitable for lower secondary education. Besides the training of subject‐specific contents, paper chromatography allows the application of modelling and simulation since the submicroscopic processes can be simplified in a way that they become understandable in lower secondary education. Here, the application of digital tools in addition to the experimental performance of paper chromatography in a compulsory STEM course in grade 6 is reported. Following a series of experiments, chromatography is at first simulated by a board game and then by computer simulations. Such simulation program allows the variation of the parameters in order to explore the model and to introduce the particle concept of matter and molecular interactions. The implementation with a graphical programming environment such as Scratch also allows the programming by pupils in this age group. In this way, it is possible to introduce modelling and simulation in an early stage as important contributions to scientific work in natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A European initiative CODING4GIRLS (C4G) promotes the acquisition of programming skills through a game development process with the aim of preparing young learners, especially girls, to enter computer science careers and raising awareness of the relationship between ICT and the real world. Using the C4G game development-based learning methodology, students develop serious games for which they need to learn specific programming concepts. This paper presents the results of a study with a mixed-gender group of both boys and girls (N = 773) carried out with the aim of examining the effectiveness of the C4G development-based learning approach in lower secondary education in Croatia. In-service and pre-service teachers organized learning activities for students based on the C4G learning scenarios, which include the development of games in the programming language Snap! with topics that are interesting for both boys and girls and which involve solving real-world problems. The results showed that students accepted the C4G methodology and were motivated to learn how to program by developing games for solving real-world problems. Teachers and experts consider this approach as a relevant and effective method for achieving learning objectives related to programming, applicable and suitable for lower secondary students (11–15 year olds). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Paedagogica is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Need for Closure Scale – NFCS (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011) was designed to assess individuals’ motivation with respect to information processing and judgement. The need for closure is defined as a desire for an answer in order to stop further information processing and judgement, even if that answer is not the correct or best answer. The short version of NFCS consists of 15 items with 5-point Likert type ratings measuring 5 facets: desire for predictability, preference of order and structure, discomfort with ambiguity, decisiveness, and closed-mindedness. Our study presents the structure of Czech version of NFCS-15-CZ (Širůček, Ťápal, & Linhartová, 2014; Širůček & Ježek, 2015) on a professionally specific sample of teachers (N = 142) and student teachers (N = 121). The results do not substantially differ from the results of general population. We discuss the possible applications of NFCS-15-CZ in educational research and its usefulness (as the scale correlates with beliefs and attitudes as well as behaviour).

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Education / Hrvatski Časopis za Odgoj i Obrazovanje is the property of Uciteljski Fakultet u Zagrebu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Društvena Istraživanja is the property of Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this study we investigate whether a digital tool supports lower secondary school students in poetry writing and influences on students' perceptions of poetry. It is essential to find new means to develop students' weakening writing competencies with digital tools and methods. This study analyzed students' perceptions of poems before and after writing poems with a cocreative tool called the Poetry Machine and the log data of poems written with it. We found that draft poems offered by the tool supported the students. Interestingly, this support received a higher evaluation by male students compared with the assessment by female students. The participants' perceptions of poetry writing changed positively during the period when using the tool and most of them considered writing with it to be easy and fun. Our findings suggest that digital tools have the potential to change positively perceptions about challenging literary forms, such as poetry, and especially to support male students in writing. Digital tools, such as the Poetry Machine, offer opportunities to motivate students in online learning. However, the young students need support both in face-to-face and online learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research is part of the project called "Sustainable social and educational integration through sports activities", which is focused on increasing both the school attendance rate for students in lower secondary education and the ISCED 3 transit rate. Vaslui county has a wide range of vulnerabilities affecting this segment of the school population. Our study aims to highlight the structure of these vulnerabilities, which are divided into 8 categories as follows: Roma students, students with one or both parents working abroad, remigrating students, students from disorganised or single-parent families, students from child protection institutions, students whose parents are immigrants/refugees in Romania, students with special educational needs, students at risk of early school dropout. This applied research was carried out over a period of 3 months. The participating subjects are students enrolled in two middle schools that have an ISCED below 50%; their total number is 190, of whom 105 boys and 85 girls. The research methods used are: scientific documentation, survey, mathematical and statistical method, graphical method. The results of the research are reflected in the identification of vulnerability structures for students in lower secondary education from Vaslui county. The research actually makes an X-ray of the social problems faced by middle-school students in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that teachers play a fundamental role in overcoming violence in schools, this research identified adolescents’ perceptions of their teachers’ actions. The qualitative investigation involved immersion in a government-run lower secondary school in the urban outskirts of Brasília (Brazilian capital), documental analysis, live observation, semi-structured individual interviews and focus group sessions. The results detected the use of classroom methodologies typified by excessive oral exposition and copies, scarcely compatible with adolescents’ aspirations to achieve autonomy and a protagonist role. Teachers’ impersonal relations with their students and difficulty in addressing classroom conflicts contribute to the occurrence and aggravation of episodes of violence and indiscipline. Proposals for changes in teacher education are based on that analysis.

Copyright of Journal of Technology & Information Education is the property of Palacky University in Olomouc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)