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This paper presents a differential study on the way education was delivered within families during the COVID-19 lockdown (spring 2020) in the Valencian Community (Spain). Composite indicators based on responses to a survey for families were used to describe their difficulties (identified as "gaps") in homeschooling. We also considered traditional indicators of family socioeconomic and cultural level. Taking into account the characteristics of the distributions, we analyzed the results using nonparametric tests (chisquare, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H). Our findings advocate more work to further identify and define valid composite indicators to describe the contexts in which families operate as an educational setting, in order to use them as covariate variables for family socioeconomic and cultural level in research on factors associated with performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International students transitioning to university undergo dramatic changes in social identity, with a need to adapt to a new culture, language, environment, and way of living. This paper explores the impact of this social identity change on academic performance, academic retention, mental health, and life satisfaction. The Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC) predicts that during life transitions of this form, an individual's group memberships and associated social identities can protect them from the negative effects of life change. This longitudinal study tested SIMIC among international students (N = 210) transitioning to study overseas, with data collected at three time points across a Foundation Year programme in a large Australian university. Consistent with SIMIC, continuity of social identities predicted higher academic performance and better life satisfaction, and indirectly predicted student retention over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe the evolution of calculus instruction at a mid-sized, career-oriented, comprehensive public university. Changes in practice, that began with a single faculty member implementing technology as a tool for student inquiry, have spread to other department faculty via support from an internal grant, workshops, and the use of shared "living" course materials rather than traditional texts. This evolution in ways of thinking led to the formation of a working group charged with the assessment of calculus instruction. By focusing its attention on an analysis of student outcomes, the working group has come up with further recommended reforms to calculus instruction, both in terms of pedagogical approaches and content coverage. These recommendations have the potential to support further cultural change in the department (including similar reform in other courses), ultimately leading to greater student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Working towards social justice in education requires students' voices to be heard and understood. This is especially the case for students from marginalized populations. Prior research has shown the value and importance of students' voices for school retention, academic success, school inclusivity, and student buy-in. However, more research is needed on how adults understand and interpret students' voices and implement their understandings in school practice and policy. Purpose/Objective: This paper uncovers the danger of misinterpreting students' voices due to assumptions about concepts such as success and social justice. I explore this issue by interpreting first-generation Quechua (indigenous) students' voices about success in the Peruvian Andes through four different paradigms concerned with social change, social reproduction, and social justice. The discussion places into dialogue feminist theory, critical theory, postcolonial theory, and development theory in order to highlight the implications of each interpretive framework for responsive education policy. I show how interpretations based on each theory offer divergent school policy options, the danger of a single theory for interpreting student voice. Participants: The coresearchers for this paper are 14 young women from Quechua communities who are the first in their families to attend secondary school. Working with them are a woman from a Quechua community, a woman from Central Europe, and a man from the United States. Research Design: A collaborative ethnographic case study utilizing student voice methods. The students developed the theme and topic for research during a student-led seminar. Based on the students' questions, the adults helped facilitate the creation of an interview protocol with the students. The group answered the questions on the protocol and used the protocol to interview the students' parents. We held three total focus group discussions to develop the protocol, discuss findings, and interrogate ideas of success. Conclusions/Recommendations: The results highlight the vastly different interpretations and policy implications of students' voices based on each theory--highlighting how social justice is a complex concept that requires discussion across theoretical orientations. The findings also show points of overall congruence, and cross-theory trends. Recommendations are for educational leaders and researchers (teachers, parents, administrators) to reflect and think about empirical information from multiple theoretical frameworks in order to become more aware of the influence of one's own assumptions in educational decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies estimate the negative effects of family dissolution; however, evidence regarding when such effects appear is lacking. The effect is hard to isolate for at least two reasons: families select into dissolution; and effects might be observed before, during and after the dissolution. This paper presents evidence regarding the timing of dissolution effects. Family fixed effects (FEs) and a value-added model handle selection; timing is addressed by exploiting repeated observations of student performance before and after dissolution. I present evidence of weaker performance among students from dissolving families, an effect mainly driven by the deterioration of family relations before the break. The divorce itself seems to be less important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role does academic development have to play in responding to radical cultural shifts in the global landscape? Whose voices and identities are contributing to institutional change? This reflective essay encompasses the perspectives of the four international panellists in the opening plenary of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) 2018 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA – Torgny Roxå on ideologies; Chng Huang Hoon on agency and empowerment; Joy Mighty on voices and identities; and Mary Deane Sorcinelli on evidence and outcomes. These perspectives set the stage for the conference, and, brought together in this paper now, they address key conference themes, offer coordinates for reflection, and pose further questions about our profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a cultural assets model for supporting school effectiveness that moves beyond the deficit and difference approaches of the twentieth century. The model incorporates the capacity to identify contemporary cultural assets, and support cultural continuity, cultural diversity and cultural resilience during change. Undertaking concept-centric analysis, the reconceptualised understanding of contemporary cultural assets informs the construction of schools as cultural hubs, and reveals seven benefits that enhance asset-based approaches to school effectiveness. The model incorporates multigenerational flows of influence, community cultural activities, a communication conduit, and glocalised interactions. An empirical analysis of evidence advances the model’s sociocultural view of effective schools; provides opportunities to extend research beyond minority studies; and establishes the importance of cultural assets in secure base leadership for developing schools as dynamic organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the conditions under which Discourse and social psychology, Common knowledge, and the author's Arguing and thinking were written. These books, which were independently conceived, were not specifically written as contributions to 'discursive psychology', for discursive psychology did not exist at that time. Their authors were rejecting conventional approaches to doing psychological research. The paper discusses what it takes for a new academic movement, such as discursive psychology, to be successfully established in the current climate of 'academic capitalism'. Two requirements are particularly mentioned: the necessity for a label and the necessity for adherents to be recruited. Of the three books, only Discourse and social psychology was outwardly recruiting its readers to a new way of doing social psychology. Arguing and thinking, with its celebration of ancient rhetoric, was much more ambiguous in its aims. It was turning away from present usefulness towards the past. By claiming to be 'an antiquarian psychologist' the author was rejecting disciplinary thinking. The paper also considers the intellectual costs of establishing a new specialism or sub-discipline. The 'first generation' may have freedom, but success can bring about a narrowing of perspectives and the development of orthodoxies for subsequent academic generations. This applies as much to the development of experimental social psychology as to discursive psychology. These processes are particular enhanced in the present socio-economic situation of contemporary universities, which make it more difficult for young academics to become, in the words of William James, 'undisciplinables'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education teachers’ roles and identities are constantly shifting in response to contextual change. Pedagogy, values, and professional and personal narratives of self are all affected, particularly by technological change. This paper explores the role and identity shifts of academics during the introduction of large-class videoconferencing. Their experiences of personal and pedagogical ‘doing’ and ‘being’ demonstrate how ambiguity of role, non-alignment of values with practice realities and unanticipated disruption of self-representation are variably resolved by individuals. The findings suggest that successfully negotiating identity shifts may be essential for coherent personal and professional narratives, while lack of a collective response to contextual change may explain why academic teacher identity challenges are overlooked at the institutional level. We recommend identification, discussion, and alignment of institutional, professional, and personal pedagogical goals prior to contextual change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the persistence of a gender gap among university-based academics, despite the development of equity policies and ‘family-friendly’ initiatives. Over four decades of research are reviewed from the liberal states of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA and the UK, including my own qualitative interviews in Canada in 1973 and in New Zealand in 2008. The paper summarizes some of the structural, relational and interpretive factors contributing to the perpetuation of the gender gap. I argue that academic work has been influenced by similar global trends visible in other workplaces and that academics share the prevalent patterns of gender relations contributing to the gender gap. Despite over four decades of social change, including policy initiatives to improve the status of academic women, this article shows that the gender gap continues in these countries for similar reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates how the drastic educational reforms during the Communist period changed the effects of family background on education in China, in comparison to other nations. Data are from the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China survey and the World Inequality Study; N=130,109 in 28 societies. Since World War 11, the mean number of years of education in China paralleled, at a lower level, the rises in Eastern European Communist countries and in Western market economies. Multi-level regression analysis shows that China's educational level is not higher than would be predicted on the basis of worldwide patterns linking education to g d p and family background. Overall, the drastic educational reforms of the Communist period do not seem to have raised educational attainments, contrary to the Rousseau/Marx understanding of the primacy of private property as a generator of social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explain the hypercompetitive new reality in the global marketplace, discuss cultural changes in the United States leading to declining student performance and graduates who are unprepared for a competitive work environment, and provide helpful ideas to educators functioning as coaches and mentors. We found extensive support from many authors and sources expressing concern about the lack of preparation, complacency, and denial that interfere with the recognition of the new reality and the urgent need to properly coach and mentor students who will enter the workforce. Unless a country's culture and educational system prepares students to effectively compete in the workforce, the country's productivity will decline with unfortunate consequences for its economy and the standard of living of its citizens. There is evidence suggesting that this situation is already happening in the United States. Educators should coach and mentor students to understand the challenges they will face and motivate them to prepare for those challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current unprecedented levels of academic achievement among girls from all classes raise questions about the contemporary experience of girls in general and, in particular, working-class girls who, historically, perform less well. As the relatively low achievement of working-class girls has been associated with family culture and influence, this, in turn, raises questions about girls' experience in the contemporary family. This paper draws on findings from a recent research project and focuses on the contribution of working-class mothers to girls' achievement. Working-class families were defined as either traditional (retaining traditional gender relations) or transitional (challenging traditional gender relations). Factors which were identified as contributing to a 'transitional' life trajectory for a working-class mother might include: the impact of employment, adult education, the women's movement, and/or the experiences of divorce and lone parenting. The author concludes that while neither traditional nor transitional working-class mothers might become greatly involved in formal aspects of schooling, it is clear that their relationships with their daughters strongly influence their academic experience. Mother-daughter relationship seemed to favour girls' educational achievement in three main and interconnected ways: (a) by emphasising independence, (b) by providing emotional support, and (c) by influencing girls' values in the light of current social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]