AbstractThis study focuses on processes involved in students' academic self‐concept constructions before, during, and after secondary school transition. The study is based on a four‐wave longitudinal dataset (N = 1953). Structural equation modeling showed that during school transition, the impact of grades on students' academic self‐concepts in Math and English decreased whereas the effects of maternal competence perceptions increased. After the transition, the effects of grades increased, while the effects maternal competence beliefs decreased again. The results are interpreted in terms of differential emphasizing of sources of information for students' self‐concept construction. During school transition, elementary school grades lost informational value for self‐evaluations due to the changed frame of reference. To secure stable and valid self‐assessments, students emphasized other sources than grades; in this, case information obtained through parental competence appraisals. After transition, when valid grades were available for the students' constructions again, the temporarily heightened parental influence decreased again.
AbstractWhat is the developmental course of competent social‐problem solving (CSPS) across childhood? In this study, we sought to answer this question by tracing the development of multiple components of CSPS across 4 years spanning pre‐kindergarten to early grade 3. We also examined whether early positive parenting and sociodemographic factors predicted initial level and growth in CSPS in a sample of 585 children (52% female, 26% lower socioeconomic status, and 17% ethnic minority) and their families. CSPS components (response generation, evaluation, and efficacy) were assessed the summers prior to kindergarten and grades 1, 2, and 3. Positive parenting (warmth, involvement, and guidance) was measured the summer before kindergarten. Multilevel growth models revealed significant linear increases for CSPS, and there was some evidence that these increases were modestly related to early positive parenting and sociodemographic factors. Results underscore the importance of examining CSPS within a developmental perspective.
BACKGROUND: There is increasing policy interest in ensuring that the school environment supports healthy behaviours. We examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between schools' policies, programmes and facilities for physical activity (PA) and adolescents' objectively-measured activity intensity during the school day and lunchtime. METHODS: Accelerometer-derived PA (proportion of time spent in sedentary (SED), light PA (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA)) during school hours and lunchtime from 325 participants in the SPEEDY study were obtained from baseline measurements (primary school, age 9/10 years) and +4y follow-up (secondary school). School environment characteristics were assessed by teacher questionnaire. Multivariable multi-level linear regression analyses accounting for school and adjusted for sex, age, BMI and family socio-economic status assessed cross-sectional associations with lunchtime and school-day SED, LPA and MVPA; effect modification by sex was investigated. The association of changes in school environment with changes in outcomes was examined using multivariable cross-classified linear regression models. RESULTS: There were significant differences between primary and secondary schools for 6/10 school environment characteristics investigated (including secondary schools reporting shorter breaks, more lunchtime PA opportunities, and higher number of sports facilities). Cross-sectional analyses showed that boys attending secondary schools with longer breaks spent significantly less time in SED and more time in MVPA during the school day. Longitudinally, an increase in break-time duration between primary and secondary school was associated with smaller reductions in MVPA during the school day. Moreover, participants who moved from a primary school that did not provide opportunities for PA at lunchtime to a secondary school that did provide such opportunities exhibited smaller increases in SED and smaller reductions in MVPA at lunchtime. CONCLUSIONS: Schools should consider the potential negative impact of reducing break time duration on students' MVPA and SED during the school day. School-based interventions that combine longer breaks and more PA opportunities during lunchtime may be a fruitful direction for future research. Further research should also explore other factors in the school environment to explain the school-level clustering observed, and study sex differences in the way that the school environment influences activity intensity for adolescent populations. ; This report is independent research commissioned and funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme (Opportunities within the school environment to shift the distribution of activity intensity in adolescents, PR-R5-0213-25001). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the department of health. The SPEEDY study is funded by the National Prevention Research Initiative (http://www.npri.org.uk), consisting of the following Funding Partners: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Health and Social Care Research and Development Office for the Northern Ireland; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorates; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund. This work was also supported by the Medical Research Council (Unit Programme numbers MC_UU_12015/7, MC_UU_12015/4, and MC_UU_12015/3) and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. ; This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12966-016-0378-6
AbstractFamily scholars have contributed a great deal to the growing literature documenting how children's transitions into elementary school serve as a critical period in their educational careers and, more broadly, in socioeconomic and demographic disparities in long‐term educational attainment. The purpose of this review is to describe how this school transition works, why it has short‐ and long‐term ramifications for educational inequality, and how it may be amenable to policy intervention. The review then elucidates how research that looks inside children—including neuroscience—may deepen and build on what is already known in meaningful ways. Throughout, the discussion focuses on children from low‐income families and children from Latin American immigrant families, two groups of children who are central to child‐ and family‐focused efforts to understand and remedy educational inequality.
The aim of this article was to show how transitions are constructed, and to discuss different ways of making the transition from the preschool class to first grade. The analysis is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork. Temporality is used to understand expectations about how transition should be made. The results reveal that some children made their transitions in ways that did not follow the expected timetable. These transitions can be understood as timetable failures, and needed to be made sense of by both children and teachers. These different transitions were an important part of the overall construction of transition.
