Suchergebnisse

Does England have a bias against ethnic minority teachers?
85% of teachers in England are White British, and 46% of schools have no racially diverse teachers at all. Does this mean England has a bias against ethnic minority teachers? Beng Huat See from Durham Evidence Centre for Education explores. Around 70% of the working population is recorded as White British, but 85% of all teachers in state-funded schools in England are White British. This makes teaching a particularly White profession. Around 66% of the student population is White British, but 86% of teachers and teaching assistants and 93% of school leaders are White British by ethnic background (Gov.UK 2021). There represents a mismatch between the ethnic makeup of teachers and pupil numbers overall.

1. What is disadvantage in education? -- 2. The quality of existing datasets -- 3. The quality of available evidence -- 4. The role of school intakes -- 5. The role of schools -- 6. The role of teachers -- 7. The wider outcomes of schooling -- 8. Post-school outcomes -- 9. Targeted approaches -- 10. The role of individuals -- 11. The role of 'parents' -- 12. The way forward in overcoming educational disadvantage.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to Goldstein et al.'s (2017) attempted rebuttal of the authors' prior paper in this journal (See and Gorard 2015).


Design/methodology/approach
The prior paper reported a systematic review of interventions to involve engaging parents more in their children's education in order to raise school attainment. Goldstein et al. make a large number of unwarranted claims about its quality. They reproach the authors for using reports of unpublished evidence, for mis-labelling or mis-describing studies, and for denigrating studies by labelling them as "bad". The authors were very surprised when first alerted to this response and went back to look at all of the research reports that Goldstein et al. claimed the authors mis-represented in the authors' assessment.


Findings
The authors found that the Goldstein et al. claims are false and based on such a poor understanding of how evidence is reviewed that it was strange to see their paper in this journal.


Originality/value
In the authors' reply, they look first at why unpublished material must be included in a review, and why the outlet for publication is not relevant, then at appropriate designs for causal questions, and at the confusion in Goldstein et al. between evaluation quality and intervention impact. The authors look at many examples where the confusion leads to Goldstein et al. making incorrect assertions about the authors' paper, in order to make the point that their whole idea of how to conduct a systematic review is wrong.

Around the world, governments, charities, and other bodies are concerned with improving education, especially for the lowest-attaining and most disadvantaged students. Making Schools Better for Disadvantaged Students presents detailed research into how poverty affects student segregation and underachievement in schools. It contains the first ever large-scale evaluation of how funding can best be used to lower the poverty attainment gap for disadvantaged students. Drawing on a wealth of empirical research from England, India, and Pakistan as well as worldwide reviews of relevant studies, the book presents high-quality evidence on the impact of funding policy initiatives, such as the Pupil Premium funding in England, and the many variations of similar schemes worldwide. It analyses education measures which have been put in place and discusses ways in which these can be used efficiently and fairly to allocate funding to students who are persistently at risk of underachievement. The book is unique in synthesising many forms of evidence from around the world and finding a definition of educational disadvantage that can be used fairly across different contexts. Offering significant implications for ways to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged students, the book will be essential reading for students of education policy, sociology of education and educational practices, and all researchers, school leaders, and policy-makers working in this area.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables -- Abbreviations -- Preface -- PART I: Introduction -- Chapter 1: Introduction: the state of evidence in education -- What kind of evidence is this book about? -- Surely academic/professional research just needs to be used more? -- Outline of the rest of this book -- Chapter 2: The changing incentives and infrastructure for robust evaluations -- A new era for evidence-based education? -- How has it worked out? -- What new kind of work is needed? -- PART II: Issues in conducting trials -- Chapter 3: Problems, abuses and limitations in the conduct of trials -- What do we need evidence on? -- What can go wrong with trials that have been commissioned? -- How are evaluation results mistreated? -- What difference do evaluations make? -- Chapter 4: Assessing the trustworthiness of a research finding -- Clear presentation of research findings -- Presenting results as 'effect' sizes -- Judging the trustworthiness of findings -- Sensitivity analysis -- Summary: aids to judging trustworthiness -- Chapter 5: In-depth evidence and process evaluations -- What are the different forms of 'evidence' in evidence-based education? -- PART III: What do trials show? -- Chapter 6: A short sharp shock? The transition to secondary school -- Policy and context -- How effective are 'catch-up' interventions? -- The prior evidence on Switch-on Reading -- The prior evidence on Accelerated Reader -- The prior evidence on Fresh Start -- The prior evidence on our literacy software evaluation -- The prior evidence on Response to Intervention (RTI) -- The prior evidence on summer schools -- Discussion -- Chapter 7: What works for catch-up literacy and numeracy? -- Designs and methods used in the six catch-up trials -- Results of the six catch-up trials

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to summarise the results of a review of the literature linking parental involvement in their child's education to attainment at or before primary school.


Design/methodology/approach
– The search involved nine electronic databases supplemented by other sources, and yielded 4,898 apparently relevant reports. Of these, 127 were reports of attempted evaluations to see whether enhancing parental involvement led to higher attainment outcomes for children.


Findings
– None of these studies was a large, robust evaluation. The overwhelming majority (121/127) reported research with serious limitations, and they were almost equally divided between those claiming success and those saying that the intervention had been ineffective or harmful. Of the remaining six, three offered positive outcomes, and these were generally complex interventions in which parental involvement was only part of a package of measures taken to improve results.


Originality/value
– Therefore, the paper has three main messages for an area where practice and policy interventions abound. Research has to improve greatly.