Conference Agenda

Abstract

This research aims to examine the perceptions of women academics in Turkey about the concept of mansplaining and to reveal and interpret their experiences of being exposed to it. Mansplaining is defined as the act of explaining something to someone in a patronizing and condescending manner (Reagle, 2016). In other words, it is the practice of a man explaining something to a woman in a way that shows he thinks he knows and understands more than she does (Oxford Dictionary, 2022). Mansplaining, in its simplest form, is the practice of silencing women by men. However, women from different social backgrounds can experience this in different forms and intensities. When the related literature is examined, it is seen that the concept of mansplaining is studied by analysing social media (Bridges, 2017; Lutzsky, 2021), it is analysed through the lens of epistemic injustice and it is determined what mansplaining is and what its damages are (Dular, 2021), a mixed-method study (Koc-Michalska, et al., 2021) which investigated the younger version of mansplaining in primary schools and examined the nature, prevalence and relations of the concept of mansplaining in modern working life. This research will examine the perceptions of women academics in Turkey about mansplaining and reveal their negative experiences, the obstacles and problems they face, the effects of this situation on their academic careers and their solution suggestions to overcome these problems will be revealed and interpreted.

Debates on patriarchy, gender inequalities, gender-based violence, and mansplaining encountered by women both in their social and working life as well as in academia have increased from past to present in European countries and around the world. The intensity of the discussions in this regard suggests that there are still some problems or deficiencies in the implementation of gender equality policies and in the elimination of patriarchy and the masculine mindset in academia.

Far from medical considerations (Stone, 1987), trans studies have become widely established in the field of education and trans*formational pedagogies are currently emerging in different countries (Nicolazzo et al., 2015).

The inclusion of "trans" students divides the French Republican school. Some professionals of the French education system, driven by the universalist tradition of the school as an institution (Haby, 1975) and its gender blind ambition, have difficulty accepting the recognition of students' gender identity. However, for some years now, we have been forced to note the intensification of differentialist orientations in French schools (Jospin, 1989) and the crumbling of the indifference to differences model (Rochex, 2020). Unsurprisingly, in 2021, a memo was published, aiming the actors of the French national education system, and entitled "for a better consideration of gender identity matters in the school environment".

Although the document undeniably provides fairly explicit guidelines, the fact remains that Éducation Physique et Sportive (EPS) – French Physical Education (PE) – is surprisingly evacuated from the subject, leaving the questions expressed by teachers in this discipline unanswered (Couchot-Shiex, 2019).

It must be said that trans studies in Education and Training Sciences are struggling to emerge in the Francophone context (Richard & Alessandrin, 2019). In France, there is a real dearth of scientific work on the experiences of young "trans" people in EPS, justifying the absence of institutional recommendations for professionals in the discipline.

On the other hand, in Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic, research investigating trans-identified people in Physical Education (PE) is multiplying. Different disciplinary particularisms are addressed: motor skills (Devís-Devís et al., 2018); locker rooms (Jones et al., 2016); groups (Hargie et al., 2017); performances (Devís-Devís, et al., 2018); physical, sports and artistic activities (McBride, 2021); or teachers (Foley et al., 2016).

Inspired by those, we have modestly begun, since 2020, to approach trans studies in EPS (Pouy-Bidard, 2022), an eminently singular discipline in the context of the "French-style" Republican School. On the occasion of the Emerging Researchers' Conference (ERC), we offered to explicitly answer these questions: what are the experiences of "trans" students in PE in France? And do they differ significantly from those of European "trans" youth?

The main hypothesis lies in the idea that PE, when it is an eminently scholastic teaching discipline in France, and when it officially is at odds with the competitive sports model, the experiences of "trans" students differ from those of their European counterparts. Put to the test, the validation or invalidation of this answer thus intends to make a singular contribution to the co-construction of the "trans-school-PE" research object on an international scale.

Introduction

In recent years, a previously invisible group of student has received more attention, girls with autism and their situation in school, both socially and pedagogically. Diagnosis criteria and most knowledge are previously based on boys (Kopp, 2010). The research today describes a group of girls that is marginalized and excluded, there are major difficulties that are not always visible as the girls strive to fit into the norm and struggle to achieve passing grades (Carpenter et al., 2019; Cook et al., 2018; Goodall & Mackenzie, 2019). This paper focus on the lived experience of participation in school context by semi-structured interviews with 11 girls with autism in secondary school. A large part of the previous research that exist comes from a psychological perspective, by having a focus on participation in a school context, the contribution of this study is a pedagogical perspective.

Girls with autism face difficulties both socially and pedagogically in daily school activities. According to Tomlins et al (2020) the school environment was experienced as stressful and difficult to manage. Moyse and Porter (2015) found four themes that gave difficulties during the day in school: the rules and norms, collaboration, completing school work and interaction with classmates during different activities. Socially the girls have a desire to have friends, but often feel excluded and alone, they experince difficulties to make friends and also to maintain a friendship (Myles et al, 2019; Cook et al, 2018).

The concept of participation is about being a part of something; it involves both an accessibility and a sense of belonging. According to World Health Organisation (2001) participation is about a persons engagement in their own life situation. In research there are two components that defines participation: accessibility to an acivity and the feeling of participation (Falkmer m. fl., 2012; Hodges m. fl., 2020; Simpson m. fl., 2019).

Aim and research question

Participation is an important factor in feeling included and recognized (WHO, 2001), which is a starting point for success in school and the rest of the society as well. The aim of this study is to investigate how girls with autism in secondary school experience participation in a school context.

How do girls with autism experience participation in their daily school life, both socially and pedagogically?

Theoretical framework

Point of departure in this study is that the society in its particular time and space create an understanding of each other through social constructions (Hacking, 1999). The constructions, the ideas, affect how we interact and also have an impact on self-awareness. Girls with autism is in fact objects, it is our concepts and beliefs which becomes a social construction. School as a space becomes important here, how the girls´self-images is created and re-created within the school as a space. Social constructions are created in communication and interaction with others.

A theoretical model for participation

To clarify and anderstand the concept of participation a theoretical model, developed by The Swedish National Agency for Special Needs education and Schools (SPSM, 2018) will be used both as a conceptual and analytic framework. The model shows that participation can be seen from six different aspects: accessibility, recognition, a sense of belonging, engagement, interaction and autonomy. These aspects provides a common language and a deeper understanding for the concept participation. They are not individual parts that stand on their own independently of each other. Rather, it helps to clarify and visualize the complexity of participation.

Starting with Vygotsky's research and the decisive contribution of the ensuing cultural-historical tradition (Smolucha & Smolucha, 1992; Gajdamaschko, 2005) the use of the term "imagination" in psychological and educational research has changed radically. From an irrational, egocentric and unrealistic type of thinking (Piaget, 1962), the term has come to denote a sophisticated form of intelligence in which logic is integrated with emotions and cognitive flexibility (Abraham, 2020).

Moreover, recent research in cognitive science and developmental psychology, even outside the cultural-historical tradition, has provided further empirical confirmation to support this critical rethinking of classical Piagetian ideas about imagination. This psychological function has proved indeed crucial for personal development and meaningful learning at different levels. It supports and enriches personal meaning-making and knowledge construction (Kind & Kung, 2016; Root-Bernstein, 2013). It is required for the proper functioning of emotional intelligence, empathy and theory of mind (Goldstein & Winner, 2012). It enhances metacognition and self-regulation processes (Goldstein & Lerner, 2017) and is an essential component of creative idea generation (Russ, 2014), divergent thinking and hypothetical and counterfactual reasoning (Harris, 2021).

Imaginative Education (IE) is an educational theory that unfolds the consequences of this post-Piagetian perspective on imagination in the field of curriculum design, teacher education and teacher professional development. The theory clarifies in a systematic way the reasons why imagination is a crucial resource for teaching and learning. On this basis, it also provides teachers with a set of “cognitive tools crystallized in culture” (Egan, 1997) with which to enhance the imaginative potential of teachers and learners and relate it to the acquisition of curricular knowledge and skills.

However, despite addressing several focal issues in the contemporary debate on teacher education and professional development, in its two decades of global dissemination and application, IE has yet to be analyzed and tested in the European context.

This work is part of a larger doctoral project that aims at the following objectives:

-clarify the relevance of IE in relation to the main issues addressed in the contemporary debate on teacher education and professional development, such as the development of complex thinking and creative agency informed by critical and responsible reflection on the nature and purposes of education (Biesta, 2017);

-document and analyze IE-based teacher training programs that have been developed internationally for more than two decades;

-develop a prototype of an IE-based teacher training program to be implemented in the Italian context, taking current practices in Canadian universities in British Columbia as a model (University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Capilano University);

-conducting an exploratory case study with a group of in-service teachers to analyze the critical issues of this implementation process.

This study is the initial part of a wider research project that aims at the creation and evaluation of training programs for students and teachers based on the theory of Imaginative Education, and their implementation in the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano. The hypothesis is that this process will result in a significant enrichment of the University's educational programs and catalyze its integration with other educational institutions in the region. Concurrently, we aim to support the dissemination and the development of Imaginative Education within the European context, to enrich the debate in the fields of curriculum design, teacher education and teacher professional deveolpment.

Research Question

What is the Role of the Primary School Teaching Assistant Amidst the Implications of Identity, Status and Professionalism in the Hierarchy of the School Workforce?

This research is an offshoot of a pilot study titled ‘The Role of the Teaching Assistant in Reflection of Experience, Qualifications and Status’, that I conducted in 2022.

Since the Plowden Report (1967), the Warnock Report (1978) and the Time for standards: reforming the school workforce report (2002), there has been a breadth of variation in both the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistant in England’s schools (Adamson, 1999; Cajkler et al., 2007; Hancock et al., 2001). Barber (1996) characterised the employment of the teaching assistant as an ‘incipient quiet revolution’ as they began to adapt to more pedagogical roles (Butt and lance, 2009). Many teaching assistants were not specifically trained for this (Blatchford et al, 2004). Although teaching assistants began playing a major role in the teaching of children, they were not credited for this as the teacher was still viewed as being core to a lesson whilst the teaching assistant was seen as being periphery (Hancock and Eyres, 2004). With regards to positioning in the workforce, this view created a hierarchy between the teacher and the teaching assistant and what could be deemed as a watering down of a profession by funnelling traditional aspects of a professional job to an assistant. Friedson (2001) argued that the intertwining roles of professional and paraprofessional were designed to reduce the cost and the independence of the professions. Butt and Lance (2005) advised the need for sensitivity in the approach used by teachers towards teaching assistants. Difficulties and benefits associated with the remodelling of the workforce strategy continue to emerge since 2006 (Collins and Simco, 2006) but are seen as dependent upon the way in which teaching assistants are conceptualised, trained, and deployed by a school.

Professional learning required for successful large-scale reform depends on a commitment to experimentation and innovation at the local level (Leithwood et al, 2006). Since 2006, the role of the teaching assistant has undergone a period of experimentation and innovation and as there is currently no definitive job description that sets out the job role of the teaching assistant, it can be assumed that the drawn-out period of experimentation and innovation continues to be on-going. In the current climate, more than five decades after The Plowden report (1967), there are several options by which they are able to simultaneously work as a teaching assistant and upgrade their qualifications to enter the teaching profession (CooperGibson, 2019), albeit this being an expensive and time-consuming process.

This research aims to find out firstly if there is a definitive employment role for the teaching assistant in the primary school, to close the gap nationally in research literature on the actual role of the teaching assistant. This is timely because the whole picture of teaching assistant employment is and has been on a pendulum of continual change and whilst government research initiatives and updated government policies manipulate the pendulum, there remains a gap in research that identifies specifically, the current state of play in schools. Secondly, this research aims to explore how the implications of identity, status, and professionalism within the workforce, affect both the perceptions and the work role of the teaching assistant. There is currently a trending dichotomy in that the role of the teaching assistant is becoming professionalised whilst the role of the teacher is becoming de-professionalised.

Interviews (via Teams) are also being undertaken internationally, to provide a comparative overview on a global basis for this research.

Research on professional development (PD), exploring its practice and impact, has made significant progress in the past thirty years. In a vocational education environment, the role of teacher professional development in relation to enhancing teaching quality and capability has received extensive attention (Zhou, Tigelaar and Admiraal, 2022). Scholars have reviewed PD in conjunction with students' academic performance, leadership performance and school reform (Sims et al., 2021). More recently in China, the PD of middle leaders (MLs) has gradually entered scholars’ field of vision, through the development of distributed leadership theory and adult learning theory.

Internationally, MLs have been recognised as playing a key strategic and operational role in the leadership team of schools and colleges as executors, coordinators and participants of development strategies, working both vertically and horizontally within their organisations (Lipscombe et al., 2020). However, research exploring the PD for MLs in the Chinese mainland is still limited. Indeed, the literature review findings of this study found that most of the existing research is restricted to a general education environment. From a vertical perspective, research on the PD of MLs is relatively advanced (Zhang, Wong and Wang, 2022; Bryant and Rao, 2019; Walker and Qian, 2019; Bryant, Wong and Adames, 2020). From a horizontal perspective however, there are clear limitations to the research conducted to date, when compared with other countries. Scholars are accustomed to classifying the PD for MLs directly as teacher professional development, without taking account of the added complexities involved in MLs’ rolls and the PD needed to support their development. As such, this simplistic generalisation limits the scope of PD and its impact on both MLs’ and system improvement.

In the context of the new education reform, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a series of policies that put forward higher requirements for the quality and ability of teaching faculty in Chinese higher vocational colleges (CHVCs) from 2019. Among them, the principles of stratification and classification were explicitly proposed. The policy requires that the improvement plan for different stages of PD in CHVCs should be precisely planned, according to the needs of different teachers, leaders and trainers. However, reform efforts in PD for MLs lack an informed view, through the absence of empirical research in the context of China. There is a reliance on learning from the experience and achievements of research on PD and MLs conducted in other countries. This runs counter to contemporary understandings of the importance of context for system improvement efforts. Conducting localised research in China, is therefore key to reform, enhancing the quality and training of CHVCs. Moreover, such empirical research could contribute to the limited number of non-Western centric studies which dominate the international literature.

This study, located in CHVCs, aims to explore the relevant policy requirements and specific development pathways of PD for MLs, through exploring the following research questions:

1. What are the policy aspirations for the PD for MLs in CHVCs?

2. What is the experience of MLs engaging with PD in CHVCs?

3. What are the implications for the extent to which policy aspirations and MLs’ experience of PD match in CHVCs?

Through the generation and analysis of data through semi-structured interviews and policy documents on PD at the national, regional and institutional levels, the policy background and implementation status regarding PD for MLs in CHVCs has been illuminated. This study contributes to filling the research gap about PD in the Chinese educational environment. Correspondingly, it introduces understandings of PD from the Chinese mainland to an international audience, especially meaningful for European countries increasingly aware of the importance of MLs and their PD.

There is an increasing body of work which explores the use of various social media platforms in different educational contexts. Social media and online learning communities have been positioned as contemporary forms of professional development that can address the clear challenges associated with teacher learning (Goodyear, Parker, & Casey, 2019). Several studies identified that teachers, particularly pre-service teachers, are increasingly using social media for professional learning, voicing teaching problems and/or sharing teaching experience with experts and colleagues (Carpenter, 2015; Goodyear, Casey, & Kirk, 2014).

From a higher education perspective, Wang et al. (2012) found that a Facebook Group could be used as a Learning Management System (LMS) for Singapore students with the purpose of posting announcements, sharing resources, organizing weekly tutorials and conducting online discussions. Findings showed that students were satisfied with using Facebook in this way as it mirrored the fundamental functions of a LMS at this teacher education institute (Wang et al., 2012). However, many studies have criticised formal educations use of LMS as they limit students’ control over their learning (Chen & Bryer, 2012; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). Indeed, teachers and pre-service teachers may prefer informal learning activities, which do not follow a specified curriculum and are not restricted to certain environments (Desimone, 2009). Consequently, social media seems to provide teachers with more informal professional learning opportunities as they attempt to engage in professional development outside of formal contexts (Carpenter, 2015). Whilst some literature has reported that social media has the potential to integrate learners’ formal and informal learning, this work is under-theorized (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016). Indeed, little scholarly attention has been given to the study of the role of social media in supporting different types of learning from the learner’s perspective.

Research to date, concerningly, takes a predominantly Western perspective and focuses on students’ learning through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. In contrast, little is known about students learning through the unique social media environments in other countries such as China. Indeed, while Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest dominate the landscape of social media in many countries, they are infrequently used in China. Instead, social networking sites such as WeChat and Weibo are popular. Furthermore, given that cultural differences have been shown to strongly impact people’s online behaviour (Ji et al., 2010), coupled with the knowledge that the relationship between teachers and students in China is hierarchical (Zhao & McDougall, 2008), there is a need to better understand how students learn through the unique social media environment in China. This is even more important when noting:

(a) the dearth of research exploring how the Chinese educational culture might influence its students’ attitudes towards integrating social media into institutional settings, and

(b) that Chinese students are often inactive and unwilling to express their ideas in online discussions because they are not prepared to contradict their peers or instructors in a public platform, and they are afraid of losing face (Zhao and McDougall, 2008).

Despite this lack of knowledge, it is important to support the ambitions of the Chinese online community by furthering our understanding of social media in supporting physical education (PE) student-teachers' professional learning. There have, however, been very few research studies investigating how Chinese PE student-teachers' use social media as a professional learning platform and how they value online learning communities in their professional learning. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore Chinese PE student-teachers’ attitudes to using the WeChat group for professional learning under the lens of formal and informal learning theory.

Ecological crises are the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment (UNESCO, 2019). They encompass issues that we must tackle from a wide range of angles as a global society. Aligning education policies and practices with sustainability objectives is paramount. Educating our youth to lead more sustainable lifestyles and in harmony with nature must be a pillar for the social and economic changes we must undergo in the next 30 years. The 1977 Tbilisi UN conference focused on environmental issues and education and it was stated that human activities may have ‘detrimental and possibly irreversible consequences’ on the environment (UNESCO, 1997). It was also determined that education would have to play a crucial role in the face of environmental issues (UNESCO, 1997).

Climate change is not a scientific problem, but rather a social and economic one. Teaching students about such a complex and politicized topic, how to be critical thinkers or life-long learners is not neutral nor it is context neutral (Perkins et al., 2018). The fact that Education for Sustainability (EfS) is fundamental to redirecting teaching and learning upon our climate emergency has been widely accepted in academy and in the international organisations’ arena. However, there seems to be little consensus about what EfS should look like, who and how it should be provided and how to adapt pedagogical practices to ensure its effectiveness (Reid, 2019).

The relationship between human development and environmental impact is complex. People with high educational achievements living in the Global North are more likely to have a larger carbon footprint, which is harmful to local and global ecosystems. This is often due to an overall higher consumption of goods, food and water waste, as well as high CO2 emissions as a result of regular use of cars and aeroplanes(Wals and Benavot, 2017) Conversely, access to environmental education and knowledge about climate change and ecology has promoted behavioural change towards recycling, reducing waste and energy use and selecting less carbon-intensive methods of transport if possible. This implies that some types of education prove to be effective in increasing care for the environment at the local and global levels (Wals and Benavot, 2017).

Education for Sustainability (EfS) -or Transformative Education for Sustainability- (Laininen, 2019) can be both instrumental and emancipatory. It can help to create citizens who are aware of environmental issues and provide them with tools to act. It investigates ways of living in a more sustainable manner with the environment and with the rest of society. This type of education tends to promote learning by doing, collaboration, participation and transformation in nature. In some cases, it involves questioning not only how we live but also production and consumption systems, local eco-social problems and how they relate to global issues, as well as carrying out action and awareness campaigns. One of the main objectives of this type of education is to promote more just and environmentally sustainable societies.

This research has the following central questions:

• How can we educate our youth (11-15) towards more sustainable lifestyles?

• What are the main characteristics of projects that focus on transformative education towards sustainability in three school projects that claim to focus on EfS? How can we evaluate and monitor them?

• What policies and practices have been adopted by the educational community? How have the different actors across the educational community interpreted the schools’ policies and practices?

• What is the relationship between the context in which the project is immersed and its EfS proposal?

Education and raising awareness should be one of the primary roles of the institutions that work in biodiversity conservation. Fundació MONA (MONA) is a primate sanctuary that provides housing for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus), two primate species that are in at risk of extinction. Primates rescued by MONA sanctuary were victims of illegal wildlife trade and they were used as TV and circus stars, advertising models or pets. The main objective of Fundació MONA is to give a second chance to this primates, in a place where they can live in the best possible natural conditions, surrounded by others of their kind and looked after by professional care-givers who provide them with food and other basic needs.

Linked to this work with primates, MONA counts with a conservation education program, as one of its statutory objectives. The main goal of this program is to provide participants with knowledge, which is the first step to promote attitudes and behaviours towards the conservation of primates’ wildlife and their welfare. The program includes different educational activities addressed and adapted to general public and students. These are based in a visit to the sanctuary facilities, during which the educator develops different topics using the life stories of the animals.

General public visits are carried out during weekends and holidays and comprises participants with a wide range of ages, from adults to children and teenagers who come with their families. This group called “general public” was the subject of this study, themain goal wasto evaluate the impact generated by the educational activities in which they participated during their time at the MONA sanctuary. The final purpose was to understand if the activities fulfil their function. In order to achieve this goal, an evaluation and a measure of the impact on their knowledge and attitudes toward primate conservation and welfare, was carried out.

Conservation education programs have been implemented by different organizations as a tool to increase the knowledge and attitudes toward biodiversity conservation (Ardoin et al., 2020; Borchers et al., 2013; Burnett et al., 2016; Chalmin-Pui & Perkins, 2017; Clayton, 2017; Hacker & Miller, 2016). However, since the conceptualization of Environmental Education (Stapp, 1969), there has been an intense debate among the experts about which is the best method to evaluated this kind of programs (Fien et al., 2001). One of the most used method to evaluate and measure the impact of conservation education programs is focused on the knowledge, the attitudes , the pro-conservation behaviours, and the relationship between them (Marcinkowski & Reid, 2019).

Many authors have theorized about the definitions of these words. One of the most accepted definition for Attitudes is the one proposed by Allport (1935), who defined them as: “a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related.”(p. 810). Regarding to pro-conservation behaviours, we can consider the theory proposed by Stern (2000), defined as: “from the actor’s standpoint as behaviour that is undertaken with the intention to change (normally, to benefit) the environment” (p.408). The relationship between this two concepts is based in the Theory of Planned Behaviour proposed by Ajzen and Fishbein (1991; 1975). This theory defends that people act in accordance with their intentions and perceptions of control over behaviour, while intentions are in turn influenced by attitudes toward the behaviour, subjective norms, and perceptions of behavioural control.

Considering those definitions, the model Knowledge – Attitudes – Behaviour has been used to evaluate and measure the impact of conservation education programs.

It is not novel to say we need a new paradigm or new approaches in Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE). Writing in 2010, halfway through the UN Decade for Sustainable Development, Pace looks back at what had been achieved in terms of Environment Education tracing it back to its roots in the Tbilisi IGC; He dares suggest we have been ‘preoccupied with what version is currently in fashion’ rather than action. Pace positively concludes this is ‘part of an educational process that is contextually relevant, participatory, emancipatory and leading towards sustainable development’ (2010, p.322). Since then, there was what Gough (2016) describes as ‘a materialist turn’ (p.55), with contributions like McPhie and Clarke’s (2015, 2020) amongst others.

I am looking at ESE outside of formal schooling. Ardoin and Heimlich (2021) suggest that learning ‘happens across a variety of biophysical and sociocultural settings, experiences, and contexts and is recognised as being life wide; … … [is] ‘life-deep, or influenced by one’s culture, values, beliefs and ideologies’ (p.1682). The survival of humanity and all creatures on Earth is an issue that according to Deane-Drummond (2008) touches deeply on our sense of meaning and purpose: ‘it is hard to talk meaningfully about ecology … … without also speaking about religion and theology’ (p.11).

In ESE (and EE) literature there has been little focus on Christian ESE. Cholil and Parker (2021) suggest that it is important for the broader EE research community to consider religious EE because just as like some New Materialist approaches, it is interested in ‘exploring the more-than-human world [and] how we can get away from anthropocentrism’ (2021, p.1778). Integral ecology is one of the elements of Christian EE, also identified as one of the intellectual responses to climate change, and the Anthropocene (Ivakhiv, 2014; Clarke, 2017). Integral ecology is described by Pope Francis in his letter to all humanity: Laudato Si, On care of our common home as call ‘to openness to categories which transcend the language of Mathematics and Biology and takes us to the heart of what it is to be human’ (LS11).

There is considerable action on the Christian ESE front (Howles, et al 2018; Kureethadam, 2019), spurred by Laudato Si, where a whole chapter (6) deals with ‘Ecological Education and Spirituality’ highlighting the importance placed on education (LS15). It is interesting that there has been little articulation or focus on links between Christian EE and ESE. This can prove to be an avenue for possibility, and an alternative way of looking past dualisms, as suggested by New Materialists.

There is no better time for ESE to ‘explore and apply various forms of post-humanist and new materialist theory in rigorous but creative ways’ (Mannion 2020, p.1353). Similarly, I suggest focusing on emerging New Materialist themes in the Christian EE/ESE context, building on them, and exploring new connections: adding to work by Clarke and Mcphie (2020) in their introduction to the special issue of Environment Education Research: New Materialisms and Environmental Education.

In a climate emergency, in any emergency, we need all hands on deck. ‘If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out’ (LS63). Hungerford and Volk in their 1990 paper differentiate between information giving, and the more challenging task of behaviour change. Building on Latour’s lectures, amongst others, in their paper on an Ecological citizenship, Howles et al suggest a ‘potential overlap’ between New Materialist concepts and Laudato Si: it is that which I explore in my research.

Introduction

There is a lack of first-hand accounts from dyslexic Higher Education (HE) tutors within the literature. This investigation will add to a body of research, offering insight and understanding into the experience of a dyslexic tutor working in HE. Being an autoethnographic inquiry, the work derived from this study is not intended to be universal; experiences shown in this project should exist for others to respond to in the wake of a lack of accounts. Moreover, the findings of this investigation possess the power to resonate with others where intersections of their lives may be similar, including national and international colleagues. The rationale for using my own first-hand account stems from a lack of autoethnographic accounts of dyslexic tutors in HE. Several studies in the literature detail the experience of dyslexic trainee teachers (Glazzard & Dale, 2013; 2015; Jacobs, Collyer, Lawernce, & Glazzard, 2021); dyslexic students (Robinson, 2017; Shaw & Anderson, 2018; Gant & Hewson, 2022); and dyslexic tutors teaching at various levels of study (Riddick, 2003; Griffiths, 2012; Patrícia, Borges, Pinto, 2022). However, most of these works do not utilise autoethnographic approaches. Additionally, none of the accounts mentioned reflect on tutors who develop a dyslexic identity whilst teaching.

The ontological and epistemological stances taken in this work are social constructivism (SC). I will conduct this work with the notion that reality is the product of agreed-upon concepts (Cresswell & Poth, 2016). Autoethnography is suited to be framed via SC, as I am embracing that in a world where agreement by society dictates what we know of a given thing, under this framework, I know intimately about the thing I am researching – my experience. I am seeking to demonstrate the relationship between being an educator and being dyslexic so that others may understand my experience in their views. The findings of the study are not meant to be generalisable, however, these may be relatable and encouraging to others who find themselves in a similar position or those who desire to understand the authentic experience of dyslexic tutors; an important consideration given the lack of representation for dyslexic educators in HE (Hiscock & Leigh, 2020).

Background
My own experience of teaching and dyslexic identity covers a period of five years. Firstly, I taught in a college during my undergraduate degree, with no firm conception of what dyslexia/ being dyslexic was. I then studied for a teacher training degree immediately after learning of my dyslexic status; finally, currently, I am a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) at a UK HE institution, whilst writing my PhD on dyslexic experiences, and self-identify as dyslexic. The sections and intersection of these stages of my life chart the development of my professional practice and dyslexic identity. Whether or not learning more about those aspects of myself that can be called dyslexic has had any impact or influence on the way I teach is unclear. This investigation will offer insight into my own lived experience, where readers may relate or empathise, in response to the research question: In what ways has the development of my dyslexic identity impacted my professional practice?

The project presents preliminary results of the research into informal and non-formal training practices of photovoltaic system assemblers in Switzerland. The research follows an empirical subjectivation approach and aims to understand the interrelation between normatively loaded education-discourses, intrinsic learning ambitions and the construction of workers identities. Such knowledge is necessary for understanding increasingly diverse careers and corresponding new learning needs.

In Europe, the competition with uprising economies and the unfolding of a knowledge society has amplified political efforts, to institutionalize a culture of lifelong learning (LLL). Such efforts are accompanied by the establishment of normatively loaded discourse regarding ideal learning-subjects, which emphasize flexibilization, self-disciplining and individual responsibility (Holzer 2014; Mariager et. al 2016; Rothe 2011). The shift in responsibility for one's own positioning in the social hierarchy, has strengthened the importance of educational certificates, gained through formal training. At the same time, research in adult education has come to recognize the importance of informal learning for further education. This applies especially to craftspeople in SMEs who demonstrate a strong culture of “learning by doing” (Dobischat et al. 2019; Eraut 2004; Fenwick 2008). The consequence is a conflictual relationship between the learning ideals conveyed by the LLL-discourse and the learning dispositions of craftspeople. The questions appear, how do craftspeople from SMEs, with extensive experience in lifelong learning, relate to formal education courses and the LLL-discourse throughout their identity-work, and how does their identity as learners instruct their informal learning practices?

The photovoltaic system industry in Switzerland is of special interest for these questions, as it lacks a standardized apprenticeship system and relies on non-formal and informal learning strategies. This circumstance attracts a range of diversely qualified workers with extensive experience in informal and lifelong learning. At the same time, the industry is undergoing a process of formalization, with the first apprenticeship-course starting in 2024 („Grünes Licht für Schweizer Solarlehren ab 2024“ 2022). This change is likely to require experienced assemblers to take part in formal training courses which threatens to devaluate their identity as experienced professionals and conflict with their intrinsic learning ambitions. The goal of this research is to document the strategies of assemblers to address these challenges by looking at both, the institutional adaptations of the companies and the identity-adaptations by the assemblers.

Examining this tension provides valuable insights into the conflictual dichotomy between formal and informal learning and ways to overcome it. Such insights are of importance for establishing ways to formally accredit professional experience, thereby supporting people in their learning needs as career jumpers and lifelong learners. The research is conducted through a qualitative case study approach, involving interviews with assemblers and participatory observations.

This paper discusses - on a methodological basis - how the entanglement of research object (inclusive education), method (ethnography) and researcher (myself) constructs research on inclusive education in North-South relations. In addition, this paper illustrates how this construction leads to a reproduction of exclusive dynamics within this field of research, by taking into account an Inclusion and Open Science (OS) perspective. These patterns suggest at elements of an ongoing and contemporary postcolonial context in terms of knowledge production, representation and equity. The methodological discussion is part of my PhD project on inclusive education practices in rural Ghana.

To begin with, doing research on inclusive education in an international context is of a human rights based and developmental interest, as both the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) and the Agenda 2030 have politically and legally anchored inclusive education at the international level. However, doing research on this concept in an international context is problematic: both inclusion and dis/ability are considered to be contextually generated constructs that consequently differ from context to context. Both phenomena are themselves constructs that combine socio-economic, historical and politically shaped perspectives. (Singal, 2010, 2013) As a result, an a priori understanding of disability or inclusion is not reliable, so that the concept of inclusive education is limited to the contextual factors in which these phenomena are considered.

The need to discuss and reflect on contextual factors is of particular interest in North-South relations, which are characterized by issues of post-colonialism, power and inequity. This is not sufficiently pursued by academics. Consequently, the negotiation of inclusive education is described as a form of "('western') cultural imperialism" (Haskell, 1998) or as “from the West to the rest” (Grech, 2011). This aspect is hardly surprising, given that the concept itself results from reforms and developments of education systems in the so-called Global North (Global North is italicized to emphasize that it is a social construct based on a discriminatory ideology) (Werning et al., 2016).

It becomes evident that the theoretical negotiation is far away from an open, collaborative, and inclusive interaction that the idea of OS aspires to. By defining OS as a call for the democratization and decolonization of research (Chan et al., 2019), it becomes clear that the dominant norms within knowledge production create an exclusive, constant re-legitimization, in which diversity plays a marginal role. Hence, this closed research process does not fulfil the idea of a science that considers diversity, equity and inclusion as guiding research principles. This framework spans a field of tension where methodology, theory and epistemology need to be critically examined in order to achieve equitable representation, participation and diversity. (Bivand Erdal, 2019; Vicente-Saez & Martinez-Fuentes, 2018)

Furthermore, inclusive education theory in North-South relations points to methodological challenges: how is research ethically justifiable? Contextualizing my dissertation project on inclusive education practice in rural Ghana within the inclusive education theory and within the OS framework, I critically discussed the development of an inclusive research design in order to reduce exclusive dynamics. To achieve this, I address exclusion in several areas, which in turn may provide implications for an inclusive research process: object, method, and researcher. As outlined, the overarching research interest lies at both a methodological (I.) and a theoretical (II.) level:

1. How does the entanglement of researcher (me), object (inclusive education) and method (ethnography) construct the perspective on inclusive education in North-South relations?
2. How is the inclusive education practice adopted in rural Ghana?

Consequently, I will be able to present the inclusive education practice in rural Ghana as constructive, by considering both levels as influencing each other.

Children spend a great amount of time playing at school. Through play, they explore the world around themselves, discover their instincts, form survival skills and knowledge, step by step build relationships with other people. Play, therefore, plays an imperative role in children’s development (Smith & Roopnarine, 2018). Mentioning play also refers to a play environment which is the condition that can either support or impede and pose a threat to children’s play (Kyttä, 2003).

Children are not only the object of research in different fields such as psychology or education. They are actually the agents of their development; and they have their own opinions, thoughts and feelings when interacting with the world surrounding them (Corsaro, 2012; Kustatscher, 2017). Corsaro (2012) argues that ‘children do not simply internalise society and culture, but they actively contribute to cultural production and change. From the perspective of interpretive reproduction, however, children are always participating in and are part of two cultures - their own and adults’- and these cultures are intricately interwoven’ (Corsaro, 2012, p. 489). Similarly, Kusatscher (2017) also found out that children not only reproduce but also challenge the already established opinions of the society. Therefore, research on inclusive play environments for children needs to take into account children’s voice as children are the agent of their own development and they know what is appropriate and imperative for their own growth.

We are living in the world of globalization where, however, discrimination based on social-cultural and economic backgrounds is still a chronic issue. This happens not only in adulthood but also in childhood, which can impact children's development negatively. Therefore, it is necessary to build an inclusive play environment for children in order to support sustainable development as equity and inclusion are two sustainable development goals related to education that the United Nations promoted in 2015 (UN General Assembly, 2015, p.17).

Promoting an inclusive play environment requires teachers’ awareness, knowledge and skills. Therefore, exploring teachers’ perspectives of an inclusive play environment and the specific training or support which teachers need to be provided with is an initial step to create an inclusive play environment for children.

This research will be conducted in Spain (Andalusia) and Vietnam, which are two countries which follow different educational systems. While the former bases on Western-individualistic culture, the latter develops with the foundation of Eastern-collectivism. Both countries are diverse and rich in culture, where different social groups co-exist. The comparison between the two countries can bring a multi-cultural perspective to address a global issue of promoting inclusive play environments for children to ensure equality and equity in education. It is also noteworthy that it does not mean they are seen as two solid cultures as Dervin (2011) argues that it is necessary to move away from solidified, separate and objectivist perspectives of cultures; instead, it is imperative to have a liquid approach to intercultural discourses, which takes into account discursive choices and manipulations of speakers that often sink below speakers’ speech. In addition, culture does not cause behaviours, but summarises an abstraction from it (Dervin, 2011).

With the aforementioned aims, research questions of this study are the following:

1. Research question 1: What is the teachers’ perception of an inclusive play environment as well as the strategies that can promote such inclusive play environments?
2. Research question 2: What are children’s needs and their perspectives of an inclusive play environment?
3. Research question 3: What are the differences between Spanish and Vietnamese teachers, regarding their habits and beliefs of an inclusive play environment for children?
4. Research question 4: What training / support do teachers need to create inclusive play environments?

Topic & Objective:

By investigating the intercultural engagement of Chinese students in the UK as well as the ‘reverse cultural shock’ experienced by students who return to China after studying in the UK, this research identifies learning and social activities that effectively help students engage in intercultural communication and navigate the challenges these may cause, as well as their reflections of the culture of origin as former international students.

Research questions:

1. What intercultural communicative strategies do Chinese students adopt to deal with communicative difficulties in the UK?

2. What do returnee Chinese students think of Chinese culture through intercultural communication practices in the UK after moving back to China?

Theoretical framework:

This study adopts and blends a social constructivism alongside theand interpretivistm paradigm to guide the methodology due to the way I understand the social issues and the main concerns of this study. Social constructivism views cultural knowledge not as an object to be acquired but to be collectively identified, represented and interpreted through individuals’ experience and communication (Guilherme, 2002). From a constructivist perspective, knowledge is constructed by existing structures of foundation, that is human’s beliefs about realities through social interaction (Hollandar & Gordon, 2006), and influenced by the culture in a specific context and by personal reflections of experiences. Besides, In social constructivism, the world is interpreted through language and culture. That is, the world and its elements inside are not seen only as social constructions, but full of meanings made by ‘crucial participants’ (Crotty, 1998). Consequently, I am mainly interested in investigating human’s subjective understanding of the interrelations of cultures, strategies to handle cultural shock and how their knowledge and reactions to their culture of origin have been co-constructed and interpreted among all social elements.

Conceptual framework:

According to Bourdieu (1986), an individual’s cultural taste is related to acts of social positioning, so their preference for social practice is somehow decided by their social belonging and personal experience, reconciling with external social structures. That suggests if a human’s identity has been changed due to their social status, their choice of social behaviour will change. Besides, an individual’s prior knowledge has also an impact no matter how a human’s social identity changes. Cobern (1993) states that individual’s prior conceptions and self-positioning contribute significantly to their understanding of social events. When human’s new gaining of social beliefs contradicts with their prior knowledge, the decision has to be made whether to keep one side or abandon the other or objectively criticise both and choose the appropriate ones from both sides. Another thing that has to be noted is that humans’ ongoing learning experiences and social and physical milieu have an impact on their previous knowledge, which may be consistent, or against, or even fill in the gaps of ‘knowing’. This interchange of social impacts contributes to creating a different understanding of culture and interculturality, and also it keeps changing with the ongoing process.

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is regarded as an ability to communicate and interaction across cultures (Byram, 2012). As competence is a subjective term, since it depends on people’s personality, life experience, attitudes, learning styles, etc., the definition of ICC in academia is contested. Many studies focus on individuals, and regard ICC as an internal capacity of an individual. For example, Byram (ibid.) regards ICC as a set of intercultural skills (to interpret, relate, discover, and interact), knowledge about culture and interaction, attitudes and self-awareness of different cultures and education about critical issues in the host culture.. Among all ICC models, Byram’s (ibid) is the most recognised which divided IC competence into knowledge, skills, attitudes and awareness.

Researching diversity in education requires diversity-informed research methods and methodologies. Research methodologies must therefore be sensitive toward diversity in its variety of forms and peculiarities. Moreover, great adaptability of research approaches and researchers is necessary. Pre-given categories and structures thus may not allow for a sufficiently open and flexible capturing of the field’s characteristics. Hence, qualitative, inductive approaches that respect and reflect the circumstances and features of the field and the respondents are especially intriguing.

In light of international (comparative) research especially, some more aspects that require sensitivity must be taken into account. Here, three layers of reflection appear to be of relevance: Firstly, it is important to consider which terms and concepts are being used to describe the field. So, for instance, do we talk about cultures, contexts, or nations, and what is the underlying understanding of the corresponding notion that is applied (e.g., Dilley, 2002)? Secondly, it is important to consider how these concepts will be related to each other in the context of the research project. So, for example, do we apply an Inter-, Trans-, Multi-, or Cross-cultural research approach (e.g., Adick, 2010)? Based on this, it must thirdly be considered whether the research will rather focus on generalisations or observations of differences across fields (e.g., Dinkelaker et al., 2011)?

A critical reflection of these questions and considerations is crucial, especially as borders, nations, and cultures become increasingly blurry through migration, globalisation, and the ease of travel and information exchange across contexts (e.g., Fritzsche, 2012). Therefore, the Grounded Theory Methodology (Glaser/Strauss, 1967) appears as one promising methodology in this regard. Building on Falkenberg’s statement that Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) can be a valuable extension for international educational research (2018), the paper will engage in the question of how transcultural research on diversity in education can be conducted with GTM. To start with, the opportunities of GTM will be demonstrated by elaborating on two essential characteristics: Its sensitivity towards diversity and culture.

Firstly, the method allows for developing a theory that builds upon people’s diverse realities. Instead of applying pre-given theories and structures to the research field, GTM “is particularly helpful for uncovering processes or patterns of behavior that remain hidden in society” (Nayar/Wright-St Clair, 2020, p. 132). Thus, GTM allows us to conduct meaningful, qualitative research in complex, diverse, and so far, under-explored research fields. Under-explored fields can on the one side refer to thematic fields that have so far been rarely studied (e.g., tabooed research questions), but on the other side also to under-represented geographical fields (e.g., remote areas and communities). GTM, therefore, enables research in fields where little is yet known and the researcher must react and adapt to the unpredictable peculiarities of the field. Especially in light of diversity and international research, this feature is greatly important.

Secondly, the possibility to do culturally-sensitive research with GTM is essential. While in ethnography, culture is one of the concepts at the centre of attention, Nayar and Wright-St Clair (2020, p. 133) highlight that within GTM “it is the social process that is central to the study. Yet, this social process unfolds within a context, which means that culture cannot be ignored”. In addition to these culture-sensitive possibilities of GTM, Charmaz (2014, p. 1082) also explicitly mentions that “international researchers can adopt grounded theory strategies and adapt them to fit their cultural and research practices”. Especially in light of conducting research in diverse and multicultural settings with differing research traditions and realities and moreover, with regard to possibly uneven power relations, this is of great relevance (e.g., Robinson-Pant/Singal, 2013).

During the course of their educational path, children are subjected to a series of critical transitions between one academic level to the next. These include the transition from kindergarten to lower primary school, from upper primary school to lower secondary school and from vocational studies through apprenticeship and into the labour force (Bragdø & Austad, 2022).

Students’ transitional experiences play an important role in dictating their later social, emotional and intellectual development (Hanewald, 2013; Waters et al., 2012). Students with specialized needs are particularly vulnerable to critical transitions and have a higher risk of transitions leading to a negative social, academic or behavioural development (Cantali, 2015; Symonds, 2015). Thus, it is imperative that teachers are conscious of critical transitions and the effect they may pose on some students.

Norway along with the other Scandinavian countries, are repeatedly used as a good example on the path towards an inclusive school and equal participation for all people (e.g. Frønes et al., 2020). The Nordic welfare state model provides free education for all, free parental leave and comprehensive sickness benefits. Still the economic inequality in Norway is rising (e.g. Akerbæk & Molnes, 2021). Repstad (2021) refers to different kinds of inequality. He claims that while the Norwegian society experiences little inequality of opportunity and inequality of treatment, it is still lacking in inequality of outcome – A level playing field does not necessarily lead to an egalitarian society. In the case of public education, it is not enough to accommodate for equal opportunity and treatment as long as the cultural capital of the students is not being taken into consideration.

Both the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research (Meld. St. 6 (2019-2020)) and legal regulations for the Norwegian teacher education highlight the importance of strengthening the bonds between the different academic levels in the educational trajectory. Despite this, there are no clear guidance document on how to strengthen these transitions and there are barely any Norwegian studies considering the transition between primary and secondary school (Strand, 2022, s. 18).

Through a case study, carried out in the context of an EU-funded research project, PIONEERED – aimed at pioneering practices tackling educational inequalities in Europe, – we examine an alternative educational program which aids upper primary and lower secondary students, struggling to stay in school. Once a week, students are brought away from school to conduct non-formal outdoor activities, focusing on mastery and personal development, significantly reducing their chance of dropping out. The instructors teach the students practical vocational tasks, with the eventual goal being regular employment and a satisfactory quality of life.

One of the most striking and successful enterprises of this practice is their ability to prepare at-risk students for potentially difficult educational transitions, namely upper primary to lower secondary school, and lower secondary to upper secondary school. This leads to the following research question: Which tools and techniques used for smoothening transitional risks can be identified in a Norwegian alternative educational program?

Further research objectives include:

1. arguing for the value of researching transitional tools and techniques for vulnerable students.
2. identifying tools and techniques utilised by an alternative educational program.
3. reflecting on how these techniques can be applied to the ordinary school system in the Norwegian educational context and may serve as incentive for other European contexts as well.

We assume a sociocultural perspective on education, which asserts that learning is a social process mediated through communication with a more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978). We also assume a Bourdieuan sociological perspective, contending that educational qualifications are domestically inherited and thereby reproduced in the form of cultural capital (Bourdieu & Richardson, 1986).

This study examines the effect of absence patterns over the course of a pupil’s entire academic career on achievement in the final year of compulsory schooling in England. There is abundant evidence of the negative consequences of school absenteeism on children’s achievement (Aucejo & Romano, 2016), which subsequently translates into lower educational attainment and poorer labour market outcomes (Cattan et al., 2022). However, most existing research consider the effects of absences over a single year and the limited studies exploring absences across time only examine whether yearly changes in absences result in varying achievement progress. Additionally, existing studies disregard the cumulative measurement of dynamic absence trajectories over time, which may conceal meaningful differences between pupils and likely results in an underestimation of the degree to which absences influence achievement. A holistic measurement of pupils’ absences across their academic careers is crucial to assess whether the timing of absence severity matters for achievement.

Theoretically, there are arguments for early absences being more important for achievement as well as arguments for late absences being more important. On the one hand, we could assume that early absences are more harmful to children’s achievement because skill formation is path dependent: children who lack basic skills will have difficulty acquiring more advanced skills. On the other hand, we could assume that late absences have a greater impact on children’s achievement, given that the content being evaluated on tests is the content taught in the last few years before the test. Existing research overwhelmingly concludes that later absences are more important for academic success (Ansari & Pianta, 2019).

The extent to which absence trajectories influence achievement may not only be influenced by the frequency of absences but also by the type of absence. For instance, unauthorised absences become much more prevalent during later school stages (Department for Education, 2011) and seem to be more detrimental to school performance than authorised absences (Gottfried, 2009). This could be due to teachers being less motivated to support pupils with numerous unauthorised absences (Wilson et al., 2008). Nonetheless, the larger effect of unauthorised absences may also reflect differences in pupils’ school-related attitudes (Hancock et al., 2013), which are rarely measured by surveys. This claim is supported by Klein et al. (2022), who found that sickness absences and absences due to exceptional domestic circumstances are just as damaging to achievement as truancy.

Some studies have examined trajectories of overall absences (Benner & Wang, 2014; Simon et al., 2020) or truancy (Schoeneberger, 2012), but none have jointly investigated type and temporal dynamics across children’s schooling. Moreover, the research on absence trajectories is largely limited to the United States, only considers absences over a few years of schooling, and does not account for all pertinent school absenteeism risk factors which likely also affect academic achievement.

Our study draws on linked school administrative and survey data from England to examine the association between absence trajectories and achievement. Specifically, we address two research questions that enable us to overcome the limitations of previous studies:

1. Which absence trajectories emerge across entire school careers?
2. How do these absence trajectories affect achievement?

The paper presents some of the results of my upcoming dissertation about young mental health rehabilitants’ school experiences and educational trajectories in Finland. This paper focuses in school dropout at the upper secondary education from the viewpoint of young people with the background of psychological disability. A psychological disability refers to a spectrum of mental disorders or conditions that influence our emotions, cognitions and/or behaviors.

Transition from comprehensive school to the upper secondary level is associated with several challenges (Hjort et al 2016). For vulnerable groups, e.g. adolescents with psychological disabilities, these challenges are even more difficult (Lamb 2011). Especially depression affects the psychosocial and school-related development of adolescents in a major way (Dupere et al 2017; Schulte-Körne 2016). They increase the risk of having to dropping out of school before achieving any qualification, which is a serious problem both at an individual and societal level (Ramsdal et al 2018). Depressive disorders are also one of the most significant contributors to work disability and premature exit from the labor market (Maynard, Sala-Wright & Vaughn, 2015). Mental health problems are increasing worldwide. In Finland, about 20 % of all young adults are diagnosed with a psychological disorder, of which diagnoses of depression and anxiety are most usual (OECD 2019).

The purpose of this study, framed within a mixed design, concern to one part quantitative aspect of the associations between mental health problems and school dropouts, especially factors that increase the risk to drop out of school were explored. Another area of interest was to explore the experiences of dropping out of upper secondary education (qualitative aspect). The data consisted of quantitative survey data (n=121) as well as qualitative data from interviews (n=28) and open-ended survey responses (n=113). The analyses were conducted with logistic regression analysis and qualitative content analysis. When analyzing the data, a special interest was paid to school dropouts. The data were categorized into three essential categories (individual, family and institutional) according to Vincent Tinto’s explanatory model of the dropout process (Tinto 1973; Tinto 1975; Tinto 1997).

Both, quantitative and qualitative findings show that school dropout and mental health problems are strongly connected to each other. About one-fifth of the respondents had dropped out of upper secondary school. Based on the data, diagnosed mental health disorders by age 18, loneliness in upper comprehensive school, lack of social support and family background significantly increased likelihood of dropping out.

This proposal aims to discuss the concept of youth as citizens that emanates from discourses and practices of secondary schools in border regions of Mainland Portugal around citizenship education. This is done based on the analysis of structural school documents (educational projects, annual activities plan, schools’ citizenship education strategies) and based on interviews with teachers who coordinate citizenship education in their contexts.

Citizenship education has assumed a central role in the promotion of global democratic citizenship (UNESCO, 2015), with schools emerging as a central space for the promotion of citizenship and youth participation (Biesta, 2011). These concerns are also reflected in Portugal, in the National Plan for Youth (2018, 2022) and in the National Strategy for Education for Citizenship (2017), enacted through Decree-Law 55/2018, which has as assumptions, among others, a logic of co-responsibility of young people, assuming itself as a space for the promotion of a humanistic training in the guarantee of democratic values (PORTUGAL, 2017). At the European level, the Strategy for European Youth 2019-2027 follows this vision that it is necessary to promote a culture of participation and active democratic citizenship among young people (EU, 2018).

Literature has suggested that the way citizenship is perceived influences the way citizenship education is developed in different educational contexts (Alzina, 2008). A logic that is more co-participatory and focused on students' experiences, and therefore less centred on the rhetorical transmission of values, has been advocated (Menezes, 2007; Biesta, 2011). In this, it has been argued that citizenship education presupposes the involvement of students in order to make them participate critically in the roles that are reserved to them, i.e., an involvement that recognizes them as full citizens (Nogueira, 2015; Menezes, 2007), in a vision of citizenship that is built in practice, in which the process is concerned with the conditions in which young people live (Pais, 2005; Lawy & Biesta, 2006), which contradicts an idea of citizenship as achievement (Lawy & Biesta, 2006) and often a result of a vision that is built from an adult-centred point of view (Pais, 2005).

This proposal is part of a PhD research project (Ref: SFRH/BD/143733/2019) under development that aims to study how different schools, in border regions of mainland Portugal, are developing their work on citizenship education in secondary education. Our intention is to understand how, in this work, dimensions such as the involvement and aspirations of young people and aspects related to local culture are considered in citizenship education in their schools. This PhD project is part of the GROW:UP – Grow Up in Border Regions in Portugal: Young People, Educational Pathways and Agendas project (PTDC/CED-EDG/29943/2017), also under development, which aims to study how young people construct their biographical and educational pathways and how different contexts seek to respond to young people's aspirations around these pathways.

New schools around the world are being built in vertical form to cope with growing populations and limited land in urban contexts. Verticality means rethinking how students move between floors to avoid crowding, find connections to light and fresh air and green spaces. Verticality brings pedagogical and physical design challenges in effectively catering for diverse learners in constrained spaces and opportunities for innovation. While urban vertical schools are not new in USA, UK, and European urban environments, they are in Australia (Swinburn 2017; Taylor & Wright 2020). There exists little research about them especially in relation to students’ wellbeing (Carroli et al 2022).

Students should be central to urban school design processes given that schools are created for them, with schools’ core business being student learning and student outcomes. Student voice is an opportunity to inform school design and empower students through inviting them to identify and examine important issues relevant to their school experience and taking these views seriously. Therefore, student voice “connect(s) the sound of students speaking not only with those students experiencing meaningful, acknowledged presence, but also with their having the power to influence analyses of, decisions about, and practices in schools” (Cook-Sather 2006:363).

Each students’ experience of school spaces is unique, so adults must find a range of inclusive ways to listen to diverse student voices and ensure students feel supported expressing their perspectives in ways comfortable and meaningful to them.

This project positions ‘voice’ in three ways; voice as process, voice as atmosphere, and voice as impact. Together, voice is positioned as a multivocal engagement through:

• Seeking and eliciting views and perspectives, a methodological decision and action [Process]
• Enabling students to communicate their point of view/layers of meaning more fully through student produced creative works (e.g., narration/voice-over, text on screen, camera work, editing choices) [Atmosphere]
• Positioning voice as something with value, extending beyond a process, and committing to “voice that matters” (Couldry 2010:3). To matter, voice needs to be taken seriously and acted upon (Lundy 2007) [Impact].

Student evaluations of school learning spaces are valued in school design research as assumptions about design, construction, and use of school spaces can be challenged. However, the diversity of student voices are not often represented, with student voice usually reported in one register. For example, it is well established that children and young people consistently prefer connections to nature and fresh air, and express frustrations with crowded and stuffy classrooms (Dudzinski, 2019; Taylor & Wright 2020). Choices about where and how to collaborate, opportunities for movement, integrated technology and elements of fun are student preferences being incorporated into many new school buildings (Truong et al 2018). Rarely are student voices acted on, or represented as diverse perspectives.

There are three interrelated objectives of this study.

(1) Understand and capture diverse student experiences of school spaces through the lens of enablers or constraints for student thriving in urban vertical contexts. Franz’ salutogenic design framework (Franz 2019) offers a ‘sense of coherence’ for understanding built environments in terms of their manageability, meaningfulness, and comprehensibility. The framework provides a way for young people to communicate diverse experiences of urban vertical spaces in the language of ‘thriving’/‘not thriving’.

(2) Address the disconnect between seeking voice [Process] and doing something meaningful with the perspectives shared [Impact]. The Lundy Participation Model (2007) informed project design decisions ensuring student voice is heard by appropriate audiences, such as architects, builders, and educational decision-makers, and acted upon to influence decisions.

(3) Enable students to tell their stories of their school spaces through multiple creative methods in ways that encouraged depth and breadth of student voice [Atmosphere].

Today, psychoanalysis looks back on a long-lasting tradition of impacting educational theory and practice. In fact, from its very inception psychoanalytic thinking has been applied to educational settings (e.g., Freud, 1914; Freud, 1960). However, despite a long and very rich tradition, psychoanalysis in education remains a niche area in educational research and practice in Europe, North America, and beyond (Taubman, 2011). In academia, it has been almost entirely pushed out of the mainstream of educational research, with the exception of special needs education.

In this presentation, we argue that today there is an opportunity opening up for psychoanalytic thinking to (re-)emerge from the margins of educational research and practice. In the course of the past two decades, there has been a growing acknowledgment that social-emotional learning and development is a crucial part of a modern educational experience (CASEL, 2023), and an essential precondition for more effective academic/cognitive learning, and the advancement of meta-cognitive skills (Pianta, 2012). At the same time, meta-analyses of social-emotional learning/development program evaluations, based on theories and methods of the educational sciences’ mainstream, show only small effects (Corcoran et al., 2018). From a psychoanalytic perspective this is hardly surprising, because most of these programs resort to behavioral condition strategies that ignore latent/unconscious factors impacting human development. Hence, an opportunity is opening up for psychoanalysis in education to show that it can deliver better results.

However, in order to be successful, psychoanalysis in education needs to accept the methods and quality standards, which currently dominate the mainstream of educational sciences, despite their obvious limitations. Specifically, psychoanalysis in education needs to work with and show appreciation for the methods and contributions of quantitative empiricism with its focus on social ecological factors impacting development, and integrate them – which is not the same as giving up its traditional focus on qualitative and in-depth analyses of the unconscious. Initial successful and encouraging steps in this direction have been made in clinical psychoanalysis (Fonagy & Bateman, 2013).

This presentation focuses on our first attempts to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis in education and quantitative empiricism in educational research and practice. From our point of view, group analysis (Foulkes, 1983; Bion, 1991), which combines psychoanalytic and social-ecological/sociological theory and thinking, is the best-suited practice and methods framework for this endeavor. In early 2022, we began working as group analytic coaches in schools. Specifically, we have provided group analytic supervision sessions in two schools in the greater Berlin metropolitan area. In the course of this work, we have also developed a new student survey instrument, which has been theoretically derived from psychoanalytic and group analytic theory (e.g., Hirblinger, 2017; Naumann, 2014). The purpose of this instrument is to support teachers' self-reflective practices in the context of group analytic school coaching and professional development training.

In The Finnish basic education curriculum (National core curriculum for basic education 2014, 2016), goals related to safety education are emphasized in a total of 11 different subjects at different grade levels. Safety-related goals mainly focus on prevention and preparedness in everyday life. (Puolitaival & Lindfors, 2019; Somerkoski & Lindfors, 2021.) Finnish schools have strongly relied on cooperation with authorities and organizations in safety education. Rescue services are one of the schools' essential partners. Accident prevention is a statutory task of the rescue services (Rescue Act (379) 2011).

An excellent example of long-term cooperation in the field of safety education is the NouHätä! safety training programme, which is aimed at middle school 8th graders. The main goal of the NouHätä! programme is to prevent fires and other accidents, respond to emergencies and prepare for social disruptions. In the programme, training is carried out in interprofessional cooperation between the rescue services’ personnel and school teachers (Mertsalmi & Kivelä, 2020). Even though the Nouhätä! programme has been implemented for more than a quarter of a century, it has received little scholarly attention. The success of the programme, like many others, is measured mainly by the number of participants. The aim of the study is to identify groups of learners with diverse learning outcomes and goal orientations and to find out how the materials and methods used in safety education meet the needs of diverse learners.

In addition to having different backgrounds, pupils are also oriented towards different learning goals. Individuals can have many different goal orientations simultaneously and these are formed through social interaction, for example, through the interpretation of expectations, feedback and comments. Over the years, several different classifications of goal orientation have been formulated, differing mainly in the number of goals and their justification (e.g. (Dweck, 1986; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996; Nicholls, 1984). In this study, achievement goal orientations are divided into mastery goal orientation, performance goal orientation, and avoidance goal orientation.

Achievement goal orientation as a concept describes an individual’s attitudes towards and expectations of their performance. Identical learning situations can be perceived differently by different students. Pupils may have multiple achievement goal orientations at play simultaneously. These vary according to students’ motivational factors, desired learning outcomes and interpretations of various situations. Specific goal orientation profiles can be generated according to specific, qualitatively different characteristics. Individual differences in goal orientation are associated with academic performance and well-being (Lerang et al., 2019; Niemivirta et al., 2019; Tuominen-Soini et al., 2008; Volet et al., 2019). Studies on goal orientation provide insight into why certain circumstances and methods have a varying impact on students. In their study, Volet, Jones and Vauras (2019) conclude that students’ favourable attitudes towards learning are more important than whether students have prior knowledge of the subject or not. They also point out that if some students in a group setting are determined to learn, they influence their peers to be proactive learners also (Volet et al., 2019). Students with different goal orientations benefit from different kinds of learning assignments and methods of instruction. Recognizing students’ goal orientations is a key factor for teachers when adapting their teaching to meet students' needs.

The research questions for the study are:

1. What variables explain students’ learning outcomes in the NouHätä! safety education programme?
2. What learning methods and materials of the safety education programme did students with different goal orientations prefer?

According to previous evidence, both children and adolescents from alternative care show more accused disadvantages than general population ones, even those from lower-income backgrounds (Gypen et al., 2017; Vinnerljung and Hjern, 2011). There is a bigger possibility to experience deprivation, unemployment, housing problems, illegal activities engagement, early pregnancies, healthy-related problems, and low educational levels (Broad, 2005; Simon and Owen, 2006). Former youth in alternative care are at significant risk of social isolation not just while they are in the protective care system but also after they are adults, despite the substantial fiscal costs of alternative care for the government (O’Sullivan and Westerman, 2007; Gypen et al., 2017).

There are differences among these children too. The ones who are adopted experience fewer shortcomings than those who continue to be in foster care (Vinnerljung and Hjern, 2011). Furthermore, it is commonly accepted along literature that the children and adolescents in foster care who have a family perform better than those in residential care without family support in different dimensions: physical and cognitive abilities, academic outcomes, and social integration (Steels and Simpson, 2017). Developmental gaps in physical growth, brain development, cognition, and attention, as well as atypical attachment patterns, are all linked to residential care (Guyon-Harris et al., 2019; van IJzendoorn et al., 2020). Centred on these findings, it appears that residential care facilities are being phased out in favour of other family and community-based alternatives for children in need of care in most European countries; even so, this sort of resource does exist with a variety of characteristics.

The purpose of the study has been to assess the success trajectories of former residential care young people who have enrolled in universities and to pinpoint the factors that enabled them to overcome challenges and diverge from the expected way. In achieving this objective, the application of communicative methodology throughout the research process has been vital, an issue that we will discuss in the following subsection.

Marginalised youth in Copenhagen, like in many other big cities, face challenges of inclusion and participation in education, the labour market and civil society activities (e.g., sport) (Red Barnet 2020). On a national level, efforts have been made to handle these challenges through a focus on inclusive education, youth work, improved professional training and an increased interprofessional cooperation between welfare professionals. This paper conceptualises young people’s marginalisation as complex processes of inclusion and exclusion in a presentation of findings from two research projects. The research project The Gendered Youth Club [Køn i klub] investigates youth workers’ narratives of forms of inclusion and exclusion that are produced in urban youth work. The research project Youth and Pedagogical work in Urban Arenas [Ungeliv og pædagogisk praksis i urbane arenaer] explores young people's own problem definitions and proposed solutions based on their own experiences of marginalisation. In the paper, we compare findings from the two projects in order to answer the research question: How do young people in marginalised positions and youth workers describe and understand forms of inclusion and exclusion in urban youth work?

The two research projects draw on different theoretical frameworks with a common research interest in urban youth work. The Gendered Youth Club investigates youth workers’ narratives of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity and class in relation to young people's opportunities in both institutional and societal participation, and analyses how these narratives also shape relations between young people and youth workers. The project is informed by international gender and intersectionality research (Butler 1993, Nayak & Kehily 2006, Wetherell 2008) as well as Danish research about how gender and other socio-cultural categories are regulated and negotiated in every day institutional life (Kofoed 2008, Staunæs 2003).

The project Youth and Pedagogical work in Urban Arenas explores lived experiences of marginalisation among youth in the city by involving young people actively in the research process. Marginalisation is understood within the theoretical framework of wicked problems (Horst, Rittel & Weber 1973, Bladt & Tofteng 2022). Wicked problems are characterised by a complexity of simultaneous problems within social structures, cultural and individual spheres which together shape social exclusions and differentiations. By involving young people in participatory processes, we enhance our knowledge about the complexity of the wicked problems both at an individual level, but also at a more general or societal level (Bruselius-Jensen 2021, Percy-Smith 2006, Percy-Smith, McMahon & Thomas 2019).

Bringing together findings from the two projects provides a double perspective including both youth and youth workers’ attempts to grasp and work with urban marginalisation.

School can be understood as an institution through which power circulates in multifarious ways.

School curricula represent legitimate bodies of knowledge, rules define which behavior is accepted and which is not. Spatial structures serve the purpose of disciplining and observation, methods of testing and analysis help to generate complex knowledge about students. Through a Foucauldian lens, school appears as a ‘dispositif’ of power, a complex network of material structures, discursive and non-discursive practices which serves to produce the modern individual (Foucault, 1978). A substantial amount of research argues that power structures have continually transformed toward more soft and subtle approaches. Those ‘technologies of power’ associated with modern governmentality and the societies of control (Deleuze, 1992) no longer target the ‘docile body’ by physical discipline (Foucault, 1995) but strive to produce a self-governing entrepreneurial subject through neoliberal discursive invocation. However, the argument can be made as well that school still reflects the logic of the disciplinary society and that those systems of school discipline developed during the 19^th Century are still very much in place.

The question whether the ‘shift’ towards a less rigid and less punitive ‘governmental’ discipline is extensive and whether it has affected most parts of the educational system therefore remains to be further explored. And it becomes even more relevant when the link between power, inequality and social marginalization is considered. This link can be studied when focusing on schools situated in segregated urban areas, as these schools are focal points of social and educational inequality within which disruptive behavior and problems with classroom management seem to be more prominent than elsewhere (Fölker, Hertel, Pfaff & Wieneke, 2013; Racherbäumer, Funke, Ackeren & Clausen, 2013; Weiner, 2003). Research suggests that the already given tendency of educational systems to reproduce structures of class and ethnic differences intensifies within these schools, with pedagogical practices playing a potentially crucial role in perpetuating or counteracting dynamics of misrecognition, discrimination, and territorial stigmatization (Sernhede, 2011; Wacquant, 2000, 2007; Wellgraf, 2018).

The importance of disciplinary practices for dynamics of marginalization has been stressed especially by studies from the US-American discourse, showing how Zero-Tolerance approaches not only fail to create less disruptive educational environments, but happen to further disadvantage those students who are already marginalized, reproducing ethnic differences through practices of punishment and exclusionary discipline. Firstly, studies on the relation between the discipline gap and the achievement gap show that racial disparities in educational achievement and in the intensity and frequency of punitive school discipline reproduce each other (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Skiba et al., 2011). Secondly, qualitative studies looking at the ‘micro level’ of disciplinary practice have repeatedly shown how cultural stereotypes and images about ethnic minority groups are closely intertwined with punitive school discipline (Ferguson, 2000; Gray, 2016; Morris, 2005).

Within the German educational research discourse, literature on the relationship between school discipline and marginalization is scarce. The paper at hand presents results from a study investigating disciplinary practices within schools in deprived urban areas through a qualitative-reconstructive approach (Hertel 2020). Drawing on Foucauldian concepts, the study has investigated the implicit knowledge underpinning disciplinary practices as well as ‘disciplinary cultures’ of schools and their interplay with established systems of power. The presentation at ECER 2023 will outline the main results and reflect on them against the backdrop of the conference theme, raising the question of how school discipline tends to value or de-value cultural and social diversity in school.

The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of children and adolescents is internationally widely reported. Meta-analyses pointed out that the global pooled prevalence of psychological disorders for children and adolescents not affected by mental health problems before the pandemic was 20.95 % (Raccanello et al., 2022). High rates of anxiety were especially significant (Loades et al., 2020) and prevalence rates for anxiety in youth varied globally from 2-74 % (Hossain et al., 2022). By now, it has also been found that the increase in symptoms did not change when examined longitudinally (Samji et al., 2022). Therefore, further worsening of mental problems must be assumed in the long-term course (Kauhanen et al., 2022).

Since anxiety is a multifaceted construct, the type of anxiety evolved is of high relevance. Regarding social anxiety the assumptions could be mixed. Social Anxiety may have increased during the pandemic since fewer or no opportunities for social interactions were offered. On the other side social anxiety also may have decreased since social pressures decreased. Generalized anxiety may have increased due to the pandemic and various other negative global events (Barendse et al., 2022). Besides feelings of generalized anxiety, many students were also found to be affected by COVID-19 related anxiety (Krammer et al., 2022). The most cited pandemic-related fear was that of contracting the virus themselves or fearing that a loved one might be infected (Samji et al., 2022).

Internalizing symptoms like social anxiety and loneliness show conceptual similarities and often co-occur, (Danneel et al., 2020). In fact, loneliness was one of the most common experienced feelings during the pandemic (Jamil et al., 2022). The comorbidity of social anxiety and loneliness is associated with a higher amount of social and academic difficulties as well as with greater life-dissatisfaction, increased sensitivity for social threat and social withdrawal (Danneel et al., 2020).

Meta-analyses identified risk and protective factors for child and adolescent mental health during times of covid-19. Female gender has been consistently identified as a risk factor for anxiety (e.g. Samji et al., 2022), but when it comes to loneliness, contradictory results can be found. Some studies (e.g. Kayaoglu & Bascillar ,2022) identified female gender as a risk factor while others could not find differences in the mean levels of loneliness between boys and girls (Danneel et al., 2020).

Also regarding the age groups different results were found. Some studies pointed out that older children and adolescents experienced higher stress levels, more frequent anxiety, worries and feelings of loneliness (Kavaoglu & Bascillar, 2022; Samji et al., 2022) Contrarily, other studies reported that younger individuals exhibited higher psychopathological symptoms of anxiety and loneliness across all assessment waves (Benke et al., 2022).

Therefore, it is of great necessity to not only look carefully at the specific types and frequency of children's and adolescents' fears in times of global exceptional situations such as the pandemic, but also to shed light on risk and protective factors of the population. This is necessary to develop appropriate prevention and intervention strategies to protect children and adolescents and to support their healthy development.

This paper aims at identifying differences in students’ self-reported loneliness, generalized, social and covid-related anxiety symptoms and exploring explanatory approaches. Accordingly, the following research questions are addressed:

1. What anxieties and levels of loneliness do Austrian students report in times of COVID-19?
2. What are the differences and relationships between self-reported anxieties, loneliness and individual and socio-economic/family-related factors of students in Austria?
3. To what extend can individual and socio-economic/family-related factors explain the differences in self-reported anxieties and loneliness from students in times of COVID-19?

As many as 30% of young people are affected by parental substance use, including hazardous drinking across Europe (EMCDDA 2010). Young people may experience a range of impacts including on their health and well-being and educational experiences (Cleaver et al 2011, Velleman & Templeton 2016, Kuppens et al 2020). Indeed, research from Europe suggests there may be significant effects on academic outcomes, including academic underachievement and school adjustment (Torvik et al 2011, Berg et al 2016, Lowthian 2022). Structural and intersecting issues such a poverty, domestic abuse and mental health are central to understanding both the impacts and outcomes for young people and their families, with deprivation the central driver of statutory intervention in children’s and families’ lives (Bywaters et al 2016). Recently, a Council of Europe Report described children affected by parental drug use as ‘not receiving enough attention’ and recommended the development of ‘sensitising tools aimed at understanding the experience of parental drug dependence, (to) initiate discussions about it in society, schools, communities and families’ (Giacomello 2022:85). There is an absence of research that considers day-to day school experiences for young people affected by drug use and a small number of qualitative studies which do provide some deeper insights into the relational complexities between poor school attendance and engagement more generally (Barnard and Barlow 2003, Backett-Milburn et al 2008).

Much of the literature on young people and families affected by parental substance use describe attempts to manage stigma and shame, fears around (and actual) removal and how they ‘get by’ (Backett-Milburn et al 2008). Bancroft (2004) and Backett-Milburn (2008) describe the ways in which young people agentically managed their day to day lives by, for example, attempting to take control of their parent's drug or alcohol use and family responsibilities, protecting their parents and siblings, withdrawing to private space, and occasionally confronting parents about their use. Young people are, accordingly, creatively responding to their relational and social contexts. Young people may present in school in ways that aim to keep themselves ‘under the radar’, and as having 'normal' family lives (Backett- Milburn et al 2008, Sipler et al 2020). These may mean that their need for support in school is hidden as teachers may be unable to recognise and respond to young people’s well being needs. Young people may be viewed as resilient or as coping (Velleman and Templeton 2016), though there is a gap in the literature about their school experiences and school-based responses. This paper will examine how young people and their caregivers navigate and negotiate day-to-day life at school.

The adolescent phase is characterized in psychology as a period of strong upheaval due to the developmental tasks that adolescents face. At the same time, adolescents are confronted with strong social changes. These include, on the one hand, megatrends such as digitalization and climate change and, on the other, temporary and regional social upheavals and challenges special phases such as pandemics or wars.

It is of great social importance to focus on the group of young people, as they are the future adult generation that will strongly shape society. Education and support in the educational mission are important for the well-being of the individual as well as for society as a whole: On the one hand, young adults are equipped with competencies and resources such as resilience, which help them to shape their lives in a way that makes sense for them. On the other hand, young people are the social group and subsequent generation that are engaged in diverse sectors such as work, politics, society and contribute to overcoming social crises.

Thus, analyses of stability and change serve to generate both, findings for research, as well as indications and recommendations for action in practice. As different as the individuals are, an entire generation always shows some similarities due to current trends or societal, political and structural circumstances. Hence, with the Young Adult Survey Switzerland (YASS), we could monitor the trends of young Swiss adults of both genders on the central topics of education, work and occupation, health and sports, politics and civic responsibility, as well as on cross-cutting topics such as values and value orientations, and capabilities and life perspectives in 2010/11, 2014/15, and 2018/19. At ECER, we would like to present findings to the research questions:

1) In which of the recorded subject areas have the mean values remained stable between 2010/11 and 2018/19?

2) In which of the recorded subject areas have the mean values changed between 2010/11 and 2018/19?

We refer to different theoretical frameworks that characterize the relevant developmental aspects of adolescence, i.e. the constructs of Quality of Life (Jenney & Campbell, 1997), identity formation (Erikson, 1973; Mead, 1991), developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1948), capability approach (Sen, 1993), and Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model (1996).

The development of a human being in his different systems (micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystem) depends on various influences, which are shown on the basis of the bio-ecological model after Bronfenbrenner (1996). According to Erikson (1973), identity formation is an essential part of development during adolescence. In his stage model, he defines stage V (12-20 years old) as an area of tension between identity and identity diffusion.

According to Havighurst (1948), the respective challenges that arise in the context of identity development in certain stages of life are referred to as developmental tasks. Recognizing, understanding and accepting them are prerequisites for mastering them (Hurrelmann & Quenzel, 2016).

In extension to purely resource-oriented approaches, the capability approach focuses on the realization opportunities (capabilities) that individuals perceive on the basis of available resources (Anand & Van Hees, 2006; Sen, 1993). In the capability approach, social inequality is not evaluated on the basis of available resources, but on what can be done with them. The term Quality of Life means what belongs to a good quality of life for the individual. According to Bradlyn et al. (1996), this includes social, physical and emotional functions, which must also be able to change congruently with the development of the individual or the context in which he or she finds himself or herself.

Abstract

Previous research on first-generation students and social mobility has primarily been concentrated on trajectories and how different resources (specifically economic, social and cultural capital) can be significant for a student’s willingness to pursue higher studies (see for example Anders & Micklewright, 2015; Bathmaker et al., 2016; Behtoui, 2017; Coertjens, Brahm, Trautwein, & Lindblom- Ylanne, 2017; Ivermark & Ambrose, 2021; Reay, David, & Ball, 2001; Siraj & Mayo, 2015). Furthermore, qualitative research has also primarily investigated how students adapt to university life and how they perceive social mobility while studying (see for example Bathmaker et al., 2016; Granfield, 1991; Lee & Kramer, 2013; Lehmann, 2013; Reay, Crozier, & Clayton, 2009). There has not to my knowledge been any investigation of how to engage and encourage first-generation students early in life to aim for higher studies, even though encouraging underrepresented groups to apply for university has been a long-standing political goal in many Western countries. For example, since the early 2000s, all Swedish universities are obligated under the Swedish Higher Education Act (SFS, 1992:1434 chap. 1 5§) to work actively to increase access to higher education among underrepresented groups, most often first-generation students. As a result, several Swedish universities have widening participation programs directed at students who are unlikely to pursue higher studies. One such program is the studied afterschool program, directed at students attending middle school (ages 13-16). Within the program, university students, henceforth referred to as student ambassadors, attend middle schools in the afternoons to help with schoolwork and to talk about university studies. These afternoons are voluntary for the middle-school students, and analysis shows that participants have a wide range of reasons to attend. Participation has been seen to increase students’ motivation for doing schoolwork and at times even for continuing to university. This article will, through microanalysis of everyday practices, try to unfold possible reasons for this increase in motivation.

The starting point is that schooling today has a multifold purpose: it is not only a place to get the right qualifications, but also somewhere students can express their dreams and thoughts about a possible future. One way of discussing this multifold purpose is through the lens of American educational philosopher Nel Noddings’ and her ethics of care (Noddings, 2005, 2012, 2013). Through dialogue, listening and caring, student ambassadors can create a safe space for learning, and the analysis shows that caring encounters can inspire students to pursue their dreams. The results therefore suggest that caring encounters can be an important factor for awakening dreams among young students, dreams that can include higher education.

The data is based on interviews and fieldwork, and is drawn from a larger mixed-method research project focusing on access to higher education, trajectories and widening participation. All data was gathered between 2018 and 2020; further detail on data collection is provided in the methodological section.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), as well as the results from International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) studies show that, with variations, students’ achievement are related with socio-economic status (SES). According to OECD PISA, student achievements are more affected by schools SES, than their family’s SES, therefore, differences between schools, i.e. segregation according to the socio-economic status (SES) of students' families, is an important aspect, which greatly affects student achievement as well as the overall quality of education.

Historically quality is associated with industry when an industrially made product had to meet certain quality standards (Scherman & Bosker, 2017). In education the concept of “quality” is more complicated than just meeting the fixed quality standards, as education quality depends on the needs of an always-changing society and processes that are closely related to this change, therefore measuring the quality of education can be quite challenging (Kirsch & Braun, 2020). Quality of education includes a variety of indicators at various levels (Sulis et al., 2020). This study is focusing on education quality by evaluating equity in education.

In the last decades equity in education has been in the spotlight of educational research for many counties as the successful education system, that provides equal educational opportunities to all members of society is the basis of a society with high human capital potential. Equity means, that there is a low association between student achievement and their socioeconomic backgrounds (Sulis et al., 2020; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2020; Frønes et al., 2020). Equal educational opportunities is the basis of a successful education system. That, in turn, provides a highly qualified workforce, contributing to the country's economic and social well-being (Hanushek & Kimko, 2000).

This study aims to evaluate schools socio-economic segregation and its changes in the previous two decades, using the data obtained from 7 cycles of OECD PISA (2000 – 2018).

Educational systems have effects on the intergenerational transmission of education (Breen and Jonsson 2005; van de Werfhorst and Mijs 2010). In particular, previous research has identified one central institutional factor as influencing the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage: between-school tracking, which increases educational inequalities (e.g., Canaan 2020). The extent to which tracking impacts educational inequalities depends on the age at between-school tracking (Brunello and Checchi 2007; Hanushek and Wößmann 2006; Pfeffer 2008). A later age at tracking in an education system reduces educational inequalities and increases intergenerational educational mobility (van de Werfhorst and Mijs 2010).

The most convincing empirical evidence in favor of causal effects of age at (first) tracking on intergenerational educational mobility comes from research estimating the effects of educational reforms in the age at tracking (e.g., van de Werfhorst 2018, 2019). This literature has implicitly assumed that the effects of such reforms do not vary across contexts. However, there are theoretical reasons to expect heterogeneity in the effects of reforms in the age at tracking on the intergenerational transmission of education by context.

In this study, we develop two expectations of such variation. First, the effects of the reforms may vary with the size of the change in the age at tracking. There may be reforms in the age at tracking, which are too incremental, to increase educational mobility. Contrary to this expectation, previous research has treated all countries which track students at an age younger than 15 as early tracking countries (e.g., Hanushek and Wößmann 2006; Scheeren 2022), and thereby ignored the considerable variation in terms of the size in the change of the age at educational selection within this group. It seems, however, at least theoretically possible that reforms in the age at tracking could increase educational mobility more if they shift the age at tracking by more than by less years.

Second, the effects of reforms in the age at tracking on educational mobility may be stronger in countries with stronger egalitarian values. In a climate of more egalitarian societal values there might be more possibilities for reforms to translate into actual outcomes for students and the intended equalizing effects of the reforms might more easily materialize in positive outcomes for students, especially for those from parents with lower levels of education. This hypothesis has been expressed by earlier research (van de Werfhorst 2018:32) but it has not been empirically tested.

The present study tests whether the effects of reforms in the age at tracking on educational mobility vary across countries. There are two kinds of previous studies on the consequences of tracking, neither of them allows us to answer this question. On the one hand, previous research has investigated the effects of reforms in tracking age in single country studies (e.g., Canaan 2020 on France and Dronkers 1993 on the Netherlands). These studies point towards positive implications of increasing the age at tracking and educational attainment (Canaan 2002; Dronkers 1993; Wielemans 1991). Variation in results across different studies can, however, be based on differences in the research design and the operationalization of variables. Yet, it is plausible that these differences are due to contextual differences. On the other hand, previous comparative research has analyzed multiple countries in difference-in-difference designs and therefore, by design, excluded the possibility of cross-country variation in the effects of reforms on educational mobility (Brunello and Checchi 2007; Hanushek and Wößmann 2006; van de Werfhorst 2018, 2019; Scheeren 2022).

In addition, we analyze gender differences in these effects. The investigation of gender differences is motivated by the inconclusive findings from previous studies.

The Czech education system is characterised by early tracking. It tracks students officially at the age of 11, when about 10 % of students transit to so-called multi-year grammar schools. There are, however, also different forms of hidden tracking – specialised classes that often track children from the first grade of primary school. Most often these are classes with extended English teaching or bilingual classes. In some of these classes parents pay extra fees, even though they are part of the public system. There is a lot of evidence that both the multi-year grammar schools and specialised classes are primarily tools of social selection that enable educated and financially well-off parents to secure superior educational opportunities for their children in the public education system. Tracking is, however, supported not only by these parents, but also by many teachers, as they believe that in a more homogeneous environment they are able to provide better services to all students. In an attempt to meet the needs of these parents and teachers and at the same time to respond to criticism that tracking contributes to the deepening of educational inequalities, many schools are now starting to sort and group children according to their performance for the main subjects within the grades. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to investigate this type of ability grouping in Czech schools.

From research carried out mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries (e.g. Gamoran & Mare, 1989; Gamoran, 1992; Kerckhoff, 1986; Slavin, 1990; Hanushek & Woessman, 2005) there is ample evidence that tracking based on the cognitive abilities of pupils does not improve overall educational results, but increases the differences between pupils from higher and lower tracks. Pupils in higher tracks achieve better results than they would achieve in a comprehensive system and pupils in lower tracks the opposite. Research studies further show that the distribution into tracks is not fair: parents who care about their children’s education are able to ensure elective studies for their children even in a situation where they would not be accepted for these on the basis of their achievement. Research also shows that in higher tracks pupils have better conditions for education: better equipment, better teachers, and a more favourable learning climate. All this increases the injustice of differentiated systems (Gamoran & Nystrand, 1991; Oakes, 2005).

Studies comparing tracking, in which pupils are divided in some phase of their studies and continue to study permanently in differentiated classes, and ability grouping, where pupils are divided according to ability only into the main subjects across grades and spend the rest of their school time in heterogeneous classes, agree that the latter has a lower impact on inequality. Some studies report that ability grouping increases the average achievement, i.e. it is beneficial for students in all groups (e.g. Slavin 1987, Steenbergen-Hu et al., 2016). However, most studies agree that pupils in the low-ability group achieve worse results than they would in a heterogeneous setting because having high-achieving classmates is associated with increased achievement (Ireson et al., 2005; Francis et al., 2017; Saleh et al., 2005; Scholfield, 2010) and that the students in lower groups develop a lower self-concept (Ireson & Hallam, 2009).

The goal of this research is to contribute to knowledge about the implementation of ability grouping with evidence from Czech schools. The study seeks answers to the following research questions: To what extent do the quality of teaching, the curriculum presented, the demands placed on pupils, and the learning climate differ in individual groups? Are the differences between groups or subjects consistent or do they differ between schools/subjects?

The rate of out-of-home placement in Israel for residential care settings (and not for foster families) is among the highest in the world (Kosher et al., 2018). Most of the children and youth who experience out-of-home placement, referred to as “at-risk youth,” are usually from low socioeconomic status (SES) families. These young people are referred to therapeutic or educational boarding schools. Therapeutic boarding schools (termed “residential care” in English-speaking countries) are offered to high-risk children (e.g., those suffering from neglect and abuse). The educational boarding schools (also known as “youth villages” in Israel) are offered to low SES youth who are characterized by living under “other risk,” that is, “problematic” living conditions (poverty, social marginalization, and geographical periphery) that may impair their life prospects. At-risk youth who are educated in therapeutic and educational boarding schools, therefore, experience a myriad of exclusions and structural vulnerabilities. Moreover, as a consequence of their out-of-home placement and removal from their biological families, these young people experience external intervention in their self-concept (Schutz & Luckmann, 1974). Removing a child from his or her home also means loss of attachment figures or “ambiguous loss” (Boss, 1999). Ambiguous loss describes situations and events in which the loss is unclear or unresolved. This loss, in turn, has been found in several studies to be related to stress and anxiety. This distress “can manifest in problematic behaviors, such as aggression, delinquency, and depression” (McWey et al., 2010, p. 1339). Studies also show that at-risk youth experiencing out-of-home placement are more likely to adopt risk behaviors as well as have psychological difficulties (Sulimani-Aidan, 2015). It is against this background that phenomenological examinations of the daily lives of at-risk youth are particularly important.

This article presents an interpretative examination of the future orientation of 28 boys and girls who attend educational boarding schools in Israel, and who had been removed from their families as a consequence of their families’ extreme poverty and not due to other possible risk factors (e.g., sexual abuse, drug-addicted parents, immigration). We propose to dissociate from the elasticity (Lubeck & Garrett, 1990) that characterizes the umbrella concept of risk, which comprises many risk factors without discerning among them. The empirical examination of future orientation of a specific population of at-risk youth––i.e., educational boarding school students––is important in light of the characteristics of this disadvantaged population living under multiple social exclusions.

Thus the primary research question of the current study is what characterizes future orientation among educational boarding school students in Israel who experience multiple social exclusions. An empirical response to this question may contribute to several fields of knowledge: the study of future orientation among youth living under social exclusion and experiencing structural vulnerability; the study of culture, inequality, and future orientation; the long-term effects of out-of-home placement; the study of the linkage between SES and self-concept, or what Reay (2005) called, “the psychic landscape of social class.”

The current study presents an intervention program that was implemented in kindergartens to empower preschool children from low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods. In each classroom, a speech-language therapist (SLT), occupational therapist, and psychologist collaborated with the kindergarten teacher to evaluate children's needs and plan activities to achieve the goals. The language program that was delivered by the SLT aimed to improve the children’s vocabulary, enable them to develop pragmatic skills, and develop age-appropriate morphological and syntax structures. The purpose of the present study was to examine the outcomes of the language intervention program.

The language program was developed for preschool children from low SES families, that as a group, tend to have delayed language abilities compared to children from higher SES in various language domains (Hart & Risley, 1995; Fish & Pinkerman, 2003). Many of these children begin their studies at school with language delay (Fish & Pinkerman, 2003; Ginsborg, 2006; Hoff & Tian, 2005) and the gaps between children from different SES increase over the years of school (Schiff & Lotem, 2011). In addition, studies indicate that the incidence of specific language impairment among children of parents with lower levels of education was 16%–29%, compared with only 8% among children of highly educated parents (Dollaghan et al., 1999).

A common assumption is that early educational interventions during the preschool years lay the foundation for future educational and social success (Kaiser & Roberts, 2011). Moreover, intervention programs that use natural activities in a social context optimize social and verbal interaction, helping those with language delay to improve their communication and language skills (Vilaseca & Del Rio, 2004). Thus, the current language program was developed as an activity-based intervention, founded upon the naturalistic approach, which enables the clinician to set up opportunities for children to learn through age-appropriate interactive processes in natural settings. The clinician uses activities that allow the children to incorporate modeling and reinforce therapy targets within contexts that are meaningful to the child (Fey, 1986). The intervention was conducted in small groups that allow the child a greater variety of natural opportunities with peers and caregivers than do “one-on-one” interactions. Studies have shown that young children with language delay or impoverished language benefit from language interventions in a small group (Hutchinson & Clegg, 2011; Justice et al, 2005; Nielsen & Friesen, 2012).

As part of the program, a short language assessment was conducted for all children at the beginning of the year. The goals of the screening test were: 1.) To identify children with poor language skills, and to refer them to further comprehensive developmental language assessment. 2.) To identify children who need to work in small groups, and to divide them into small groups according to their linguistic level.

In the current study, this screening test was used to test the language level at the end of the year, as well. In addition, the same screening test was delivered to kindergartens in low SES neighborhoods, that did not participate in the program. The goal of the current study was to examine whether children enrolled in the program had different gains in language development compared with children who did not enroll in the program.

Social structure in the classroom could be formed by the interactions among people and the social norms shaped by those interactions (Martin, 1976; Giroux, 1983). Thus, peers and peer relations can function as the hidden curriculum in school or classroom contexts, given that many studies are also carried out to support this assumption. Regarding social links of peers in school or the classroom, peer relations have been proven to be the primary impact factor of positive or negative classroom climates (Çengel and Türkoğlu, 2016). Peers of students who act as peer leaders also share the roles of teachers in the classroom, which has been proven to encourage teachers and students to work interdependently (Giroux and Penna, 1979). The context of learning and the social relations used by teachers and students are also addressed in another research focusing on the norms and values shared as the hidden curriculum in a Cambodian context (Bray et al., 2018). Hence, it is evident that peer relations in school could be understood as the hidden curriculum.

The left-behind children (hereinafter "LBC”) are viewed as children under 18 whose parents are migrant workers (primarily internal migrants) in China who usually spend less than three months a year with their parents (Ye et al., 2013) . Families with migrants have skip-generation childrearing arrangements to support the left-behind children, which requires grandparents to take care of the LBC (Ge et al., 2019). Most of the LBC in rural areas board at school, given that relevant policies have been launched to protect them from risks caused by insufficient childcare caused by the childrearing arrangements during after-school hours (Zhao, 2011) . According to my data analysis experience and the lifted one-child policy (Feng et al., 2016), many LBC have peer siblings who are also under the supervision of the surrogate parents. In those living conditions, peer interaction and its impact are believed to be active.

Meanwhile, research has linked the LBC’s living experience in school with the concept of the hidden curriculum by viewing Chinese socio-political ideological forces on daily pedagogical practices and what LBC experienced as the hidden curriculum (Ren et al., 2020). In the Chinese cultural context, it has been proven that the value of collectivism, called moral education (in pinyin: de yu), has been embedded in the dominant curriculum through educational policy-making (Zhu, 2021). In this study, the concept of moral education defers from what Durkheim argued (Prus, 2019). On the contrary, in this study, I view the value of moral education in the Chinese context as the dominant curriculum (McCarthy, 1994) rather than the hidden curriculum considering the cultural diversities in different research contexts. Overall, it remains a knowledge gap regarding whether LBC's peer relations and social norms among peers are considered the hidden curriculum in school.

Based on prior research regarding the relational forms of the hidden curriculum, the social-economic impact on schooling that is identified as the hidden curriculum for the LBC in China, and the shared collectivist cultural norms of peer relations in the Chinese school context, I argue that the social norms and practices among LBC and peers in school can also be viewed as the hidden curriculum. Based on the above assumption, I collected data regarding peer relations and interactions of LBC in the Chinese context while using the theory of the hidden curriculum to answer the research questions: 1) how LBC interact with peers in school, and 2) what peer interactions can be viewed as the hidden curriculum in school?

All networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

Participatory research has a strong reputation in education research, particularly when it explores the experiences of marginalised children, young people, and/or adults (Mohindra et al 2011; Conrad & Campbell 2013). Its use is often justified because it reduces, even removes, the distance between researcher and participant (Rafferty 2094), allowing the research to reflect their voices and describe their experiences in their own words. It also potentially enables such research partners to be involved in all aspects of the research, allowing it to fulfil an emancipatory purpose (Hall 1975; Barton & Hayhoe 2022) and aligning it with action research (Sharp & Balogh 2021). However, strong reputations often obscure problems and discourage debate and this symposium was prompted by a number of issues associated with using participatory approaches in education research, which it is designed to highlight and explore, drawing on relevant research undertaken in 3 different European contexts. These issues are presented here as provocations.

The first provocation is methodological. While participatory data collection is often as open and wide as possible, analysis can often remain at the level of content analysis or summarising what research partners have said. This captures an interesting ethical shift, which has led in some cases to under-theorised research analysis creating research findings which are both superficial and paradoxically too distant from what research partners actually said. This may mean that participatory approaches deny important insights.

The second provocation relates to the researcher’s positionality. Researchers are funded both to undertake research and to use this research to improve the institutions or services they are examining. This can prevent them thinking objectively and result in them being influenced by the objectives of the institution or the funder, especially if there is pressure to share research partners’ perspectives (Lewin & Shaw 2021) or conversely suppress their views to ‘protect’ partners from their consequences.

The final provocation relates to communication and dissemination. Research findings which remain at the level of quotation or summary are easier to communicate. Producing findings which use more theoretical analytical approaches may be controversial because they foreground the importance of interpretation and oppose participatory purism, as well as risking bringing taboos and “unthinkables” into participatory dialogue.

The symposium’s presentations bring together critical theory and empirical research to explore these provocations, guided by the following research questions:

• How did the research reported here draw on participatory approaches?
• To what extent did issues around methodology, positionality and dissemination affect how the research was conducted and analysed?
• How were these issues addressed?

This paper primarily addresses aspects which have been little discussed so far in qualitative participatory research. The contribution is primarily theoretically-focused, contextualised using the findings from three research studies. The first used observations as well as interviews with four detainees and three staff members in a penal institution, analysed using depth-hermeneutics (Langer et al., 2021). In the second, a five-day photovoice workshop was conducted with 15 refugee language learners and analysed using content analysis (Obens 2023). In the meta-analysis, six qualitative studies on Pupil Referral Units in England were re-analysed in relation their implications for related policy changes introduced in Germany (Zimmermann, 2023). In the qualitative research community, it is almost "state of the art" to refer to the individuals and groups being researched as "partners". This often blurs the boundaries between research perspectives and activism. While studies may include a large number of participants, the methodological approach is often limited to content analysis and similar approaches. Therefore, the paper uses data from the research projects indicated to address three central questions, which reflect the provocations of the symposium abstract: 1. Does this powerful paradigm of participation, which seems to be ethically valuable, possibly also conceal researchers' fear of results that are uncomfortable and difficult to communicate (Devereux 1967)? 2. Is the apparent distinction from the scientific mainstream (understood as quantitative-empirical), which is often emphasised in educational research projects, really just another form of neoliberal research? Terms such as "relevance", "impact" or "value" typically signify this supposed research responsibility (Henwood & Lang 2005). The inclusion of (often “marginalised”) participants in research projects may actually legitimise educational measures that are individual-centred and conceal social distortions. Shouldn't research be much more resolute in opening up spaces in which more radical criticism is possible? 3. In view of this, what place is there for critical theory which uncovers taboos in the individual and social unconscious? Relevant, more psychoanalytic research methods, such as depth hermeneutics, offer ways of illuminating this "dark side of the moon" and identifying changes to the education system. However, it is precisely those perspectives that are highly anxiety-provoking, as they bring into focus those parts of individual and group experience that have been repressed from professional and institutional self-images (Lorenzer 2000). There are neither clear nor simple answers to those questions. However, they suggest that critical and open discussion of participatory research is urgently needed.

Devereux, G. (1967) From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences. The Hague: Mouton. Henwood, Karen; Lang, Iain (2005): Qualitative Social Science in the UK: A Reflexive Commentary on the “State of the Art”. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(3): The State of the Art of Qualitative Research in Europe. DOI: 10.17169/fqs-6.3.16. Langer, J., Link, P.-C., Fickler-Stang, U., Zimmermann, D. (2021): Perspektiven von Bediensteten des Jugendstrafvollzugs auf pädagogische Beziehung - tiefenhermeneutische Einsichten aus einer qualitativ-empirischen Studie. ESE. Emotionale und Soziale Entwicklung in der Pädagogik der Erziehungshilfe und bei Verhaltensstörungen 3, 14–28. Lorenzer, Alfred (2000) Sprachzerstörung und Rekonstruktion. Vorarbeiten zu einer Metatheorie der Psychoanalyse. 5. Aufl. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 31). Obens, K. (2023). Vom (Adels-)titel und der dreifachen Sprachlosigkeit – Eine tiefen-hermeneutische Interpretation eines Deutsch-als-Zweitsprache-Unterrichts für Menschen mit Behinderungs-, Flucht- und Traumaerfahrungen. Psychosozial 45(2) (issue 168), in print. Zimmermann, D. (2023). Die Beschulung psychosozial erheblich beeinträchtigter Kinder und Jugendlicher in Kleinklassen. Praxeologische Desiderata und empirische Antworten aus dem englischen Diskurs. Vierteljahreszeitschrift für Heilpädagogik und ihre Nachbargebiete, submitted.

Recent EU analysis (EU 2022) found that in 2021 over one-fifth of the EU population living in households with dependent children was at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Estimates suggest at least 15 million children and young people in Europe have special educational needs. Increasingly in recent years, children and young people affected by these issues have been categorised under the crude description “vulnerable”. This paper discusses some of the findings from research which explored the experiences of vulnerable young people and their families using participatory approaches. It was undertaken in 2021 in a large city in England with high levels of poverty and deprivation. The paper explores how schools, teachers and other professionals can best work with young people to help them overcome the disadvantages they face and examines the methodological challenges of undertaking funded research using participatory approaches, especially during the pandemic. The theoretical framework for the research drew on strengths-based and co-constructed research approaches (Boyle et al, 2010; O’Neill, 2003), alongside critical examinations of social mobility (Todd, 2021) and the discourse around aspirations (Appadurai 2004). Its guiding research questions were: • What are the hopes and expectations of vulnerable young people and families facing disadvantage? • What support have they had both to achieve their hopes and overcome the barriers they face? • What implications do their experiences have for education and social policy and practice? Funded by local government, the research used a participatory approach and was conducted online in 2021 due to pandemic restrictions. It involved 13 young people and their families who had been supported by, or had sought the support of, social services. The approach developed in-depth narratives of their experiences, drawing on interviews, photographs and retrospective reconstructions of key events in their lives, determined by the participants themselves and their families. Data were analysed using the theoretical framework already outlined and the paper will discuss the difficulties of conducting, and analysing, this kind of participatory research. The paper concludes that shifting the discourse away from aspirations and mobilities, which draw too readily on negative, deficit models, towards exploring young people’s capacities, capabilities and experiences would help them better realise their goals. It also suggests that to do this, we should be prepared to acknowledge the “messiness” of social research (Law 2004); listen to young people more effectively; and find better ways to negotiate representing their views with funders.

Appadurai, A. (2004) The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition, in Rao, V. and Walton, M. (eds.) Culture and Public Action. Stamford: Stamford University Press, 59-84. Boyle, D., Slay, J., and Stephens, L. (2010) Public services inside out: Putting co-production into practice. London: NESTA. Eurostat (2022) Children at risk of poverty or social exclusion. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Living_conditions_in_Europe. Law, J. (2004). After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. Abingdon: Routledge. O'Neil, D. (2003) Clients as researchers: The benefits of strengths-based research, in Munford, R. and Sanders, J. (eds.) Making a Difference in Families: Research that Creates Change. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 113-129. Todd, S. (2021) Snakes and Ladders: The Great British Social Mobility Myth. London: Vintage.

significantly during the pandemic (Raccanello et al., 2022) and that these problems are likely to worsen in the long term (Kauhanen et al., 2022). These findings highlight the need for evidence-based prevention programs to promote mental health in this age group. Since adolescents often have an affinity and preference for digital technologies, prevention programs increasingly are offered as digital tools. Well-tailored digital interventions are likely to increase engagement and to promote the transfer of specific skills or strategies into the daily lives of young people (Lucas-Thompson et al., 2019). Adolescents can use these programs independent of time and place, and they can be designed to be adaptive and self-directed. Their efficacy has also been noted for addressing mental health problems such as anxiety and depressive symptoms (Sevilla-Llewellyn-Jones et al. (2018). However, young people often criticize these programs for being insufficiently tailored to their needs/interests (Wright et al., in press), which may be due to a disparity between the data collected and reported, identified in symposium provocation 1. This paper presents a project developing a programme to promote mental health literacy and well-being among students aged 12-15. In an iterative, participatory process, an innovative, adaptive, and accessible digital prevention programme is being developed with 240 students from three European countries, addressing topics such as anxiety, depression, resilience, and mindfulness. It takes into account the diversity of the students in terms of their social and cultural background, support needs, gender identity and sexual orientation. The aim is to expand the range of previous/existing prevention programs and to develop a program that addresses students’ needs and diversity and motivates them to take action regarding their own wellbeing. To ensure that the design and content is relevant, attractive and engaging for the students, two participatory workshops in 2023 will be conducted with students from secondary schools in Austria, Poland and Slovenia, followed by a pilot study in 2024. The conceptualization, implementation, and initial findings of the participatory workshops with representatives of the target group will be presented, focusing on the accuracy of the concept and design of the programme’s initial phase. This will include feedback results from the students on their needs, preferences and requirements regarding program design program design, as well as teacher feedback on strategies to improve the viability of the program in the school setting.

Kauhanen, L., Wan Mohd Yunus, W. M. A., Lempinen, L., Peltonen, K., Gyllenberg, D., Mishina, K., Gilbert, S., Bastola, K., Brown, J. S. L., & Sourander, A. (2022). A systematic review of the mental health changes of children and young people before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-02060-0. Lucas-Thompson, R. G., Broderick, P. C., Coatsworth, J. D., & Smyth, J. M. (2019). New Avenues for Promoting Mindfulness in Adolescence using mHealth. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(1), 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1256-4 Raccanello, D., Rocca, E., Vicentini, G., & Brondino, M. (2022). Eighteen Months of COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Lenses of Self or Others: A Meta-Analysis on Children and Adolescents' Mental Health. Child and Youth Care Forum, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-022-09706-9 Sevilla-Llewellyn-Jones, J., Santesteban-Echarri, O., Pryor, I., McGorry, P., & Alvarez-Jimenez, M. (2018). Web-Based Mindfulness Interventions for Mental Health Treatment: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JMIR Mental Health, 5(3), e10278. https://doi.org/10.2196/10278 Wright, M., Reitegger, F., Cela, H., Papst, A., & Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. (in press). Interventions With Digital Tools for Mental Health Promotion Among 11-18 Year Olds: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Given their promising equalising effects, strengthening the link between the different settings and modalities of formal, non-formal and informal education has become the central goal of inequality-related education policy, research and professional practice (Hadjar et al., 2022). The corresponding efforts to address the complex vulnerabilities of children and young people show a broad spectrum: from the recognition of different ways of acquiring competences to the networking of different institutions and a stronger inclusion of out-of-school activities in formal education to a corresponding interplay of diverse teaching and learning modalities in complex learning ecologies (e.g. Russell et al., 2013). However, given the diversity of educational landscapes in Europe, a variety of concrete patterns in the interlinking of educational settings and learning activities is also evident, which have emerged at the intersections of national welfare/education systems and In particular (in)equity structures (West & Nikolai, 2013), institutional pathways and supranational/global forces (Hoppers, 2006, Roosma & Saar 2010). The variance of these policies and initiatives to combat inequalities precisely by means of diversity of education relates both to a) what is understood by formal, non-formal and informal education/learning, b) which patterns of relationships between these three (exemplary) types of education are sought (complementary, alternative, supportive, combating, transformative, etc.) and c) from which institutional structures and modes of separation, connecting and blurring of formal, non-formal and informal education these attempts gain their legitimacy and their actually realised or just hoped-for effectiveness (e.g. Schmachtel, 2015). Even if this discoursive differentiation of formal, non-formal and informal education is mainly found in governance-related perspectives, the aim of diversifying education also leads professionals everyday striving for more equity as well. Against this backdrop, the panel focus at the discursive yet idiosyncratic expert knowledge of professionals and other experts and stakeholders on actively combating educational inequalities through a ‚diversification of education/learning‘ in three different national education/welfare systems – Germany, Spain and Norway.

Each contribution will present a qualitative case study on pioneering educational practices in combating educational inequalities in their specific national, regional and/or local contexts, selected along the MILC approach of the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation project PIONEERED (Seiler et al., 2021), which inquiries into pioneering policies and practices in tackling educational inequalities across nine countries along an intersectional understanding of inequalities. The case studies provide a comprehensive approach to understanding how practices and policies of interlinking formal, non-formal, and informal education/learning in tackling inequalities are embedded in a dynamic context of change (Simons, 2009). By that, it allows for a balanced comparative analysis of the similarities and differences within and across the educational fields and national contexts. Each presentation will specifically address the following questions:

• How does each intervention capture the complexity of educational inequalities? How do practitioners relate inequalities and their respective interventions to the diversity of educational sectors, settings, modalities and activities?
• What patterns of linking and interweaving formal/non-formal/informal education are visible in practitioners' practice and how are these patterns linked to complex inequalities in education at the levels of access, treatment and impact?
• In which (sub)national political contexts, pathways and discourses are these patterns embedded? How are the common institutional contexts contested and changed by these pioneering practices?

The presented (sub)national case studies will be discussed comparatively with a view to the question of how this perspective on the link between formal/non-formal/informal education, can help to identify instruments to combat inequalities across Europe based on the knowledge of experts and professionals in the respective contexts. The discussant's commentary will lead to this comparative perspective.

The Spanish Second Chance Schools are alternative educational organisations to the formal system, managed by third sector entities. They are aimed at unemployed young people (aged 15-29) who have dropped out of compulsory education. Their offer is based on an innovative pedagogical model, which combines: flexible itineraries, personalised teaching, vocational guidance and training, work experience in collaboration with companies and attention to the educational and employment needs of vulnerable groups (Meo and Tarabini, 2020). These institutions distinguish themselves from other similar initiatives (especially within formal education) by their "non-compensatory" approach to the educational problems of vulnerable groups (Mills et al., 2017). In contrast to the disciplinary and content simplification approach, these institutions are committed to connecting with young people's interests and dignifying non-academic knowledge. Second Chance Schools seek to redefine the very concept of 'success' and pay special attention to the subjective dimensions of learning: recognition, sense of belonging to the institution and emotional attachment to the program (Tarabini, Jacovkis and Montes, 2021). One element that highlights the relevance of Second Chance Schools as a practice of interest is its prominent role in the fight against Early School Leaving (ESL). ESL was identified by experts and stakeholders as one of the main challenges of the Spanish education system, both because of its high prevalence (well above the European average) and because of its concentration among the most vulnerable students. The inflexibility of the formal curriculum and the lack of alternatives to the single, academic-centred pathway were pointed out on several occasions as one of the factors explaining the high ESL in Spain. In this sense, Second Chance Schools offer enormous potential to overcome the problem, as they are filling a gap that the formal system has been unwilling or unable to address -without losing the connections and guaranteeing permeability-. From this scenario, the main objective of this contribution is to explore the role of Second Chance Schools as a mechanism for educational reconnection, identifying both the 'good practices' that characterise their organisational-pedagogical model and the main limitations or barriers that must be overcome. Likewise, although this contribution focuses on the role of Second Chance Schools in the Spanish context, the comparative dimension with other European initiatives that highlight the need to articulate formal and non-formal education serves as a central element to better understand how to address the increasingly complex socio-educational inequalities.

Meo, A., & Tarabini, A. (2020). Teachers’ identities in second chance schools: A comparative analysis of Buenos Aires and Barcelona. Teaching and Teacher Education, 88, 102963. Mills, M., te Riele, K., McGregor, G., & Baroutsis, A. (2017). Teaching in alternative and flexible education settings. Teaching Education, 28(1), 8-11. Tarabini, A., Jacovkis, J. y Montes, A. (2021). El model d’escoles de noves oportunitats: una peça clau del sistema educatiu per a garantir l’èxit escolar. Red española de escuelas de segunda oportunidad

Along with the other Scandinavian countries, the Norwegian education system is widely recognized as one that promotes educational equality and equity. Secured by the social-democratic welfare system, efforts to achieve education for all have a longstanding tradition within educational policy and practice (e.g. Volckmar, 2016). The goal of maintaining and even strengthening educational equity is supported by numerous educational policy measures, such as a low-stratification structure of the education system, the gradual expansion of comprehensive schools to thirteen years, and the introduction of the principle "adapted education". The latter emphasizes that children have the right to an education adapted to their needs, abilities and requirements. This means that the educational institutions are obliged to establish appropriate practices that address the growing diversity of the student body by recognizing and including non-formal and informal educational settings (NOU 2009: 18). With these developments, Norway is in line with the perspective that it is not enough to legally secure access to educational institutions to ensure equality in education, but that specific resources and measures within the education system are needed. In this context research points to the insensitivity of educational institutions regarding the wider socio-cultural embedding of educational practices also including non-formal and informal education (e.g. Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Grundmann et al., 2003). This often leads to a gap between the intended egalitarian educational policy and the reality of educational practice. Based on stakeholders’ (such as government officials, teachers' union experts, education practitioners) perspectives from Norway which explicitly indicate that an egalitarian educational process for everyone requires a balanced relationship between the formal, non-formal and informal educational arenas (Jobst et al., 2022) the presentation examines two different approaches on how to interlink formal, non-formal or informal educational settings within the Norwegian egalitarian education system. The declared goal of the two practice cases is to reduce educational inequality and thus motivate at-risk young people to complete school. Both cases differ in their character – while one practice is part of a top-down program the other practice can be described as bottom-up. Against this background, we compare both cases in terms of their mediation between formal, non-formal and informal educational settings. Further, we show the extent to which non-formal educational practices can influence formal educational contexts and how this can lead in stakeholders’ perspectives to equal participation in education.

Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Sage. Grundmann, M., Groh-Samberg, O., Bittlingmayer, U. & Bauer, U. (2003): Milieuspezifische Bildungsstrategien in Familie und Gleichaltrigengruppe. In: Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 6, 1, S. 25-45. NOU 2009: 10. (2009). Fordelingsutvalget. Finansdepartementet. Jobst, S., Jensen, J, Skrobanek, J. & Strand, D. (2022). Working paper: Existing programme- and non-programme-related pioneering practices tackling/reducing educational inequalities from a comparative perspective. edited by PIONEERED. Bergen. Volckmar, N. (2016). Utdanningshistorie: grunnskolen som samfunnsintegrerende institusjon. Gyldendal akademisk.

Given the highly stratified and segregated German education system and its complex federal governance the last two decades has been characterised by strong forces to networking the diverse sectors, settings and modalities of formal, informal and non-formal education socio-spatially into so-called "local education landscapes" (Olk, 2017). Even if the inequality-reducing effects have not yet proven (Duveneck, 2023), the will to counter the high correlation between educational success and social origin in Germany by systemic and social space related networked offers is unbroken (Coelen et al., 2022). Strengthening cooperation between schools and child and youth welfare services plays a key role here, which has developed into particularly complex cooperative relationships in elementary and primary education. Not only that the services of early childhood education and care (ECEC), which are administratively assigned to child and youth welfare, work more closely with primary schools in a transition-related perspective. The relatively newly developed services of school social work, inclusive school support and all-day care at schools are also predominantly provided by services of non-formal education. Against this background, the case study presented here highlights a local initiative in which an ECEC centre and a primary school in a highly stressed urban location have joined forces to create educational provision in a most inclusive and inequality-sensitive way. The presentation highlights the complex linkage of actors, concepts and practices of formal, informal and non-formal education/learning resulting from this alliance, which goes beyond the usual cross-sectoral cooperation based on trust and common goal formulation (Kolleck et al., 2020). Rather, what can be observed in this ‘education house’ is a complex "boundary work" (Langley et al., 2019) between the diverse organisational units of this alliance, which has enabled them to use the three policy megatrends after the German "PISA shock" - massive expansion of early education and all-day schooling, as well as the gradual dismantling of the special school system - to develop a highly comprehensive 'neighbourhood hub' (Clark et al., 2022) which intersects informal, nonformal and formal education in a localized integration of ECEC, school and social services and area based relations as well. In particular, the presentation will discuss how this cross-sectoral alliance makes it possible to combine a place-based approach with the network-based approach driven by education/social policy in a way that could help to further develop the understanding of "locality" in "local education landscapes" with a view to inequality-sensitive education in early years.

Clark, K., Cahill, R. & Ansell, D. (2022), Early Childhood Development and the Role of Neighbourhood Hubs for Supporting Children’s Development and Wellbeing in Disadvantaged Communities: A Review of the Literature Life Course Centre Working Paper No. 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4118008 Coelen, T., Hemmerich, S, Jestädt, H., Klepp, S., Million, A., Zinke, C. (2022). Bildungslandschaften in Campus-Form aus schulischer Perspektive. Die deutsche Schule 114 (1): 46-60. doi:10.25656/01:24322 Kolleck, N.; Rieck, A.; Yemini, M. (2020). Goals aligned: Predictors of common goal identification in educational cross-sectoral collaboration initiatives. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 2020. Volume 48 (Issue 5). S. 916-934 DOI: 10.1177/1741143219846906 Olk, T. (2017). Educational Landscapes and the Reduction of Socio-spatial Educational Inequality in the City. In Million, A., Heinrich, A., Coelen, T. (eds) Education, Space and Urban Planning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38999-8_22 Langley, A., Lindberg, K., Mørk, B. E., Nicolini, D., Raviola, E., & Walter, L. (2019). Boundary Work among Groups, Occupations, and Organizations: From Cartography to Process. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 704–736.

Deviant behavior, defined as behavior that is perceived as deviant from certain perceptions of how individual should behave in certain contexts, is among the greatest stressors for teachers in all countries (OECD 2020) and, if it occurs frequently, can lead to the development of a deviant career in students, eventually resulting in drop out and/or school expulsion (Caprara et al. 2006; Skiba et al. 2014).The symposium employs a comparative perspective on deviant behavior by bringing together work from Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany.

Despite the importance of the topic, there are some limitations and research priorities regarding its coverage in research: a) A large part of the research takes place on the conditions of deviant behavior on the student or teacher (classroom management) side, whereby the interactive and thus also interpretative part in the emergence and development of disruptive behavior has received little attention so far (Schuchart/Bühler-Niederberger 2022; Dodge/Pettit 2003). b) Structural and contextual characteristics such as sociocultural origin and school characteristics are rarely included. There is fairly limited research on reciprocal relationships of structural factors as well as mediating mechanisms between individual and structural levels (Hascher/Hadjar 2018; Payne/Welch 2010). c) Methodologically, it can be noted that cross-sectional studies have dominated the quantitative field so far, providing only limited insights when deviant behavior is understood as a dynamic process.

Presentations at the symposium will consider various forms of perceived deviant behavior, such as verbal or motor agitation/hyperactivity, aggression, passivity, or cheating, among others. The research gaps described will be addressed in which the presentations understand deviant behavior as behavior whose quality changes over time through interaction and interpretation of the indirectly and directly involved actors and is structured by characteristics of sociocultural background, school, and school system. The following main questions will therefore be addressed: How does deviant behavior develop among students in relation to interacting structural and contextual factors? What is the role of interpretation and interaction at the micro level in this process?

The three studies to be presented shed light on different aspects of these questions. Paper 1 investigates the development of deviant behavior in terms of an interactive interpretive process between teachers and students in several consecutive school lessons at the beginning of the first school year. Quantified observations of deviant behavior and teacher reactions are linked to qualitative teacher interviews on perceptions of their own and students’ behavior. The focus is on how teachers interpret comparable student behavior. Paper 2 examines students' subjective perspectives by focusing on school alienation as an interpretive framework that mirrors conditions and experiences within the school environment. In this argument, disruptive behavior in school is an expression of school alienation, a kind of functional action alternative being selected by alienated students. Structural equation modeling is used to examine how this relationship develops over several years in secondary school, and to what extent this process is structured by sociocultural background and school type. Paper 3 also focuses on the development of deviant behavior over a period of several years, here among 5-to 9-year-old students. The focus here is a comprehensive look at the ways in which different factors- child, family, school characteristics- interact to shape young people's behavior over time in the school and classroom context.

The symposium offers unique insights into the complex development of deviant behavior. With the individual and structural level as well as with the different methodological approaches, it addresses aspects that have so far received less attention in research. Thus, it opens up possibilities to better understand deviant behavior- and the contribution of students, teachers, and context- and to address it in an adequate way.

We are interested in the development of deviant student careers. We refer to an interactionist approach of social reaction to rule‐transgression by students which assumes that being labelled for prior rule-transgressing behaviour may turn into a “master status” of the student overshadowing other characteristics of the person in the perception of the teacher (Cicourel 2020/1968; Caprara/Zimbado 1996; Lehman/David/Gruber 2017). We examine the beginning of this process among first-year pupils in the first months of the school year. Research questions: Which kind of rule transgressing behaviour can be observed among pupils and which behaviour is perceived and sanctioned as rule breaking by teachers? (1) To what extent do teachers differentiate in their reactions and interpretations between individual pupils? Method: We combine quantitative and qualitative methods. We observed the rule-transgressing behaviour of pupils (Volpe/Hintze 2005) and the reactions of teachers in 10 first classrooms during four consecutive lessons. 1999 observations from 199 children were recorded, analysed by using bivariate statistics. Short interviews were then conducted with 10 teachers, referring to the interpretation of the behaviour of 14 pupils with less than six and 21 pupils with more than ten observations. The interviews were analysed in an inductive-deductive procedure (Strauss/Corbin 1990) in which we elaborate theoretical concepts that can more precisely capture the interactions towards a deviant career. Results: Most of students’ rule-transgressing is not severe (45% “verbal” (e.g. chattering), 35% “motor” (e.g. walking around), 15% “passive” (e.g. staring out of the window)). Controlling for type of behaviour, teachers do not react to about half of the incidents, and if they react, they mostly mildly admonish. Children with many and children with few incidents are treated equally. Hence, these results suggest that the interpretation of rule-breaking by teachers is rather arbitrary, and not yet ascribed as an individual characteristic to pupils. However, the analysis of the teacher interviews indicates that they see the behaviour of pupils with few incidents mostly as "normal" and "childlike", while they interpret the behaviour of children with many incidents in a "long story", as contextualized in a family situation and as intentional. Conclusion: Although teachers might not yet treat pupils differently, they make clear differences between children at the level of interpretations. This could lead to increasing differences in the type of sanctions applied by teachers (Yeager/Lee 2021; Okonofua/Eberhardt 2015). Future research will show the extent to which this may induce a deviant career for some children.

Cicourel, A. V. (1968/2020). Die soziale Organisation der Schule. In U. Bauer et al. (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Bildungs- und Erziehungssoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer (Original in: E. Rubington & M. S. Weinberg (Eds.), Deviance. The interactionist Perspective (pp. 124-135). New York: MacMillan. Dodge, K. A. & Pettit, G. S. (2003). A biopsychosocial model of the development of chronic conduct problems in adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 39 (2), 349. Lehmann, B.J., David, D. M. & Gruber, J. A. (2017). Rethinking the biopsychosocial model of health: Understanding health as a dynamic system. Soc Personal Psychol Compass, 11. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12328. Okonofua, J. A. & Eberhardt, J. L. (2015). Two Strikes: Race and the Disciplining of Young Students. Psychological Science, 26 (5), 617–624. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615570365 Strauss, A. L. & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Sage. Volpe, R. J., & Hintze, J. (2005). Observing students in classroom settings: A review of seven coding schemes. School Psychology Review, 34 (4), 454‐474. Yeager, D. S. & Lee, H. Y. (2021). The Incremental Theory of Personality Intervention. In G. M. Walton & A. J. Crum (Eds.), Handbook of wise interventions: How social psychology can help people change (pp. 305–323). The Guilford Press.

This longitudinal study analyses the prevalence of disruptive behaviour in Luxembourgish and Swiss secondary schools and how this is affected by the attitudinal factor of school alienation towards three distinct domains of schooling: learning, teachers and classmates (see concept of Hascher & Hadjar 2018). Disruptive behaviour in school diverges from social norms in school and leads to conflicts between students, with teachers and impairs classroom and school climate. Schools are powerful learning environments that can foster students’ socio-emotional skills and prosocial behaviour (e.g., Spinrad & Eisenberg, 2009). However, schools can also foster the development of student disruptive behaviour that might be triggered by negative student experiences such as competition, stress, or social exclusion. A general conceptual approach to theorise the role of school alienation in the prevalence of student disruptive behaviour is provided by the Situational Action Theory (SAT; Wikström & Sampson, 2014): School alienation is a negative attitude that functions as frame for the selection of school behaviour. Behavioural alternatives are reduced to typical behavioural patterns that express a distance and dislike of school. Thus, alienated students may show disruptive behavioural patterns to express their resistance to school, to compensate for academic failure, or even in trying to meet the school’s expectations (e.g., cheating to pass a test) rather than considering behaviours that resemble the image of a ‘good pupil’. The sample is based on a non-random selection of secondary schools in Luxembourg and the Swiss Canton of Bern that participated in a three-year panel study from Grade 7 to 9 (LU: 370 students in 35 classrooms; CH: 373 students in 27 classrooms). Measuring school alienation, we employ the School Alienation Scale (SALS; Morinaj et al. 2017) comprising of three dimensions: alienation from learning, teachers, and classmates. Disruptive behaviour in school was measured on the basis of a 19-item self-report instrument introduced by Melzer and Schubarth (2006). Students had to indicate how often they practice behaviours such as cheating, afflicting other students, disturbing lessons or destroying things. Results of structural equation models indicate gender effects on both school alienation and deviance – with male students being more prone to alienation and disruptive behaviour. Immigrant background and social origin as well as the secondary school track only show isolated effects. Summarising the findings, alienation from learning, teachers and classmates shows rather cross-sectional effects on disruptive behaviour: Higher alienation goes along with stronger disruptive behaviour. Longitudinal effects of alienation are rare.

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Hascher, T., & Hadjar, A. (2018). School alienation – Theoretical approaches and educational research. Educational Research, 60(2), 171–188. Melzer, W., & Schubarth, W. (2006). Gewalt als soziales Problem an Schulen. Untersuchungsergebnisse und Präventionsstrategien. Opladen: Barbara Budrich. Morinaj, J., Scharf, J., Grecu, A., Hadjar, A., Hascher, T. & Marcin, K. (2017). School Alienation. A Construct Validation Study. Frontline Learning Research, 5(2), 36–59. Spinrad, T. L., & Eisenberg, N. (2009). Empathy, prosocial behavior, and positive development in schools. In R. Gilman, E. S. Huebner, & M. J. Furlong (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology in schools (pp. 119–129). New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Wikström, P.‑O. H. (2014). Why Crime Happens. A situational action theory. In G. Manzo (Ed.), Analytical Sociology: actions and networks (pp. 74–94). West Sussex: Wiley.

Much of the research on the role of school factors in student behaviour has focused on secondary level, with disengagement seen as playing an important role in students acting out within class. In contrast, research on younger children has tended to emphasise the role of individual and family factors in shaping their socioemotional difficulties, with less attention to the way in which behaviour is constructed within the school and classroom. This paper attempts to contribute to this field by using longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI, Smith/Darmody 2021) study to examine changes in student behaviour between five and nine years of age. The outcome is teacher-assessed externalising behaviour, measured using the conduct and hyperactivity subscales of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). At the individual level, externalising behaviour among nine-year-olds is more prevalent among children whose families report financial strain, who live in urban areas and who have a chronic illness or disability. Levels are also higher for children from lone-parent and migrant-origin families. Externalising behaviour is much lower among girls and among those whose parents have higher levels of education. Behaviour is also responsive to the overall school context, being more prevalent in schools with a higher concentration of socio-economic disadvantage. Externalising behaviour is also shaped by the interaction between the child and the context, being higher where the teacher views the relationship as conflictual and where the child has more negative attitudes to school and school subjects. Further multilevel analyses will explore whether patterns of externalising behaviour vary across individual schools and between teachers. The second part of the paper examines whether externalising behaviour at age nine is influenced by experiences around the transition to primary school. Behaviour at age five is strongly predictive of behaviour four years later but experience of the transition to school also has a longer-term impact, with higher levels of externalising behaviour among children who regularly complained about school. Both teacher-child conflict and closeness at age five are associated with higher levels of externalising behaviour at age nine, suggesting that there may be an optimal balance in the quality of this early relationship. In sum, the paper points to a complex dynamic between school and class context and externalising behaviour from early on in primary school, suggesting the need to examine and address behaviour difficulties within context.

Smyth, E. & Darmody, M. (2021): Risk and protective factors in adolescent brhaviour. The role of family, school and neihborhood characteristces in (mis)behaviour among young people. The Economic and Social Research Institute: ESRI Research Series No. 119.