99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
A Comparative Study of Educational Provision and Experience of Rural Students in Rural and Suburban Boarding Schools in Middle China
Manning Luo
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Luo, Manning
Research Background
Boarding education is seen as a vital educational strategy for rural students as it could save students' time for commuting between home and school (Wang, et al., 2017), improve low-SES students’ academic performance (Foliano, 2019), save students from dangerous habits and behaviours (Bass, 2014), avoid child labour (Finnan, 2020), and help disadvantaged students gain cultural, social, and educational capital (Bass, 2014; Yao et al., 2015). Meanwhile, concerns are raised that boarding schools have negative impacts on boarders’ cultural identity, connection with their rural hometown, home language (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018; Finnan, 2020), wellbeing (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018). There are also other issues relating to rural students attending boarding schools that they lack of parental care while boarding in school and are undernutrition (Luo et al., 2009). In China, boarding school has become an open choice and popular among parents (Tan and Bodovski, 2020). However, few studies have drawn their attention to rural students attending boarding schools in China. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the educational provision and experiences of rural students attending rural and suburban boarding schools in middle China. The research questions are as follows.
Research Questions
Overarching question:
RQ1 How does the provision and experience of education for rural students compare in rural and suburban boarding schools?
Background RQs:
RQ2 What factors explain the parental choice of schools in rural and suburban China?
RQ3 Why do rural and suburban boarding schools educate children from rural areas?
Key questions:
RQ4 To what extent and in what ways do rural and suburban boarding schools include and/or exclude children from rural areas?
RQ5 How do children from rural areas experience inclusion/exclusion in rural and suburban boarding schools?
Comparative question:
RQ6 How do the findings in response to the questions above compare between rural and suburban boarding schools?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedResearch Methods
This is a mixed-methods study that uses multiple case studies as the research framework. Four public boarding schools are selected in middle China, two of them are rural schools, and the other two schools are suburban schools. Using the MMR approach to data collection will allow the researcher to compare and cross-check the results (Atkins, 2012).
There are four phases for the data collection that relate to the instrumental research questions. The first phase starts with quantitative questionnaires with parents. The questionnaires therefore can help understand a larger number of parents’ perspectives on school choice and on the boarding school, their children attend.
The second phase is to investigate at an institutional level – whether and why school leaders and practitioners consider it to be important to educate children from rural areas in boarding schools. Methods including semi-structured interviews with school staff, ethnographic observations, and documents have been gathered to understand this research question.
Then, at an individual level, students’ interactions with schools (inclusion/exclusion) were studied with ethnographic methods, documents, semi-structured interviews (with staff), and visual methods (images). School timetables, facilities, classes, dormitories, canteens, after-class activities, school discipline and rules, policies, images, and documents have been observed and collected in the field notes.
Finally, students’ experiences in rural and suburban boarding schools will be studied with classroom observations and focused group discussions.
Data Analysis
Initial data analysis (both within- and cross-case analysis) has been conducted in the field, which can make sure that the emerging findings will be checked during fieldwork, as well as the balanced focusing on issues of each case. The qualitative and quantitative data are analysed differently to answer different research questions.
Questionnaire data have been analysed through the software SPSS to explore the factors that explaining parental choice. Thematic analysis of qualitative data has been conducted by NVivo software. A revising of the entire data set is used to explore areas that have not been recognised in the emerging analysis during the field.
The displayed data from each case are compared to answer the question asked of findings across multiple cases in both rural and suburban settings.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsInitial Findings and Conclusions
The analysis of the data is still in progress and therefore there are only preliminary results yet, the analysis will be completed well in advance of the conference. The initial findings of RQ1-RQ5 are as follows.
RQ1 - Four schools have provided similar school environments in terms of students' boarding and study environments. Students live in the schools on weekdays, their activities are shaped by a strict timetable and are separated from the outside world.
RQ2 - The higher the education and income of rural parents, the more detailed the requirements for their children's school choices and the clearer the plans for their students' future development. Additionally, household registration is one of the factors that has an impact on parental choice, families with rural households are more passive in their choice of schools, preferring to send their children to schools close to home.
RQ3 - Boarding school is regarded as a substitution for rural students who lack family support. Boarding schools give rural students the promise of a brighter future.
RQ4 - Most of the teachers participated agreed that the school was not inclusive of all students - the extra curriculum, boarding conditions and wellbeing support should be improved.
RQ5 - There are some conflicts and compromises while students adapt to the school boarding environment.
Significance
This mixed methods research could provide a comprehensive insight into boarding schools from a range of perspectives. It fills the gap in the understanding of the inclusion of rural children in rural and suburban boarding schools in the Chinese context. This would give a comparison between rural and suburban boarding schools, particularly their efforts to include rural children in the boarding environment. In addition, this study has the potential to further contribute to the knowledge of inclusive education and inequalities.
ReferencesAtkins, L. (2012) Qualitative research in education / Liz Atkins and Susan Wallace; British Educational Research Association. Wallace, S. (ed.). London, England : SAGE, 2012.
Bass, L.R. (2014) Boarding Schools and Capital Benefits: Implications for Urban School Reform., 107 (1): 16–35.
Finnan, C. (2020) Can a Total Institution Be a “Castle of Hope?”: The Case of an Indian Residential School for 27,000 Indigenous Students., 30 (2): 29–43.
Foliano, F., Green, F. and Sartarelli, M. (2019) Away from home, better at school. The case of a British boarding school., 73: 101911.
Luo, R., Shi, Y., Zhang, L., et al. (2009) Malnutrition in China’s Rural Boarding Schools: The Case of Primary Schools in Shaanxi Province., 29 (4): 481–501.
Su, X., Harrison, N. and Moloney, R. (2018) Becoming Familiar Strangers: An Exploration of Inland Boarding School Education on Cultural Wellbeing of Minority Students from Xinjiang Province., 28 (2).
Tan, M. and Bodovski, K., 2020, October. Compensating for Family Disadvantage: An Analysis of the Effects of Boarding School on Chinese Students' Academic Achievement. In FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education (Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 36-57).
Wang, S., Dong, X. and Mao, Y., 2017. The impact of boarding on campus on the social-emotional competence of left-behind children in rural western China. Asia Pacific Education Review, 18(3), pp.413-423.
Wragg, E.C. (E (2011) An introduction to classroom observation [electronic resource] / Ted Wragg. (Firm), P. and ProQuest, C.S. (eds.). Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.
Yao, E.S.W., Deane, K.L. and Bullen, P. (2015) Trends and transitions from secondary school: insights from a boarding school for disadvantaged New Zealand youth., 18 (10): 1347–1365.
99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
Parental Involvement in Children’s Education; A Developing Country Perspective
Qazi Waqas Ahmed
Department of Education, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Presenting Author: Ahmed, Qazi Waqas
A plethora of research has been conducted on parental involvement in children’s education in developed countries (Epstein, 2018; Edwards & Alldred, 2000), but less is known regarding the same in the developing countries context (Kim, 2018). This research aspires to comprehend the viewpoint of rural children’s, parents, and teachers concerning parental involvement in children’s education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan. The strength of the study is to have a multi-informant holistic approach; collect data from children (focus group interviews), parents (narrative interviews), and teachers (In-depth interviews), and analyzed the data through narrative and thematic analysis techniques. The theoratical framework and the interview guidelines were mostly based on Epstein’s seminal framework (Epstein, 2018), supplemented by themes and topics found in previous studies concerning parental involvement (e.g., Kim, 2018; Bower & Griffin, 2011; Wilder, 2014).
Studies have shown that children’s schooling and their overall interests in education are best served when parents and teachers collaborate (e.g., Epstein, 2018;Wilder, 2014). Their joint efforts bring a variety of benefits, for instance, well-functioning cooperation increases families’ confidence, extends trust, builds a positive image of the school, and ultimately helps children’s education (Epstein, 2018). However, in Pakistan, the idea of parental involvement is relatively unknown owing to parents’ socioeconomic situations and the negligence of schools in motivating parents. The present study aims to investigate children’s, parents’, and teachers’ perceptions of parental involvement in a developing country. Overall the results broaden the understanding of the concept ‘parental involvement’ by presenting diverse, often context-related challenges to involvement and parents’ hope for a bright future for their children. Finally, based on the study results, we suggest measures for improvements, including better-trained teachers, help for low-income families, and more suitable and equitable ways of involving parents in their children’s education.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis research utilized various kinds of qualitative data. Multi-informants (children, parents, and teachers) and multi-method data (i.e., focus group, semi-structured, and narrative interviews) were collected to investigate the viewpoints of children, parents, and teachers regarding parental involvement in children education. Narrative and thematic analysis techniques were used to analyze the data.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings manifested frustration, disappointment, ignorance, and hope concerning the lack of parental involvement and passive learning of children. Children and parents shared the importance of an extended family system in a rural collectivistic culture that compensates for parents’ lack of involvement in children’s education. The most contradicting findings emerged from parents’ and teachers’ interviews, where both leapt to criticize each other. Teachers blamed parents, and parents pointed out the loopholes of teachers. Teachers alleged that the children’s parents do not cooperate with us and help their children learn at home, whereas parents believed that teachers do not consider them equals and are not committed to their profession. By knowing the experiences and viewpoints of both parties, it was understandable that both parents and teachers somehow failed to perform what they were supposed to serve. This is not only because they are indifferent and ignorant but because they do not fully understand their roles and responsibilities.
ReferencesBower, H. A., & Griffin, D. (2011). Can the Epstein model of parental involvement work in a high-minority, high-poverty elementary school? A case study. Professional School Counseling, 15(2), 2156759X1101500201.
Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Routledge.
Edwards R and Alldred P (2000). A typology of parental involvement in education centring on children and young people: Negotiating familiarisation, institutionalization, and individualisation. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 21(3), 435-455.
Kim, S. W. (2018). Parental involvement in developing countries: A meta-synthesis of qualitative research. International Journal of Educational Development, 60, 149-156.
Wilder, S. (2014). Effects of parental involvement on academic achievement: a meta-synthesis. Educational Review, 66(3), 377-397. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2013.780009
99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
Understanding Disciplinary-specific Academic Resilience: Case Study of a Southeast Asian Scholar in Higher Education in Sweden.
Nhu Truong, Anna Danielsson, Per Anderhag
Stockholm University
Presenting Author: Truong, Nhu
Studies carried out in numerous national contexts suggest that students from socio-economically impoverished backgrounds are associated with academic underachievement (Filmer & Pritchett, 1999). Some underprivileged students, however, manage to perform outstanding educational outcomes despite their adverse background. The dynamic process in which these students negotiate, adapt to, and cope with their circumstances is often referred to as ‘resilience’ (Howard et al., 1999).
During the 1990s, researchers started to explore resilience in the context of education, that is ‘academic resilience’. Accordingly, the notion of academic resilience is described as performing relatively well in school despite an adverse background (Alva, 1991; Wang et al., 1994). Several studies have found that academic resilience is associated with certain protective factors, both related to the individual and their environment (home, school, community), that modify or influence a person’s responses to adversities (Jowkar et al., 2014). Such factors are important to identify in order to understand how suitable support can be provided in order to create inclusive and equitable educational opportunities for all.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research has a long tradition of engaging with inequalities, often related to the performance and participation of students from different genders, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds. A variety of conceptual tools have been applied to understand the uneven performance and participation in science, such as interest and taste (Anderhag et al., 2015), science capital (Archer et al., 2015) and science identity (Danielsson et al., 2023). There is also a rich literature that seeks to adapt science education in order to enhance the sense of belonging in the discipline for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Barton & Tan, 2009). Such teaching interventions are often characterized by how they seek to bridge students’ life-worlds and science by, for example, eliciting and valuing students’ funds of knowledge. Other studies look at how minoritized students in STEM responded to challenges and develop their mathematical identities and pursue STEM career (Joseph et al., 2020). Consequently, STEM education research has been deeply invested in improving the teaching and learning for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Still, with a few notable exceptions (Ferguson & Martin‐Dunlo, 2021), this has not been conceptualized in terms of developing students’ academic resilience. We posit that an increased conversation between STEM education research seeking to improve the educational experience of disadvantaged students and research about academic resilience would be beneficial to both lines of research. Since the findings from the resilience research field are largely extracted from quantitative studies, the knowledge of how resilience is developed through the interplay between the individual and their environment is sparse.
The aim of this paper is to contribute a multifaceted exploration of an educational trajectory from childhood characterized by circumstances to doing a PhD in mathematics. The study is grounded in an interest of understanding how academic resilience be conceptualized in a way that allows for STEM-specific disciplinary aspects to be taken into account. More specifically, we ask:
- What resources (at individual/school/family/community level) were accessed by the student in order to allow for a successful educational trajectory in STEM?
We will present our preliminary results from a pilot case study of a scholar coming from Southeast Asia and now doing PhD in Mathematics at a Swedish university.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedOur study employed the timeline interviewing method (Adriansen, 2012) that is utilized as a tool to visualize critical events of a personal life journey. Using this method, the interviewee was given agency to take ownership of the process and share analytical power in how their life story is told. Moreover, this method provides possibilities of seeing events and perceptions toward these events through the broader lens of reflection on life experiences. In particular, we were able to obtain a detailed and in-depth knowledge and understanding of students’ narrative of the resources they perceived they received and accessed to help them succeed in school.
In our pilot study, the interviewee was invited to participate in a Zoom interview, using an online digital drawing tool to ensure the drawing was visibly shared for both the interviewee and interviewer. The interviewee is a Vietnamese man PhD student in Mathematics at a Swedish university. He was born and raised by his single mom in a southern rural area of Vietnam and had previous to enrolling in the current PhD programme studied abroad in different countries. The interview started by asking one question: ‘Tell me the journey of how did you end up becoming a PhD student in Mathematics?’. The interviewee was encouraged to freely choose the starting point to tell his story: he started when he was born, and emphasized the critical events and moments along his journey. The interviewer also helped him elaborate on some incidents that captured crucial stages of life or to better understand the role of some people or other resources alongside those critical events. The interview lasted 1 hour and 52 minutes and was recorded with the interviewee's consent.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn this pilot study, we identified four sets of resources: school, home, community, and individual resources, that the student had been able to access to develop his academic resilience. Firstly, school resources he highlights in his narrative were predominantly of a material kind and include the mathematics teacher’s support by providing a computer, money and books; the school granted him money to travel to be trained in advanced level in mathematics for a national competition; his teachers raised funds to grant him a monthly stipend. Secondly, home resources brought forward in the narrative were both immaterial, such as his mother’s belief in and valuing of education as a gateway from poverty, and material, in how relatives provided him with accommodation. Thirdly, material community resources of importance include a librarian and a bookshop owner befriended, who lent him books. The municipality offered him a long-term accommodation as a reward for his first prize in math and literature at provincial level. Fourthly, the interviewee identified himself as a strong, self-regulated, intelligent and hardworking individual, with a high level of self-efficacy. He had a clear vision for his dream career of becoming a mathematics teacher because he sees this profession as associated with pride and prestige and the discipline of mathematics as a transparent and non-arbitrary knowledge system (in contrast to economic, which was perceived as more arbitrary).
The analysis contributes a multifaceted perspective on the complex set of material and immaterial resources associated with academic resilience. In particular, this study contributes by exemplifying how and in what ways specific resources may come into play when an individual successively is overcoming encountered adversities. More studies from other contexts are however needed and so providing the field with further insights on how material and immaterial resources may facilitate the process of becoming academically resilient.
ReferencesAdriansen, H. K. (2012). Timeline interviews: A tool for conducting life history research. Qualitative Studies, 3(1), 40–55.
Alva, S. A. (1991). Academic invulnerability among Mexican-American students: The importance of protective resources and appraisals. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13(1), 18–34.
Anderhag, P., Wickman, P.-O., & Hamza, K. M. (2015). Signs of taste for science: A methodology for studying the constitution of interest in the science classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 10, 339–368.
Archer, L., Dawson, E., DeWitt, J., Seakins, A., & Wong, B. (2015). “Science capital”: A conceptual, methodological, and empirical argument for extending bourdieusian notions of capital beyond the arts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 52(7), 922–948.
Barton, A. C., & Tan, E. (2009). Funds of knowledge and discourses and hybrid space. Journal of Research in Science Teaching: The Official Journal of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 50–73.
Danielsson, A. T., King, H., Godec, S., & Nyström, A.-S. (2023). The identity turn in science education research: A critical review of methodologies in a consolidating field. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1–60.
Ferguson, D., & Martin‐Dunlo, C. (2021). Uncovering stories of resilience among successful African American women in STEM. Cultural Studies of Science Education.
Filmer, D., & Pritchett, L. (1999). The Effect of Household Wealth on Educational Attainment Evidence from 35 countries. Population and Development Review, 25(1), 85–120.
Howard, S., Dryden, J., & Johnson, B. (1999). Childhood Resilience: Review and critique of literature. Oxford Review of Education, 25(3), 307–323.
Jones, M. G., Ennes, M., Weedfall, D., Chesnutt, K., & Cayton, E. (2021). The development and validation of a measure of science capital, habitus, and future science interests. Research in Science Education, 51, 1549–1565.
Joseph, N. M., Tyler, A. L., Howard, N. R., Akridge, S. L., & Rugo, K. R. (2020). The Role of Socialization in Shaping Black Girls’ Mathematics Identity: An Analysis of the High School Longitudinal Study 2009. Teachers College Record, 122(11), 1–34.
Jowkar, B., Kojuri, J., Kohoulat, N., & Hayat, A. A. (2014). Academic resilience in education: The role of achievement goal orientations. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism, 2(1), 33.
Wang, M. C., Haertal, G. D., & Walgberg, H. J. (1994). Educational resilience in inner-city. In M. C. Wang & E. W. Gordon (Eds.), Educational resilience in inner-city America: Challenges and prospects (pp. 45–72). Lawrence Erlbaunm Associates.
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