Socio-ethnic stratification and segregation processes present in Flemish society are reflected in the everyday school environment. Pupils with a different socio-ethnic background than the dominant majority and middle class seem to be confronted with a lot of difficulties in this school system. The dominant meritocratic discourse frequently applies a deficit thinking perspective to frame educational success and failure, focusing on deficiencies originating outside of the school. In this paper we analyse newly collected survey data (N = 11,015 pupils) and a large amount of qualitative data (from pupils, parents, teachers, principals) to answer our two main research questions: (i) how is educational success/failure defined, and (ii) how is educational success/failure explained? The factor analyses as well as the qualitative analyses illustrate how the idea of meritocracy relates to individualistic features such as effort, merit and competence. However, the findings also reveal that this individualistic approach goes hand-in-hand with a focus on the family environment and 'culture' which seems to limit individual agency to a large extent. In these discourses, pupils, parents and even teachers are presented as being largely determined by their direct social environment with almost no regard for social inequalities within the educational system. The paper ends with a discussion on how processes of victimization and the denial of systemic bias, influence educational trajectories and proposes a different approach to multiculturalism and the appreciation of cultural background and specific family resources as positive elements in these trajectories.

No abstract

Although the paradigm of visual literacy (VL) is rapidly emerging, the construct itself still lacks operational specificity. Based on a semiotic understanding of visual culture as an ongoing process of 'making meaning', we present in this study a skill-based classification of VL, differentiating four sets of VL skills: perception; imagination and creation; conceptualization; analysis. A qualitative curriculum analysis based on this framework revealed that curriculum standards for compulsory education in Belgium refer only peripherally to the use of visuals. The attention for VL skills also decreases from secondary education on, especially curriculum standards related to the analysis of images are scarce.

In 2 experiments, time-accuracy curves were derived for recall and recognition from episodic memory for both young and older adults. In Experiment 1, time-accuracy functions were estimated for free list recall and list recall cued by rhyme words or semantic associations for 13 young and 13 older participants. In Experiment 2, time-accuracy functions were estimated for recognition of word lists with or without distractor items and with or without articulatory suppression for 29 young and 30 older participants. In both studies, age differences were found in the asymptote (i.e., the maximum level of performance attainable) and in the rate of approach toward the asymptote (i.e., the steepness of the curve). These two parameters were only modestly correlated. In Experiment 2, it was found that 89% of the age-related variance in the rate of approach and 62% of the age-related variance in the asymptote was explained by perceptual speed. The data point at the existence of 2 distinct effects of aging on episodic memory, namely a dynamic effect (growing slower) and an asymptotic effect (growing less accurate). The absence of Age x Condition interactions in the age-related parameters in either experiment points at the rather general nature of both aging effects.

No abstract