Improving quality and equity in schools in socially disadvantaged areas

Abstract

Background: Recent effectiveness studies have investigated the relationship between two dimensions of effectivenessnamely, quality and equity. Specifically, the question of whether effective schools can also reduce the initial differences in student outcomes attributed to student background factors has been examined. In this context, the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) makes use of theory and the research findings of effectiveness studies to try to improve school effectiveness in terms of quality and equity. Purpose: This study aimed to examine whether the implementation of DASI in primary schools in socially disadvantaged areas in four European countries (Cyprus, England, Greece and Ireland) was able to promote student learning outcomes in mathematics and to reduce the impact of student background factors on student achievement in mathematics. Design and methods: A sample of 72 primary schools across the four countries was randomly split into experimental and control groups. At the beginning and at the end of the school year, mathematics tests were administered to all students of Grades 4-6 (n = 5560; student ages 9-12 years). The experimental group made use of DASI. Within-country multilevel regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the impact of the intervention and search for interaction effects between the use of DASI and student background factors on final achievement. Results: In each country, the experimental group achieved better results in mathematics than the control group. At the beginning of the intervention, the achievement gap based on socio-economic status (SES) was equally large in the experimental and the control groups. Only in the experimental group did the achievement gap based on SES become smaller. However, DASI was not found to have an effect on equity when the equity dimension was examined by focusing on the achievement gap based on either gender or ethnicity. Conclusions: Implications of findings are drawn and the importance of measuring equity in terms of student achievement gaps based on different background factors, rather than only on SES, is emphasised. We propose the evaluation of the impact of interventions on promoting equity by the use of various criteria.

The Importance of Teacher Support and Equity in Student Engagement and Achievement in Low SES School Contexts

“…Finally, it is noted that the socio-demographic characteristics of students in the surveyed schools also predict student achievement. An important aspect of low SES is confirmed by the insights of other researchers that high SES students consistently outperform low SES students (Kyriakides et al, 2019;Xuan et al, 2019) and that girls are more engaged in learning than boys (Kessels & Houtte, 2021;Lam et al, 2016). Researchers name the reasons for explaining low SES student achievement: from neuronal development (Rosen et al, 2018) to mindset differences (Destin et al, 2019).…”

“…According to the researchers (Kyriakides et al, 2019;Schmidt et al, 2015), low SES students have lower learning engagement and academic achievement compared to high SES students. These results are associated with certain characteristics of low SES students, such as health, food, and mindset (Jensen, 2013).…”

“…Students from low SES environments are thought to experience many stressors affecting their cognitive processes and behaviour, experiencing less cognitive stimulation than students from high SES environments, which negatively affects the competence and achievement of these students (Cedeno et al, 2016). Thus, low SES is often a risk factor for lower student engagement and lower academic achievement (Kyriakides et al, 2019;Xuan et al, 2019), but the conclusion that these students will necessarily do poorly at school -should not be drawn automatically (Jensen, 2013). The student's learning and outcomes depend highly on how the learning process is organised and the teacher's behaviour.…”

Nine Year Compulsory Education Development in China

“…There are also assessment criteria, which are influenced by promotion rates and will be skewed towards subject performance in junior schools. As primary schools have great potential to promote excellence in education, schools should not adopt a universal criterion for evaluating teaching staff but should rate them according to the characteristics of their teaching at different stages [23,24].…”

Preschool Minority Children’s Persian Vocabulary Development: A Language Sample Analysis

“…In a recent study conducted by DeVries et al (2018) , students’ achievement was predicted by family SES level as better grades in math and reading were directly related to parental education. Kyriakides et al (2019) examined the effects of SES gap on students’ achievement in mathematics and language courses and showed that effective teaching techniques and classroom practices can fill SES gap. These results also highlighted the importance of mediators on SES roles in a given society.…”