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The Process and Forms of Labelling Learners in Zimbabwean Schools: A Challenge
... Çoğunlukla bu öğrencilerin gerilediği ve olumsuz davranışlar geliştirdikleri görülmüştür. Ayrıca, söz konusu etiketler sadece öğrencileri etkilememekte, etkileri tüm topluma yayılmaktadır (Anderson & Oakes, 2014;Hallinan, 1994;Rwodzi, Nel & Krog, 2018). ...
... Özellikle alt düzey okullarda, eğitimcilerin "ilgisiz, alt yapısı eksik, davranış olarak sorunlu", "meslek lisesinde okuması gereken" ya da "zorunlu eğitimden dolayı mecburiyetten okuyan" öğrenciler olarak tanımladıkları öğrencilerin çoğunluğunun akademik motivasyonlarının düşük olduğu gözlenmiştir. Düşük başarılı öğrenciler açısından başarıya dayalı etiketlemenin benzer sonuçları birçok araştırmada ortaya konmuştur (Ansalone, 2001;Anderson & Oakes, 2014;Bölükbaş & Gür, 2020;Chisaka, 2002;Rwodzi, Nel & Krog, 2018). ...
... Buna karşın, orta ve alt düzey okullardaki öğrencilerin büyük çoğunluğunun görece düşük akademik motivasyona sahip olduğu, gelecekte üniversite okumak isteyen öğrenci oranı fazla olsa da çoğunun ders çalışma alışkanlığının olmadığı tespit edilmiştir. Düşük başarılı okullarda öğrencilerin motivasyonlarının bu denli düşük olmasında gruplamanın bir sonucu olarak "düşük başarılı" olarak etiketlenmeleri ve öğretmenleri, aileleri, arkadaş çevrelerinin bu durumu pekiştirici tutum ve davranışları etkili olmaktadır (Rwodzi, Nel & Krog, 2018;Zimmer, 2003). ...
Temel Eğitimden Ortaöğretime Geçiş (TEOG) sistemi (2013-2017), ortaöğretime geçişte bütün öğrencilerin sınav başarısına göre hem okul türleri arasında hem de aynı okul türü içerisinde sınıflandırıldığı ve ayrıştırıldığı kapsamlı bir akademik gruplama örneğidir. Nitel araştırma yaklaşımının benimsendiği bu çalışmada, TEOG sistemindeki başarı sıralamasına göre öğrencilerin ve dolayısıyla gittikleri okulların sıralanmasının sonuçlarının keşfedilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Öğrenciler, öğretmenler ve okul yöneticileri arasından tabakalı amaçlı örneklem yöntemiyle seçilen toplamda 149 kişi ile derinlemesine mülakatlar gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmanın bulguları, okulun genel ikliminin, okula ilişkin geliştirilen algının, öğrenci ve öğretmenlerin motivasyonunun, sunulan öğrenme fırsatlarının ve dolayısıyla eğitimin genel niteliğinin okulların TEOG yerleştirmesine bağlı oluşan genel başarı düzeyine göre farklılaştığını göstermektedir. Ayrıca, gruplamanın öğrencileri sadece başarı düzeyine göre değil aynı zamanda sosyoekonomik arka planına göre ayrıştırdığı yönünde güçlü bulgular elde edilmiştir. Buna göre, sosyoekonomik açıdan dezavantajlı öğrenciler başarı düzeyi orta veya düşük okullarda yoğunlaşmaktadır. TEOG uygulamasıyla sosyoekonomik arka plan ile akademik başarı arasındaki ilişkinin daha da güçlenme eğilimi gösterdiği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.
... The direction of the mandate is aimed at the entire sphere of education, especially in early childhood education. Therefore, the level of early childhood education leads to exploration through various communications and touches of taste, both in the realm of psychological touch and a touch of other inner needs (Bluth & Wahler, 2011;Duncan et al., 2015;O'Byrne & Muldoon, 2018;Rwodzi et al., 2018;Suchman et al., 2019). The learning process through exploration is what will influence children's development at a later stage. ...
... Many studies have stated that labeling affects the formation of a person's attitude and self-concept, both thought patterns and patterns of actions taken by someone in their daily lives. Therefore, labeling is the key in forming a person's self-concept and image (Adriyanti, 2021;Bacchini et al., 2016;Mwania & Muola, 2013;Rwodzi et al., 2018;Yuliatun & Karyani, 2022). ...
Labeling has a big share in forming self-concept and character in students, especially in primary education. There are still many negative nicknames that are of particular concern, and solutions must be found. This study aims to describe the types and ways of labeling one of the non-formal institutions that focus on mentoring and nurturing children's character. This research uses qualitative research with a type of case study. In-depth interviews, participant observation, and documentation of activities carried out in data collection. The data analysis technique used refers to the opinion of Miles and Huberman. Guarantee the validity of the data using triangulation techniques. The results showed that positive shiroh-based labeling was carried out in two ways: labeling by rundown and labeling by moment. In its implementation, labeling is based on the child's good character, who appears then adjusted to the nature of the Prophet's companions. Furthermore, Rumah Anak Sholeh (RAS) mentor aided through stories from friends who were dubbed as children who brought out good characters.
In recent times, disability issues have become the major concern for advocacy groups, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers in many countries. There is much work currently being done in many countries in order to find the most appropriate placement for persons with disabilities, particularly in the areas of education, training, and employment. However, there is evidence to suggest that these efforts have been continuously thwarted by the nature and type of labels societies place on individuals with disabilities. These labels vary in nature according to the perceptions, traditions, cultures and beliefs of different societies. This article explores the power of labeling in the Ghanaian society and its effects on the education, treatment and management of persons with disabilities in that country. The paper concludes that unless labeling is removed from the individual and, rather, placed on the problem, our minds will continue to be arrested to see only the negative side of disabled persons, and any consideration for appropriate placement of persons with disabilities is unlikely to work. Introduction With the proclamation and reaffirmation of the right of the disabled child in Salamanca, Spain in 1994, many countries have intensified efforts to find the best educational option and social placement for persons who are labeled as disabled. Despite this dramatic development, and positive achievements by some countries such as United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, in other countries, particularly Ghana in sub-Saharan West Africa, not much has been done in this regard.
Fluctuation free approximations are used everywhere matrix representation is directly or indirectly involved. The idea is simple: The matrix representation of a function operator, whose action on its operand is the multiplication by a function, is equivalent ...
The adoption of streaming in the primary school (where children are placed in a class on the basis of measures of attainment and remain in that class all of the time) was commonplace when the 11 plus examination was used to select children for grammar school places. During the 1950s and 1960s the practice died out with most children being taught in mixed ability classes with some in-class grouping. During the 1990s successive governments indicated that some form of ability grouping should be introduced in primary schools, setting (children placed in ability groups for some subjects and taught in mixed groups for the remainder of the time) being preferred, however, streaming was introduced in some schools despite evidence that movement between structured ability groups is infrequent and that children tend to remain in the same groups throughout their school careers limiting their educational opportunities. Recent research based on 8875 children, in the Millennium Cohort Study showed that 16.4% of children in Year 2 were in streamed classes. Logistic regression analysis showed that the best predictors of being in the top stream were whether the child was born in autumn or winter 2000, parents owning their own home, and the child’s cognitive ability score. The measures predicting being in the bottom stream were being a boy, being born in the spring/summer of 2001, having a behaviour problem, being born into a lone parent family, and cognitive ability score.
This article describes the experiences of the first author in the research he conducted in two Harare secondary schools. The objective of the research was to assess the influence of ability grouping on learners. In particular, the research sought to examine how this practice affected classroom instruction, learner performance and the social stratification among learners. A qualitative research methodology was followed during which in-depth interviews were conducted with teachers, administrators and learners. These were complemented with informal conversations, where relevant comm ents were noted. Analysis of relevant documents, observations and limited participation were also employed as means of collecting data. The main findings of this study were that: teachers tended not to prepare thoroughly for the so-called low ability classes; learners placed in low ability classrooms felt that school authorities and learners in h igh ab ility classrooms discriminated against them; learners in high ability classrooms believed that teachers who "bunked" their classes saw them as intelligent enough to learn on their own and that learners in low ability classes were disruptive and did not want to learn; social relationships among learners from the two groups were poor, creating an unhealthy social stratification. It was therefore concluded that the negative aspects of ability grouping outweighed its often professed positive aspects. It is therefore recommended that this practice be re-examined. Background Ability grouping, though not mandated by the National Education Department, is a reality in some of the schools in Zimbabwe. This reality prompted the first author, hereafter referred to as the re-searcher, to carry out a study of the practice of ability grouping in two Zimbabwean secondary schools. A qualitative research methodology was followed in conducting the study. This methodology was chosen because qualitative research methods of collecting data such as in-depth interviews would give the researched individuals opportunity to voice out their own views on the subject of ability grouping, not restricted by the pre-stated formulations based on researchers' own frames of references often guided by theory studied by the latter. The extended contact period of three months with respondents on the site allowed the researcher adequate time to observe activities of the res-pondents and the culture of their schools. Preliminary literature review had revealed that there were two schools of thought on the subject of ability grouping. One school of thought postulated that ability grouping is an organisational strategy that increases learning opportunities for both high ability and low ability learners (Bowles & Gintis, 1982; Abadzi, 1994; Kelly, 1990; Good & Brophy, 1991). According to this school, placing slow lear-ners in a separate group from fast learners allows teachers to adjust their teaching to the learning pace and learning styles of each group. A contrasting view is held by the school of thought which maintains that ability grouping places low ability learners at a disadvantage, and encourages social stratification among learners of different abilities (Oakes, 1982; Makunde, 1986; Marjoribanks, 1986; Meijnen, 1991; Carpenter & Darmody, 1989). The researcher set himself the task of determining the effects of this practice of ability grouping on learners in the Harare secondary schools, to establish which of the opposing views was true in the Zimbabwean situation. In an attempt to accomplish this task, the researcher decided to cover the perceptions and experiences of dif-ferent roleplayers with regard to ability grouping. The research there-fore focussed on the effects of ability grouping on instruction, learning and social stratification, as perceived by administrators, teachers and learners. This study was done in two Harare secondary schools in Zimbab-we, using qualitative research of the interpretative ethnographic de-sign. As a result, the researcher focused on two secondary schools to enable him to conduct an in-depth study of the culture of ability grouping. The site chosen constituted two secondary schools which, according to the Zimbabwean state schools system, belonged to the Group A and Group B type. The Group A schools are located in areas that are inhabited by people of average and above average economic means and the Group B schools are situated in areas inhabited by people of below average economic means. Interestingly, the findings of the research did not reflect any differences which may be ascribed to the dissimilarities in socio-economic cultural backgrounds of lear-ners in these schools.
This book helps students understand the use of specialist vocabulary and terminology of educational and social science research. The author explores the ways in which research terminology is used, and shows students how to use specialist research terminology appropriately, how to understand the meaning of research terms, and how to disseminate research in a style which is clear and easily understood.
Literature on social inequalities in schooling reveals that the school curriculum, streaming, and teacher expectations are school-related factors that limit student success. This study asks: How do the school curriculum, streaming and teacher expectations limit students who have been designated “at risk” from finding success in school? Quantitative and qualitative data showed that the curriculum does not meet all students’ needs, streaming diminishes learning, and low teacher expectations limit student success. Student self-blame and meritocracy are other factors found to limit student success.
Motivating Zimbabwean secondary school students to learn has been a daunting task for both parents and teachers. The economic and social situation obtaining in Zimbabwe has not encouraged secondary school students to take education seriously and prepare themselves for service and contribution to nation building and self-development. Thus the study sought to understand factors that militate against student motivation and what can be done to motivate secondary school students to learn, soliciting views from teachers, parents/ guardians and students themselves. The research was a case study of five Masvingo urban secondary schools; employing qualitative data collection methods. These participatory data collection methods were used to get insight and tap into the experiences and views of these three stakeholders on how students could be motivated to learn. The research found that the motivational level of secondary school students was at its lowest ebb mainly because of limited employment prospects and other militating factors. The research recommends that each school establishes a tripartite supervision and communication arrangement involving the parent/guardian, teacher and the student to monitor the student's school work, behaviour and development. The other recommendation is that Zimbabwe as a nation should seriously embrace student empowerment initiatives by having professionally trained school – based counsellors and increased availability and access to career guidance services thus motivating students to drive their energies towards goals.
We present findings of a study carried out to determine the effect of streaming by gender on secondary school students' achievement in mathematics. In the study we analysed achievement scores on national examinations results for the years 1999 to 2001 of a sample of 1489 candidates in four secondary schools in Nakuru District, Kenya. Raw data were analysed statistically and the hypotheses tested. Generally, the results indicated that streaming based on gender improved overall student achievement in mathematics and especially that of girls. Although further studies are needed to incorporate this result into official policy, there are strong indications that streaming by gender may be a useful class environment as an intervention towards improving the performance of girls in mathematics in co-educational schools.
Significant attention has been given to how students become grouped or “tracked” through the courses they share in common. However, this work has yet to be connected to a targeted analysis of the way in which courses are grouped with other courses through the students they co-enroll. Drawing on insights from field theory, the author examines this duality with special attention to the social organization of courses and the curricular discourses they contain. Multidimensional scaling and multiple correspondence analysis are used to analyze course-taking data for a cohort of students (2005-2009, n = 494) at a comprehensive high school in the midwestern United States. The results illustrate a “field” of courses that are distributed vertically according to a principle of status that opposes different forms of curricular discourse and horizontally according to oppositions between symbolic and material forms, artistic and technical skills, and the “inner” work of the household to the “outer” work of certain occupations. While the vertical dimension of courses is associated with a racial and social class hierarchy of students, the horizontal dimension passes through a division of the sexes.
In this article, the author explores the market phenomenon revealed in the practice of a mixed-ability grouping policy in Taiwan, and traces the influence of the wider educational contexts on the formation of the market phenomenon. Although there have been no major policies introduced with the intention of creating a market mechanism in Taiwanese education, the author found that the practice of the mixed-ability grouping policy in junior high level education has been shadowed by a self-initiated market mechanism. Junior high school educators perceive that parents value a high entry rate to the highest ranking academic high schools, and junior high schools develop strategies to boost pupils' academic performance and to attract future pupils. Under such circumstances, junior high level schooling and students are commodified on the basis of a single value – academic performance. The author argues that wider educational contexts, including the senior high school entry examination, and control over the provision of senior high level education, shape the market phenomenon in Taiwanese junior high level education.
This paper reports on a study investigating the empirical substance of Evans' proposed social construction of ability. Data were collected through text analysis of a Senior physical education (PE) syllabus, semi-structured interviews and participant observations of students and teachers in two senior secondary school contexts (one school situated in a low socioeconomic area; and the other school, an 'elite' co-educational private school) across 20 weeks of the school year at key junctures in the schools' PE curriculum plans. The data and analysis support Evans' social construction of ability proposition. Students' abilities were observable as a complex construction dependent on the constitution of the field of practice and the students' possession of physical, cultural and social capital operational in and through habitus. Within this construction process high-ability students were privileged in terms of achievement possibilities while low-ability students were marginalised in terms of access to contexts in which capital may be acquired and/or displayed, resulting in their enduring low-ability identification. The findings offer an alternative perspective to prevailing notions of ability and challenge educators to reconsider how the potential of students in and beyond PE is viewed.
The relationship between universal human rights and educational equity and access within the context of the U.S. educational system is the focus of this article. The author, a professor for pre-service and in-service teachers, explores their notions of equity and access within the context of public schools in the United States. Analyses of reflective journal entries written by her students in response to readings and class discussions produce the domains that appear most relevant to teachers in gaining understanding of the issues that affect equal opportunities for ALL students and how these opportunities are not privileges but rather rights that have been upheld universally. The concepts of equity and access are embedded in universal human rights, yet students’ statements fail to reflect these connections. Deeper connections to broader community contexts and worldviews are recommended for teacher educators in order to relate U.S. educational equality to universal human rights concerns.
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