Bettina Scheidt, Claudia Schuchart THE INFLUENCE OF ... · PDF file3/ 21 Bettina Scheidt,...

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Bettina Scheidt, Claudia SchuchartThe Influence of Teachers on Educational Decisions of Secondary School StudentsECER – Emerging Researchers Conference, Cádiz, Sept. 2012

THE INFLUENCE OF TEACHERS ON EDUCATIONAL DECISIONS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Bettina Scheidt, Claudia Schuchart

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1. Introduction2. Theoretical approach and empirical studies3. Method4. Initial results5. Conclusion

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1. Introduction: German Educational System

Primary School

Year 1 – 4

Hauptschule

secondary general school

Year 5 – 9

Gesamtschule

comprehensive school

Year 5 – 13

Gymnasium

grammar school

Year 5 – 12

Realschule

intermediate school

Year 5 – 10

Vocational Trainingor

Vocational School

additional year 10

basic certificate/ Hauptschule certificate (HC)

intermediate certificate (IC)

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1. Introduction

• School leavers with a HC are less successful in entering the labour market than IC holders (Konsortium Bildungsberichterstattung 2010)

• The range of training and job options in the skilled trade and industrial sectors has dimished markedly (Uhly 2008)

• Less qualified school leavers often face the risk of unemployment, low wages and unstable working conditions (Konsortium Bildungsberichterstattung 2010)

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1. Introduction

• Hauptschule leavers with an IC have a better chance of being placed in career options usually chosen by Realschule leavers (Schuchart 2009)

• Differences between schools concerning the number of students that did not obtain the IC, although they had the intention to obtain it and performed well in previous years.

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2. Theoretical approach and empirical studies

• Social capital exists in the relationships between persons

• Indiviual level: embedded in a person‘s social network

• School level: collective resource which promotes effectivecollective actions such as helpful exchanges betweengroup members

(Coleman 1988, 1990)

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2. Theoretical approach and empirical studies

• Student‐teacher relationship as an important factor of social capital (Stanton‐Salazar & Dornbusch 1995, Stanton‐Salazar 1997)

• Access to supportive institutional resources and opportunities (Stanton‐Salazar & Dornbusch 1995)

• Emotional support and encouragement (Croninger & Lee 2001)

• Appreciation of and belief in student‘s potential and abilities, expectation of success and creation of an environment characterized by emotional stability and consistency (Smyth 2004)

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Research question

• How do students mobilize the resources of social capital?

• What are the differences between successful and unsuccesful intenders in their ability to access these resources?

• How do teachers maintain the high motivation of students to attain a higher certificate?

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3. Method

• 12 guided interviews with past Hauptschule students • Interviewees chosen from schools with a remarkably high number of unsuccessful intenders (50 to 90 %)

unsuccessful intenders successful intenders

School A 3 Damian, Thomas, Maria

0

School B 1Nina

1Maik

School C 2 1 Lisa

School D 1 3

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3. Method

6 interviews analyzed by coding

age certificateDamian 18 Hauptschule certificate year 10

Thomas 19 Hauptschule certificate year 10

Nina 19 Hauptschule certificate year 10

Maria 19 Hauptschule certificate year 9

Maik 18 Intermediate certificate

Lisa 19 Intermediate certificate

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4. Initial results: Unsuccessful intenders

Student‐teacher relationship

negative student‐teacher relationship characterized by unfair and unequal behavior towards students→ loss of mo va on to learn

„I just didn’t pay attention during the lessons anymore […] Yeah, I stopped. I was just there, nothing more.“ (Damian/16)

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Loss of motivation to learn

„I would say that if I had had such a teacher, I would have had more motivation again to learn in the first term […] And there it wasn’t any fun at all and I didn’t care about school at all. But if learning had been fun again at my old school, then I think I would have been able to do it.” (Damian/66)

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Ongoing support: Encouragement

•Change of tutor in year 10 → loss of encouragement

•Tutor (and other teachers) in years 5 to 9 regularly reminded students of the importance of learning, was interested in the students achieving high marks.

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Ongoing support: Feedback

„And then I talked to all my teachers and one of my teachers said ‚Yes, you’ll get a 3 for sure‘. And then she gave me a 4, for whatever reasons. I hadn’t counted on that AT ALL, and then I had a grade point average of 3.01. I only saw this after we had received our certificates. And after that I also wanted to talk to my teachers again, but they were all away and I couldn’t.” (Nina 226)

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Ongoing support: Ensuring that students understand

“And the one from the seventh or eighth grade […] she did everything really well, so that everyone really understood. […] And she did it this way: whenever somebody didn’t understand something, she would go to the board and say ‘So, you’re going to do this as long as it takes until you understand it.’ She did it so that everyone understood and so that everybody did something. And she really cared about each individual student and took a lot time, and the headmaster didn’t.” (Maria/371‐377)

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4. Initial results: Successful intenders

Ongoing support: Encouragement

“My teacher told me more than once that I really have to try to make an effort, because I should get a better degree. She told me many times right to my face that I was too lazy and that I should buckle down.” (Maik/536‐538)

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Student‐teacher relationship

„I could always go there and then they explained everything to me and they always stood behind you and it’s still the same way today.” (Lisa/239)

Her good relationships to the teachers enable her to access the needed support.

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Need to act of one’s own accord & with self‐discipline

„OK, sure, you had to sit down and say ‘Alright, you have to do this now’ […] and she just had the problem that she was a bit lazy, and was rather the kind of the person to say ‘hey, I don’t feel like it, so leave me alone,’ and that was always kind of her problem, and in the end of course that became noticeable, even though she wasn’t really stupid or anything like that, but yeah.” (Lisa/313‐317)

→ Support in form of explana on and informa on is offered, when students request it, but a kind of ongoing support like encouragement doesn’t exist.

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5. Conclusion

student‐teacher relationship ongoing support

fairness and equality sympathy and fun

encouragementfeedback ensuring that students understand

Students’ ability to mobilize the resources of social capital seems to be dependent on personal characteristics and is influenced by the quality of the student‐teacher relationship.

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Thank you for your attention.

Bettina ScheidtBergische Universität Wuppertal

School of Education/ Institut für Bildungsforschungmail.: scheidt@uni‐wuppertal.de

fon: +49 202 439 3166

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ReferencesColeman, J.S. 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. The American Journal of Sociology 94: 95–120.

Coleman, J.S. 1990. Foundations of social theory. Cambridge: Belknap.

Croninger, R.G., and V. Lee. 2001. Social capital and dropping out of high school: Benefits to at‐risk students of teacher’s support and guidance. Teachers College Record 103, no.4: 548–81.

Konsortium Bildungsberichterstattung. 2006. Bildung in Deutschland 2010. [Education in Germany 2010]. Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.

Schuchart, C. 2009. School education and occupational chances: Do the characteristics of the school system matter? In Expected and unexpected consequences of the educational expansion in Europe and the USA: Theoretical approaches and empirical findings in comparative perspective, ed. R. Becker and A. Hadjar, 285–300. New Bern: Haupt‐Verlag.

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ReferencesSmyth, J. 2004. Social capital and the socially just school. British Journal of Sociology of Education 25: 19–33.

Stanton‐Salazar, R.D. 1997. A social capital framework for understanding the socialization of racial minority children and youth. Harvard Educational Review 67: 1–40.

Stanton‐Salazar, R.D., and S.M. Dornbusch. 1995. Social capital and the reproduction of inequality: Information networks among Mexican‐origin high school students. Sociology of Education 68: 116–35.

Uhly, A. (2008). Jugendliche mit Hauptschulabschluss in der dualen Berufsausbildung: Bildungsvoraussetzungen im Kontext berufsstruktureller Entwicklungen. Präsentation. Resource document. http://www.bibb.de/dokumente/pdf/12pr_dokumentation_ berufsforschung_vortrag_uhly_11‐121108.pdf Access: 27/10/2011.

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