Coleman’s third report

The article analyses the (third) Coleman Report on private and public schools. The report scrutinises the relationship between private and public schools and shows that private school students show better academic achievement. Coleman concluded that these findings provided a strong argument in favour of public financial support for private schools. However, he identified a number of school characteristics that he believed to be related to student achievement. According to his analysis, these characteristics were not limited to private schools; public schools exhibiting the same characteristics also had good results. Coleman interpreted the available data in favour of financial aid to private schools, although this was not the only possible interpretation. An alternative conclusion would have been to encourage these characteristics in public schools. Why did Coleman disregard this possibility? Why did he deviate from his usual scientific rigour? The present article suggests that there appear to be two reasons for the narrow interpretation of the relationship between public and private schools in Coleman's third report. The first lies in Coleman's notion of contemporary society as a constructed system in which every individual actor holds a place in the structure and requires incentives in order to act to the benefit of society. In the case of education, the goal of the institution is to ensure the high cognitive achievement of students, and the incentive is related to choice and competition. The second reason is related to Coleman's vision of sociology as a discipline aiding the construction of an effective society. (DIPF/Orig.)

Sammelrezension Privatschulen [Sammelrezension]

Sammelrezension von: 1. Heiner Ullrich / Susanne Strunck (Hrsg.): Private Schulen in Deutschland. Entwicklungen – Profile – Kontroversen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag 2012 (280 S.; ISBN 978-3-531-18230-8) 2. Sylva Liebenwein / Heiner Barz / Dirk Randoll: Bildungserfahrungen an Waldorfschulen. Empirische Studie zu Schulqualität und Lernerfahrungen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag 2012 (256 S.; ISBN 978-3-531-18508-8) 3. Sylva Liebenwein / Heiner Barz / Dirk Randoll: Bildungserfahrungen an Montessorischulen. Empirische Studie zu Schulqualität und Lernerfahrungen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag 2013 (280 S.; ISBN 978-3-531-18507-1)

Assessment of student engagement among junior high school students and associations with self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement

The aim of the study was to investigate the structure of affective and cognitive engagement using the Student Engagement Instrument (SEI; Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006) and to examine the associations to behavioral engagement, as well as student-reported self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement among Finnish junior high school students. The analyses were carried out in the main sample of 2,485 students, as well as in an independent sample of 821 students. The results showed that the original five-factor structure of the SEI construed along three affective and two cognitive engagement factors fit the current data relatively well. Affective and cognitive student engagement correlated positively with an independent measure of behavioral engagement. Furthermore, affective and cognitive engagement were positively associated with student-reported self-esteem and academic achievement, and negatively with school burnout. The findings provided corroborating evidence for the psychometric properties and utilization of the SEI instrument for assessing the engagement of junior high school students. (DIPF/Orig.)