School Ethos and Governor Relationships

This paper argues that an understanding of ethos is essential for appreciating the process of policy implementation in schools. Whilst educational literature consistently refers to the importance of ethos as a means of understanding the distinctive nature of schools, there is little exploration of school ethos as an effective mediator of policy. Drawing on qualitative data collected in three primary schools it will be demonstrated how ethos can act as a bridge or a barrier to the successful construction of the model of collaborative relationships between school governors and heads, as set out by the education reform legislation of the late 1980s

ABA-Based Programs for Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Parental and Professional Experiences at School and at Home

Having a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) poses a range of challenges to families, many of which can be addressed through appropriate intervention. A study of parental (n = 95) and professional (n = 67) experiences was carried out in relation to two settings: (a) schools that provided intensive interventions based on the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), and (b) non-intensive ABA-based home programs. Results show that parents whose children attend ABA-based schools were generally more satisfied with their child's educational provision, monitoring procedures, and level of staff training, than parents who were not offered ABA-based education in schools. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

"All Have to Live in Me...": A Study of the Use of English Alongside Other African Languages in a Kenyan School

The purpose of this paper, which builds on an earlier paper published in this Journal (Vol. 20, No. 6), is to develop the discussion around how English has been taught, used and perceived in Kenya, using data gathered from a small second-level English-medium school in Kenya. The complex relationships between language and identity are at work in the everyday routines of both staff and pupils within such a context. The paper seeks to set out a clear methodology for gathering data which could help describe these relationships with more clarity while also subjecting the data to analysis informed by the growing body of research and theory that focuses on language policy in post-colonial and neo-colonial settings. Finally, these pieces of data are used as the basis of a further exploration of the implications for classroom practice in teaching English in this environment.

Happiness and Well-Being of Young Carers: Extent, Nature and Correlates of Caring Among 10 and 11 Year Old School Children

Young carers often take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that would normally be expected of an adult. For many of these children and young people, caring has been shown to have a detrimental effect on their lives. For example, caring at a young age appears to be associated with poor health and well-being, bullying and poorer educational outcomes. However, previous research has tended to be retrospective, carried out using small surveys of secondary school-aged children or to use qualitative methods with young people associated with caring projects. In contrast, little is known about the extent and nature of caring undertaken by younger children. This paper reports findings from a random sample survey of 10 and 11 year old children in the final year of their primary school education. 4,192 children completed the Kids’ Life and Times (KLT) online survey in 2011. Twelve percent of respondents to KLT said they helped look after someone in their household who was sick, elderly or disabled. Supporting previous qualitative research, this survey showed that children who were carers had poorer health and well-being, reported less happiness with their lives, were more likely to be bullied at school and had poorer educational aspirations and outcomes than their peers who were not carers. These findings suggest that teachers need to discuss the issue of caring with children in the classroom in a general and supportive way so that young carers feel able to confide in them and seek support if they need it.

A Pupil Baseline Study in Northern Ireland: Reported Willingness to Challenge Sectarian Bullying in School

Topic Background: Peace education initiatives in schools are often based on social psychological theories assuming that social identity affects ingroup and outgroup attitudes and, in turn, behaviors relating to relevant outgroups. However, research evidence on the role of children's social identity has often failed to take account of different social identity dimensions or to conceptualise behavior in the context of children's understandings of the social world. While recent research relating to bullying and bystander behavior amongst children has addressed the latter point, this has rarely been considered in conjunction with a differentiated view of social identity. This paper is therefore distinctive as it will address the role of social identity dimensions with regards to reported behavior as captured in bystander scenarios relating to outgroup derogation. This is particularly important in the context of divided societies, where peace education initiatives are crucial in promoting positive community relations for the future and where such initiative may be hampered by communities' concerns about loss of identity. In the context of Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict, social identity, outgroup attitudes and behaviours have been key concepts addressed by peace educators
for many years.

Research questions: This paper therefore set out to investigate the relationship between social identity, measured as affiliation with the group and exploration of its meaning for the child, sectarian attitudes and pupils' reported willingness to challenge sectarian bullying in their school environment in Northern Ireland.
Research methods: The findings are based on the analysis of a baseline survey, which forms part of a randomised control trial of an intervention aimed at promoting community relations and reconciliation. The trial includes 35 primary and post-primary schools and about 800 pupils from 8-11 years old who completed an online questionnaire at the start of the programme. Main instruments for this study included adapted scales measuring identity affiliation and identity exploration, sectarian attitudes and scenarios capturing pupils' intentions in bystander situations relating to sectarian bullying.

Analytical framework: Results are analysed using regression analysis and additionally investigate gender and religious differences.

Research findings and/or contribution to knowledge: Results are discussed in the light of the role of social identity dimensions and their relationship to outgroup attitudes and willingness to challenge outgroup derogation. The paper concludes with potential implications for peace education initiatives in Northern Ireland and beyond.

Rewarding Merit in Judicial Appointments?: A research project undertaken by the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast for the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission

This research involved carrying out an online survey using a number of vignettes/scenarios to explore understandings and attitudes to judicial appointments. This sort of survey is relatively novel in this context and provided a useful way of understanding how a range of factors such as merit and seniority, career paths and connections, as well as gender and visibility, are perceived as operating within the appointments system. The research also involved a series of focus group interviews with a number of individuals with various professional backgrounds and at different levels of seniority. These, and a limited number of individual interviews, afforded an opportunity to explore more closely some of the themes arising from the scenarios as well as a chance to look in some depth at some of the views and concerns of a range of members of the legal professions.

Building upon the previous research project, this work was less concerned with revisiting earlier themes and more interested in exploring how the idea of “merit” as a governing factor in judicial appointment is seen as working in practice, and whether it is perceived as being most likely to be found within particular career profiles. We also investigated issues such as the possible development of formal and informal pathways to a judicial career and practical problems such as how an applicant might become known to the senior judiciary, and the importance of this. Overall our interest was primarily in developing an understanding of how gender is perceived to operate in the appointments process and how any barriers to recruiting women, particularly to the senior judiciary, could be further broken down.

A longitudinal analysis of estimation, counting skills, and mathematical ability across the first school year

In response to claims that the quality (and in particular linearity) of children's mental representation of number acts as a constraint on number development, we carried out a longitudinal assessment of the relationships between number line estimation, counting, and mathematical abilities. Ninety-nine 5-year-olds were tested on 4 occasions at 3 monthly intervals. Correlations between the 3 types of ability were evident, but while the quality of children's estimations changed over time and performance on the mathematical tasks improved over the same period, changes in one were not associated with changes in the other. In contrast to the earlier claims that the linearity of number representation is potentially a unique contributor to children's mathematical development, the data suggest that this variable is not significantly privileged in its impact over and above simple procedural number skills. We propose that both early arithmetic success and estimating skill are bound closely to developments in counting ability.

Aldo goes to Primary School: Experiencing school through the lens of the autistic spectrum.

The document draws largely on the results of research carried out by Hugh McNally and Dominic Morris of McNally Morris Architects and Keith McAllister of Queen’s University Belfast between 2012 and 2013. The objective of the study was to obtain a greater understanding of the impact that architecture and the built environment can have on people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The investigation into the subject centred on parents of young children with ASD in the belief that they are most likely to have an intimate knowledge of the issues that affect their children and are relatively well positioned to communicate those issues.

The study comprised a number of components.

- Focus Group Discussions with parents of children with ASD
- A Postal Questionnaire completed by parents of children with ASD
- A Comprehensive Desktop study of contemporary research into the relationship between ASD and aspects of the built environment.

Social stories are then used to help illustrate the world of a child with ASD to the reader and identify a series of potential difficulties for the pupil with ASD in a primary school setting. Design considerations and mitigating measures are then proposed for each difficulty.

The intention is that the document will raise awareness of some of the issues affecting primary school children with ASD and generate discourse among those whose task it is to provide an appropriate learning environment for all children. This includes teachers, health professionals, architects, parents, carers, school boards, government bodies and those with ASD themselves.

While this document uses the primary school as a lens through which to view some of the issues associated with ASD, it is the authors’ contention that the school can be seen as a “microcosm” for the wider world and that lessons taken from the learning environment can be applied elsewhere. The authors therefore hope that the document will help raise awareness of the myriad of issues for those with ASD that are embedded in the vast landscape of urban configurations and building types making up the spatial framework of our society.

Improving attainment across a whole district: school reform through peer tutoring in a randomized controlled trial

Districts are an important unit for administrative purposes, but they vary little in their impact on students’ attainment, at least in the UK. Further, government attempts to raise attainment are often disappointing. The project described in this article aimed to engage schools in reform to change students’ attainment and attitudes in schools across a whole district. The intervention, peer tutoring, has a good research pedigree in small-scale studies, but scaling it up to district-level implementation has not been rigorously evaluated. Over 2 years, 129 elementary schools in 1 Scottish district were randomly assigned to different interventions. The implementation was not perfect, but the results were positive with respect to cross-age tutoring, which had effect sizes of about 0.2. Despite limitations, the study demonstrates that it is possible to carry out a clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) on a large scale working with districts and suggests that peer tutoring has promise when scaled up.

Corporate Governance as a School of Social Reform

In this paper, I present a vision of the corporation as a moral person. I point to “the separation of ownership and control” as a moment when the corporation broke away from the moral lives of ownermanagers. I then draw out the manner in which we can speak of the company as a moral person. Finally, through a discussion of social reporting in two British banks, I point to a shift in how this moral personhood is articulated, with the rise of corporate governance—or doing business well—as its own foundation of corporate responsibility. I propose a view of corporate responsibility as a “transmission mechanism” for the company’s role in moral life, situated in the broader social conception of “moral economy.” This viewpoint sets out landscapes of legitimation and justification through which the ties that underpin economic life are founded

Cooperative learning in science:Intervention in the secondary school

The use of cooperative learning in secondary school is reported - an area of considerable concern given attempts to make secondary schools more interactive and gain higher recruitment to university science courses. In this study the intervention group was 259 pupils aged 12-14 years in nine secondary schools, taught by 12 self-selected teachers. Comparison pupils came from both intervention and comparison schools (n = 385). Intervention teachers attended three continuing professional development days, in which they received information, engaged with resource packs and involved themselves in cooperative learning. Measures included both general and specific tests of science, attitudes to science, sociometry, self-esteem, attitudes to cooperative learning and transferable skills (all for pupils) and observation of implementation fidelity. There were increases during cooperative learning in pupil formulation of propositions, explanations and disagreements. Intervened pupils gained in attainment, but comparison pupils gained even more. Pupils who had experienced cooperative learning in primary school had higher pre-test scores in secondary education irrespective of being in the intervention or comparison group. On sociometry, comparison pupils showed greater affiliation to science work groups for work, but intervention pupils greater affiliation to these groups at break and out of school. Other measures were not significant. The results are discussed in relation to practice and policy implications. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

Out-group trust, intergroup anxiety, and out-group attitude as mediators of the effect of imagined intergroup contact on intergroup behavioural tendencies.

We investigated whether imagining contact with an out-group member would change behavioral tendencies toward the out-group. In Experiment 1, British high school students who imagined talking to an asylum seeker reported a stronger tendency to approach asylum seekers than did participants in a control condition. Path analysis revealed this relationship was mediated by out-group trust and, marginally, by out-group attitude. In Experiment 2, straight undergraduates who imagined an interaction with a gay individual reported a stronger tendency to approach, and a weaker tendency to avoid, gay people. Path analyses showed that these relationships were mediated by out-group trust, out-group attitude, and less intergroup anxiety. These findings highlight the potential practical importance of imagined contact and important mediators of its effects.

Helping the most vulnerable out of the poverty trap and reducing inequality: Policies, strategies, and services for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder, including intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities: Benchmarking Autism Services Efficacy: BASE Project (Volume 3) Secondary Data analysis

1) Executive Summary
Legislation (Autism Act NI, 2011), a cross-departmental strategy (Autism Strategy 2013-2020) and a first action plan (2013-2016) have been developed in Northern Ireland in order to support individuals and families affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without a prior thorough baseline assessment of need. At the same time, there are large existing data sets about the population in NI that had never been subjected to a secondary data analysis with regards to data on ASD. This report covers the first comprehensive secondary data analysis and thereby aims to inform future policy and practice.
Following a search of all existing, large-scale, regional or national data sets that were relevant to the lives of individuals and families affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Northern Ireland, extensive secondary data analyses were carried out. The focus of these secondary data analyses was to distill any ASD related data from larger generic data sets. The findings are reported for each data set and follow a lifespan perspective, i.e., data related to children is reported first before data related to adults.
Key findings:
Autism Prevalence:
Of children born in 2000 in the UK,
• 0.9% (1:109) were reported to have ASD, when they were 5-year old in 2005;
• 1.8% (1:55) were reported to have ASD, when they were 7-years old in 2007;
• 3.5% (1:29) were reported to have ASD, when they were 11-year old in 2011.
In mainstream schools in Northern Ireland
• 1.2% of the children were reported to have ASD in 2006/07;
• 1.8% of the children were reported to have ASD in 2012/13.

Economic Deprivation:
• Families of children with autism (CWA) were 9%-18% worse off per week than families of children not on the autism spectrum (COA).
• Between 2006-2013 deprivation of CWA compared to COA nearly doubled as measured by eligibility for free school meals (from near 20 % to 37%)
• In 2006, CWA and COA experienced similar levels of deprivation (approx. 20%), by 2013, a considerable deprivation gap had developed, with CWA experienced 6% more deprivation than COA.
• Nearly 1/3 of primary school CWA lived in the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland.
• Nearly ½ of children with Asperger’s Syndrome who attended special school lived in the most deprived areas.

Unemployment:
• Mothers of CWA were 6% less likely to be employed than mothers of COA.
• Mothers of CWA earned 35%-56% less than mothers of COA.
• CWA were 9% less likely to live in two income families than COA.

Health:
• Pre-diagnosis, CWA were more likely than COA to have physical health problems, including walking on level ground, speech and language, hearing, eyesight, and asthma.
• Aged 3 years of age CWA experienced poorer emotional and social health than COA, this difference increased significantly by the time they were 7 years of age.
• Mothers of young CWA had lower levels of life satisfaction and poorer mental health than mothers of young COA.
Education:
• In mainstream education, children with ASD aged 11-16 years reported less satisfaction with their social relationships than COA.
• Younger children with ASD (aged 5 and 7 years) were less likely to enjoy school, were bullied more, and were more reluctant to attend school than COA.
• CWA attended school 2-3 weeks less than COA .
• Children with Asperger’s Syndrome in special schools missed the equivalent of 8-13 school days more than children with Asperger’s Syndrome in mainstream schools.
• Children with ASD attending mainstream schooling were less likely to gain 5+ GCSEs A*-C or subsequently attend university.



Further and Higher Education:
• Enrolment rates for students with ASD have risen in Further Education (FE), from 0% to 0.7%.
• Enrolment rates for students with ASD have risen in Higher Education (HE), from 0.28% to 0.45%.
• Students with ASD chose to study different subjects than students without ASD, although other factors, e.g., gender, age etc. may have played a part in subject selection.
• Students with ASD from NI were more likely than students without ASD to choose Northern Irish HE Institutions rather than study outside NI.

Participation in adult life and employment:
• A small number of adults with ASD (n=99) have benefitted from DES employment provision over the past 12 years.
• It is unknown how many adults with ASD have received employment support elsewhere (e.g. Steps to Work).
•
Awareness and Attitudes in the General Population:
• In both the 2003 and 2012 NI Life and Times Survey (NILTS), NI public reported positive attitudes towards the inclusion of children with ASD in mainstream education (see also BASE Project Vol. 2).

Gap Analysis Recommendations:
This was the first comprehensive secondary analysis with regards to ASD of existing large-scale data sets in Northern Ireland. Data gaps were identified and further replications would benefit from the following data inclusion:
• ASD should be recorded routinely in the following datasets:
o Census;
o Northern Ireland Survey of Activity Limitation (NISALD);
o Training for Success/Steps to work; Steps to Success;
o Travel survey;
o Hate crime; and
o Labour Force Survey.
• Data should be collected on the destinations/qualifications of special school leavers.
• NILT Survey autism module should be repeated in 5 years time (2017) (see full report of 1st NILT Survey autism module 2012 in BASE Project Report Volume 2).
• General public attitudes and awareness should be assessed for children and young people, using the Young Life and Times Survey (YLT) and the Kids Life and Times Survey (KLT); (this work is underway, Dillenburger, McKerr, Schubolz, & Lloyd, 2014-2015).
 

Out of the Shadows: A one day investigation of the politics of architecture explored through the lens of post-conflict, Belfast

This booklet covers the itinerary and some of the findings of a day-long visit to Belfast on the 7th November 2014 by Peter Oborn; Vice President International of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His visit was in response to a motion submitted to the RIBA council (19.05.2014) calling for the suspension of the Israeli Association of United Architects from the International Union of Architects. Despite members of council speaking against the motion it was carried; 23 members voting for, 16 against, and 10 abstentions. Subsequently the RIBA came under considerable pressure to consider its position in such critical contexts. This visit to Belfast was part of a wider fact-finding mission and evidence taking. At its heart was the question: 'Is it appropriate for the institute (RIBA) to engage with communities facing civil conflict and/or natural disaster and, if so, how it can do so most effectively.' The visit was facilitated by Ruth Morrow, Professor of Architecture, School of Planning, Architecture & Civil Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, and Martin Hare, Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA) president.

Emotional development among early school-age children: Gender differences in the role of problem behaviours

There has been an increasing focus on social and emotional development in educational programmes in early childhood as both variables are believed to influence behavioural outcomes in the classroom. However, relationships between social and emotional development and behaviour in early childhood have rarely been explored. This article sets out to investigate the conceptualisation of these variables and their inter-relationships. Structural equation models were used to assess if differences exist between boys and girls in relation to social and emotional competences, which could affect the relative success of such programmes. This article is based on cross-sectional data collected from 749 four- to six-year-olds and their teachers. The findings generally supported the hypothesised relationships between social and emotional development variables and prosocial behaviour (including internalising behaviour) for boys and girls. However, some gender differences were noted in externalising behaviour, which teachers often consider to be most significant due to its potentially disruptive nature in the classroom.