Social Psychology of Education最新文献

Feelings of shock, a difficult professional socialization process and unrealistic expectations create a challenging career entry phase for teachers. Too many newly qualified teachers feel stressed and leave the profession early, leading to a lingering teacher shortage. Much research in the field and many well-meant support interventions follow a deficit perspective and overlook newly qualified teachers’ potential for school development. This study aimed to better understand how school principals, a crucial but comparatively under-researched stakeholder group, characterize newly qualified teachers’ competences. Q methodology was selected to holistically study the views of 24 principals of compulsory schools in Southern Sweden without imposing any potentially deficit-oriented categories. Following standard protocol and enriched with interviews, four distinct factors were identified and qualitatively interpreted. Results show that newly qualified teachers are perceived as confident and well-prepared concerning pedagogical and didactical aspects of their profession. Regarding the use of digital tools, they are regarded as assets for school development, while diversity management and relationship-building emerged as areas of improvement. Based on our findings, we argue for more practical elements during campus-based pre-service teacher education and an intensified focus on reflective teacher identity development. Teachers’ career entry phase should be treated as a specific area of in-service teachers’ professional development at teacher education institutions, where a strengthened cooperation with employing schools will be particularly important. We expect these adaptations to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of support matters and provide future avenues that acknowledge newly qualified teachers’ expertise.

Although choosing a high school major is often adolescents’ first significant career decision, little is known about the factors that enable adolescents to choose a high school major autonomously (i.e., a major that reflects their values and preferences) or the familial and individual constellations that affect this decision. The current study examined the mediating role of adolescents’ identity processing style in the association between perceived parental need support and adolescents’ level of autonomous motivation when choosing their high school major. Second, we examined whether these proposed relationships differed for gender-stereotyped and non-stereotyped fields. The sample was composed of 571 9th -grade students (296 boys) who self-reported their perceived parental need support, motivation for choosing a high school major, identity processing style, and their preference for a high school major. Results showed that an informative identity style mediated the relationship between parental need support and adolescents’ autonomous motivation. Gender played a moderating role in this relationship so boys’ autonomous motivation for choosing a non-STEM major was more strongly linked to parental support than girls’ motivation to make a similar choice. In contrast, girls’ autonomous motivation for choosing a STEM major was more strongly related to the provision of parental support than boys. These findings emphasize the importance of nuanced parental need-support considering the students’ gender and major (STEM vs. non-STEM) and the need to promote self-exploration when deciding on a high school major.

This paper challenges the general claim that teachers are always central in the school success of refugee students (Engels et al., 2021; Ghasemi, 2021; Wubbels et al., 2006). A typological analysis based on the self-determination theory of Ryan and Deci (2017) was used to study how teacher-student interaction interplays with the sense of belonging and learning engagement of refugee students. In contrast to what studies from the Global North indicate, the analysis of the experiences of 15 refugee students in Costa Rican schools shows that teachers are less available and that refugee students may find alternative ways to succeed in school. Indeed, like other countries in the Global South, Costa Rica has seen a large influx of refugee students, and the educational system struggles in providing the appropriate support for the complex needs of these students. As such, teachers are not equipped to play a central role in the lives of refugee students. This study points out how important the role of peers is in successful engagement of refugee students in Costa Rican classrooms, more than those of teachers.

Bystanders’ helping behaviors are essential to mitigate bullying and its consequences, although bystanders do not always intervene on behalf of those who are victimized. One study (N = 170) tested, experimentally, the impact of different forms of common identities (one-group and dual-identity vs. control) on youth (aged between 12 and 19 years) bystanders’ helping behavioral intentions in the context of a common form of bias-based bullying (i.e., homophobic bullying). Results showed that dual-identity triggered more behavioral intentions to help victims of homophobic bullying. Overall, these findings extended previous studies illustrating the potential of common identities to foster bystanders’ helping responses to homophobic bullying episodes in the school context.

Gender differences in reading and math have been reported for many years. Girls outperform boys in reading (representing a school domain stereotyped as female); boys often perform slightly better in math (a stereotypical male domain). Research has so far investigated the contribution of domain-specific academic self-concepts and interests as well as gender stereotypes to these gender differences. Students’ gender role attitudes (GRAs) and their relation with gender disparities in school performance, however, have been studied little. This study examines if students’ GRAs contribute to explaining boys’ higher math achievement and girls’ higher reading achievement. Using PISA-2009 data from Germany, the sample included 9,460 grade nine students (49.70% girls; M_age = 15.61 years). Regression analyses revealed that egalitarian GRAs are beneficial for all students. Still more so for girls, egalitarian GRAs help girls perform particularly well in reading and compensate for possible disadvantages in math. In reading, girls with egalitarian GRAs reached higher performance scores than boys with egalitarian GRAs. In math, girls with egalitarian GRAs scored nearly as high as boys with egalitarian GRAs. Boys also benefited from egalitarian GRAs, although not as much as girls. Although gender disparities in reading and math achievement were explained only partly by students’ GRAs, supporting boys and girls in endorsing egalitarian GRAs is worthwhile as they may help to increase societal gender equality more broadly.

The stereotype content model (SCM) describes that groups of people are mainly appraised according to two dimensions: warmth and competence. The present study’s aim was to investigate possible stereotyped perceptions held by Grade 12 students in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) of students in the three major educational tracks. They were asked for ingroup and outgroup evaluations, both in general and for different personality traits. As expected, evidence was found for ingroup favouritism, meaning that respondents rated students from their own educational track more positively compared to students in other educational tracks. The status hierarchy between educational tracks in Flanders was reflected in the judgements of respondents from the general track and respondents from the technical track. Respondents from the vocational track showed a reverse pattern, which can be explained by social identity theory and an anti-school culture in vocational education. Finally, for positively formulated personality traits, the warmth-competence dimensionality of the judgements was confirmed together with the compensation hypothesis of the SCM, stating that lower ratings on warmth covary with higher ratings on competence (and vice versa).

According to UNESCO, educating all children in the same classrooms, with adequate support and taking into consideration their different needs, provides benefits for everyone. However, public opinion about inclusive education is rarely uniform and often unsupportive. While public support for placing pupils with special needs in regular classes is crucial for both legislation and the implementation of effective inclusive practices, knowledge about the predictors of this support is limited. Additionally, we know relatively little about how support for inclusion varies depending on the type of disadvantage. In this study, we examine the role of different empathy-related processes (perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress) in public support for the inclusion of six different groups involving pupils disadvantaged by their social background, physical disabilities, and intellectual disabilities. Using data from a Czech nationally representative survey (2022), and multilevel ordinal logistic models, we found differences in the effects of empathy on the support for inclusion depending on the type of pupils’ disadvantage. While perspective taking is not associated with support for any group, and personal distress lowers the support for inclusion, individuals with higher levels of empathic concern are more supportive of inclusion regardless of the type of disadvantage. Furthermore, we found that extended contact with a disadvantaged child increases support for inclusion.

Interethnic bullying that targets ethnic minority students has serious consequences for the lives of victimized students. Teachers’ evaluations of the bullying are critical because teacher intervention can stop bullying and improve the adjustment of victimized students. Because the literature has documented partially overlapping biases against people of Arab ethnicity and people with refugee backgrounds, this study investigated whether teachers’ attitudes toward refugees play a role in their evaluations of the interethnic bullying of an Arab student. Teachers (n = 373; 77% female) who participated in the study filled the Threats–Benefits Inventory (TBI) that measured two types of attitudes toward refugees (perceiving refugees as a threat and perceiving refugees as a benefit) and evaluated a hypothetical vignette of interethnic bullying targeted at an Arab student. SEM analysis, controlling for gender, age, and contact with refugees, indicated that teachers’ attitudes toward refugees were not associated with their perceptions of the interethnic bullying as wrong or with their willingness to intervene. However, viewing refugees as a source of high threat or low benefit was consistently associated with lower recognition of the negative outcomes of the interethnic bullying. Moreover, a greater willingness to intervene positively associated with female gender and increasing age. The study suggests that teachers’ attitudes toward refugees may contribute to underestimating negative outcomes of interethnic bullying among students. To foster appropriate evaluations of interethnic bullying, teacher education should aim to promote understanding of different marginalized groups and to reduce biases against people with refugee backgrounds.

Student–teacher gender congruence is suggested to be related to increased student performance, but little is known about the contexts in which these effects occur. Based on literature on gender stereotypes this study hypothesizes different effects of student–teacher gender congruence for male and female students across school subjects and in different educational contexts. Using administrative data of secondary schools in The Netherlands (N > 50,000), this study examined to what extent student–teacher gender congruence is associated with male and female students’ performance in the subjects math, physics, Dutch language, and French language. Further this study explored the role of students’ educational level, schools’ religiousness, and schools’ location in these relations. As expected, we found that gender congruence was positively related to female students’ performance in math and physics and to male students’ performance in Dutch language and French language. However, the role of educational context differed for male and female students across subjects and lacked a clear pattern that corresponded to the gender stereotypes hypotheses. This study emphasizes that effects of student–teacher gender congruence can differ in magnitude and direction in different contexts, encouraging future research to use qualitative methods to examine how context influences the role of gender in education.

Educational research often refers to the subjective values assigned to aspects of education. Theoretical frameworks from the related disciplines of psychology and sociology applied to the context of education aim to better describe why some students are more motivated in school than others to understand differences in academic outcomes. In the current study, we followed an interdisciplinary approach that aimed to integrate psychological views regarding domain-specific value beliefs (i.e., intrinsic, attainment, utility, cost) and sociological views regarding domain-general values of education (i.e., stimulation, comfort, status, behavioral confirmation) and to investigate how they relate to academic success in upper secondary education. In a sample of 3,775 upper secondary school students in Germany, we found evidence that combining the two perspectives had incremental effects when predicting domain-specific achievement and GPA. We discuss how integrating interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives could foster communication between scientific disciplines and benefit future research in the field of motivation.