Although anti-bullying programs often include a component that focuses on strengthening teachers’ abilities in identifying and addressing bullying, it is not clear which bullying situations teachers find difficult to address and what type of support is needed. In the current qualitative study, we investigated what teachers considered difficult bullying situations, how they responded to these situations, and which barriers they encountered. We used data from individual in-depth interviews conducted with 38 Dutch elementary school teachers. Qualitative analysis showed that teachers experienced difficulties in (a) identifying bullying that happens out of sight, (b) estimating the seriousness of a reported incident, (c) addressing persistent aggressive and bullying behavior, and (d) finding solutions with parents to reduce bullying. Teachers used a variety of strategies in their efforts to address these situations. The results give insight into teachers’ needs regarding specific training and support in anti-bullying programs and preservice teacher programs.
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Social and Emotional Learning programs, designed to enhance adolescents’ social and emotional skills, are implemented in schools worldwide. One of these programs is Skills4Life (S4L), for students in Dutch secondary education. To strengthen this program and adapt it to students’ needs, we conducted an exploratory study on their perspectives on their own social-emotional development, focusing on low-achieving students in prevocational education. We interviewed eleven boys and eleven girls in five focus groups on (1) their general school life experiences, (2) their perceptions and experiences regarding interactions with peers, the problems they encountered in these interactions, and (3) the strategies and skills they used to solve these problems. Driven by findings in related studies initial thematic analyzes were extended using a three-step approach: an inductive, data-driven process of open coding; axial coding; and selective coding, using the social-emotional skills comprised in an often-used SEL framework as sensitizing concepts. Overall, students were satisfied with their relationships with classmates and teachers and their ability to manage their daily interaction struggles. Their reflections on their interactions indicate that the skills they preferred to use mirror the social-emotional skills taught in many school programs. However, they also indicated that they did not apply these skills in situations they experienced as unsafe and uncontrollable, e.g., bullying and harassment. The insights into adolescents’ social-emotional skills perceptions and the problems they encountered with peers at school presented here can contribute to customizing school-based skills enhancement programs to their needs. Teacher training is required to help teachers gain insight into students’ perspectives and to use this insight to implement SEL programs tailored to their needs.
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The influence of a person’s environment and its modifying potential on participation is well recognized for most childhood disabilities, but scarcely studied for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A scoping review was conducted, the aim of which was to map the existing literature about supporting and hindering environments for the participation of adolescents with ASD. Sources of scientific evidence were searched for in four databases. Inclusion criteria were the perspectives of adolescents between 12 and 21, families, peers, or significant others; ecologic validity; and a clear connection between environment and participation. The publication dates ranged from 2001 to 2014 and partly up to 2018. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) served as the guiding framework for inclusion/exclusion during the selection process. Thematic analysis was performed by five independent reviewers. Results were additionally validated by stakeholders. This scoping review identified 5528 articles, and finally included 31 studies. Two main themes were found: “providing security” indicates how the environment, and specifically the parental, physical, and informational environments, have a securing or intimidating effect. The second theme, “helping to connect”, indicates which environments support or hinder social relationships or social activities, and hence participation. An additional third main theme, “tension in participation”, relates to ambiguities that seem essential to understand participation or isolation of adolescents with ASD. Results show that participation is a value-laden concept. This research widens the field of dealing with adolescents with ASD, as it directs attention towards the responsibility of the environment regarding participation.
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The main question that leads the focus in this study is: What is the contribution of the school environment to the resilience of middle-adolescent students? Before going into the background and rationale of this study I will specify the terms used in this research question: - Contribution: In this study I will use the dynamic term contribution instead of the term effect because I will not measure the causal influence in a statistical way but I will explore the relationship between school environment and middle-adolescents resilience in terms of dynamic, reciprocal interactions. - School environment: With the term school environment I refer to all possible aspects of the immediate environment constituted by the school as a system in which the middle-adolescent is interactively participating. These aspects can include teachers as well as the school building as well as the lunch breaks and extramural activities. No framed description of this term will be postulated beforehand because the school environment will be studied from the viewpoint of the middle-adolescents. It is the middle-adolescents description of the term school environment that is the focus of this study. - Resilience: Before constructing the term resilience in a detailed manner in Chapter Two I will use the term to denote the ability to bounce back after stressful experiences. - Middle-adolescent: a 14-or 15-year old girl or boy. I will elaborate on the reason for the focus on this age group in paragraph 2.1.
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Explicit language objectives are included in the Swedish national curriculum for mathematics. The curriculum states that students should be given opportunities to develop the ability to formulate problems, use and analyse mathematical concepts and relationships between concepts, show and follow mathematical reasoning, and use mathematical expressions in discussions. Teachers’ competence forms a crucial link to bring an intended curriculum to a curriculum in action. This article investigates a professional development program, ‘Language in Mathematics’, within a national program for mathematics teachers in Sweden that aims at implementing the national curriculum into practice. Two specific aspects are examined: the selection of theoretical notions on language and mathematics and the choice of activities to relate selected theory to practice. From this examination, research on teacher learning in connection to professional development is proposed, which can contribute to a better understanding of teachers’ interpretation of integrated approaches to language and mathematics across national contexts.
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Universal school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) programs target several social-emotional skills assuming a relationship between the skills and psychosocial health outcomes. However, greater insight into the relationship is required to clarify the skills that are most crucial to address. It will support the development and refinement of SEL programs. This study investigated (1) the relationship among the social-emotional skills, (2) the association between the skills and psychosocial health variables, and (3) the mediating effect of the skills on psychosocial variables. Results: There was a high degree of overlap between the five skills (self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making). The skills were univariately associated with emotional-behavioral difficulties and prosocial behavior. In the multivariate model, self-management most strongly correlated with emotional-behavioral difficulties and mediated the relationship between self-awareness and emotional-behavioral difficulties. Social awareness showed the highest correlation with prosocial behavior and mediated the relationship between prosocial behavior and three other skills: self-awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
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Parental involvement is a crucial force in children’s development, learning and success at school and in life [1]. Participation, defined by the World Health Organization as ‘a person’s involvement in life situations’ [2] for children means involvement in everyday activities, such as recreational, leisure, school and household activities [3]. Several authors use the term social participation emphasising the importance of engagement in social situations [4, 5]. Children’s participation in daily life is vital for healthy development, social and physical competencies, social-emotional well-being, sense of meaning and purpose in life [6]. Through participation in different social contexts, children gather the knowledge and skills needed to interact, play, work, and live with other people [4, 7, 8]. Unfortunately, research shows that children with a physical disability are at risk of lower participation in everyday activities [9]; they participate less frequently in almost all activities compared with children without physical disabilities [10, 11], have fewer friends and often feel socially isolated [12-14]. Parents, in particular, positively influence the participation of their children with a physical disability at school, at home and in the community [15]. They undertake many actions to improve their child’s participation in daily life [15, 16]. However, little information is available about what parents of children with a physical disability do to enable their child’s participation, what they come across and what kind of needs they have. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate parents’ actions, challenges, and needs while enhancing the participation of their school-aged child with a physical disability. In order to achieve this aim, two steps have been made. In the first step, the literature has been examined to explore the topic of this thesis (actions, challenges and needs) and to clarify definitions for the concepts of participation and social participation. Second, for the purposes of giving breadth and depth of understanding of the topic of this thesis a mixed methods approach using three different empirical research methods [17-19], was applied to gather information from parents regarding their actions, challenges and needs.
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Worldwide, schools implement social-emotional learning programs to enhance students' social-emotional skills. Although parents play an essential role in teaching these skills, knowledge about their perspectives on social-emotional learning is limited. In providing insight into the perspectives of parents from adolescent students this paper adds to this knowledge. An explorative qualitative study was conducted to gain insight into parents' perspectives on adolescent social-emotional learning. A broadly used professional framework for social emotional learning was used as a frame of reference in interviews with parents from diverse backgrounds. Within and across case analyses were applied to analyze the interviews. A conceptual model of four social-emotional skills constructs considered crucial learning by parents emerged from the data: respectful behavior, cooperation, self-knowledge and self-reliance. Parents' language, interpretations and orderings of skills indicate that the model underlying these constructs differs from skills embedded in the professional framework.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education (HE) to shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT), subsequently influencing academic belonging and social integration, as well as challenging students' engagement with their studies. This study investigated influences on student engagement during ERT, based on student resilience. Serial mediation analyses were used to test the predictive effects between resilience, academic belonging, social integration, and engagement.
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Een hogeschool kan worden gezien als een leergemeenschap. Voor een leergemeenschap is het van belang dat er een gevoel van verbondenheid is tussen docenten en studenten. In dit praktijkgerichte onderzoek wordt ingegaan op elementen in de relatie tussen docenten en studenten die een positieve invloed hebben op het gevoel van verbondenheid, het thuis voelen en de veerkracht van studenten. Deze inzichten zijn verkregen op basis van semigestructureerde interviews met studenten van Hogeschool Inholland (n=11). De onderzoeksvraag was: hoe komt verbondenheid met de opleiding tot stand en welke rol speelt de docent hierbij? Uit de resultaten blijkt, vanuit het studentperspectief, dat verbondenheid gegrond ligt in het gevoel gezien en gehoord te worden door docenten en medestudenten, waardoor met enkele personen een vertrouwensband kan ontstaan. Op basis van deze vertrouwensband kan de docent een hulpbron zijn voor de student bij het omgaan met stressvolle situaties tijdens de studie. Het is belangrijk dat docenten tijd en aandacht besteden aan het ontwikkelen van deze professionele vertrouwensband met studenten. Docenten kunnen zo tijdig signaleren dat het niet goed gaat met een student. Daarnaast zal voor studenten de drempel om hulp in te schakelen lager zijn. Op deze manier kan een goede relatie met docenten fungeren als een buffer tegen (ernstige) welzijnsproblemen. Voor coaches en studieloopbaanbegeleiders (slb-ers) blijkt een goed opgebouwde vertrouwensband extra belangrijk te zijn, omdat zij vaak de eerste persoon zijn die studenten benaderen als het niet goed met ze gaat. Het onderzoeksrapport sluit af met diverse concrete aanbevelingen voor de dagelijkse hoger onderwijspraktijk. "Ze zien je echt niet als een nummertje. Ze besteden tijd aan elk persoon en evenveel. Ik bedoel als iemand meer tijd vraagt dan geven ze die ook gewoon, met liefde (tweedejaars student Tourism Management)."
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