Portuguese-Canadians have historically faced disadvantages in the Canadian education system (Coelho, 1973, 1977; Fonseca, 2010; Morgado, 2009; Noivo, 1997; Nunes, 1999; Ornstein, 2000, 2006; Santos, 2006). While there have been studies conducted into this phenomenon, these disadvantages remain relatively unexplored by the research community and unknown to mainstream society. Furthermore, many of those studies have focused primarily on the various manifestations of the problem of educational disadvantage and have not explored the specific programs or practices adopted by the community to address these issues. Community based educational organizations have been shown to assist in the cultural adjustment process of immigrant youth. These organizations provide youth with the necessary cultural capital to allow them to construct high academic and vocational aspirations, and to cope with the various discouraging experiences they may have in schools (Bielenberg, n.d; James, 2005; James & Haig-Brown, 2001; Zhou, 2005). The purpose of this study was to describe a community-based tutoring and mentoring program and to examine the stakeholders' perceptions of the program's impact on the Portuguese-Canadian students whom it serves, to respond to the educational disadvantages this group faces. This program was established by members of the Portuguese-Canadian community in Toronto as a reaction to data outlining this group's educational disadvantages. Document and transcript analysis provided a rich description of the program and revealed how the program impacted the students whom it served. Specifically, this program supports its students during transitions, helps to address negative schooling experiences, and fosters their acquisition of English. This ultimately results in improvements in these students' academics, social skills, and self-esteem and is having an overall positively impact on their attitudes and perceptions of education. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-19 18:09:53.088

This thesis examines the contribution of ‘ethnic’ background to the school experiences of educationally and socially disadvantaged students in the senior years of high school (n=927). To investigate the role both of ethnic identification and its interplay with institutional factors, a comparative analysis of secondary student experiences in two national settings was undertaken. The case of Turkish-background students in Australia and France suggests that the influences of ethnic identity are thoroughly transformed from one setting to the other by distinctive pedagogical structures. Streaming and severe academic judgement in France lower academic self-esteem, while creating resentment and social distance between students and teachers. By contrast, the deferral of selection and judgement in Australia allows, temporarily, for a more convivial classroom atmosphere, but fails just as surely to successfully navigate students through the curriculum and achieve academic success. The accommodations of both systems to students in ‘peripheral’ locations constitute logics of marginal integration which enable and legitimise ‘exclusion from within’. Student efforts to make meaning of school life through peer cultures which share many similarities across institutional and national boundaries emerge as what I have called strategies of marginal integration. Ethnic-minority students appear to be particularly susceptible to those logics and strategies, which reinforce their position within the system as marginal. This study therefore identifies the difficulties facing both systems as emerging from common overarching structural qualities. / (French version) Cette thèse examine, au niveau lycée, la contribution de l’origine ethnique aux expériences scolaires d’élèves désavantagés (N=927). Elle a pour objectif d’étudier les rapports entre inégalité sociale, expérience scolaire, et structure institutionnelle. Afin d’enquêter sur le rôle de l’identification ethnique et sa relation aux facteurs institutionnels, une analyse comparative a été menée dans deux pays. L’étude du cas des élèves d’origine turque en France et en Australie indique que les influences de l’ethnicité sont transformées d’un contexte à l’autre par des structures pédagogiques distinctives. En France, les filières et les jugements académiques sévères en réduisent l’estime de soi, en créant de l’aliénation et de la distance sociale entre élève et professeur. En Australie, au contraire, le différemment de la sélection et du jugement permet, de façon temporaire, une atmosphère plus conviviale en cours, mais ne réussit pas à assurer le succès académique des élèves. Les efforts des deux systèmes dans les sites périphériques constituent des logiques d’intégration marginales qui permettent l’exclusion de l’intérieure. Les efforts des élèves pour donner un sens à la vie scolaire à travers des cultures de pairs qui se ressemblent dans les deux contextes font partie des stratégies d’intégration marginale. Les élèves d’origine immigrée semblent particulièrement concernés par ces logiques et stratégies, qui renforcent leur position subordonnée dans le système. L’étude identifie alors les difficultés auxquelles sont confrontés les deux systèmes comme résultant de caractéristiques structurelles.

This study investigated educational stratification in Nigeria to determine how socioeconomic status, gender, and regional differences influence achievement in education using the nationally representative 2010 Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS). These cross-sectional data are among the first quality household survey data available for assessing aspects of education in Nigeria. In the last four decades, Nigeria has experienced dramatic expansion of its educational system. Following the introduction of educational policies and programs, growth in enrolment at the primary and secondary levels has largely been sustained. For instance, enrolment of pupils in primary education increased from 3,515,827 in 1970 to 14,383,487 in 1985 and to 20,080,986 in 2010. However, this impressive gain was followed by dwindling quality in the educational system, which has reported differing educational outcomes for different groups. Prior research in Nigeria has not examined how socioeconomic status influences achievement in education using large scale representative data. In this study, I primarily focused on assessing socioeconomic status to determine how it predicts achievement in reading and numeracy in Nigerian school children, ages 5 to 16 years. Nigeria is also known to have wide gender and regional gaps in education. Thus, I assessed gender and region variables to determine how much they contribute to the variance in educational achievement. I analyzed NEDS 2010 data and reported the findings of the descriptive and multivariate regression statistics. Descriptive statistics show the frequencies and distribution of the variables in the study. The multivariate regression analyses were employed to determine the relationship of socioeconomic status, gender, and region (the main predictor variables) with achievement in reading and numeracy (outcome variables). Given the use of survey data, both the descriptive and regression statistics were based on weighted statistics. This study found a significant wealth gap in reading and numeracy achievements among Nigerian children. I also found that family wealth, parental education, and region explain differences in academic achievement. Family wealth was found to be the most important variable influencing achievement in reading and numeracy, followed by mother's education and then region. Overall, the findings in this study suggest no significant differences in reading and numeracy achievement for boys and girls. Although gender was not found to be consistently associated with academic achievement in this study, it should not be assumed to mean that gender equality in education exists in Nigeria. It is widely reported elsewhere that gender-biased educational opportunity plays a major role in influencing educational attainment and achievement. More research, preferably using a longitudinal study design, is needed to identify the trends and patterns of gender roles in Nigerian educational attainment and achievement. The findings in this study provide the foundation for making further investigations on the association of social, economic, and cultural factors with academic achievement and to assess inequality in education in Nigeria.

Educational disadvantage, long recognised as a factor in determining post-school options, manifests in forms of marginalisation from and resistance to education, and in under-representation in tertiary education. Moreover, while student voice is becoming a more normalised aspect of decision making in schools, marginalised students have limited opportunities to participate in education reform processes. The practice of &quotstudents as researchers" (SaR) extends student voice through engaging students in researching the educational issues that directly affect them and inviting participation in pedagogical and school reform issues. In this research, I examine the application of an SaR model with marginalised secondary school students, and the outcomes for the participants and their schools. The Student Action Research for University Access (SARUA) project provides the site of my empirical investigation. The research is informed by two complementary lines of theory: Habermasian critical theory, which provides the framework for participatory research, and Bourdieuian social reproduction theory, which scaffolds the aims of empowerment underlying SaR. These theories are extended by a theory of imagination to take account of difference and to establish a link to post-modern considerations. I employed a participatory action research methodology to investigate changes in the students' awareness of post-school options, their aspirations regarding tertiary study, and the development of related educational skills as a result of their participation in the project. The principal findings from the research are that the SARUA model provides an effective medium for the empowerment of marginalised students through engagement in meaningful, real-life research; that participant schools are positioned to benefit from the students' research and interventions when school and student habitus are in accord; and that the SARUA model complements current pedagogical reforms aimed at increasing student engagement, retention, and progression to higher education.

Cette thèse propose d'étudier les effets de dispositifs de lutte contre la difficulté scolaire sur les carrières scolaires d'élèves en âge primaire (4-11 ans). L'observation ethnographique nous permet d'appréhender l'échec des catégories d'élèves les plus défavorisés en mettant en avant les processus par lesquels nous pouvons constater une dégradation des carrières scolaires lorsque ces difficultés sont prises en charge. Il s'agit de mettre en relation les parcours des élèves avec l’activité des agents de la lutte contre l'échec scolaire (les professionnels de l’éducation nationale, mais aussi les professionnels extérieurs de la prise en charge) et les mécanismes par lesquels ils contribuent au renforcement des inégalités scolaires. L’observation montre les logiques par lesquelles l’aide scolaire va se transformer en processus de production des inégalités (appréhendé par les parcours), mais aussi d’encadrement des classes populaires. Cet encadrement se donne à voir au quotidien dans les classes et les prises en charge au sein de l'école, mais aussi par l’émergence de nouveaux dispositifs qui sont précisément entre ce qui est de l’ordre de la prise en charge de la difficulté scolaire et du travail social (équipes éducatives, dispositifs de réussite éducative et informations préoccupantes). Il s'agit d'observer cette interpénétration des sphères entre le travail social et le scolaire en étudiant le rapprochement de ces dispositifs avec des instances de contrôle social. Le regard sera porté sur les acteurs et les dispositifs qui participent à cet effacement des frontières entre le scolaire et le travail social et leur poids dans les contraintes qui s'exercent sur les classes populaires. / This thesis aims to study the effects of measures aiming to tackle educational disadvantage on the school careers of pupils (4-11 years).This ethnographic study shows how these measures are going to disadvantage pupil from modest background. To approach this process, we focused on the school professional’s activity and the way their practices reinforces school inequalities. Rather than reducing school inequities, these devices are instead focusing on their socially controlling function by stigmatising the working-class educational practices. This can be seen in the classroom, but also by the emergence of new devices that are a boundary between educationnal remediation and social work.

The main aim of this study was to determine whether the locus of control construct could be used to predict academic success. The study differentiated between short-term academic success (successful completion of the first year of study) and long-term academic success (successful completion of pre-graduate degree). Both generalised and domain specific locus of control measurements were used to determine which of these correlate with academic success. A further aim was to investigate the role of self esteem and level of defensiveness in the relationship between locus of control and academic achievement. Four measurement instruments were administered to an effective sample of 53 first year students at the University of Pretoria. The measurement instruments were the Internal, Powerful other and Chance Scales (Levenson, 1981), the Multi-dimensional, Multi-attributional Causality Scale (Lefcourt, 1981), the Social Desirability Scale (Crowne&Marlowe, 1960) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). The statistical analyses consisted of descriptive statistics and correlational analyses. Analysis of the data showed no significant correlation between locus of control and academic achievement for the group as a whole but did show a significant positive correlation between long-term academic success and generalised internality among black students. The data further showed a significant negative correlation between self esteem and long-term academic success. Self esteem correlated positively with an external orientation in both black and white students. The only significant predictor of academic success among white students was social desirability. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / unrestricted