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<p>Pupil achievement and behaviour in schools was earlier seen as given by socioeconomic and biological factors. But since the late 1970s the school effectiveness research has come to give school factors a much greater role for pupils’ attainments. Research has shown that schools´ pedagogical and social climate, which is to be seen as a complex product of deeply felt values and norms held by school principals and teachers and developed through practical actions, can explain variations in effectiveness between schools. Effectiveness is here to be seen as a higher mean cognitive and non cognitive student outcome than is expected with regard to initial attainment or family background. In this context all schools can be effective.</p><p>The purpose of this dissertation is to study the pedagogical and the social climate in two secondary schools in order to answer the question of how the climate can describe their conditions for future evolvement in effectiveness. The method of data collection is qualitative enquiries and has been conducted through interviews with principals, teachers and pupils. Our two schools are based in the same council and have a similar intake of pupils. The results derived from the study show that one school has a better pedagogical and social climate than the other which at the same time gives it greater conditions for future effectiveness.</p>

Pupil achievement and behaviour in schools was earlier seen as given by socioeconomic and biological factors. But since the late 1970s the school effectiveness research has come to give school factors a much greater role for pupils’ attainments. Research has shown that schools´ pedagogical and social climate, which is to be seen as a complex product of deeply felt values and norms held by school principals and teachers and developed through practical actions, can explain variations in effectiveness between schools. Effectiveness is here to be seen as a higher mean cognitive and non cognitive student outcome than is expected with regard to initial attainment or family background. In this context all schools can be effective. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the pedagogical and the social climate in two secondary schools in order to answer the question of how the climate can describe their conditions for future evolvement in effectiveness. The method of data collection is qualitative enquiries and has been conducted through interviews with principals, teachers and pupils. Our two schools are based in the same council and have a similar intake of pupils. The results derived from the study show that one school has a better pedagogical and social climate than the other which at the same time gives it greater conditions for future effectiveness.

This paper reports a study that examined the pedagogical knowledge (knowledge and beliefs related to the act of teaching) of two more successful and two less successful adult ESL instructors during planning teaching and post teaching reflection. The verbal reports of their teaching were compared to previous studies (Gatbonton, 2000, 2008; Mullock, 2006) that used stimulated recall to categorize adult ESL instructors' pedagogical thoughts during their instruction. The comparison showed that the previous categories were inadequate to cover the data. Additional codes were added in order to codify all the data after which patterns and themes emerged that overarched the previous categories. The five pattern themes among the four participants included academic focus, comprehension, engagement, language management, and student centered. The two more successful teachers each had one specific pattern theme whose fundamental focus was on student learning. These themes dominated the more successful teachers' pedagogical foci while the other four themes were subservient to that dominant theme. Like the more successful teachers all five pattern themes were present in the planning and reflection of the less successful teachers. However, the protocols of the less successful Adult ESL teachers did not exhibit a central theme or pedagogical focus that orchestrated and directed the movement of their pedagogical thoughts among the remaining pattern themes. This lack of a dominant theme meant that the pedagogical foci of these teachers moved from one theme to another without a consistent orientation toward a central goal. The conflicted or divided nature of the pedagogical thinking of these less successful teachers may contribute to the reduction in the learning of students in their classes.