Academic literature on the topic 'Catholic Secondary Schooling'

Student school engagement is a multi-dimensional meta-construct describing identification and sense of belonging with school environment, an acceptance of the goals of schooling and students’ mental investment of physical and psychical energy into academic work and school life. The study aims to investigate the main predictors of student school engagement in the area of pupils’ school functioning. The participants were 291 secondary school children aged between 12 and 15 years. A stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that the most important predictors of student school engagement are the time spent learning, subjective declaration about school performance, school type (private Catholic school), and quality of family and peer relations. Those variables explain 20% of the variance in the Global Student School Engagement level.

The current study focuses on factors associated with sexual initiation and condom use among teenagers on Santiago Island, Cape Verde, according to gender. This was a representative, probabilistic sample of 13-to-17-year-olds (n = 768) attending public secondary schools on Santiago Island in 2007. Associations were tested by test of proportion, Pearson's chi-square, or Fisher's exact test and logistic regression. Factors related to sexual initiation among boys were: age over 14 years, Catholic religion, and alcohol consumption. For girls, the factors included: > 9 years of schooling and involvement in an affective-sexual relationship. Unlike other Sub-Saharan countries, this study showed a high prevalence of condom use during initial sexual activity. Adolescents are able to safely begin sexually active life if they have access to information, sex education, and other STD prevention and contraceptive methods. This study provides insights on the development of policies to reduce the vulnerability of the young population to STD/AIDS and the limits and challenges related to the promotion of condom use and sex education, focusing on unequal gender relations.

Abstract In Quebec, as elsewhere in Canada, the depression of the 1930s highlighted the inadequacies of existing welfare arrangements and ultimately compelled a shift towards greater state intervention and rationalization of philanthropy. Historians have so far devoted little attention to the situation of children and the evolution of child welfare services during this crucial period. This paper seeks to examine the effects of the depression on the origins, the nature and the impact of aid policies in a particular urban school system. The analysis centres on the Montreal Catholic School Commis- sion (MCSC), the largest of Quebec's local public school boards, during the period 1929 to 1940. In 1930, the Commission s primary and secondary schools boasted an enrolment of nearly one hundred thousand students. These mainly French-speaking children of working-class origin were particularly hard hit by the economic crisis. The author argues that the severe physical want experienced by schoolchildren in the depression years constituted a formidable obstacle to regular school attendance and to learning. Faced with this situation, MCSC officials were obliged to abandon a conception enshrining education, health and welfare as separate categories. The economic crisis thus compelled the commission to assume an enlarged, systematized and diversified role in student welfare. School authorities rationalized and expanded the long-standing policy of free schooling for indigents and, in 1934, created a social service agency to provide free milk and clothing to needy children. To this end, they allied a continuing reliance on private charity with the adoption of modern social work practices. However, lacking sufficient funding, MCSC assistance programmes proved hopelessly unequal to the enormous student need. The MCSC s depression-era ini- tiatives were, despite their inadequacies, developments of long-term significance, providing the springboard for social work's entry into the school system.

Traditionally, student leadership has been seen as the prerogative of senior students. Very little research has been conducted on how schools nurture and develop leadership skills in students in the middle years of schooling. This article provides an overview of student leadership in six secondary schools with a particular focus on student leadership opportunities in the middle years. These schools were drawn from the Government, Catholic and Independent sectors in Western Australia. Specifically, the opinions and experiences of either principals or their delegates were sought in order to develop a sense of the importance placed on student leadership in the middle years and the types of leadership opportunities available to students. Initially, the literature is reviewed on student leadership per se and student leadership in the middle years. This review is followed by an outline of the purpose, research question and significance of the research. The research methodology is then explained, providing a summary of participants, the school contexts and methods of data collection and analysis. The subsequent section on results and discussion highlights three themes: the role of teacher leaders, student leadership structures in middle years and the holistic development of middle year students. The article concludes by providing a number of recommendations, in particular, the need to gain a ‘student voice’ in any understanding of student leadership at the middle school.

Scottish secondary education was radically extended in size and social reach in the first four decades of the twentieth century, bringing significant new opportunities in secondary schooling to girls, to children of the lower-middle and upper-working classes, and to Catholics. Most of the new secondary schools were based on those parish schools that had in the nineteenth century sent a few boys directly to university, and so this new secondary sector was a modernising of the mythological tradition of the lad o' pairts. The main reason it succeeded was that it sought to extend to new social groups the benefits of the version of liberal education that had come to be regarded as the foundation of professional careers. Thus the reforms also had the effect of transferring to the senior years of the secondary schools the old undergraduate curriculum that had been replaced by more specialist university courses in the late-nineteenth century. The paper offers an evidence-based critique not only of that strand of pessimism which has claimed that Scottish education was stagnant between the wars, but also of George Davie's influential view that the tradition of a broad general education was lost.

The Catholic Church has always proved to be a very dependable and reliable partner to various governments globally in terms of educational provision through Catholic educational institutions at all educational levels. Apart from such education institutions contributing to educational provision at all educational levels globally, the education they provide is also of a high standard. Taking a pinnacle position, at all levels in Catholic educational provision is the ‘religious mission’ and subordinate to this is the ‘academic mission’; and combined the two missions form the basis of Catholic schooling globally. However, the two missions of Catholic schooling highlighted above have not remained static over the years in Zambia’s education system due to factors of social change. Consequently, this has specifically led Catholic schools to experience an ‘identity change’ over the years since the attainment of political independence in Zambia (1964).The interplay of issues regarding the situation of Catholic schooling indicated above is centred on social change which determines educational policy directives or provisions culminating in the ‘changed identity of Catholic schools’. Social change factors divert the schools from educational practice as directed by the evolving Catholic education policies over the years. The general purpose of the paper, which utilises research findings from Hambulo’s (2016) study entitled ‘Catholic secondary education and identity reformation in Zambia’s Southern Province,’ is to give a categorical articulation of how factors of social change in the Zambian setting have influenced education policy directives, leading to the ‘changed identity’ of particularly Catholic secondary schools in Zambia’s Southern Province since 1964. Keywords: academic; education; Catholic; mission; policy; religious Opsomming Die Katolieke Kerk het nog altyd bewys dat hy wêreldwyd ’n baie betroubare en geloofwaardige vennoot vir verskeie regerings is wat betref onderwysvoorsiening deur middel van Katolieke onderwysinstellings op alle onderwysvlakke. Afgesien van hierdie onderwysinstellings se bydrae wêreldwyd tot onderwysvoorsiening op alle onderwysvlakke, is die onderrig wat die Kerk bied ook van ’n hoogstaande standaard. By Katolieke onderwysvoorsiening is die “godsdienstige missie”, en ondergeskik hieraan die “akademiese missie”, op alle vlakke belangrik; en as hierdie twee missies gekombineer word, vorm dit die wêreldwye basis van Katolieke onderrig. In Zambië se onderwysstelsel het die twee missies van Katolieke onderwys wat hier bo genoem word, met die verloop van tyd egter nie staties gebly nie ‒ vanweë faktore van sosiale verandering. As gevolg van hierdie faktore en sedert Zambië politieke onafhanklikheid (1964) bereik het, het Katolieke skole oor die jare ’n “identiteitsverandering" ondergaan. Die interaksie tussen kwessies rakende die situasie van Katolieke onderwys wat hier bo genoem word, sentreer op sosiale verandering wat die onderwysbeleidsriglyne of -voorskrifte bepaal, wat gelei het tot die “veranderde identiteit van Katolieke skole”. Sosiale veranderingsfaktore het die skole weggelei van onderwyspraktyke soos bepaal deur die ontwikkelende Katolieke onderwysbeleid deur die jare. Die hoofdoel van hierdie artikel, wat die navorsingsbevindings van Hambulo (2016) se studie, “Catholic secondary education and identity reformation in Zambia’s Southern Province” gebruik, is om kategoriese artikulasie te bied van hoe faktore van sosiale verandering sedert 1964 in die Zambiese opset die onderwysbeleidsriglyne beïnvloed het en gelei het tot die “veranderde identiteit” van Katolieke sekondêre skole in Zambië se Suidelike Provinsie in die besonder. Sleutelwoorde: akademies; onderwys; Katoliek; missie; beleid; godsdienstig

This thesis addresses the need for schools to provide a method for young people to come to terms with the complexity of their changing world as they seek to make meaning for themselves. It begins by tracing the theoretical foundations for an increased focus on meaning in Australian schooling and its establishment as a stated pedagogical principle in federal and state policies, syllabi and Catholic Church documentation on education. It analyses the literatures of the future direction of schooling, youth spirituality and the foundation documentation on Catholic education. It proposes that there is a degree of overlap in these literatures and the common discourse and the emerging paradigm addresses the need for students to develop a sense of personal meaning. The thesis provides an historical overview of schooling in terms of the societal contexts and the educational and philosophical assumptions that underpin the curriculum and pedagogical activities. It develops a model that identifies changes in the process of meaning-making and proposes a framework that could help schools become more effective resource agents for students in the development of their meaning-making capacities. It uses this framework to investigate the key documents of one Catholic system of secondary schools. It identifies the extent to which the system actually puts into action this pedagogical principle through its policy, research material, strategic planning, school culture (charism) and religious education programmes. Finally the thesis relates the findings of the specific school system to the overall process of secondary schooling within a Catholic context in Australia and proposes some issues for further consideration.

The mission of Catholic Education in Mauritius is to ‘humanise’ education and pedagogies to be consistent with Catholic values. The vision of a ‘humanised’ education explicitly teaches collaboration and cooperation. In January 2005, the Catholic Education Bureau (BEC) opted for a ‘mixed ability’ philosophy whose articulation fosters inclusiveness in all Catholic secondary schools. To achieve this, schools need to re-invent and restructure themselves into learning organisations to make obvious the ‘mixed ability’ philosophy at the middle level of schooling from Form I to Form III.The first purpose of this study is to explore an integral model for an effective education for Catholic secondary schools in Mauritius that acknowledges diversity in the classroom particularly in Form I. The second purpose is to investigate the beliefs and understandings of educators in Catholic secondary education in Mauritius of this model.For the first purpose, a review of the literature was undertaken to understand the concepts of middle schooling, differentiation, learning theories and implications for practice, the enabling structures for Catholic secondary schools to develop into learning communities and the leadership role of key actors. For the second purpose, the perceptions of educators were investigated using a predominantly qualitative, interpretative methodology around an instrumental multi-site case study.The study found a number of challenges faced by Catholic educators in Mauritius regarding the implementation of the integral model. These challenges present a new direction for these schools to focus on the human person, leading to the development and implementation of the ‘mixed ability’ program. The study concluded with a cogent set of recommendations and directions which need to be put in place in order to improve student learning outcomes at the middle level of schooling and achieve the vision of a human-centered education within the espoused Catholic mission.