Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Early educational inequalities"

This paper develops a theory of human capital to investigate the role of early childhood health in explaining the large and persistent schooling gaps observed within and across countries. Quantitative analysis using the theory and data from 98 countries shows that early health inequalities within developingcountries strongly amplify later schooling gaps— counterfactually eliminating inequalities reduces schooling Ginis by an average of 18% in developing economies but has only mild effects in richer countries. Moreover, early health inequalities are found to be an important source of schooling variation across countries— universally equating early health to the average US level reduces the cross-country standard deviation of average schooling attainment by over 40%. Additional policy experiments reveal that the gains from early health interventions tend to be amplified by later educational investments in developing economies, while those targeting school-aged children may be limited if early health conditions are ignored.

Abstract Background: Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide with a higher risk of dying among people with a lower socioeconomic status. We investigated the potential for reducing educational differences in IHD mortality in 21 European populations based on two counterfactual scenarios—the upward levelling scenario and the more realistic best practice country scenario. Methods: We used a method based on the population attributable fraction to estimate the impact of a modified educational distribution of smoking, overweight/obesity, and physical inactivity on educational inequalities in IHD mortality among people aged 30–79. Risk factor prevalence was collected around the year 2000 and mortality data covered the early 2000s. Results: The potential reduction of educational inequalities in IHD mortality differed by country, sex, risk factor and scenario. Smoking was the most important risk factor among men in Nordic and eastern European populations, whereas overweight and obesity was the most important risk factor among women in the South of Europe. The effect of physical inactivity on the reduction of inequalities in IHD mortality was smaller compared with smoking and overweight/obesity. Although the reduction in inequalities in IHD mortality may seem modest, substantial reduction in IHD mortality among the least educated can be achieved under the scenarios investigated. Conclusion: Population wide strategies to reduce the prevalence of risk factors such as smoking, and overweight/obesity targeted at the lower socioeconomic groups are likely to substantially contribute to the reduction of IHD mortality and inequalities in IHD mortality in Europe.

Research on the collateral consequences of mass imprisonment has focused on the interactions that families and communities have with the criminal justice system. Less attention is paid to interactions that children of the incarcerated have with another important social institution: schools. This article describes the types of schools that children with incarcerated fathers attend. Using newly available data on children’s early elementary environments from a longitudinal birth-cohort sample of urban families, the analyses show that children of the incarcerated are more often in disadvantaged schools and in schools with climates worse than the schools of same-age peers with no histories of paternal incarceration. I offer a first exploratory step toward understanding the interplay among three of America’s most powerful social institutions—families, schools, and the criminal justice system—and the ways that they interact to structure the educational trajectories of what scholars are calling “children of the prison boom.”

ObjectiveTo assess whether recent declines in cardiovascular mortality have benefited all socioeconomic groups equally and whether these declines have narrowed or widened inequalities in cardiovascular mortality in Europe.MethodsIn this prospective registry-based study, we determined changes in cardiovascular mortality between the 1990s and the early 2010s in 12 European populations by gender, educational level and occupational class. In order to quantify changes in the magnitude of differences in mortality, we calculated both ratio measures of relative inequalities and difference measures of absolute inequalities.ResultsCardiovascular mortality has declined rapidly among lower and higher socioeconomic groups. Relative declines (%) were faster among higher socioeconomic groups; absolute declines (deaths per 100 000 person-years) were almost uniformly larger among lower socioeconomic groups. Therefore, although relative inequalities increased over time, absolute inequalities often declined substantially on all measures used. Similar trends were seen for ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease mortality separately. Best performer was England and Wales, which combined large declines in cardiovascular mortality with large reductions in absolute inequalities and stability in relative inequalities in both genders. In the early 2010s, inequalities in cardiovascular mortality were smallest in Southern Europe, of intermediate magnitude in Northern and Western Europe and largest in Central-Eastern European and Baltic countries.ConclusionsLower socioeconomic groups have experienced remarkable declines in cardiovascular mortality rates over the last 25 years, and trends in inequalities can be qualified as favourable overall. Nevertheless, further reducing inequalities remains an important challenge for European health systems and policies.

This article provides an analysis and discussion of the impacts of neoliberal, religiously conservative educational policies on early childhood education (ECE) in Turkey. After an introduction, the article is presented in four sections. The first section provides an overview of neoliberal, religiously conservative policies in the Turkish educational system since the 1980s. The second section presents a brief history of ECE. The third section reports on the impact of neoliberal, religiously conservative education policies on ECE, especially focusing on the last decade. The fourth section concludes with a discussion of the way in which ECE in Turkey is being approached as an economic and ideological education institution troubled by inequalities, rather than as one with a firm basis of equal rights in education.

AbstractRecent research on the effects of COVID-19 on school closures has mainly focused on primary and secondary education, with extremely limited attention to early childhood education (ECE). To address this gap, we identify the extent to which parents and caregivers with pre-primary school-aged children were engaged in their children’s learning during school closures in Ethiopia. Our focus on Ethiopia is of particular relevance given that ECE provision has expanded dramatically in recent years, aimed at ensuring children are prepared for primary school. Using data collected through a phone survey with 480 parents and caregivers, the results revealed that learning disruption due to COVID-19 school closures is likely to be substantial and will probably widen existing inequalities further. Many poorer households and those where parents or caregivers are not literate, are less likely to have child-oriented learning resources, and home learning activities between parents and children in these households are limited. The study highlights that greater attention needs to be paid to mitigate the threats of COVID-19 on Ethiopia’s recent gains in ECE, to prevent the pandemic from further reinforcing inequalities between children from advantaged and disadvantaged households.

This is the introduction into the first of multiple themed issues of International Journal of Comparative Sociology (IJCS) that are dedicated to the role of education systems as institutional settings on the reproduction of inequalities. While Introduction I presents the research program, outlines a conceptual background and discusses methodological challenges in the study of how education systems shape inequalities, introductions to the successive themed issues will deal with the current state-of-research and finally with research desiderata in terms of an outlook. The contributions will be presented at the end of each introduction. The contributions of this themed issue focus on the role of country characteristics during early childhood and the role of shadow education on educational inequalities.

Educational credentials have a central role in contemporary societies. However, social origins continue to affect educational performances and transitions well before children enter compulsory school, thus threatening future outcomes and development. By interacting research streams from economics, psychology, and pedagogy, this dissertation locates within the literature on child development, early education, and social stratification, and it aims at further contributing to the sociological evidence on the mechanisms that lead to inequalities in skills. The core of this dissertation lies in the analysis of the characteristics of the early childhood educational system (ECE) and of the home learning environment (HLE), as growth-promoting or unfavourable contexts for the development of both cognitive and noncognitive skills. Adopting recent cross-national and longitudinal data, this dissertation asks (1) whether and how much ECE matters in the lives of children around Europe, leaving long-lasting traces on their achievements once adolescents; (2) whether and how much parental social position, beliefs, and other family and child characteristics play a role in the care selection process in Germany; and (3) whether and how much quality in HLE and ECE contributes at explaining differences in skills before entering primary school in Ireland.

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This study is to understand if it is possible to build a new knowledge about popular childhood in the early years of life, in a public education action called Educriança programme, which included mothers, children and educators. The justification for this tidy is the presence and no presence in public schools of children in the early years of life, coming from the poorest families. Through the mothers' point of view, we tried to approach the various meanings that they attribute to the crossings made in the time that they lived with their sons and daughters in this innovative experience of public education, shared with other children and educators of the Program. In this study, we Assume that it is necessary to contextualize the social world in which those women/mothers live, because from their experiences, their crossings, we can understand the different meanings they attach to Educrian,ca Programme. The theoretical basis for this study assumes education as a social practice that does not occur exclusively in the institutions of the education system, especially for children from zero to three years. In this theoretical perspective, the subject departs from the naturalizing views, considering that the human subjective capacities are not innate but socially and historically constructed. The methodology presented for obtaining information and data collection for this study focused primarily on opened interviews without previous guided instructions, with six women/mothers who experienced this educational experience of early childhood for at least a year, from 2003 to 2008, when the Educriança Programme took place in the city of Guarulhos. The most evident meaning in their statements is that this Programme is another way to live and understand childhood. This Programme revealed itself as a broad experience of education of childhood and have afforded better opportunities for basic care and educational activities at the place where the children lived with their families, since it was based on the concept of family as an educational agent, taking the mother figure as the main reference for childhood education, especially when related to transmitting values, socialization, children habits and accumulated knowledge in their social groups and their own social class
Este estudo busca compreender, no âmbito de uma ação pública educativa denominada Educriança, da qual participaram mães, crianças e educadoras, se é possivel construir um novo saber sobre a infância popular nos anos iniciais de vida. O que justifica este estudo é a presença e a não presença, nas escolas, de crianças, nos anos iniciais de vida, vindas das familias mais pobres. Por meio dos olhares das mães, procuramos nos aproximar dos vários significados que elas atribuem às travessias realizadas no tempo que puderam viver com seus filhos e filhas nessa inovadora experiência educativa pública, compartilhada com outras crianças e educadoras. Ao realizar este estudo, partimos do pressuposto de que é preciso contextualizar socialmente o mundo no qual vivem as mulheres/mães porque a partir de suas vivências, de suas travessias, poderemos entender os diferentes significados que elas atribuem ao Programa Educriança. A base teórica que lhe dá embasamento pressupõe a educação como uma prática social ampla que não precisa ocorrer exclusivamente nas instituições próprias do sistema de ensino, principalmente para as crianças de zero a três anos. Nessa Perspectiva teórica, permite-se que o sujeito se afaste das visões naturalizantes, dado que as capacidades subjetivas humanas não são inatas e sim construidas social e Historicamente. A metodologia apresentada para obtenção e coleta de dados informativos para este estudo centrou-se fundamentalmente na realização de entrevistas abertas, sem roteiros prévios, com seis mulheres/mães que vivenciaram essa experiência 'educativa da primeira infância por pelo menos um ano, no periodo de 2003 a 2008, quando se desenvolveu o programa Educrianca na cidade de Guarulhos. O significado mais evidente em seus depoimentos é o de que o Educriança lhes possibilitou ver outra forma de ser criança e viver a infância. O Educriança revela-se como uma experiência ampla de educação integral da infância por ter propiciado à criança melhores possibilidades de cuidados básicos e ações educativas no local em que vivia, uma vez que tinha como base a concepção da familia como agente educativo, tendo na figura da mãe sua referência principal de educadora da infância quanto a valores, socialização, formação de hábitos e de saberes acumulados nos seus grupos sociais e em sua própria classe social

This chapter explores three main issues related to the analyses of the social gradient in health: correlations, causations, and interventions. Observed correlations between indicators of socioeconomic position and health do not imply that there are causations. The usefulness of various indicators is discussed, such as education, income, occupation categories, and social class. A causal pathway is presented that suggests a chain from early life circumstances, via education, occupation, income, and perceived status onto health. The chapter ends with a discussion of various policy options to reduce inequalities in health that are caused by social determinants.

This chapter focuses on the Harlem Globetrotters as Cold Warriors between 1947 and 1954. This is an important moment because prior to the passage of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the State Department was in the unenviable position of trying to defend segregation while stressing racial progress. Moreover, the politics of symbolism associated with the Globetrotters' tours was designed to give legitimacy to existing racial inequalities in American society by stressing “progress” during the early Cold War era, despite the social, political, and legal barriers that hindered African American advancement. The symbol of the successful yet segregated athlete allowed the government to argue that segregation was not an impediment to the advancement of individual African Americans.

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the early days of Reconstruction, when the U.S. government temporarily implemented a major redistribution of land from former slaveholders to the newly emancipated enslaved. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. In From Here to Equality, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen confront these injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. After opening the book with a stark assessment of the intergenerational effects of white supremacy on black economic well-being, Darity and Mullen look to both the past and the present to measure the inequalities borne of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, they next assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War. Finally, Darity and Mullen offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. Taken individually, any one of the three eras of injustice outlined by Darity and Mullen--slavery, Jim Crow, and modern-day discrimination--makes a powerful case for black reparations. Taken collectively, they are impossible to ignore.

AbstractIn this contribution, we will mobilize the interdisciplinary life course paradigm to consider the processes through which individual heterogeneity in health and wealth is constructed all along life, from the cradle to old age. Considering altogether historical, family and individual times, the life course perspective has been developed in sociology, (lifespan) psychology and epidemiology, and has framed many important studies during the last four decades. The theory of cumulative disadvantage is for sure the most popular in social sciences, explaining how little inter-individual differences early in life expand all along life to reach maximal amplitude among the “young old” (before the selection by differential mortality at very old age). In lifespan psychology, the theory of cognitive reserve (educational level being a proxy) and its continuation, the theory of use or disuse (of cognition during adult life) have more or less the same explanatory power, cognition being a decisive precondition for active ageing and quality of life in old age. However, in spite of the success of those theoretical bodies, a prominent figure in the field, Glen Elder, recently observed that there is surprisingly little evidence for cumulative processes and that a wide variety of model specifications remain completely untested. This finding makes even more important a critical review of the literature which summarize several robust evidences, but also discuss contradictory results and suggest promising research tracks. This exercise considers the life course construction of inequalities in the distribution of objective resources older adults have (or not) “to live the life they own value” (to quote A. Sen 2001). But it is also crucial to consider the subjective component that is inherent to the understanding of well-being.

AbstractThis chapter reviews the evidence of the impact on children’s education from the school closures, implemented over the period March-June 2020, as part of the lockdown measures put in place to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus. The sources of information are surveys of the adult population, parents/guardians of school-age children, teachers and students based on representative samples as well as achievement tests that were accessible by early 2021. The lockdowns and associated closures of schools implemented in response to the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic represented a sudden and unprecedented event for which school authorities, teachers, parents, and students were unprepared. While distance and remote education arrangements were put in place at short notice, they represented an imperfect substitute to in-person schooling. In the short-term, the consequences of school closures and lockdowns appear to have been modest in scale and impact in the reviewed countries. For most (though by no means for all) children, missing 8–18 weeks of face-to-face schooling appears not to have had dramatic consequences for either their academic or broader development, or led to the significant widening of pre-existing inequalities. However, a definitive assessment of the impact of the school closures in the first half of 2020 will not be possible for some time.

AbstractThis chapter argues that analyzing regional and local institutional variations has great potential for generating new insights on the drivers of family policy reforms as well as on mechanisms how policies affect families’ choices and well-being. Drawing on the case of Germany and focusing on early childhood education and care (ECEC) services, this chapter first describes regional variations in ECEC provision and take-up. It then reviews theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence on drivers of regional policy variations. Next, the chapter proposes a framework for investigating socially stratified work–care choices of parents at subnational levels by connecting a macro–micro rational choice perspective with the capability approach and the accommodation model of childcare choices. After reviewing the evidence on the effects of regional ECEC variations on social inequalities in take-up, maternal employment, and work–family balance, the chapter concludes by pointing to research gaps and new frontiers of regional family policy analysis.

AbstractFamilies in OECD member countries have changed dramatically in recent decades. Across almost all OECD countries, couples are marrying and starting a family later than ever before. Fertility rates are low. Divorce and re-partnering have become much more common, giving rise to a diversity of new family forms. The (male) single-earner family model, previously dominant, is now largely a thing of the past. This chapter examines how families and family policies have changed in OECD countries in recent decades. It starts with an overview of changes in families, in partnering behaviours, in family living arrangements, and in family work arrangements. The chapter then turns to the evolution of family policy and the policy response to changing families, such as increases in public Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) support and the provision of fathers-only paid parental leave. It concludes by highlighting important key challenges ahead, including how policy must adapt to growing inequalities between families.

This chapter focuses on inequalities, and how the idea of ‘ability’ relates to their maintenance and reproduction. It begins with an outline of current educational inequalities in England, from early years to secondary education, and the most prominent debates in the field of race and class in education. Then, data from a research project on grouping and other research are used to examine how ability interacts with inequalities, at all levels of the schooling system. Then the resurgence of ideas which link intelligence levels with different social groups, known as the ‘new eugenics’ are considered, along with the challenges posed by epigenetics to deterministic accounts of merit. Finally, the chapter explores how debates about inequalities in education have shifted and continue to change during the COVID-19 crisis.

Over the past two centuries the Age of Modernity has dominated intellectual thought and related actions predominantly in the English-speaking world. It is now becoming increasingly recognized by academics and powerful organizations both nationally and internationally that the consequence of this mode of thinking has generated immense problems for the contemporary world. The level of social and economic inequalities that continue to increase has now become the concern of many, particularly those who identify with the thinking and ideas associated with the emerging Age of Post-Modernity. The challenge to Education is profound not least so in how young children’s awareness, knowledge and understanding about the society in which they live is transmitted, often unwittingly, initially in families and subsequently in kindergartens and schools. This paper first addresses the main social constructions of childhood that can be identified in democratic countries and then links these constructions to the three dominant ideologies that exert axiomatic influence on the education process in different countries. Emerging from this brief analysis the paper identifies three fundamental and important challenges to those with responsibility and influence on young children’s education be they in governments, educational institutions or families.

This study examines the experience of female education in Northern and North Central Nigeria, South Sudan, South Africa, and the United States. Through empirical reports, articles, journals, and participants' practical experience, this study adopts a qualitative methodology comprising educational system information in the three Sub-Saharan countries and the United States. It explains how gender disparity and exclusive socioeconomic and sociocultural policies impede female education. It examines females from the United States, South Africa, and South Sudan who have shown resilience in overcoming obstacles of slavery, racism, apartheid, patriarchy, poverty, and war to encourage the higher academic pursuit of Idoma girls in Benue State, North Central Nigeria. The study shows that despite policies that have generated varying mechanisms to incorporate marginalized female students in school systems, deep inequalities persist and are palpable in the academic achievement data of female students.

In this chapter, the authors review how iPads were used in a middle grade math classroom of a technology magnet school. The school has received two mobile iPad carts in addition to the three they have. Ms. Martin, a science teacher at this middle school, has received one of the mobile iPad carts due to her interest in technology integration. Ms. Martin is considered to be an early adopter of technology at her school, and she has been using iPads for more than a year in her sixth grade classroom. Ms. Bennett, who recently received 25 iPads, paid a visit to Ms. Martin’s classroom to learn how to integrate iPads in her science classroom. This case study describes Ms. Bennett’s visit to Ms. Martin’s classroom on the day when the students were studying how to solve inequalities by using addition and subtraction. Ms. Bennett’s goal for the visit was to identify the different ways Ms. Martin was using iPads with her students, and monitor the comfort level of her students with the iPads. She documents what she learns from the visit, and discusses it with Ms. Martin; she also meets with Mr. Pallapu, the technology facilitator at school. Ms. Martin shares some tips and techniques that she can use in her classroom, and also some benefits and challenges of using the iPad. Mr. Pallapu provides her with a list of recommended apps and instructional strategies for using iPads in the classroom.

Early child development is related to early education, health, nutrition, and psychosocial development; therefore, the holistic concept of early approach combines elements from the area of stimulation of the child, health, nutrition, speech therapy, psychological counselling, physical development support, etc. The need for the development of integrated early education services and their extension to the area of 0-3 years are priorities of the European strategies assumed through a complex of educational policy measures, having as a priority the development of quality early education services for the benefit of all prerequisites for lowering the schooling rate (Strategy for early childhood education, Strategy for parental education, Strategy for reducing early school leaving in Romania, Study on the evaluation of public policies in the field of early childhood education - Saber Early Childhood). In this context of the development of early childhood education, numerous inequalities are identified in the implementation of European and national strategies and programs in the development of early childhood education services, supported by economic, political, social factors, etc. In order to make them compatible at European level, we consider it necessary to support training and development programs for staff providing educational services in early childhood education institutions. The purpose of this study is to acknowledge the opinion of the bodies with attributions in the pre-kindergarten and preschool education in Romania, as well as of the civil society and public opinion, as a prerequisite for identifying school policy measures and developing programs for training the teaching staff so as to be able to provide educational services in early childhood education (representatives responsible for early childhood education in school inspectorates and Houses of the Teaching Staff, teaching staff in preschool educational institutions, representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, representatives of the Social Assistance Directorate, managers of nursery schools, representatives of NGOs and other categories of organizations with experience in the field, parents and interested representatives of the civil society and public opinion). The present study is a qualitative research based on the focus-group method, but also a quantitative research by using the questionnaire-based survey, being carried out on a representative sample of 100 persons (2 focus-group of 25 persons, respectively 50 persons involved in the survey-based questionnaire). The conclusions of this study highlight the need to restructure the system of early childhood education in Romania through interventions at the legislative level and ensure a unitary system of policy and intervention in early childhood education. Also, we believe it is imperative to reorganize the training system of the human resource, by developing complementary competences of the teaching staff, adapted to the training needs of the early childhood population, ensuring a valuable inclusive and integrated intervention.

The paper aims to analyze aspects of Roma marginalization, by identifying and assessing the dimensions of social needs within a compact Roma community, located in a marginalized urban area. The effects of the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic increase inequalities regarding the economic and social situation. The major challenge is to reduce the risk of poverty, especially among families with children, people with disabilities and chronic diseases, but also the social exclusion of people at social risk, based on accurate measurements of social phenomena. The community profile indicates the social status of the inhabitants, which provides a picture of the degree of marginalization and social exclusion of Roma. Thus, the study was conducted by constructing a questionnaire as a research tool, which summarizes the results of the activity of information collection and processing, both based on statistical methods and percentage analysis. The problems faced by marginalized Roma communities are low participation in education, early school leaving, difficult transition to tertiary education, lack of adult skills, low skills among vulnerable people in the labor market, low access to services, poor health and housing. Measures for early detection of situations of social risk and intervention lead to positive effects in preventing marginalization and social exclusion.

Objectives: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among the female population in the world. Socioeconomic and cultural factors are important, as underdeveloped countries have high mortality rates due to deficiencies in prevention and early detection. Thus, the objective is to verify whether there is a direct relationship between the number of deaths due to breast cancer and social indicators. Methodology: A descriptive study with the analysis of the secondary data on mortality from malignant breast neoplasms, relating them to social indicators of schooling, age, and color/race between the years 2010 and 2019 in the state of Goiás and in Brazil, was analyzed. The data were extracted from the Mortality Information System (SIM), ordered, and tabulated using Excel. Results: Socioeconomic factors, such as education, age group, race, and geographic region, were considered conditioning factors for inequalities for such neoplasia. Groups with lower socioeconomic status showed high mortality rates, either due to later diagnoses or due to greater difficulty in accessing appropriate treatments. In contrast, the population inserted in favored socioeconomic scenarios presented, at the same time, high mortality rates, not only in Goiás, but also in the Brazilian scenario in general. This situation resulted, above all, from the insertion of this female portion in the labor market and, consequently, from the acquisition of new habits and behaviors. Conclusion: Different variables related to socioeconomic and cultural conditions have a direct influence on the occurrence of breast cancer in women in the state of Goiás and also in Brazil. In summary, people in disadvantaged situations tend to have high mortality rates for not having access to financing health conditions, while the wealthier population also has high rates due to cultural factors and related to new habits and behaviors that are factors risk.

Aim/Purpose: This paper provides the results of the preliminary analysis of the findings of an ongoing study that seeks to examine the social media use, cultural and political awareness, civic engagement, issue prioritization, and social activism of Gen Z students enrolled at four different institutional types located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The aim of this study is to look at the group as a whole as well as compare findings across populations. The institutional types under consideration include a mid-sized majority serving or otherwise referred to as a traditionally white institution (TWI) located in a small coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean, a small Historically Black University (HBCU) located in a rural area, a large community college located in a county that is a mixture of rural and suburban and which sits on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and graduating high school students enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs in a large urban area. This exploration is purposed to examine the behaviors and expectations of Gen Z students within a representative American region during a time of tremendous turmoil and civil unrest in the United States. Background: Over 74 million strong, Gen Z makes up almost one-quarter of the U.S. population. They already outnumber any current living generation and are the first true digital natives. Born after 1996 and through 2012, they are known for their short attention spans and heightened ability to multi-task. Raised in the age of the smart phone, they have been tethered to digital devices from a young age with most having the preponderance of their childhood milestones commemorated online. Often called Zoomers, they are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation and are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history. Gen Zers in the United States have been found in the research to be progressive and pro-government and viewing increasing racial and ethnic diversity as positive change. Finally, they are less likely to hold xenophobic beliefs such as the notion of American exceptionalism and superiority that have been popular with by prior generations. The United States has been in a period of social and civil unrest in recent years with concerns over systematic racism, rampant inequalities, political polarization, xenophobia, police violence, sexual assault and harassment, and the growing epidemic of gun violence. Anxieties stirred by the COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these issues resulting in a powder keg explosion occurring throughout the summer of 2020 and leading well into 2021. As a result, the United States has deteriorated significantly in the Civil Unrest Index falling from 91st to 34th. The vitriol, polarization, protests, murders, and shootings have all occurred during Gen Z’s formative years, and the limited research available indicates that it has shaped their values and political views. Methodology: The Mid-Atlantic region is a portion of the United States that exists as the overlap between the northeastern and southeastern portions of the country. It includes the nation’s capital, as well as large urban centers, small cities, suburbs, and rural enclaves. It is one of the most socially, economically, racially, and culturally diverse parts of the United States and is often referred to as the “typically American region.” An electronic survey was administered to students from 2019 through 2021 attending a high school dual enrollment program, a minority serving institution, a majority serving institution, and a community college all located within the larger mid-Atlantic region. The survey included a combination of multiple response, Likert scaled, dichotomous, open ended, and ordinal questions. It was developed in the Survey Monkey system and reviewed by several content and methodological experts in order to examine bias, vagueness, or potential semantic problems. Finally, the survey was pilot tested prior to implementation in order to explore the efficacy of the research methodology. It was then modified accordingly prior to widespread distribution to potential participants. The surveys were administered to students enrolled in classes taught by the authors all of whom are educators. Participation was voluntary, optional, and anonymous. Over 800 individuals completed the survey with just over 700 usable results, after partial completes and the responses of individuals outside of the 18-24 age range were removed. Findings: Participants in this study overwhelmingly were users of social media. In descending order, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Tik Tok were the most popular social media services reported as being used. When volume of use was considered, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter were the most cited with most participants reporting using Instagram and Snapchat multiple times a day. When asked to select which social media service they would use if forced to choose just one, the number one choice was YouTube followed by Instagram and Snapchat. Additionally, more than half of participants responded that they have uploaded a video to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Tik Tok. When asked about their familiarity with different technologies, participants overwhelmingly responded that they are “very familiar” with smart phones, searching the Web, social media, and email. About half the respondents said that they were “very familiar” with common computer applications such as the Microsoft Office Suite or Google Suite with another third saying that they were “somewhat familiar.” When asked about Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard, Course Compass, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle, Course Sites, Google Classroom, Mindtap, Schoology, Absorb, D2L, itslearning, Otus, PowerSchool, or WizIQ, only 43% said they were “very familiar” with 31% responding that they were “somewhat familiar.” Finally, about half the students were either “very” or “somewhat” familiar with operating systems such as Windows. A few preferences with respect to technology in the teaching and learning process were explored in the survey. Most students (85%) responded that they want course announcements and reminders sent to their phones, 76% expect their courses to incorporate the use of technology, 71% want their courses to have course websites, and 71% said that they would rather watch a video than read a book chapter. When asked to consider the future, over 81% or respondents reported that technology will play a major role in their future career. Most participants considered themselves “informed” or “well informed” about current events although few considered themselves “very informed” or “well informed” about politics. When asked how they get their news, the most common forum reported for getting news and information about current events and politics was social media with 81% of respondents reporting. Gen Z is known to be an engaged generation and the participants in this study were not an exception. As such, it came as no surprise to discover that, in the past year more than 78% of respondents had educated friends or family about an important social or political issue, about half (48%) had donated to a cause of importance to them, more than a quarter (26%) had participated in a march or rally, and a quarter (26%) had actively boycotted a product or company. Further, about 37% consider themselves to be a social activist with another 41% responding that aren’t sure if they would consider themselves an activist and only 22% saying that they would not consider themselves an activist. When asked what issues were important to them, the most frequently cited were Black Lives Matter (75%), human trafficking (68%), sexual assault/harassment/Me Too (66.49%), gun violence (65.82%), women’s rights (65.15%), climate change (55.4%), immigration reform/deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) (48.8%), and LGBTQ+ rights (47.39%). When the schools were compared, there were only minor differences in social media use with the high school students indicating slightly more use of Tik Tok than the other participants. All groups were virtually equal when it came to how informed they perceived themselves about current events and politics. Consensus among groups existed with respect to how they get their news, and the community college and high school students were slightly more likely to have participated in a march, protest, or rally in the last 12 months than the university students. The community college and high school students were also slightly more likely to consider themselves social activists than the participants from either of the universities. When the importance of the issues was considered, significant differences based on institutional type were noted. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was identified as important by the largest portion of students attending the HBCU followed by the community college students and high school students. Less than half of the students attending the TWI considered BLM an important issue. Human trafficking was cited as important by a higher percentage of students attending the HBCU and urban high school than at the suburban and rural community college or the TWI. Sexual assault was considered important by the majority of students at all the schools with the percentage a bit smaller from the majority serving institution. About two thirds of the students at the high school, community college, and HBCU considered gun violence important versus about half the students at the majority serving institution. Women’s rights were reported as being important by more of the high school and HBCU participants than the community college or TWI. Climate change was considered important by about half the students at all schools with a slightly smaller portion reporting out the HBCU. Immigration reform/DACA was reported as important by half the high school, community college, and HBCU participants with only a third of the students from the majority serving institution citing it as an important issue. With respect to LGBTQ rights approximately half of the high school and community college participants cited it as important, 44.53% of the HBCU students, and only about a quarter of the students attending the majority serving institution. Contribution and Conclusion: This paper provides a timely investigation into the mindset of generation Z students living in the United States during a period of heightened civic unrest. This insight is useful to educators who should be informed about the generation of students that is currently populating higher education. The findings of this study are consistent with public opinion polls by Pew Research Center. According to the findings, the Gen Z students participating in this study are heavy users of multiple social media, expect technology to be integrated into teaching and learning, anticipate a future career where technology will play an important role, informed about current and political events, use social media as their main source for getting news and information, and fairly engaged in social activism. When institutional type was compared the students from the university with the more affluent and less diverse population were less likely to find social justice issues important than the other groups. Recommendations for Practitioners: During disruptive and contentious times, it is negligent to think that the abounding issues plaguing society are not important to our students. Gauging the issues of importance and levels of civic engagement provides us crucial information towards understanding the attitudes of students. Further, knowing how our students gain information, their social media usage, as well as how informed they are about current events and political issues can be used to more effectively communicate and educate. Recommendations for Researchers: As social media continues to proliferate daily life and become a vital means of news and information gathering, additional studies such as the one presented here are needed. Additionally, in other countries facing similarly turbulent times, measuring student interest, awareness, and engagement is highly informative. Impact on Society: During a highly contentious period replete with a large volume of civil unrest and compounded by a global pandemic, understanding the behaviors and attitudes of students can help us as higher education faculty be more attuned when it comes to the design and delivery of curriculum. Future Research This presentation presents preliminary findings. Data is still being collected and much more extensive statistical analyses will be performed.

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the education sector in unprecedented ways. As with many other countries around the world, the Ethiopian government closed schools following the first identified case in the capital city, Addis Ababa, on the 16th of March 2020. Across the country, these closures resulted in more than 26 million learners staying at home for almost eight months (UNESCO, 2021). In addition to this hiatus in their education, pupils were promoted automatically to the next grade with only 45 days of catch-up classes (Ministry of Education, 2020). In other words, those attending a specific school grade in March 2020 were then promoted to the next grade when school resumed in October 2020. For a significant proportion of Ethiopian pupils, learning during school closures was extremely limited despite the government’s efforts to create educational programmes via national television and radio stations (Kim et al., 2021a; Yorke et al., 2020). School closures, combined with barriers to accessing remote educational resources, meant potential learning losses for a significant number of pupils. Several studies have already indicated that COVID-19 resulted in learning losses, especially among the poorest and most disadvantaged groups. A study in Indonesia found that pupils lost 11 points on the PISA3 reading scale due to the four-month school closure from March to July 2020 (Yarrow, Masood & Afkar, 2020). It was also estimated that Grade 4 pupils in South Africa experienced losses equivalent to more than 60 percent of an academic year (Ardington, Wills & Kotze, 2021), while pupils in the UK lost a third of their expected learning during pandemic-related school closures (Major, Eyles & Machin, 2021). It is anticipated that school closures in Ethiopia could similarly result in learning losses and challenges for pupils to catch up with their learning, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our related emerging findings in Ethiopia have indicated that school closures exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in education, where progress was much lower for rural students compared to those in urban areas who were tracked from Grade 4 to Grade 6 (Kim et al., 2021b; Bayley et al., 2021). Building on this work in Ethiopia, this Insight Note provides a new perspective on numeracy achievements of Grade 1 and Grade 4 pupils by comparing learning at the start of each academic year and the gains over the course of the year across two academic years: 2018-19 and 2020-21. During the 2018-19 academic year, the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) Ethiopia programme collected data on students’ numeracy achievement from 168 schools. After schools reopened in October 2020, and with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, data on students’ numeracy achievements were collected for two new cohorts of pupils in Grades 1 and 4 in the same schools using the same instruments. This has enabled us to compare learning patterns between two cohorts in the same grades and schools before and during the pandemic. More specifically, in this Insight Note, we aim to: -Compare foundational numeracy levels of pupils entering Grade 1 in the 2020-21 academic year relative to those in 2018-19. -Compare progress in foundational numeracy for Grade 1 pupils over the course of the 2020-21 academic year relative to that seen during the 2018-19 academic year. -Compare numeracy levels of pupils entering Grade 4 in the 2020-21 academic year relative to those entering the same grade in 2018-19. -Compare progress in numeracy for Grade 4 pupils over the course of the 2020-21 academic year relative to the progress seen during the 2018-19 academic year. -Estimate the magnitude of learning loss attributable to the pandemic by calculating the difference in numeracy levels and progress between the two cohorts.

The learning crisis in developing countries is increasingly acknowledged (World Bank, 2018). The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include goals and targets for universal learning and the World Bank has adopted a goal of eliminating learning poverty. We use student level PISA-D results for seven countries (Cambodia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Senegal, and Zambia) to examine inequality in learning outcomes at the global, country, and student level for public school students. We examine learning inequality using five dimensions of potential social disadvantage measured in PISA: sex, rurality, home language, immigrant status, and socio-economic status (SES)—using the PISA measure of ESCS (Economic, Social, and Cultural Status) to measure SES. We document four important facts. First, with the exception of Ecuador, less than a third of the advantaged (male, urban, native, home speakers of the language of instruction) and ESCS elite (plus 2 standard deviations above the mean) children enrolled in public schools in PISA-D countries reach the SDG minimal target of PISA level 2 or higher in mathematics (with similarly low levels for reading and science). Even if learning differentials of enrolled students along all five dimensions of disadvantage were eliminated, the vast majority of children in these countries would not reach the SDG minimum targets. Second, the inequality in learning outcomes of the in-school children who were assessed by the PISA by household ESCS is mostly smaller in these less developed countries than in OECD or high-performing non-OECD countries. If the PISA-D countries had the same relationship of learning to ESCS as Denmark (as an example of a typical OECD country) or Vietnam (a high-performing developing country) their enrolled ESCS disadvantaged children would do worse, not better, than they actually do. Third, the disadvantages in learning outcomes along four characteristics: sex, rurality, home language, and being an immigrant country are absolutely large, but still small compared to the enormous gap between the advantaged, ESCS average students, and the SDG minimums. Given the massive global inequalities, remediating within-country inequalities in learning, while undoubtedly important for equity and justice, leads to only modest gains towards the SDG targets. Fourth, even including both public and private school students, there are strikingly few children in PISA-D countries at high levels of performance. The absolute number of children at PISA level 4 or above (reached by roughly 30 percent of OECD children) in the low performing PISA-D countries is less than a few thousand individuals, sometimes only a few hundred—in some subjects and countries just double or single digits. These four hard lessons from PISA-D reinforce the need to address global equity by “raising the floor” and targeting low learning levels (Crouch and Rolleston, 2017; Crouch, Rolleston, and Gustafsson, 2020). As Vietnam and other recent successes show, this can be done in developing country settings if education systems align around learning to improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning processes to improve early learning of foundational skills.

This report outlines in detail the situation of rural Youths Neither in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET) aged between 15 and 34 years old, over the last decade (2009-2019) in Bulgaria. To do this, the report utilised indicators of: youth population; you-th employment and unemployment; education; and, NEETs distribution. The characteri-sation of all indicators adopted the degree of urbanisation as a central criterion, enabling proportional comparisons between rural areas, towns and suburbs, cities and the whole country. These analyses are further divided into age subgroups and, where possible, into sex groups for greater detail. The statistical procedures adopted across the different selected dimensions involve: des-criptive longitudinal analysis; using graphical displays (e.g., overlay line charts); and, the calculation of proportional absolute and relative changes between 2009 and 2013, 2013 and 2019, and finally 2009 and 2019. These time ranges were chosen to capture the indi-cators evolution before and after the economic crisis which hit European countries. All data was extracted from Eurostat public datasets. The analyses show that between 2009 and 2019 the rural youth population aged 15 to 24 years has been increasing in Bulgaria. Although the youth unemployment rate is higher in cities, rural areas faced more difficulties in overcoming the effects of the crisis, particularly among young adults aged over 25 years. In the field of education, however, there was an absolute and relative reduction in the proportion of young people with lower qualifications compared with young people in early school leavers in rural areas between 2009-2019, even though it still remains well above the 10% target defined by the Europe 2020 strate-gy. Finally, the proportion of NEETs in Bulgaria is higher in rural areas, in all age groups with available data, compared to cities and towns and suburbs, thereby revealing territorial inequalities in access to employment and education opportunities

This report outlines in detail the situation of rural Youths Neither in Employment, nor in Edu-cation or Training (NEET) aged between 15 and 34 years old, over the last decade (2009-2019) in Montenegro. To do this, the report utilised indicators of: youth population; youth employment and unemployment; education; and, NEETs distribution. The characterisation of all indicators adopted the degree of urbanisation as a central criterion, enabling propor-tional comparisons between rural areas, towns and suburbs, cities and the whole country. These analyses are further divided into age subgroups and, where possible, into sex groups for greater detail. The statistical procedures adopted across the different selected dimensions involve: des-criptive longitudinal analysis; using graphical displays (e.g., overlay line charts); and, the calculation of proportional absolute and relative changes between 2009 and 2013, 2013 and 2019, and finally 2009 and 2019. These time ranges were chosen to capture the in-dicators evolution before and after the economic crisis which hit European countries. All data was extracted from Eurostat public datasets. The analyses show that between 2011 and 2019, the youth population aged 15 to 29 years has been decreasing in Montenegro. Youth unemployment in rural areas is more noticeable, even though the youth unemployment rate is higher in cities. In the field of education, however, there was an absolute and relative reduction in the proportion of young people with lower qualifications and young people in the category of early school leavers in rural areas between 2011-2019. Finally, the proportion of NEETs in Montenegro is higher in rural areas, compared to urban regions, thus revealing territorial inequalities in access to employment and education opportunities.