The role of school leadership on student achievement: Evidence from TIMSS2003

Leadership, and especially head-teachers’ leadership, has been object of study since the late ‘60s, but the concept of leadership is neither unanimously defined, nor a consensus has been yet reached on its actual role and actual relevance within the school environment (Fullan, 2001; Sergiovanni, 2001; Harris, 2005). Good leadership can certainly contribute to school improvement by abetting the motivation, participation, and coordination of the teachers; recent studies have widened the range of action of school leadership research to the various organizational levels: school managers, department heads, coordinators, teachers (Goldhaber, 2002; Harris, 2004), and distributed leadership that could yield a higher impact on student achievement than what yet shown (Spillane et al., 2001, 2004). This dissertation takes its moves within the strand of research that identifies a significant role of leadership for student achievement (e.g. Edmonds, 1979; Cheng, 2002; Marzano, 2003) and tries to understand whether there are patterns of behavior of head-teachers that yield better results than others with respect to facilitating the student learning process and whether such patterns are consistent or replicable across countries. To address this question, the study uses the TIMSS2003 and investigates the relationship between head-teacher time allocation and school characteristics, student background, and student achievement in 18 countries. The model used in the empirical analysis is a three level Multilevel Model with random effects (evaluated using the R-Statistics software) that aims at evaluating the interaction effect between a particular school level variable (the time used by the head-teacher in managerial or leadership activities) and the explanatory variables describing school and student characteristics. What the study shows is that head-teacher specialization (either in management or in leadership) has negligible direct effect on student achievement. Most of all, however, head-teacher specialization is correlated to a lower impact of family SES on student achievement. Moreover, by investigating the impact of school management and school leadership on student achievement on students with different family background in terms of education, it is apparent that the high concentrations of school leadership are especially valuable for students of lower SES. On the other hand, the high concentrations of school management are most valuable for the students of higher SES. One possible explanation of these effects is that the attentiveness to the leadership process implies a deep involvement of the head-teacher in activities related to the modeling and tailoring of the educational process to the needs of the students. Such process has its highest payoffs on the students who come from disadvantaged situations and need special attentions in order to fully express their potential. On the other hand, the focus on the managerial side aims at rationalizing and making the best use of resources. This approach has high payoffs on students of all extractions, but is specifically relevant for the students of higher SES who are possibly already quite independent and whose performance can improve autonomously by making use of the extra resources that the management can provide. The analysis replication of the analysis on a country-by-country level confirms the existence of the afore-mentioned effects. More specifically, the results of the analysis suggest that, in the majority of cases, the head-teacher specialization appears to be correlated to a significant reduction in the dependence of student results from their family socioeconomic status. The same effect can be identified for both Math and Science in most countries. Nonetheless, the identification of a specialization-effect does not say much about the reasons for its existence. One possible explanation is that head-teachers are professionals that try to use at its best the opportunities provided by the institutional setup of the school system. In the more decentralized school systems that leave to the schools responsibilities in terms of monetary sanctions/incentives (hiring and firing, salary upgrades…), the head-teachers would tend to make use of these opportunities and focus most on management activities. Vice versa, in more centralized school systems, which leave to the schools only responsibilities that do not involve a monetary side, the head-teachers would stress their roles as role-models, educators, and motivators for their staff and collaborators. Hence, the final part of the research investigates whether the effect of the declared head-teacher specialization appears to go in the same direction as it could be predicted by looking at the macro-level institutional characteristics of the school system. These data suggest that school leadership and school management do have an impact on student results. However, the variables that enter in the process of determining the head-teacher time allocation are too many for indicating any specific policy direction based on average country behaviors. Still, the specialization of head-teachers in leadership or management is related to significant turnouts in terms of reduced needs of the students to rely only on the family resources (family SES) for improving their performance. In policy terms, such results suggest the need of allowing for different managerial strategies that could exploit local knowledge leads to foster the system’s equity and excellence. The dissertation is organized in 4 chapter plus 2 appendixes. The first introductory chapter looks at the economic nature of the educational good, the importance of its dissemination, and what are some of the possible interaction schemes among the system actors. The second chapter dives in the concepts of school leadership and management by looking at how it has evolved in the past 40 years. Subsequently, it addresses the limitations of the studies that have tried to establish a link between school leadership and student achievement, suggests how these limits can be overcome by means of a more comprehensive definition of the concept and of more advanced statistical techniques. The third chapter presents the research project on the TIMSS2003 dataset, the operationalization of the variables, the model for the statistical analysis, and the results of the study. The fourth chapter further discusses the results by contextualizing them within the legal and operational frameworks of the analyzed educational systems, and it concludes by addressing the limitation of the study, the indications for further research, and the possible suggestions in terms of policy making. The first appendix presents in detail the statistics for all the countries under investigation. The second and last appendix shows the detailed results for the analytic models at aggregate level and reports the dispersion of the residuals for each modelpeer-reviewe

Geostrategies of the European neighbourhood policy

The debate about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has, in essence, been about borders and bordering. Such departures could contribute — and often do so — to a rather fixed geopolitical vision of what the EU is about and how it aims to run and to organize the broader European space. However, this article aims to retain space for viewing the ENP as a developmental and somewhat fluid process. A conceptual framework, based on outlining three geopolitical models and a series of different geopolitical strategies employed by the EU in regard to its borders, is hence employed in order to be able to tell a more dynamic story regarding the developing nature of the ENP and the EU's evolving nature more generally. The complexity traced informs us that various geostrategies may be held at the same time at the external border. Moreover, the dominance of one geostrategy may be replaced by another or a different combination of them with regard to the same neighbourhood. It is, more generally, argued that if anything it is precisely this dynamism that should be championed as a valuable resource, avoiding the tendency to close off options through the reification of particular visions of the nature of the EU and its borders

Evidence of non-extractable florfenicol residues: The development and validation of a confirmatory method for total florfenicol content in kidney by UPLC-MS/MS

Publication history: Accepted - 27 March 2016; Published online - 20 May 2016.The parent compound florfenicol (FF) is a broad-spectrum antibacterial compound licensed in the UK for use in cattle, pigs and the aquaculture industry. The analysis of porcine tissues in this study demonstrates that significant amounts of solvent non-extractable FF-related residues are present in incurred tissues (kidney and muscle) from treated animals. The results indicate that methods based on solvent extraction alone may carry a significant risk of reporting false-negative results. The use of a strong acid hydrolysis step prior to solvent extraction of tissue samples is necessary for an accurate estimate of the total tissue FF content. A robust and sensitive method for the determination of total FF residue content in kidney samples by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) has been developed and validated. This method covers the synthetic amphenicol drug FF and its metabolites, measured as the marker residue florfenicol amine (FFA) as per Commission Regulation (EU) No. 37/2010. Non-extractable and intermediate metabolites are converted to the hydrolysis product FFA, and then partitioned into ethyl acetate. Extracts are solvent exchanged prior to a dispersive solid-phase extraction step, then analysed using an alkaline reverse-phase gradient separation by UPLC-MS/MS. The method was validated around the maximum residue levels (MRLs) set out in Regulation (EU) No. 37/2010 for bovine kidney in accordance with Commission Decision No. 2002/657/EC. The following method performance characteristics were assessed during a single laboratory validation study: selectivity, specificity, sensitivity, linearity, matrix effects, accuracy and precision (decision limit (CCα) and detection capability (CCβ) were determined)

Modulation of outer bank erosion by slump blocks: disentangling the protective and destructive role of failed material on the three-dimensional flow structure

The three-dimensional flow field near the banks of alluvial channels is the primary factor controlling rates of bank erosion. Although submerged slump blocks and associated large-scale bank roughness elements have both previously been proposed to divert flow away from the bank, direct observations of the interaction between eroded bank material and the 3-D flow field are lacking. Here we use observations from multibeam echo sounding, terrestrial laser scanning, and acoustic Doppler current profiling to quantify, for the first time, the influence of submerged slump blocks on the near-bank flow field. In contrast to previous research emphasizing their influence on flow diversion away from the bank, we show that slump blocks may also deflect flow onto the bank, thereby increasing local shear stresses and rates of erosion. We use our measurements to propose a conceptual model for how submerged slump blocks interact with the flow field to modulate bank erosion

Women’s experiences of wearing therapeutic footwear in three European countries

Background: Therapeutic footwear is recommended for those people with severe foot problems associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, it is known that many do not wear them. Although previous European studies have recommended service and footwear design improvements, it is not known if services have improved or if this footwear meets the personal needs of people with RA. As an earlier study found that this footwear has more impact on women than males, this study explores women’s experiences of the process of being provided with it and wearing it. No previous work has compared women’s experiences of this footwear in different countries, therefore this study aimed to explore the potential differences between the UK, the Netherlands and Spain. Method: Women with RA and experience of wearing therapeutic footwear were purposively recruited. Ten women with RA were interviewed in each of the three countries. An interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) was adopted during data collection and analysis. Conversational style interviews were used to collect the data. Results: Six themes were identified: feet being visibly different because of RA; the referring practitioners’ approach to the patient; the dispensing practitioners’ approach to the patient; the footwear being visible as different to others; footwear influencing social participation; and the women’s wishes for improved footwear services. Despite their nationality, these women revealed that therapeutic footwear invokes emotions of sadness, shame and anger and that it is often the final and symbolic marker of the effects of RA on self perception and their changed lives. This results in severe restriction of important activities, particularly those involving social participation. However, where a patient focussed approach was used, particularly by the practitioners in Spain and the Netherlands, the acceptance of this footwear was much more evident and there was less wastage as a result of the footwear being prescribed and then not worn. In the UK, the women were more likely to passively accept the footwear with the only choice being to reject it once it had been provided. All the women were vocal about what would improve their experiences and this centred on the consultation with both the referring practitioner and the practitioner that provides the footwear. Conclusion: This unique study, carried out in three countries has revealed emotive and personal accounts of what it is like to have an item of clothing replaced with an ‘intervention’. The participant’s experience of their consultations with practitioners has revealed the tension between the practitioners’ requirements and the women’s ‘social’ needs. Practitioners need greater understanding of the social and emotional consequences of using therapeutic footwear as an intervention

What kind of expertise is needed for low energy construction

The construction industry is responsible for 40% of European Union (EU) end-use emissions but addressing this is problematic, as evident from the performance gap between design intention and on-site energy performance. There is a lack of the expertise needed for low energy construction (LEC) in the UK as the complex work processes involved require ‘energy literacy’ of all construction occupations, high qualification levels, broad occupational profiles, integrated teamworking, and good communication . This research identifies the obstacles to meeting these requirements, the nature of the expertise needed to break down occupational divisions and bridge those interfaces where the main heat losses occur, and the transition pathway implied. Obstacles include a decline in the level, breadth and quality of construction vocational education and training (VET), the lack of a learning infrastructure on sites, and a fragmented employment structure. To overcome these and develop enhanced understanding of LEC requires a transformation of the existing structure of VET provision and construction employment and a new curriculum based on a broader concept of agency and backed by rigorous enforcement of standards. This can be achieved through a radical transition pathway rather than market-based solutions to a low carbon future for the construction sector